The Death of Perry Many Paws (46 page)

“Why would she do something so careless as carry several containers of gasoline in her trunk?” he asked. “She must have realized how dangerous that was.”

“She said her gas gauge wasn’t working and she kept running out of ...” I began to explain.

Claudia gently shook her head. “Nonsense. I’ve driven her car several times recently and the gas gauge worked just fine. I don’t know why she drove that old Buick. It’s such an old ladies’ car.”

“She was seventy-something, Claudia,” I reminded her.

“Exactly my point. She shouldn’t have been driving an old ladies’ car. I tried to get her to buy a lovely Cadillac like mine. If she had listened to me she would still be alive.” Cam began to soothe his mother so she wouldn’t feel that she was in any way responsible for Sybil’s death by being unable to convince her to buy a Cadillac. I began to try to think about all the reasons I loved Cam in spite of his mother. My mind quickly wandered back to Sybil and our fateful drive away from the Halloween party. All I could see was her speeding away from me. The explosion. The fire. The heat. The horrible heat.

“I don’t feel very well. I’m going to bed.”

Cam jumped to his feet and offered to go up with me. I waved him away. I needed to be alone.

I was sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep after my long nap this afternoon. My mind was racing with questions and I would never be able to relax until I knew what had happened, what had been going through Sybil’s mind. I propped myself up in bed and prepared to think it through from the moment Sybil approached me at the party until she drove away. Franklin’s manuscript in the trunk. The containers of gas. The drive out of town. The crash. My good fortune to not be in the car. It all swirled around in my head and I immediately fell asleep, more confused than ever.

I awoke to the pop of a soda can and the smell of cinnamon. Someone was rubbing my back. I snuggled more deeply into the blankets, wishing I could drink the soda and eat the cinnamon thing without having to sit up or open my eyes. Basic human needs won out
and I crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Cam ushered me back into bed and set the breakfast tray on my lap.

“Cinnamon rolls compliments of Bing. He and Syra send their love. Grace called. Diane called. Officer Donny called.” I stopped eating and dropped my cinnamon bun back on the plate.

“What did Officer Donny want?”

“You have frosting on your cheek. No, left cheek. Got it.”

“Officer Donny?”

“Oh, yeah. Just routine follow-up after an accident. He’s stopping by in a while to talk to you …”

“How long?”

Cam glanced at his watch. “About forty minutes. Relax and eat. You have plenty of time.”

“Is your mother still here?” I tried to sound nonchalant but I know it sounded accusatory. Cam reached out and patted my leg.

“Yes. And I’m sorry. I want to devote my full attention to you but I can’t forget about her entirely. Someone has to be there for her …”

“I know. I just wish it wasn’t you. We’ve been lucky having Sybil all these years to take care of her and now …” I realized I sounded like Claudia, viewing Sybil’s absence as an inconvenience to me. That was disturbing.

“She’ll settle back into her own routine soon.”

“And what if she doesn’t? What if she can’t stand to live at Ashland Belle without Sybil?”

“You mean, what if she wants to move back here?” Cam actually blanched at the idea. There was hope for him yet.

I was showered and dressed when Officer Donny arrived. Part of me dreaded talking to him and part of me couldn’t wait. Maybe he would have the definitive answers to what had happened the prior night.

Claudia had taken to her bed, or rather, taken to our guest bed, and was not to be disturbed. Having her stay here would be relatively painless if she could remain in her bed with a “do not disturb” sign on her door. If I didn’t have to see her or talk to her, I could easily work around her. It was up to Cam to make sure she was fed regularly.

Bing had kindly supplied us with a dozen cinnamon buns so we were able to be hospitable to Officer Donny and his partner, Officer Lumb, as we gathered in the solarium. Officer Lumb was struggling with sticky fingers, his pen and his notebook while Officer Donny did the talking.

“How was Ms. Bright’s state of mind last night at the party? Did she seem her normal self ?”

“Yes. She was socializing as usual. She and I talked for a while in the Sherlock Holmes room …”

“Huh?” Officer Lumb licked the frosting off the end of his pen and stared at me.

“The Sherlock Holmes room. That’s the room where all the mystery books are. Grace has it set up to look like Sherlock Holmes’ study.” Officer Lumb continued to stare at me. “You
have
heard of Sherlock Holmes …?”

“Yeah. Guy with a cape and pipe. Did drugs and no one arrested him. He admitted it. Even put it in writing and no one arrested him. Not right.”

“You
do
realize he was a fictional character.”

Officer Lumb flicked crumbs off his notebook and flipped the pages. “No excuse. Should’ve been arrested.”

“Can we get back on track, please? Officer Lumb, are you writing this all down?”

“Kinda sticky,” Officer Lumb mumbled. “Yeah, I’m writing this down.”

“Good. Please proceed Mrs. Mack. You said you and Ms. Bright were talking in the Sherlock Holmes room at the bookstore. What were you talking about?”

“She was telling me about her former husbands.”

“Did that upset her?”

“No, not at all. It was just chit chat. She was in good spirits.”

“And during this conversation she asked you to leave with her?”

“No. We each went back to the party for a while and then she asked me to go to her car with her.”

“Why? Why did she want to leave the party?”

Officer Lumb coughed. “Can I have another one of those buns?” Cam passed him the plate. “Did you make these? They’re really good.”

“No, Bing Foster made them.” I answered. “He lives across the street.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He doesn’t get out much.”

“Is he Syra Foster’s husband?”

“No, her brother.”

“Good cook.”

“Lumb!”

“What, sir?”

“Can you finish your snack so we get back to the questioning?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you. Now, where were we?”

“Well, sir, Mrs. Mack said, ‘She was telling me about her former husbands’ And then you said, ‘Did that upset her?’ And then Mrs. Mack replied, ‘No, not at all. It was just chit chat. She was in good spirits’ Then you said, ‘And during this conversation she asked you to leave with her?’ to which Mrs. Mack replied, ‘No. We each went back to the party for a while and then she asked me to go to her car with her.’
You then asked, ’Why? Why did she want to leave the party?’ It was at this point that I asked for another bun.”

Good Lord, he did the entire recitation without reference to his notes. Officer Lumb was an idiot savant.

“Thank you, Officer Lumb. Now, Mrs. Mack, why did Ms. Bright ask you to leave the party with her?”

Officer Lumb was licking frosting off his fingers like he didn’t have a care in the world. Officer Donny had to repeat his question before I was able to divert my attention back to him.

“Um, yes. Leaving the party. Sybil wanted me to go with her to her car to get an item she needed. She didn’t want to go alone in the dark.”

“What happened after she asked you to go to the car?”

“Well, we walked to the car and she asked me to get something out of her trunk …’

“What?”

I didn’t want to embarrass her but on the other hand there needed to be a legitimate reason for taking a drive in the middle of a party. I decided to keep as close to the truth as possible and assume that Officer Donny was as squeamish about “women’s issues” as most men were.

“It’s kind of personal …”

“This is an investigation into a woman’s death. I need the facts.”

“Well, Sybil was an elderly woman and um, sometimes things don’t work like they used to. She had a problem with incontinence. She needed to change.”

“But you said she asked you to go to her car with her to pick up an item, not change her clothes.”

“Yes, well, it started out that she needed to pick up an item, an undergarment …”

“Adult diaper?” Lumb asked, eyeing the remaining cinnamon bun.

“Well, yes. You could call it that.”

“So once you got to the car she changed her mind?” Officer Donny prodded. Suddenly a cohesive story came to me.

“Yes, yes, that’s it. At first she just needed to pick up a fresh undergarment to take back to the party. But when we got to the car she discovered there was a more complicated issue.”

“She wet her pants.” Lumb announced, reaching for the cinnamon bun and taking a big bite.

“Well, the situation was that she needed to change a few items …”

“So you got in the car to go home with her?”

“Yes. She didn’t want to go alone so we headed off together to repair the damage and then planned to head back to the party. It wouldn’t have taken long …”

“But Ms. Bright lived in the other direction. Why did she head out of town the wrong way?”

Now that was a stumper. I suspected why Sybil had headed to the woods, but I really needed more time to work this through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get it. I was a professional writer. I should be able to do this.

“She seemed to be headed toward your house rather than hers,” Officer Lumb suggested.

“Yes, that was it. She inadvertently headed toward my house rather than hers.”

“Old people can be absent minded,” Lumb offered.

“Exactly. She was embarrassed and got confused and went the wrong way.”

“And kept going the wrong way, even past the turn off to your street?” Officer Donny asked. He sounded a little dubious.

“That does seem odd,” Cam added.

“It
was
odd,” I agreed. “But remember, it was very dark and Sybil wasn’t used to driving after dark. And we were talking and distracted by the situation …” I trailed off, not sure where I was going with this. Why was I floundering around? I just needed to change the facts a little to make this turn out right. I desperately wanted to protect Sybil’s memory.

“Let’s see. She planned to go to her house and change her clothes. But she went off in the wrong direction to go to your house and change? Change into what? What would you have at your house?”

“I’m not sure what she was planning to change into …”

“But then she drove right by your street and continued on out of town. What was the plan at that point? Something doesn’t add up, Mrs. Mack.”

I took a long drink and frantically scrambled for something to say that would tie this whole thing up and send the officers home. It was like writer’s block. For the love of God, someone give me an idea. Now.

“There were no skid marks. That’s very curious,” Officer Donny informed us. “There should have been very definite skid marks where Ms. Bright tried to stop herself from driving into the woods. When you lose control of your car it’s natural to violently apply the brakes.” Officer Donny paused and waited for my explanation. I was still waiting for the spirits to enlighten me so I just stared at him. “And why weren’t you in the car? Why, right before the accident, did you get out of the car?”

She headed at top speed toward the trees with a trunk of gas cans and never applied her brakes. After she made me get out of the car. It was so obvious what had happened. I needed to fix this. I rubbed my face with my hands. Once, twice, three times. I knew what had happened. I knew what the story had to be. I knew what Sybil wanted the story to be. I could, I would, do that for her.

“Mrs. Mack?”

Cam reached over and grabbed my hand. “Are you all right, sweetheart? You look pale. Maybe you need to lie …”

“No. No, I’m fine. It’s just hard to think about what happened. To talk about it …”

“We need your statement.”

“I understand. I just needed a minute. OK. Sybil planned to go home to change. She went the wrong way. We headed to my house instead but she missed the turn. She realized she was headed farther into the woods, away from town, and she planned to turn around. But then I needed to get out. I’d had several glasses of cider. You understand …”

“You had to pee,” Officer Lumb contributed. Thank you, Officer Lumb.

“Yes. Exactly. It was dark and no one was there and I wasn’t sure I could make it home, especially if Sybil kept wandering around missing turns and going in the wrong direction, so I asked if I could get out for a minute. She, of course, understood and let me out while she went to turn the car around and come back and get me …”

Officer Donny looked at me sternly. “But there were no skid marks. She lost control and headed toward the trees and never put on her brakes. That suggests …”

“Yes, I know what it suggests. Unfortunately, it’s a common story among elderly drivers. Sybil started to lose control of her car and slammed her foot on the accelerator rather than the brakes.”

“And just happened to have three containers of gasoline in her trunk so when she hit the trees the car exploded,” Officer Donny concluded somewhat suspiciously.

“Yes, that’s what happened.”

“Oh God,” Cam moaned. “Poor Sybil.”

No one said anything. I offered up a prayer of thanks to the spirits. Cam shook his head and looked on the verge of tears. Officer Donny continued to stare at me suspiciously. It was finally Officer Lumb who broke the uncomfortable silence.

“So, in conclusion, one woman died because she peed her pants and another woman lived because she didn’t.”