Chesapeake Crimes: Invitation to Murder. Donna Andrews

it?”

      Beatrice, the maid, stood uncertainly next to her with an overfilled plate in her hand.

      Beatrice was not in proper mourning garb, but she wore a gray sweater with a black skirt and a black blouse. A nod toward appropriate dress, at least.

      “Please sit down,” Miss Grayling said, afraid that the contents of the woman’s plate would spill at any moment. Probably onto Miss Grayling’s own proper black dress.

      “Thank you.” Beatrice sat down stiffly.

      “I’m sorry for your loss.” Miss Grayling struggled to think of anything meaningful to say. “I hope you will not have too much difficulty finding another similar position.”

      Beatrice let out a low laugh. “Another similar position? I don’t think so! I have a job at the nursing home all lined up. It pays better and has benefits and everything.”

      Miss Grayling took a sip of her lemonade. This situation called for nothing but vapid, if polite, conversation. “Indeed?”

      “I earned my nursing assistant certification almost a year ago, but Mrs. Bellingsworth wouldn’t let me leave.”

      Miss Grayling looked up from her triangle of pimento cheese. “How could she not let you leave? Just give two weeks’ notice and go.”

      Much to Miss Grayling’s surprise, a tear formed in the corner of Beatrice’s eye. “Mrs. Bellingsworth knew… ” She choked on the words. “If I left, she threatened to tell everyone all about… ” Beatrice’s voice trailed off. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

      “Of course, my dear.” Miss Grayling patted her hand gently. “Perhaps it would be best if your secret died with Mrs. Bellingsworth.”

      Beatrice looked up, her eyes shiny. “You think so? Some people say you should face such things, bring them out in the open. Man up, so to speak.”

      “An odd idea, that a young woman should ‘man up,’” Miss Grayling mused aloud. “As long as there have been human societies, there have been people whose secrets have gone to the grave with them. Why should things be any different today?”

      “You really think so?” Beatrice sniffed and reached for a napkin.

      Miss Grayling opened her purse and handed the maid an embroidered handkerchief. “I do.”

      Beatrice snorted, a most unladylike sound, and instead of dabbing delicately at her eyes, rubbed them hard.

      While Miss Grayling would regret the loss of one of her fine linen handkerchiefs, she hoped Beatrice would not feel obliged to return it unless she took it home and laundered it first.

      “Was Mrs. Bellingsworth threatening to tell a secret about you?” Beatrice put the handkerchief to her nose and gave a tremendous honk.

      Miss Grayling decided she didn’t want the handkerchief back, even laundered. “What would make you think that?” she asked cautiously.

      “That’s what Mrs. Bellingsworth did, you know. She invited ladies over for brunch or tea and threatened to tell their secrets if they didn’t pay up.”

      “Really?” Miss Grayling tried to think of a way to steer the conversation away from such a dangerous subject.

      “Yes, really.”

      Another lady she knew from church, Mrs. Hotchkiss, wandered over bearing a glass of lemonade and a plate of tiny cakes. “May I join you?”

      “By all means.” Miss Grayling said, welcoming the interruption.

      Beatrice waited until the woman was seated before speaking up. “Mrs. Bellingsworth recently had you over for brunch,” she said. “We were wondering if she had discovered some secret in your life, as she had in ours?”

      Although Miss Grayling objected to being included in Beatrice’s “we,” she said nothing, hoping that Mrs. Hotchkiss would answer.

      Mrs. Hotchkiss emitted a harsh barking laugh. “Funny you should ask that.” She shoveled a small cake whole into her mouth, chewed several times, and swallowed. “My front lawn is torn up with that despicable sewer project. And would you believe that Mrs. Bellingsworth claimed that something incriminating had been uncovered? I can’t imagine what she was thinking of.”

      Miss Grayling’s heart fluttered. “How extraordinary,” she said, hoping to encourage a more complete answer.

      Mrs. Hotchkiss snorted. “Indeed. I told her to go right ahead and call the police. And the newspapers, too. I have nothing to hide.”

      Beatrice’s eyes opened wide. “You have no secrets?”

      “None worth paying to keep quiet about. When I was younger, I thought it was important to conceal how abusive Jonathan, my late husband, had been toward me and the children. When Jonathan left us, there was a rumor that my son had killed his father and buried him in the yard.” She laughed. “What a lot of bologna! Jonathan sent me monthly support checks, which he surely couldn’t have done from six feet under! And when he finally died, I received a generous insurance settlement.” She selected another cake. “I believe Mrs. Bellingsworth was trying to play on the old rumors. I told her flat out there was no truth in them, and that she was most welcome to come dig in my yard herself if she thought there were any bodies to be found.”

      “She invited people over as their yards were dug up,” Beatrice said. “She only hinted at what had been found. Some people would be worried enough to pay her off.”

      Miss Grayling leaned back in her chair. How many people had Mrs. Bellingsworth blackmailed over the years, leaving people to scrape together outrageous sums of money they could ill afford? She had no remorse for the role she played in dispatching Mrs. Bellingsworth. The despicable woman was dead. Her power over people had died with her. Blackmailers flirted with death every day. Someone was bound to put an end to it eventually.

      She glanced at Beatrice, who was drying her tears. As she surveyed the room, not one person in the gathering looked the least bit mournful. Several of the ladies were positively jovial, talking animatedly with smiles on their faces.

      Perhaps Miss Grayling had done more good than she ever could have imagined.

      But her part must, of course, remain a secret, a secret to the grave.

      KM Rockwood draws on a varied background for her stories, including working as a laborer in a steel fabrication factory and supervising an inmate work crew in a large state prison. Since she retired from working as a special-education teacher in correctional facilities, inner-city schools and alternative schools, she has devoted her time to writing and caring for her family and pets. Her published works include the Jesse Damon Crime Novel series (Wildside Press) and numerous short stories. www.kmrockwood.com

THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT THE ESCAPE ROOM, by Leone Ciporin

      “You have one hour to escape.”

      The girl hosting our adventure clutched a dangling earbud, ready to resume her private concert once she locked us in. Since I’d invited my family to this escape room outing, the girl’s obvious boredom reflected badly on me.

      We weren’t a close family—my stepaunt, Janet; my stepbrother, Hubert; my stepcousin, Delphine; and me. Despite that we all lived within a thirty-minute drive of each other—and Delphine and I even went to the same college—we hadn’t all been in the same room since last year, when we buried my stepfather and his sister, Delphine’s mother, who’d died together in a car crash. Nonetheless, I wanted them to have a good time.

      “What if we don’t find our way out?” Delphine asked Earbud Girl. Though chunky limbs on her tall, lean body made her look like a half-finished clay person, Delphine always wore T-shirts and shorts to soak up the outdoors. She didn’t care what people thought of her. She even let Hubert’s mean comments roll off her back.