The Mummer's Curse by Gillian Roberts

Author:Gillian Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

WE STARED AT THE SAUSAGE.

“Odd thing to send,” Mackenzie said. “Think maybe it’s a late Christmas gift? Somebody signed you up with those food guys—Tom and Jerry? Dave and Harvey? Whoever’s sausage-of-the-month club?”

I closed my eyes. He was trying to be sweet, to jolly me out of a severe case of the willies, but I felt patronized.

“You must be hungry,” he said, “and I’ve eaten everything I bought.”

“I had popcorn.” The sight of the fat sausage took whatever residual appetite I had away. Amazing what the overtones of a single cylinder of processed meat could do.

“How about I scramble you some eggs and brown this up with it?” he asked.

“What is blood sausage, anyway? Why is it called that?”

“Because it has a lot of blood in it.” He retrieved a dog-eared sheaf of recipes his mother had given him when he went off to college. “Of course, we called it boudin noir. Other people call it black pudding. Ancient dish, served to Odysseus according to Homer. Aside from onions, salt, pepper, and spices, it’s a mix of pig’s blood, lard, pork fat, whipping cream, and eggs.”

“I’ll pass. It’s probably poisoned.”

“It doesn’t need anything but its own ingredients—it kills with cholesterol.”

“Blood sausage,” I said. “Don’t those words have an all-too-familiar ring?”

“Coincidence.”

“I think not. And that note—I’m supposed to wake up and smell the sausage which is, like many things, perishable?”

“You’re paranoid. Those are expressions, and a reminder to refrigerate it. You have no earthly connection with the disappeared Serfi. Or did you meet him, too, when you were doing your…research?”

His tiny but deliberate pause galled me. I could almost hear him reluctantly snipping out the words so-called. So-called research. Just because I was still formulating ideas and really didn’t have time to write.

“I’m not sure it matters what I actually know or knew or connected with or not,” I said. “If people believe I know something, that’s enough.” Time to tell him about my encounter with Arthur. “I saw Featherbreath after school, and when I—”

“Was it as bad as its reviews?”

“Worse.”

“Why waste your money?”

The fact that it had been a worthy investment, cheaper than mood elevators or psychiatric care, and that I’d appreciated the film’s dreadfulness to the hilt involved lengthy discussion. Besides, I worried about Mackenzie at times like this when he lost hold of what was relevant and what was not. Mired in trivia as he tended to be, I didn’t know how he ever tracked down a killer. He certainly didn’t have a bloodhound style, nose to the ground, single-mindedly following a scent. “Later,” I said. “The thing is, when I came out of the movie this man—”

“What man?”

“No, wait.” I put my hands up in a referee’s time sign. “This is when you listen, Cisco. Later on, I listen and you talk. Got that?”

“Cisco!” he shouted. “Cisco! I never thought—arrgh!” And he flopped off his chair, onto the floor, one hand clutching his throat, the other covering his eyes as he rolled hither and yon, continuing his arrghs.

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