The clock on her bedside table read 8:11. Even now the Dawsons would be in flight over the Atlantic, having left Prestwick in the early morning Scottish time (about five hours ago) for their flight to Atlanta. Elizabeth smiled, thinking how wonderful it would be to see Cameron again, especially since they had sworn off phone calls last week as an economy measure. Her own parents had returned from Hawaii on Tuesday, but they were waiting until Thursday to drive down with Bill, who was unable to escape from work any sooner.
She climbed out of bed and put on a T-shirt and jeans, which was all the sartorial effort she could summon upon first getting up. “Now if only I didn’t look like a dead rat,” she said, peering at herself in the mirror and ruffling her dark hair. “Beauty parlor today.”
A discreet tapping at the bedroom door distracted her. “Come in!” called Elizabeth, eyeing her rumpled jeans. “I’m as ready as I’m going to get.”
Geoffrey sailed into the room, looking like someone on his way to a regatta. Elizabeth stared at the white cotton sweater and white slacks and then up at Geoffrey to make sure that it was indeed her cousin who had just entered the room. “You must have been up all night,” she declared flatly.
“On the contrary,” said Geoffrey, “I find sleep less beguiling when I am busy.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” muttered Elizabeth. “Just what are you up to?”
“Why, trying to be helpful with the wedding, of course. In order to relieve Mildred of the more mundane cleaning chores so that she can give her full attention to the coming nuptials, I have straightened my own room and I am now gathering the dirty clothes to take downstairs to the laundry room. So far I have mine, and Charles’s, which I obtained just now by tiptoeing into his room and collecting it off the floor. He is sleeping like a stoat, so I didn’t wake him, but I doubt if he will notice anything amiss. Is there anything you would care to contribute to the basket?”
Elizabeth regarded him with undisguised suspicion. “You’re not having a yard sale, are you?”
Geoffrey put his hand over his heart. “Moi?”
“I suppose I mustn’t be ungrateful about it,” she muttered. “Although this is so unlike you that I think you probably ought to have a CAT scan.” She gathered up a few items of clothing and placed them on the top of the clothes basket. “Anyway, thank you.”
“Not at all,” said Geoffrey smoothly. “Virtue is its own reward, in clever little ways.” He picked up the basket and turned to go, but, as if struck by an afterthought, he set it down again and said, “Have you heard anything more from the sheriff about the cremation case of his?”
Elizabeth yawned. “No, Geoffrey. I told you, I’m not going to get involved in it.”
“I found the news of the murder of a crematorium director over in Roan County most interesting.
“It could be a coincidence.” She shrugged. “Maybe the business was a cover for a moonshining operation.” This was not so much a serious suggestion as a demonstration of her complete indifference to the lure of detection.
“I found it interesting all the same. Thought I might put out a question or two here and there.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Geoffrey, if you get yourself killed and spoil my wedding, I’ll have you barbecued!”
“I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you by my death.”
“Good. And don’t meddle in things, either! Knowing you, you’ll end up getting the minister arrested for murder and the whole wedding will be a shambles!”
“Father Ashland is safe from me,” Geoffrey promised. “Should I witness him torching an orphanage and dancing naked among the fire hoses, my lips will be sealed.”
“Good.”
“To further assure you of my benevolence, I wonder if there are any little errands that I can undertake for you today?”
Elizabeth eyed him suspiciously. “Might this end up in my receiving on the day of the wedding a purple wedding cake, or two hundred unhousebroken doves? You’re not planning to sabotage my wedding, are you, Geoffrey?” Her voice ended on a plaintive note close to tears.
“I’m not,” said Geoffrey, dropping his usual affectations. “Really. I have no pranks in mind at all. I say this to put your mind at rest while I ask you a rather irrelevant question, the answer to which will not, I vow, be used against you.”
Elizabeth glared at her cousin. “This had better not be about sex.”
“No!” said Geoffrey, sounding quite shocked. “I merely wanted to inquire if you knew what an automobile distributor cap looked like?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Oh, do you know that story about the Queen? During the war when Princess Elizabeth was eighteen, she served as a subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and she took a course in ATS vehicle maintenance. You know, how to read maps, drive in convoy, and vehicle service and maintenance.”
Geoffrey looked restive. “About the distributor cap-”
“I’m coming to that.” Elizabeth was enjoying her story. “When she had finished the course, her father the King went to Camberly on an inspection tour, and the princess was going to show off what she had learned by starting an engine she’d just serviced. But she couldn’t get the motor to start! After a few awkward moments, King George admitted to having taken off the distributor cap.”
“Hilarious,” said Geoffrey gravely.
“I learned about distributor caps so that I could fix the car if any malicious relative ever did that to me.” She fixed Geoffrey with a meaningful stare.
“My own motives exactly,” said Geoffrey. “You know what pranksters theatre people are. It’s just the thing they might do to my car. Do tell me where it is and what it looks like.”
Elizabeth thought for a moment. “It’s a domelike plastic thing in the middle of the engine with little chimneys on the top or sides and it has wires going out of it to the spark plugs. They’re usually held on with spring clips. Cameron taught me that.” Her eyes misted again. “Now, please, Geoffrey, assuming that you would have the intelligence to find one in a car, much less remove it, please don’t do this to us after the wedding!”
“You have my solemn word,” said Geoffrey. “I will use the information only for purposes of defense.”
“All right,” said Elizabeth, wiping her eyes. “In that case, I guess you can take the final guest list to the caterer. They’re making little place cards in calligraphy for the guests. You might check at the florists-see if Lucy’s flower orders came through yet. And you could take this zipper to Miss Geneva. I bought the wrong kind and had to get another one.”
“It shall be done,” Geoffrey promised, looking particularly pleased.
“Good,” said Elizabeth. “Then I can spend the day getting my hair done and taking care of about a million other things I should have thought of earlier. Cameron and his mother and brother will be here this evening. We’re making it kind of a party dinner. You’ll be around for that, won’t you?”
Geoffrey considered the possibility. “I have an early-evening appointment, but if dinner is later than seven, I’m sure I can manage.”
“Eight-thirty, then,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “I should be through by then.”
Deputy Clay Taylor felt a little uneasy about going out to question the people at Earthling. He had always found them to be very sincere and committed individuals and he had partaken of many a beans-and-rice potluck in support of their causes in Central America. He consoled himself with the thought that he was not, in fact, in charge of the interrogation, but merely accompanying a colleague as a guide and observer.
Since the murder of crematorium director Jasper Willis had occurred in Roan County, the task of investigating it fell to Wayne Dupree’s organization, but since many of the suspects were in Wesley Rountree’s jurisdiction, the two departments had decided to team Clay with an officer from Roan County to carry out the questioning. Meanwhile, Dupree’s other deputies were checking the possibility of faked deaths in their own county.