Minda Webber's Blog, page 7

The Butler Did It

“He didn’t do it,” Faye remarked calmly.  “Jacks wouldn’t have had the strength to bash the Marquis’ head in with the candlestick.”  The Marquis of Greenoaks head had a large dent in the temple area.  His skull was fractured.  That took a terrific amount of force, Faye knew.  The killer was very strong.  Perhaps even supernaturally strong.

At Faye’s words, Lady Swan turned white and swooned, dropping her sewing.  She was always sewing jackets for her brothers or some such stuff.

Baroness White, standing in front of the large chest with seven glided drawers, gasped, her hand to her throat.

“Please, Miss Grimm, have a care at what you say,” Baron White protested.  “There are ladies about.”

Meaning that she was not a lady, she supposed.  But that would be untrue.  Her father was s Baron and her sister had married a German Prince. It was her odd business, her no nonsense way of talking, and her limp, however, that kept people from automatically labeling her a lady of the first order.

Lowering her head to stare at him, Faye remarked, “Baron, you asked me to come here to help you solve a mystery.”  Baron White had been worried about his wife and had wanted Faye to find out if someone was out to poison Baroness White.

“It appears I now have another mystery at hand, a murder and I am telling you that the butler didn’t do it.”

“Then who did?”  Professor Appleton asked, his white busy eyebrows lowered, his thin-lipped mouth drawn.  “When I entered the room, Jacks, was standing over him, blood on his hands.  It looks like an open and shut case to me.”

Staring at Jacks, Faye noted his pallor and his shaking hands.  “Jacks, were you trying to help the Marquis, to see if he was still alive?”

Jacks nodded, tried to speak and gulped.  ‘Ye….yes.  I saw him laying there with all that blood and I….I thought maybe he was just hurt badly.”

“The man’s lying through his teeth,” Colonel Pepper said sharply.  “They all like…criminals.  They’ll tell you the sky is green and they are innocent.  I’ve seen it before.  Why in the campaign of 1872, we had…”

Baroness White interrupted, wringing her hands, “A Marquis has died at our house partly.  I can’t bear the shame.  Why couldn’t it have been a mere Sir or the local Squire?  Why a Marquis?  Why me?  No one will ever attend another party of mine, if my staff goes around killing people.”  So saying she sank gracefully down on the sofa, the picture of a forlorn maiden.

Recovering from her swoon, Lady Swan patted her dear friend on the shoulder.  “Perhaps no one will notice his absence.  He does travel abroad a bit.”

“I imagine his wife might have something to say,” Countess Bloodworth said, her French accent softening the slight rebuke.

Faye had to bite her lip to keep from smiling.  Lady Swan wasn’t the brightest of ladies and Countess Bloodworth suffered no fools. The Countess was beautiful, with dark hair and eyes and the palest of skins.  She was also clever and had a sharp wit, which stung at times.

“I’m ruined!”  Baroness White remarked brokenly, throwing her arm across her face.

“There, there dear,” the Baron said, patting his wife‘s head.  “It’s not so bad.  No one really cared for the Marquis, especially his wife.  And we can always replace the staff.”

The butler, who had been standing stoically throughout the ordeal, suddenly collapsed into a chair.

Faye barely noted the drama as she had bent over and pulled back the cravat on the Marquis neck.  Her lips tightened and she got the expression her brothers used to dread when they had put a frog in her bead, hoping she would kiss it and turn it into a prince.  “You won’t have to fire your staff, Baron White.  No servant did this.  At least, no human one.”

Her blue eyes were bright with that Grimm determination.  “The head wound came later, after the Baron was dead.”

“Preposterous,” Colonel Pepper snapped.

“No, the head wound didn’t kill him; that was a decoy to make us think it was the death blow,” Faye responded, ignoring the pompous Colonel’s last remark.  Kneeling beside the body, she pointed at the two fang marks quite visible on the victim‘s neck.  “This was the work of a…Vampire!”

The word filled the room with a sick dread.  All eyes were on the marks, most especially Sir Redding.  His gray eyes seemed to darken as he threw his back a bit and stilled.  Then he glanced over at Faye as she stared back.  He was a handsome man, perhaps the most handsome man she had ever seen, with an air of danger that seemed to hover in the air around him.

Countess Bloodworth moved closer to the body, and then smiled superiorly.  “Really, Miss Grimm, such drama, such flare.  Have you though of being on the stage?  How can you say that is a vampire bite?  Have you ever seen one?

Fay Grimm and her stake

Fay Grimm and her stake.

THe Best Endings….

Movies:  Casablanca,  The Naked Jungle,  Terminator II

TV:  SHould have been Magnum, he did a wonderful one with John Denver Song and he was walking away in the clouds.  But the show did one more season.  St Elsewhere…mind blower

Boos:  Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Known Dead

 

American Idol

Did anyone think Kree was fantastic?  I get goosebumps when she sings.  I loved her first song and the judges really to on her for her singing style.  I think they are crazy.  That girl can sure sing the blues.  

Best Beginnings in a …..

Movie…..   Rebecca by Hitchcock and Last of the Mohicans by Mann.

Music….    Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven and  Hotel California by the Eagles

Books….    Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and Pride and Prejudice by Austen

TV……         Game of Thrones and the Tudors

Poetry….     No man is an Island by Donne and If by Kipling

The White Werewolf Sec. 8

A shapely waitress poured coffee into Rafe’s mug.  Glancing at him and then outside at majestic towers of white peaks, she remarked, “Peaceful looking, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Rafe replied.

“I guess what they say is true…looks are deceiving.”

“The Mountain Spirits doesn’t really fit with the sun shining down,” Rafe added as he stared out the window.

“I know.  I’m always thankful for daylight and I don’t go out at night unless in a group.”

Rafe looked back at the waitress and asked, “Why do you stay?  I hear there are a lot of people disappearing around here from time to time.”

Before the waitress could answer, the cook called her over for her order.  Quickly, she said, “I was raised here.  I guess that makes all the difference.  I just don’t know why.”

Rafe nodded as she walked away.  It was hared to break with tradition and harder still to leave a place where legends came true, even if they were deadly.

Vikings

Anybody watching the Vikings on the History channel.  It’s fantastic.  I feel like i”m there and since I teach history, I just love being transported back into time.  It makes so much sense how fearsome they were since they believed in Valhalla and going there when they died in battle. 

The White Werewolf Sec. 7

Rafe sat in the small cafe staring out at the snow covered mountain, partially hidden in mists and myths.  He was thinking on the Indians and their beliefs.  Before the White Man had come to the valley, the Indians had feared the Wind-Walkers, who were spirits which called neither the heavens or hell their home.  Instead, they remained attached to the mountain, wandering aimlessly on nights, when the moon was round and full.  The Indians knew that to look upon the face of death would be the beginning of the end of what a man calls his sanity.  Later, as the centuries changed, the spirits walked the wind no more on the sacred mountain.  They had been frightened away by a far worse demon….the White Werewolf.  

Top Five Paranormal Picks

Why you want to compete against a Mummy track team

1.  You can win the 100 yard dash even with a serious muscle hamstring

2.  If you injure yourself on the field, the Mummy’s have plenty of wrappings you can use for bandaids or sprains

3.  Even the poorest athletic department tracks suits look better than the Mummy track teams

4.  They can trip over their wrappings jumping the hurdles

5.  Depending on what Egyptian Dynasty they are (how old) they can throw an arm off doing the shot-putt

 

 

 

The White Werewolf Sec. 6

Tiny slivers of fear began to circulate throughout his system.  Suddenly, Rafe was aware of sweat forming on his upper lip and fear gnawing at his gut.  He pulled his chair away from the fire and the black burning eyes of the old woman.  He was afraid and he didn’t like the feeling.  It was a weakness he found irritating in other men, in himself, he found it intolerable.

Lanora nodded, falling silent for a moment, studying him.  ”You came here for her.”  It was not a question.  ”I can see it in your eyes.  Just like Jeremiahs…the look of the walking dead.  You’ve come seeking answers, but you’ll find your own destruction.”

Rafe stool up, stretching his long, muscular legs.  His usual calm demeanor was being shredded by Lanora’s rantings.

“SHE stalks her prey, fear causing his throat to tighten, his chest to pound.  When the attacks begins, she plays  with him, tearing into his legs or arms, leaving him bleeding heavily in the snow, then mates in the fresh blood.  Then the albino tears out the throat, his last look at life his her bloody teeth.  Only man does SHE attack.  SHE and her kind of have been here since the beginning of man.  But centuries ago, they left, then later came back.  There were few of them.  The Indians know this.  They hold the mountain sacred, never venturing beyond the second crest.  SHE is beautiful and deadly and as legend says, pure white, as all her kind.  Even know she knows of your presence.  She’s waiting…watching,” Lanora warned as her bony finger pointed at him.  ”Beware, I say beware!”