More Bitter Than Death: An Emma Fielding Mystery - By Dana Cameron Page 0,15
like the rest of you. I didn’t schedule, clearly, Brad, and I spend my free time enjoying my family life. Besides, it’s in New Hampshire and it’s after eighteen fifty, so why should I care?” Chris had his own priorities, running a small historical district visitors center in western Massachusetts. He resumed dealing the cards.
“Anyway,” Sue said, after a moment, “it’s this whole thing about a bride on her wedding night. Found out her groom was unfaithful, beat him to death with a poker.”
“Cool,” Carla said.
“So let me guess, he wanders the halls trying to make it up to her?” Jay asked. He was chewing on his bottom lip this time, and I figured once he straightened up that his hand wasn’t all that great.
“No, she wanders the halls with the fireplace poker, looking for him in case he comes back. I guess she died a month later. She had the room so she stayed there. Died of a broken heart.”
“So why wasn’t she hauled off to prison?”
“I think it was rumored that she killed him; the plaque says that he probably fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”
“See, ghost stories never make any sense,” Scott said. “Waste of time.”
“You would. All spooky and romantic and all that horseshit.” He threw his cards down in disgust. “I’m out.”
“No, it’s because these stories tell you what people wanted to believe,” she replied hotly. “Give me another card.”
Betting followed; Lissa, Carla, Scott, and I were out and it was left to Brad, Jay, and Sue. The stakes got pretty high, well, high for us, and there might have been forty dollars in the pot at point.
The remaining players sized each other up. Brad glared at the other two, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth like he was invoking his yogic calm and it wasn’t coming. Jay and Sue stared at each other, small smiles playing around their lips. Finally, in the last round, Jay and Brad folded, and Sue scooped the pot over to her pile.
“Come to mama. Well, at least one good thing came out of this evil night.”
Brad was picking up the cards that Sue had discarded. “Hey! You were bluffing. You had two threes, that’s all!”
“You jackass, since when do you get to look after the fact?” Carla slapped at Brad, but he’d already backed out of range.
“Look, she was bluffing,” he said, showing the cards to Jay, who scowled.
“You have to pay to find out, Brad. That’s the rules. No snooping around after the fact,” Sue said.
“Don’t be such a pussy,” Jay said. “Suck it up, man.”
“But she was bluffing! And you bought it too!”
“Yeah, man, you always bet too much at the wrong times,” Chris said to Jay.
He shrugged. “You gotta have faith in the cards.”
“No, I have faith in beer. I always know exactly what beer will do for me in any given situation,” Chris said. “Cards are too unpredictable, or have you forgotten the strip poker game that gave you your nickname, Jay-Bird?”
“As in nekkid-as-a?” Carla said. “Huh. I always thought it was because he was noisy and pooped all over the place.”
“Well, that too,” Chris assured her. “This particular event was sometime during that extended holiday Jay took after high school. Undergrad shouldn’t take six years, dude.”
Jay shrugged. “You go with your strengths, Chris. I was good at spring break.”
“Speaking of strengths,” I said, “if you can’t tell when Sue’s bluffing, then you shouldn’t be betting, Brad.”
Brad made a face. “But I had a good hand!”
“So you should have stuck with it.”
“Whatever.”
The game shut down soon after that and Brad, perhaps still miffed by his loss, bullied me into meeting him in the gym the next morning.
“But my session’s first thing,” Carla complained. “Aren’t you guys coming?”
We seldom made it to each other’s panels.
“I don’t want to get up that early,” I said to both of them. “Why do you want to work out anyway?”
“Didn’t you bring your stuff?”
“Yes, but I didn’t expect—”
“Meet me down there at seven, no better make it six-thirty. We can catch up.” Brad raised his eyebrows in what I suppose was meant to be a meaningful fashion, and I reluctantly agreed. He usually didn’t bother with subterfuge, and I was curious.
“Fine, but you’re going to get what you deserve,” I muttered, throwing my cards away. My luck had run out for the night. “And since I’ll be getting up at the crack of dawn, Carla, I’ll be