And One to Die On(80)

“Well, you and Bennis Hannaford weren’t the only problems. There was Richard Fenster, who was a wild card. There’s no telling what a fan like that will do, even a well-heeled one who can spend tons of money at auctions. And Carlton Ji was a reporter. Granted he was a reporter for Personality, which isn’t exactly like being a reporter for The New York Times, but a reporter is a reporter. The big worry, though, was Hannah. I mean, you can just imagine. Carlton was absolutely wild. At one point, he said he was going to sleep with a gun next to his bed.”

“Does he own a gun?”

“No,” Geraldine said. “But you get the idea of what things were like around here. So you see, when he decided that we ought to create a distraction to keep the guests’ minds off past history and onto the present, I went right along with it. It sounded a lot safer than guns.” She sighed again.

“It surely was,” Gregor told her. “Were these plans discussed with Tasheba Kent?”

“Oh, yes,” Geraldine said. “I think she thought it was all very silly and unnecessary, but she went along with it. I don’t think she minded all that as much as he did. I don’t mean her sister dying. I have no idea how she felt about that. I mean all the scandal and disgrace that came afterward. Her career was already over then. His was just getting into high gear. Tasheba was already a Hollywood legend. Cavender never really had a chance to become one.”

“I think he’s legend enough because of the scandal. Everybody knows who he is and what’s gone on in his life.”

“I know, but it isn’t the same thing. People don’t remember the movies he was in or even if he could act. Anyway, it bothered him more than it bothered her, but she went along with it, and I went into Boston one day last month and bought the CD player and the sound tracks.”

“Good selection,” Gregor said drily.

“I should have bought more of the generic ones,” Geraldine told him. “You know, 1001 Sounds of Terror. Werewolves of the Movies. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things you can buy. I brought the stuff back here and I got it all set up in the pantry. I was going to set it up in my room, just so I wouldn’t have to go running all over the house in the dark just in case something went wrong, but Cavender Marsh said that that was too dangerous. We didn’t want anybody to find the machine where it was too obvious that I was the one who was using it.”

“So it was all set up in the pantry before any of us ever arrived on the island.”

“Days before,” Geraldine confirmed. “Then, after dinner, when all the rest of you were having liqueurs and fighting with Hannah Graham, I went into the pantry and set the timer for one o’clock in the morning.”

“And then what?”

“And then nothing,” Geraldine said. “And then I went up to bed. I didn’t go to sleep. I knew I wasn’t going to get much. I stayed up and read until all the commotion started.”

“And then you came out to us.”

“That’s right.”

“Is your bedroom next to the one that Tasheba Kent shared with Cavender Marsh?”

“Not exactly.” Geraldine sounded regretful. “They have an en suite bathroom. I’m on the other side of that. I couldn’t have heard anything, Mr. Demarkian, no matter what it was.”

“That’s too bad.” Gregor sighed. “What about Tasheba Kent and Cavender Marsh? Were they supposed to come out when the commotion started?”

“Oh, no,” Geraldine said. “That was part of the plan. They were supposed to stay right where they were. And then the next morning they were supposed to come down to breakfast and say they hadn’t heard a thing. We thought that would be spookier.”

“So the first surprise you got was when Tasheba Kent started to come down the stairs?”

“That wasn’t a surprise, Mr. Demarkian. That was a shock.”

“Okay,” Gregor said. “Move forward a little. After we had done all the searching, after the rest of us went to bed, you came downstairs again.”

“That’s right,” Geraldine said. “I’d already disconnected the machine, you see. When we searched, I made a point of being the one who went into the pantry, and I unplugged the CD and turned off the microphone. Then I went back after everybody was asleep to remove the machine and to check it, because I knew it had been tampered with. I just knew it. I was right, too. The volume had been pushed up way too high. And there’s this push-button doohickey that you can use to tell the machine how many times you want to play something, and it had been hiked way up, into the double digits, so that the laughs just played over and over again forever.”