The Death of Perry Many Paws (33 page)

“… and then there was the time Cam lost his gym shorts while climbing the ropes …”

“I think that’s enough of those stories, John,” Jingle said stiffly. “Tamsen, did you know that John-Winston was going to work ten hours a week at the
Birdsey Falls Gazette
?”

I shook my head. “I had no idea. What will you be doing?” Jingle probably thought he was going to be the editor.

“I’ll be proofing copy and learning about news reporting. I want to be a journalism major when I go to college.”

Jingle was beaming. She could smell a Pulitzer. “John-Winston has already taken both the journalism courses offered in the high school and gotten As …”

“Please mom, don’t brag …”

“… and is going to take a course at the college this January. He will already have college credits when he starts school.”

I didn’t have to look at Cam to know that I was not supposed to try to one-up Jingle by telling her that Abbey had tested out of a foreign language and out of freshman math and English and therefore had two classes
and
the foreign language requirement completed before she ever started college. I just smiled.

“I worked for the
Birdsey Falls Gazette
when I was in high school, but I just delivered newspapers,” John added. “You’ll be glad you’re working in the office when there’s five feet of snow, son. Delivering papers in the snow is the worst …”

Suddenly it hit me. “Newspaper delivery!” I shouted. “That’s it. That’s what I was trying to remember. Newspaper delivery!”

After that outburst, and my subsequent apology, the evening dragged on. I wanted talk to Cam about my idea but there wasn’t an opportunity. We had coffee and dessert in the library and discussed literature. I can hold my own in a literature discussion but my heart wasn’t into it, especially when Jingle and John-Winston started talking about how Harry Potter books should be banned for promoting witchcraft and devil worship. John and Cam did argue on Harry’s behalf but Jingle and John-Winston were not to be moved. Harry had to go. Good manners dictated that I not call them ignorant psychos to their faces, so I put in a few good words for Harry and then let it go. My mind was on other things.

It was Sunday night, which meant there was a football game on TV. I lived in fear that the three guys would go off to watch the game and leave me alone with Jingle. Luckily Jingle was quite concerned with getting home at a decent hour because John-Winston had school tomorrow. I couldn’t get them out of the house fast enough.

When Cam cooked, I always did cleanup. He usually ended up helping me, though, because he felt guilty for making such a mess. He had problems with the clean-as-you-cook method so the kitchen looked like the aftermath of a very enthusiastic food fight. Cam was chatting about how well the evening had gone and I was complimenting him on the meal which had been spectacular, as always. Eventually we had worked our way through the mutual niceties and Cam put down his dish towel and leaned against the counter.

“OK. I can’t stand the suspense. What was the newspaper delivery explosion about? I think you scared Jingle to death.”

“She’s probably never lost her cool like that,” I admitted. “I hope you weren’t too embarrassed.”

“Are you kidding? I sent up a prayer thanking God that I married someone who had some passion, albeit oddly timed. Jingle is a living statue. That woman has always given me the willies …”

“Her? What about John hyphen Winston? What’s the deal with him? Now that’s a creepy kid. They probably won’t let him off the bench to play football because they know he doesn’t want to muss his hair …”

“Or they may not be able bring themselves to yell his name to go in. With a name like John-Winston he should be playing in a polo match, not a football game.”

“You know, I’ve never understood how you and John can be such good friends …”

“Are you kidding? John’s a great guy …”

“No, I think John’s wonderful. What I mean is how can you two be so close, have so much in common, and yet he ends up with such a weird family? He’s perfectly normal, endearingly so, and his wife and son are from a parallel universe. Sort of a robot mannequin world.”

“It’s easy to understand John-Winston. He’s a mama’s boy, the male version of Jingle. She wanted a daughter and got John-Winston instead, so she lavished all her attention on him and barely let John spend any time with him,” Cam explained. “The only influence John had on his son was sports. Luckily the kid loves sports.”

“Why did John marry Jingle in the first place? He couldn’t possibly sincerely like her, could he?”

“Oh, I think he likes her well enough. He married her for the usual reason …”

“Jesus, Cam. Don’t tell me she’s great in bed. I won’t believe it unless I witness it myself. Really. I have no shame. I would have to see her in bed with John to be convinced she’s a sexpot in the sack.”

Cam started laughing and rolling his eyes. An observer might think he was having a seizure but I was used to it.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Well, not you. Jingle,” he continued snorting and wiping his eyes. “The image of Jingle as a wanton hussy in the sack. It’s too much.”

“My thoughts exactly. Isn’t that what you meant when you said John married her for the usual reason?”

“Absolutely not! Not
that
usual reason. Not great sex …”

“Then what?”

“He married her because she had a lot of money. Of all the girls he dated she was not only the best looking but also had a lot of money. He decided in high school that he would marry someone with money and he did. Simple as that. Obviously, I was never supposed to tell anyone that …”

“Believe me, I won’t tell her …”

“Or any of your friends …”

“I promise. I can’t believe you’ve never told me this before,” I chided. “This is really good gossip.”

“It just never came up. We don’t all get together that often. I try to spare you Jingle—well me, too—as much as I can.”

“Bless you for that.” We finished drying the pots and pans, turned on the dishwasher, wadded up the dishcloth and several dish towels Cam had used and threw them down the basement stairs where they landed next to the washing machine. Mission accomplished. There was a little wine left over from dinner that Cam and I split before going into the library to relax with Mycroft in front of the fire.

I snuggled under Cam’s arm, sipped my wine and stared at the fire. Total contentment. Cam wiggled his nose in my hair. “Your hair is so soft and smells good.”

“Mmm. I washed it.”

“You have so many beauty secrets.”

“We girls without money have to have something to bargain with,” I whispered breathlessly.

“I can’t believe you have gone this long without bringing up the reason for your excitement about newspaper delivery.”

“I’m glad you noticed. I’m working on my impulse control problem. It’s dying to come out, though …”

“I’m dying to hear it.”

I twisted around so I could face Cam and smashed his nose against my skull in the process.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were still sniffing. OK. Listen to this …”

“My nose hurts …”

“Listen with your ears, then. Yesterday morning I had a flashback to Uncle Franklin and how often, when we walked by the cottage in the morning, he would be in that same position, eating breakfast and
reading the newspaper. I got all philosophical about life’s simple pleasures and how maybe, deep down, he was fully satisfied with his life blah blah blah …”

“Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to say ‘blah blah blah’ when you’re talking?”

“Quiet. Anyway, I had a flash of an idea and then noticed I had that stupid doctor’s appointment and had to rush back. The idea was lost until tonight when John was talking about delivering newspapers in the snow …”

“You know. I think it was that experience as a newspaper delivery boy that first made him decide to marry a rich girl. He never wanted to do physically uncomfortable work again.”

“Great. Listen. There’s a link between me sitting at my table reading the morning paper and Uncle Franklin sitting at his table reading the morning paper.”

“OK. What?”

“Delivery! We each had to get our morning papers some way. A paper boy delivers our paper …”

“And the same newspaper boy delivers Franklin’s paper …”

“And it’s Kaleb Kinney.”

“Diane’s son.”

“Right!” I put my hand up for a high-five and Cam sort of flopped his hand at mine. I frowned at him.

“I’m not sure why we are high-fiving,” he started.

“So you can’t do a good high five until you know?”

“Right. There has to be some authenticity. What are we celebrating?”

“We keep talking about how Ryan and his friends were the only ones who snuck around and spied on Franklin. They were the only ones who might have seen he had money in his cottage or seen him
writing or seen him do whatever it was he did that made someone kill him.”

“Ah, we totally forgot about the paper boy. He would have seen Franklin every day.” Cam’s face lit up with understanding.

“And collected money from him. Maybe he even went into the cottage while Franklin got it. Maybe saw where he kept his money. Don’t you see? It’s been driving me and Grace and everyone else who knows her crazy that Diane has been cozying up to the policeman …”

“Donny something.”

“Right. I bet she wants to be sure to steer him away from Kaleb. What makes me mad is that she may have steered him away from her son at the risk of directing him to Grace’s stepson.”

“But the bloody shirt. That is much more substantial evidence than the fact Kaleb delivered Franklin’s newspaper every day,” Cam pointed out. “It makes sense for the police to concentrate their efforts on Ryan rather than Kaleb.”

“But it can’t hurt to have an attractive woman make sure that every time he considers looking at someone other than Ryan you direct his attention back …”

“… to avoid him looking at another person with the means to get to Franklin. Your own son. That seems so ugly.”

“We all protect our own, Cam. We would do the same to protect Abbey.”

“You would flirt with the policeman to keep him from suspecting Abbey?”

“I’d do what I needed to do. Flirting wouldn’t be my first choice. I know I’m really bad at it. But I would want some way to keep up with how the investigation was going to be sure it wasn’t swinging in the direction of my own child. I wouldn’t just sit around and hope they bypassed her.”

“So, what are you planning to do with this revelation?”

“I need to confront Diane. I need to find out if there is a reason she is afraid for Kaleb. He may know something that will solve this. If Diane keeps protecting him we’ll never find out.”

“So you don’t think Kaleb could have killed Uncle Franklin?” Cam asked.

“I’d be surprised if he did. But someone did it and when we find out who, we may be just as surprised.”

iane has three parent-teacher conferences today, at three separate schools.” Scott didn’t expect her back until late afternoon. As much as I wanted to confront her about Kaleb and find out if my suspicions about her motive behind romancing Donny-Something were true, I knew I couldn’t chase her all over town between meetings and try to get her to tell all. I would have to wait and that’s something I’m not very good at.

I called Grace to see if she might be able to go out for coffee or lunch but she was too busy. It was five days until Halloween and the store was packed with people entering the guess-what-costumes-the-mannequins-will-be-wearing contest as well as people wanting Halloween books for the kids or scary books for themselves. I felt too guilty to call Syra because I wasn’t sure things were right between us. And I was still thinking she was a good suspect for Franklin’s murder, although I had no idea what her motive could be other than protecting Bing from the truth about his mother. If that were the case, now I knew the truth, except for the identities of their fathers. Syra claimed not to know. But did she? What if Syra didn’t trust me not to tell Bing what I did know? Would she kill me, too? Maybe that hot chocolate debacle had been a run through and she had yet to make the actual attempt. I didn’t want to think she was a killer. I thought she probably
wasn’t. But I wasn’t convinced enough to be alone with her under any circumstance. I desperately wanted to talk this all through with somebody but there wasn’t anyone left. Except Claudia and Sybil. Such a bad idea ... And getting Sybil alone without Claudia was impossible. I was on my own.