5 Merry Market Murder (22 page)

“Excuse me a minute,” I said. I pulled out my cell phone. Sam answered on the first ring, though I could tell he was in a hurry. “Sam, Reggie
was
the one to have the affair.”

I explained to him my parents’ memories and then asked him if he’d learned anything new.

“No, I haven’t, but I’m having a hard time finding Brenton. I went to his house after you and I talked and he wasn’t there.”

“He must have left right after I did.”

“I’d like to find him. I will. I’ll let you know when I do.”

“What’s wrong?” Dad said after I ended the call.

“Sam appreciates the lead and he’s going to talk to Evelyn,” I said, not wanting to worry them with other details.

“Evelyn’s still around?” Mom sat up straight.

“Yes, she goes by Evie and she has an egg stall at the Smithfield Market.”

“We’ll have to go see her,” Dad said.

“She’s odd, probably very different than when you knew her,” I said.

“We’re kind of different, too,” Mom said. “I look forward to seeing her no matter what.”

I tried to help jog their memories about who Reggie might have had the affair with, but it didn’t help at all. I had my own suspicions, but I didn’t want to plant false seeds so I kept those thoughts to myself.

Finally, I sent them home to take a nap before the evening’s parade. I also went home to Hobbit. I still had cookies to bake, and even thought I doubted I’d be able to stop my mind from whirring enough to close my eyes, a nap might do us all some good.

“That’s it, I’m installing cameras and maybe a safe room for Hobbit,” I muttered to myself as I pulled onto my driveway.

A car was parked at the bottom of the drive, close to the house. But Hobbit sauntered around the old, white sedan with her ears perked and her tail wagging; she wasn’t distressed by whoever was visiting.

I parked the truck at an angle that would accommodate both me hoisting Hobbit into the passenger side and then us making a quick getaway, if need be.

My visitor appeared from around the house and waved happily.

“Mamma!” I said as I got out of the truck. “I didn’t even know you had a car. I thought you just drove a truck.”

Mamma laughed. “Well, gas being the price it is, I got this old thing to help with mileage. Traveling back and forth between Monson and Smithfield was getting expensive.”

“Makes sense to me. Come on in. I’ll get us something to drink.”

“No, I can’t stay.” Mamma looked at her watch. “I’ve got to meet Carl. I thought I might see you tonight at the parade, but I wanted to talk to you as privately as possible. Sorry I didn’t call first.”

“No problem,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Well, I felt so awful about my thoughts about Evie that I tried to talk to her, be friendly, you know.”

“How’d that go?”

“At first she was pretty snippy, but I hung in there and soon enough we started chatting in a more civilized tone.” Mamma cringed but recovered quickly. “I kind of pride myself on being open-minded and friendly, Becca. It takes an open mind to look at me and not see a floozy, I know that. I look the way I want to look. I assume that other people do the same. But I think I forgot myself with Evie. She’s cantankerous and grumpy, but once we sat together and really talked, I realized that she’s probably just a lonely old woman who could use a friend or two. Well, anyway, enough of my shame.” Mamma sighed. “She actually started opening up about her past. I had to push her. I had Addy fill me in on what he knew and I . . . well, I asked her some direct questions.”

“I bet she either disliked or respected those direct questions.”

Mamma smiled and nodded. “She respected them, just not immediately.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Anyway, she divorced Reggie because he had an affair.”

I didn’t want to ruin her excitement by telling her I already had the news she thought was new so I just said, “I wondered. Did she tell you a name, by chance?”

Mamma shook her head. “It’s why she left politics, though. She was embarrassed and knew that Reggie’s indiscretion would be used against her, or she thought it would.”

“Back then it probably would have,” I said.

“Maybe, but I think there’s more. I think Evie, Evelyn, was proud of her position, proud of her marriage—maybe too proud. She couldn’t handle being seen as imperfect. I really think that had more to do with it,” Mamma said. “It was all about her ego.”

I thought about it and then nodded. I wasn’t much for psychology, but Mamma’s words made sense. Lots of people in lots of different professions, politicians included, were frequently driven by ego.

“So,” Mamma continued, “here’s something else that surprised me. Evie said that before her ex-husband was killed, she and he had started talking again. He’d called her out of the blue and she’d wondered why. Well, he was friendly for a while, but then he told her that he’d recently started seeing the woman again, the woman he had the affair with all those years ago. Evie was under the impression that Reggie was seeking her approval.”

“Let me guess, she didn’t approve,” I said.

“Not at all.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“She said it . . . what was the word she used? Riled? Yes, it riled her feathers—not ruffled—something fierce. Even after all these years, it upset her. She didn’t like that it upset her.”

That was a long time to hold a grudge, but infidelity wasn’t ever easily forgiven.

“Did she get upset while she was talking to you?” I asked.

“Yes, and . . . well, this is rotten of me, but now I have to tell on her.”

“Tell on her?”

“Yes, the day you all found Reggie? Well, Evie didn’t come in to the market that entire day. She always comes in to the market. It’s what she does, all she does as far as I can tell. Addy was worried about her, I remember.”

“There could have been a good reason,” I said as I tried to imagine Evie stabbing Reggie with a tree spike. It wasn’t all that difficult to picture.

“Yes, there could have been, but she said one more thing that got my attention. She said that she’s ‘going
back
to Monson tonight, to visit the tree parade.’ She said ‘back,’ so I asked her when she’d last been to Monson, and she quit talking.”

“Interesting.” It was, but I wasn’t sure it meant much of anything.

“I thought so, too, particularly if her last visit was the day Reggie was killed. Anyway, I stopped by the police station but Sam wasn’t there and I don’t really know any of the other officers. Your house is on my way to Carl’s, so I stopped. I hope it’s okay that I was walking around.”

“Of course,” I said. Mamma didn’t need to know she might have prompted me to finally improve my currently nonexistent security system.

“Good. I gotta go, but it’s the last thing that Evie told me that probably kept me from telling the other officers. Sam . . . well, Sam’s a friend, and I knew he wouldn’t think it was weird, but even though Evie wouldn’t tell me who the affair was with, she did tell me what the woman looked like.”

“And?”

“Me. She looked like me—according to Evie, pretty, blonde, with a big bosom—and I’m quoting that last part. I’d just say ‘boobs.’”

The world wasn’t full of women who looked like Mamma Maria, at least not naturally. The doll ornament had made me hyperaware of pretty, blonde women. I knew Mamma hadn’t had an affair with Reggie; she was far too young. Mamma’s conversation with Evie made me realize I’d been on the right track, though—the doll had been meant to portray Reggie’s illicit girlfriend. At that point, I thought that Patricia Archer or Stephanie Frugit must be the other woman. In my mind, I thought I could narrow it down further. Stephanie Frugit might live a lonely, isolated life, but I didn’t think she’d sought out an old love. She didn’t strike me as a person who ever went backward. If anyone, at the moment, Patricia was the most suspicious.

As for Evie not being at the Smithfield Market the day Reggie was killed, that might be important news. Sam needed to know about that, and he needed to know that she had plans to be at the parade that evening.

“I’ll tell Sam,” I said.

As Mamma walked to her car, she added, “Look for her tonight. Have Sam look for her. I can’t imagine that she’s attending the Christmas tree parade in Monson without a mission in mind. Maybe she’s going to confront the other woman—or something worse.”

Could she really be a threat? Anything was possible.

“I’ll call Sam right away,” I assured her.

Hobbit and I watched as Mamma steered the sedan up and out of the driveway.

“Did you hide inside first or did you just greet her without regard for your own safety?” I said to Hobbit.

The tail wag told me she’d done the second one. I sighed.

“Come on. Let’s call Sam.”

• • • 

Sam still hadn’t tracked down Brenton. I told him the latest addition to the case and my thoughts about Stephanie and Patricia, but he was still hesitant to base suspicions on looks.

He was also interested in Evie’s actions, both this evening and the day of Reggie’s murder.

We made arrangements to meet at the parade. I was glad we’d spent yesterday evening enjoying our time together, because it sounded like Sam might be pulled a few different directions this evening. Duty called.

Hobbit would be a fine date anyway.

After some baking time and a short, restless nap, I loaded more cookies into the truck. I helped Hobbit into the passenger side and we headed for downtown. I’d switched into jeans and a thicker sweater because of the increasing chill in the air. The quickly darkening sky showed no sign of stars or moon. The chill was a good fit for the upcoming holiday and the air smelled perfectly clean and crisp.

Somehow the clouds formed a sort of pocket, and the lights from the decorations—those on the trees and those everywhere else—bounced off the bottom of the dark ceiling above and made it seem like downtown Monson and the parade were parts of our own little private, well-lit party. UFOs wouldn’t spot us under the cloud cover this night. I liked the pocket, but I also suddenly hoped for a little snow. No matter the paper tablecloths, a dust of white would be a perfect touch.

With no sign of Sam yet, Hobbit and I traveled slowly down one side of the parade and up the other. The crowd was huge, but only a little bigger than normal. The Saturday-night group was traditionally bigger than Friday’s, and last night’s had been healthily large. The thirty-minute trip from Smithfield was usually too far for a big influx, but I suspected the neighboring town’s contingent was larger this year than in previous years. Finding a place to park had been unusually difficult and the number of unfamiliar faces meant the parade’s reach was only growing.

I enjoyed looking at the trees again and consuming a multitude of treats, but I was anxious, too. I hoped I’d find or hear from Sam soon. I hoped he’d found Brenton and someone who looked like Mamma Maria who claimed to have had an affair with Reggie. I hoped Evie wasn’t spiking someone to death.

“Miss Becca,” a voice behind me said.

“Evie, hi! What a surprise,” I said when I turned. Speak of the devil. And, there were no spikes in sight.

She was different. It was as though she’d cleaned up, brushed her hair. I wasn’t much for frou-frou, but Evie carried herself a little differently, as though she’d been infused with a boost of confidence; or maybe it was self-respect.

“I haven’t been to this neck of woods in a long time. It’s good to get out a bit,” she said.

If that was true, she hadn’t come to Monson the day Reggie was killed like Mamma had perhaps thought. I hoped it was true.

I didn’t truly understand why Evie had come to the parade, but I thought her appearance must have something to do with the fact that there was no chance she’d be running into her ex-husband. I hoped that wasn’t because of something she’d done. For some reason, I’d taken a quick liking to her.

“It’s good to see you. I’d love to grab you a hot chocolate or something.”
And let Sam know you’re here,
I thought.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. I don’t want to hold you up, either. I’m here to look around, hopefully get into the holiday spirit some. Hello there,” she said to Hobbit as she leaned over to scratch behind my dog’s ears. Hobbit liked making new friends who knew how to scratch behind her ears.

“I wanted to talk to you again soon anyway. I was talking to my parents about our visit and they not only remember you, they worked on your campaign.”

Evie straightened up and her eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yes, their names are Jason and Polly Robins.”

Evie smiled. “This world just gets smaller all the time. I’ll be; you’re their daughter?”

“One of them. My sister, Allison, is the Bailey’s manager.”

Evie laughed. “I’ll be,” she repeated. “Any chance your parents are here?”

“I’d say there’s a huge chance. We’ll find them.”

We walked together, very tall Evie and short me, with Hobbit in between us. I thought about asking her for details about the woman who looked like Mamma Maria, but I didn’t want her to regret that she’d confided in Mamma, so I kept that to myself. For now.

It wasn’t until I’d reunited Evie with my parents that something very obvious became a solid and probably important thought.

Evie—Evelyn to Polly and Jason—was hugging Mom and telling her that she actually looked better now than she did in the eighties, that she’d made a good hippie but the grown-up clothes and hair suited her much better. Sam had also probably contributed to the idea that pinged in my head when he was reticent to base suspicions on looks.

I agreed with Evie that Mom looked great, and so did Dad, but they also looked different. It would have been impossible not to look older, no matter how well you took care of yourself.

And Mamma Maria’s twin from the 1980s just might not look like the Mamma of today.

I stepped away from Mom, Dad, and Evie and gathered my thoughts as I looked out to the crowd. Unless I had snapshots from the past, how would I know who might have looked like Mamma and the ornament?

Or perhaps the woman had aged extraordinarily well and had just changed her hair color. That took me back to Stephanie. Had she been blonde instead of strawberry-blonde back then? I didn’t know.

Sometimes chance plays a big role in what feels like a futile search, but it is a rare gift and one that should never be ignored.

As I was drowning in my own disconnected ideas, I happened to glance across the street and see two people I’d recently met: Joel and Patricia Archer. They’d been cagey, uncomfortable, and distant. And what had Gellie said about them? That they used to work for Reggie and that they offered to help out again this year with the trees. They were currently inspecting a patriotic tree, all red, white, and blue. They were deep in conversation with each other. I looked at Evie and considered her quick transformation into someone who might want to step back into society. I hated to interrupt, but not enough.