whose hair bun was covered by a starched white net bonnet sat down at the piano and began to play “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” A few of the women began to sing, and soon the men joined in.
Something had been nagging at me since the start of dinner. I tried to focus on the song sheet before me, but somehow I couldn't concentrate. What was bothering me? I closed my eyes and tried to shut out everything that was causing sensory overload. And I remembered.
CHAPTER 23
That night revealed and told
“TORI, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”
I opened my eyes and saw Ginnie staring at me with a concerned frown on her face.
“You looked so odd,” she said. “I thought you might be feeling sick—from all that pie.”
I hadn't eaten that much. “I don't know, Ginnie … something just came to me … let's go somewhere quiet … where I can think.”
We went into the small parlor that served Greta as a TV room. Hundreds of Santa Clauses—plastic, ceramic, papier-mache, and even celluloid—dominated the room, occupying every flat surface. There they would stay, I knew, until spring when they'd be replaced by Greta's collection of Easter bunnies.
“Can I get you a glass of water?” Ginnie asked, still concerned that I might be getting ready to throw up.
“No, thanks. I'm not sick. Really.” I sat on the plaid sofa and patted the cushion beside me. “Sit down. Maybe if I can talk this out, it'll make some sense to me.”
Ginnie moved aside a needlepointed Santa Claus pillow and joined me on the couch. “What is it? You look terribly serious.”
“I think it is something serious. Remember at dinner, when Uncle Zeke drank from Greta's glass by mistake?”
She nodded. “Sure. So?”
“So, it's been nagging at my subconscious ever since. Then, while we were singing, it came to me.”
“What came to you? For Pete's sake, Tori. You're not making any sense.”
“Give me a minute, Ginnie.” My voice sounded curt, even to me. “I'm sorry. What I'm trying to say is it made me think about Bernice drinking poison from the Goblet of Life.”
“And …”
“And I suddenly thought maybe her death was really a mistake.”
“You mean you think the poison got into the cup by accident?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean I think someone put the poison in the cup intentionally, but then the wrong person drank it.”
“That hardly seems possible, Tori.”
“That's what I thought, too, but when Uncle Zeke and Greta talked about him drinking Greta's juice, it made me recall the first rehearsal I attended. And I remembered it wasn't Bernice who drank from the Goblet of Life—it was Oretta.”
Ginnie's eyes widened. “You're right. I remember that now.”
“At the break, Bernice went up to Oretta and started to argue with her. I didn't stick around to listen, but I'll bet Bernice was reminding Oretta that according to the script she was the one who was supposed to drink from the goblet.”
“But the killer didn't know that,” Ginnie said.
“Right. Oretta got carried away by the moment at rehearsal and drank the stuff by mistake. The killer must have decided right then that he could kill Oretta by putting poison in the cup.”
“Only at the dress rehearsal, Bernice drank from the cup as she was supposed to and got the poison meant for Oretta.”
“Right.” My mind was in high gear now. “When the killer realized he'd murdered the wrong woman, he had to revise his plan—he paid a late-night visit to Oretta, shot her, and started the fire to hide the crime.”
Ginnie picked up a Santa Claus snow globe from the coffee table, shook it, and watched the miniature snow fall for a minute. “You could be on to something,” she said. “But there's something wrong with your scenario. Two things, actually.”
“What?”
She put the snow globe down. “The killer must have known that an autopsy would reveal that Oretta had been shot.”
“Of course. There had to be another reason he set the fire.” I realized Ginnie had said there were two things wrong with my interpretation. “Help me, Ginnie. What else have I come up with that's offtrack?”
“It's just that you keep referring to the killer as he. It could be a woman!”
“Excuse me,” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice, “if I wasn't politically correct. I referred to the killer by the masculine gender out of convenience. Actually, I have given some thought to him—or her—being a woman.”
“Really? Who?”
“Weezie Clopper for one. But don't you breathe a word to anyone, or