Stork Raving Mad(83)

The next six pages contained more reviews, each of a play in which Dr. Wright had a part. The best of her reviews was lukewarm, and several other times she was singled out for particularly harsh treatment. And not always by the same person—two other reviewers also panned her performances. The reviews covered a three-year period corresponding to her freshman, sophomore, and junior years in college. In her senior year, she’d either given up acting or stopped being cast. I scanned the reviews again. In the earlier ones, she’d had fairly large roles; in the later ones, she’d sometimes had roles so small that she had to have been pretty awful to be noticed at all, much less singled out for criticism.

“So now we know why she was so down on the drama students,” I murmured aloud. “She was jealous.”

A pity Kathy hadn’t uncovered these reviews. I suspected they might have worked far better for intimidating Dr. Wright than any of the material Kathy had collected about harsh treatment of Caerphilly students.

I tucked the papers under my arm. I’d show them to Michael later. Tomorrow, most probably. Time for me to get to sleep.

“You should be in bed, dear,” came a voice from behind me.

“That’s just where I’m heading, Mother,” I said.

“Good.” I turned to see that she was wearing a heavy but elegant coat and hat and pulling on her gloves.

“Going to see the show?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “After all, ‘The play’s the thing/wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the king.’ ”

“Are you implying that the play has something to do with the murder?” I asked. “Or will have something to do with solving it?”

“Half the suspects are in it, aren’t they?” she said. “And the other half will be watching. If Chief Burke or your father leaps up in the middle of the second act and announces that he’s just solved the murder, I don’t want to miss it. What happened in here, anyway?”

She was indicating, with a sweeping arm gesture, the whole cluttered, untidy kitchen. I had my failings as a housekeeper, although keeping a messy kitchen wasn’t normally one of them. But under the circumstances . . .

“We’ve got several dozen extra people living here,” I said. “Puts a strain on the kitchen facilities, even if half of the students survive on pizza and Snickers bars. Pretty depressing, isn’t it?”

“I could organize those students to come in and clean up,” she said. I had to smile. Yes, she probably could. The students wouldn’t know what had hit them.

“That’s okay,” I said. “They’re busy, and this is actually better than usual.”

Mother took a long, slow look around the room and shuddered.

“You mean it’s usually worse?” she asked.

“Yes, but usually it doesn’t really bother me,” I said. “For some reason, today it does. For the last day or two, actually.”

“You’re probably getting close to having the babies,” Mother said, nodding.

“Well, we knew that,” I said, glancing down at the inescapable evidence.

“Very close,” she said. “The nesting instinct has kicked in. You should have seen me the three days before you were born. I couldn’t live unless I cleaned the house from top to bottom.”

“All by yourself?” I asked. Mother’s contribution to household cleaning was usually supervisory.

“Of course not,” she said. “I had a sudden surge of energy, and you’d be amazed at how much I did, but I couldn’t possibly have done it all by myself. Some of the cousins helped.”

“Ah.” I nodded. That sounded more in character. Mother had always had a curious ability to enlist the members of her large extended family to carry out projects for her. I could envision several dozen aunts and cousins swarming over the house until it was ready for a white-glove inspection while Mother performed the truly challenging tasks like doing the floral arrangements for the dining room and choosing the objets d’art on the coffee table.

“We should probably do the same for your house,” she said. “If you don’t think the students would be cooperative, I’m sure the family can help out. Let me make a few calls.”

She was reaching into her pocket for her cell phone.

“Not tonight,” I said. “Just the thought of having more people in the house exhausts me, even if they would be helping out. And even tomorrow would be too soon. Chief Burke would probably rather we wait until his investigation is over before we turn the house upside down.”

“But wouldn’t it be nice to bring the babies home to a beautifully clean house?” she asked, still holding her cell phone at the ready.