Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) Page 6

Sally flipped a blonde strand out of her face and arched a doubtful eyebrow.

  “Gil was helping me with my . . . newspaper . . . subscription,” I improvised. “That is, I’m thinking of taking out a newspaper subscription for each of my students. We’re studying journalism, you know.”

  “And she was trying to get me to give her a big volume discount,” said Gil, shaking his finger at me as he shamelessly took up the lie. “Our Miss Prentice is a real horse trader, I’ll tell you!”

  Sally shrugged. “Whatever. Well, I’ll see you later. Think about what I said.”

  As Sally’s sleek foreign sports car pulled away from the curb, Gil said, “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Casually, I pushed on the banister, which was solid as a rock. “That’s our Miss Prentice, horse trader!” I waited for a playful reply from Gil, but got none.

  He strolled, hands in pockets, back into the parlor, where he stared into the empty fireplace.

  “By the way, that was Lily on the phone,” I said. Casual, that was me. “We’re going shopping at Peasemarsh tomorrow.” Nice going, Amelia. Why on earth would he care?

  I continued babbling. “I thought the doorbell was Marie LeBow. She was supposed to come here to give me something. I wish she wouldn’t. It’s from Marguerite and I feel—well, funny, you know? Gil?”

  Gil shook his head slightly and blinked several times. “I’m sorry—what were you saying?”

  “Marie, Marie LeBow. She was supposed to come here tonight.”

  “Why here? Couldn’t you just go to her place?”

  “I offered to, but she insisted on coming over. Lily just told me Marie couldn’t come, but still wanted to give me something.”

  Gil’s interest was piqued. “Odd.”

  “I wish I knew what she wants me to have that’s so important.”

  “Why don’t you just call and ask?”

  “I was going to, but I was busy protecting my home from a hostile takeover. I’ll do it now. Excuse me.” I went to the kitchen, but was back in a minute.

  “What is it?” asked Gil when he saw my expression.

  I mopped my eyes with a tissue. “She had—I mean, Marie—the answering machine—the recording? It was Marguerite’s voice. She was trying so hard to sound sophisticated. Oh, Gil, it’s heartbreaking!”

  “Did you leave a message?”

  “Yes, but could we, I mean, would you mind?” I tilted my head in the direction of the front door.

  “You mean go over to Marie’s? Right now?”

  “Gil, I’m worried about her. Marie is the hardest working, most reliable person I know.”

  Gil stroked his ear thoughtfully. “Well, you’re right there. She delivered papers for us a few years ago. Did you know that? She had to be at the college dining hall to fix breakfast by 6, so she picked up the papers at 3:30. Never missed a morning.”

  My eyes were tearing up again. “That’s Marie, all right.”

  Gil grabbed his coat. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Just a minute.” I ran upstairs to the bathroom. It took two vigorous applications of a soapy washcloth to scrub off the residue of Li’l Lady. When I had finished, my skin felt tight and sore. I looked in the mirror. I was back to my old look now, shiny-faced, wholesome, and a little dowdy. I combed the damp bangs down over my bandage, applied some lipstick and spritzed cologne on my blouse.

  That was better, though without all the war paint, I did look bland. I shrugged. That’s me: a shrimpy, bland dweeb. Take me or leave me.

  I looked down the stairs at Gil. He was jingling change in his pocket while he looked at his watch. He had done the very same thing in that very same spot more than twenty years before. We meant something to each other then, but the bitterness that eventually sprang up between us made our current detente something of a miracle.

  So what was different about him now? Nothing, really.

  Sure, we were united in concern for Marie and he’d been kindly comforting to me, but it was only a kiss and what was a kiss, anyway? Not much, in this day and age. I wasn’t a young girl in the throes of infatuation any more, I reminded myself.

  Just then, Gil looked up at me and smiled. “Ready?”

  Blip. Something turned over in my chest.

  Don’t be too sure, Amelia.

  “Ready.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was almost dark when we arrived. In the modest neighborhood of neat, well-kept cottages where Marie lived, hers was the neatest and best kept.

  “You said she didn’t answer the phone?” Gil asked. “Her car’s there.”

  “But look—no lights on in the house,” I countered. “Not in front, anyway.”

  We made our way in the dark by the dim light of a street lamp and the glow from nearby houses.

  “Look,” I said as we walked up the sidewalk. I picked up a rake lying half-buried in a pile of leaves near her front porch. “She’d never leave something out like this. Now I’m really worried.” I headed around the house.

  Gil trotted up the front steps and rang the bell. I could hear it from outside, but there was no answering sound of movement in the house. No light in the kitchen window, either, but in the back yard, some clothes were hanging on a circular metal clothesline.

  I felt a blouse. It was still damp.

  “Gil!” I called. “Come around here. Look at this.”

  I heard movement in the bushes of the side yard, walked toward the sound, then froze.

  A dark figure rounded the corner, but it wasn’t Gil. It was a much bulkier man, silhouetted in the pale light from next door, walking heavily, cautiously, and carrying a club of some kind.

  Had he seen me?

  Frantically, I ducked under the clothes on the line, and clung to the center metal pole. The laundry, blouses and socks, bras and dishtowels, formed a pitifully inadequate circular curtain around me, but there was no other place to hide.

  The line turned in the breeze, creaking.

  I could hear his footsteps in the dead leaves, coming closer, then stopping. A circle of light played over the clothing, then a large hand slowly parted the laundry.

  “Gil!” I shrieked, backing out of my shelter.

  My left foot slid sideways, out from under me. As my other foot teetered on a lumpy, shifting fabric-covered surface, I realized a sickening déjà vu.

  Am I falling over another body?

  I landed heavily.

  “Who’s that?” a voice demanded. A bright light played over my face and on the obstacle that had tripped me.

  Whimpering, I scuttled away from the thing on all fours, then looked back at it by the stranger’s light.

  “B-bulbs,” I murmured, still trembling, “A sack of flower bulbs. Thank heaven!” I looked up and was blinded by a harsh, yellow beam of light.

  “Amelia?” It was Gil, running around the house.

  “What’s going on?” the large stranger demanded. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Please—” I began. My head had begun to hurt again. “I—I mean, we—”

  “Look here—” Gil stepped in front of my cringing form and stood protectively in the flashlight’s glare. My hero. “We’re just here to see if Mrs. LeBow’s okay. We’re friends of hers.”

  “That’s right,” I said as Gil pulled me to my feet. “We couldn’t reach her, so we got worried.”

  The man slowly lowered the flashlight. “You don’t know where she went either?”

  “She’s gone? When?” I asked.

  “This afternoon. My wife saw ’er go.” He waved the beam in the direction of a light blue bungalow some fifteen feet away. “We live next door, y’know.”

  “Bert?” a woman’s voice called. The back porch light came on. “Everything okay?”

  “Just fine, Hester. Go on back inside. Be there in a minute.” He turned to us. “Look here. Why don’t you folks come over to the house? Maybe we can figure this thing out.”

  Shivering, Gil and I agreed.

  “I’m Bert
Swanson. Groundskeeper over to the college. My wife works with Marie at the cafeteria.” He held the back porch door open for us.

  The Swanson house was a cheerful contrast to Marie’s crisp neatness. Their back porch held a jumble of rakes, brooms, mops, buckets, and several huge jugs of cleaning products. At one end was a small chest-top freezer with a large padlock. Piled on top were a fifty-pound sack of dry dog food and a huge net bag of fragrant McIntosh apples.

  The apple fragrance grew stronger and mingled with cinnamon as we entered the tiny knotty-pine kitchen. A stout gray-haired woman in jeans and sweatshirt topped by a faded apron reading “Kiss the Cook” stepped forward in welcome, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

  Bert began the introductions, but his wife Hester interrupted. “You the prowlers at Marie’s?” she said, smiling. Her eyes sparkled. “I told Bert you were too noisy for burglars.”

  We all shook hands.

  “You want pie?” Hester asked. “Just come out of the oven,” she added temptingly.

  “Sure they do, Honey,” Bert said, wrapping his arm around Hester’s sturdy waist. “You won’t find better, I can tell ya that. This little lady’s the best baker in the county,” he informed us, and obeyed the instructions on his wife’s apron.

  “Oh, shuddup,” she said. “Get outta here.”

  Bert ushered us into a comfortably cluttered living-dining room. Every level surface was topped by bright squares of printed cotton material in stacks. A muted television played quiz shows without ceasing.

  “Hester’s doin’ one of her projects,” he said apologetically, and moved several stacks from the sofa. “This time of year, she makes quilts. That one over there won second prize at the state fair.” He pointed to an ornate example of Hester’s craft hanging on one wall. “It’s called the Wedding Ring.”

  Bert’s broad face shone with pride. He was a burly man, balding on top, but still handsome, with a deep dimple on one side of his mouth that he displayed frequently.

  Over huge wedges of apple pie and steaming cups of excellent coffee, Gil tried to get down to business. “About Marie—”

  Hester interrupted, “Marie’s the one give me the recipe for this pie. It’s really for a cobbler that serves a hundred, but I pared it down a little.”

  There was a pause while we continued to appreciate Hester’s culinary skill.

  Bert leaned forward. “Don’t you get it?”

  Gil and I looked up, chewing.

  “Get whup?” Gil asked, his diction impaired by a mouthful of hot apple.

  “The recipe—she pared it down. Pared, apples? It’s a joke!” He slapped Gil on the knee and roared with laughter.

  “That’s pretty witty,” Gil said.

  “You bet it is!” Bert’s admiration for his spouse seemed limitless.

  Hester came out of the kitchen with the coffeepot. “Honey, I just figured out who this lady is,” she said, refilling my cup. “You’re the teacher, aren’t you? The one who found Marie’s girl. That must’ve been terrible.”

  “It was,” I admitted, fingering my bandage.

  Hester clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Tragic. Such a young girl. And poor Marie.”

  Gil took advantage of the moment to get to the point. “Bert told us you saw Marie leave today.”

  “That’s right,” she said, stepping into the kitchen to replace the coffeepot. She returned and sat in an easy chair in the living room, where she took up her quilting work. “Seemed odd to me.”

  “When was that?” Gil was in journalist mode.

  Hester donned a pair of glasses and threaded a needle. “Right after I got back from work, so it would’ve been about, oh, two or so.”

  A square of patchwork fabric, sandwiched around some white fluffy stuff, was stretched in a wooden hoop the size of a steering wheel. Hester held it level in her lap and plunged the needle dead-center. A second later, it peeked up from underneath, a millimeter from the point of entry. She pulled the thread taut, then dipped the needle rapidly several times into the fabric.

  For a few moments, we sat transfixed, watching Hester’s hands move hypnotically up and down with the precision of a machine.

  “Did you talk to her?” Gil asked, his eyes still on the quilting. “Find out where she was going?”

  Hester pulled the thread taut. “Heck, no! You won’t catch me interfering with the police.”

  “Police!” Gil and I exchanged glances.

  “Besides, I was having my own problems,” Hester said. “I was taking Flippy, my dog—our dog—” Her voice broke.

  Her hands drooped over her work. She bowed her head and removed her glasses. When she looked up at us, she was blinking back tears.

  “I was taking our little dog to the vet’s. For the last time—” A sob escaped, and she fumbled on a side table for a box of tissues.

  Bert shook his head wearily. “Poor ol’ Flippy. He was real sick. It was his time.”

  “He was like our baby, you know?” Hester looked at me as she dabbed her eye.

  I nodded. I was lying, of course. I had no idea. I was never much of a pet person. Ask Sam.

  “We were gonna do it ourselves. Kinda like pulling the plug or something. Bert’s cousin—he’s got a farm out in Chazy—give him some capsules.”

  “Honey,” Bert protested, “they don’t want to hear all this sad stuff.”

  Hester was not to be diverted. “Just put a couple down his throat like vitamins, he told us, and Flippy’d go to sleep.” She ended the sentence on a high note of pain. “We were gonna bury him out in the yard with a little stone and everything.”

  “Honey—” Bert said.

  “We couldn’t do it.” Hester turned a shaky smile toward her husband and reached out her hand. Bert stepped forward and grasped it firmly. “This great big man has such a soft heart—” She blew her nose. “Oh, I’m sorry. It just gets to me, taking our little baby to strangers.”

  “He didn’t feel a thing, Hester,” Bert pointed out gently.

  “I know.” Hester was resigned. She looked at Gil. “Anyway, I was just thinking I kind of knew how Marie felt when I looked over and saw her locking her front door and getting into a police car.”

  “Were they arresting her?” I asked. “I mean, did they have—handcuffs on her?”

  “Didn’t see any.” Hester donned the spectacles and resumed her quilting. “One of the cops was helping her carry a suitcase. She just got in the car and they drove off without a word to us.” She shrugged. “Bert ’n’ I were gonna keep some of her out of town people here in our spare room. For the funeral, you know. Guess that’s off.”

  Bert was gathering up our pie plates. “Maybe not. She might be coming back. You should’ve asked.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to embarrass the woman right there on the street with the police and all. Remember what a ruckus there was over your dad.”

  “That was years ago. Nobody wants to hear it any more. You folks like some more coffee?”

  I declined, but Gil accepted. Apparently, the interview wasn’t over yet.

  “It was just for smuggling,” Hester whispered while Bert was in the kitchen. “Whiskey out of Canada. Everybody did it, only his dad had to sample it too. That’s how he got caught—” she broke off as Bert returned with Gil’s refilled cup.

  “Couldn’t leave it alone, could ya, Hester?” said Bert good-naturedly. “Careful there, Dickensen, you’re gonna spill it. Trouble is, she never tells the end of the story. My dad was let off due to lack of evidence.”

  “It was all drunk up!” said Hester and giggled.

  Gil nursed his coffee through several more questions, but it was soon apparent that the Swansons had nothing else to tell us.

  “Well, I’d better get Miss Prentice back home,” Gil said at last. “She’s had a tough couple of days and she needs her rest.”

  Amid a flurry of thanks and return invitations, Hester pressed her apple pie recipe on me, and Bert insisted on walking us to the car.
/>   “It’s a sad business, Dickensen,” he said as Gil slid into the driver’s seat, “and Marie’s a fine woman.”

  “You’re right about that,” Gil agreed. “Don’t worry, we’ll find out where she is.”

  “Not like that daughter.” Bert scowled. “She was something else.”

  Even in the dim light, I could see Gil’s eyebrows wobble with interest. “Really?”

  “Played little games if you know what I mean.” He pressed his hands on the car door and leaned in. “Tried to make it look like a man was doing something he shouldn’t. You couldn’t believe a word she said.”

  “A tease, was she?” Gil asked.

  I frowned in the darkness but kept quiet.

  “Don’t you know it! And then some—takin’ sunbaths in the back yard and coming over all the time, borrowing things. Then gets all riled up like a man did something wrong. Well, it just wasn’t right, that’s all. Couldn’t believe a word she said,” he repeated.

  “Sad business all around,” Gil conceded.

  Bert sighed, and gazed at Marie’s house. “That it is. Well, you folks have a good evening and come again.” He slapped the top of the car affectionately and stepped back as Gil pulled away from the curb.

  “And what was all that about?” I asked as we rounded the corner.

  Gil grinned. “Oh, you mean Bert?”

  “Yes, all that male bonding she-was-a-tease, the-devil-made-me-do-it stuff.”

  “I have my theory. What’s yours, Miss Prentice?”

  The sardonic tone was familiar. Oh, well. We were back to square one.

  “Well, my guess is that Bert made a pass at Marguerite. She probably rebuffed him and he was afraid the whole thing would get back to Hester.”

  “Don’t you bet there’d be hell to pay if it did?” Gil agreed.

  “But Gil, can you imagine this is the first time this thing ever happened with a man like Bert? I can’t buy that. I think an intelligent woman like Hester would be well aware of what’s going on.”

  “And she puts up with it?”

  “Look at it this way: When Bert and Hester married, Bert was probably the catch of the century. I’ll bet she’s been doing the Superwoman bit ever since, just to keep him. He’s still a good-looking man. It must take a lot out of her.”