A Death in Duck: Lindsay Harding Cozy Mystery Series (Reverend Lindsay Harding Mystery Book 2) (7 page)

The rain steadily increased, and the pickup’s windshield wipers began to struggle to keep up with the downpour. As they approached the turn off for Aunt Harding’s house, Lindsay saw the headlights of a fast-approaching truck. The 4x4 custom dictated that, where the sand road narrowed, the car with more room to pull off should yield the right of way. This avoided the very real possibility of forcing a fellow traveler into the soft sand at the shoulder. “What does this dingbatter think he’s doing?” Simmy mumbled to herself, using the Outer Banks slang that described fools and mainland dwellers. “Probably one of these numbskulls who thinks that just because there’s no pavement out here that there’s no rules about how to drive.” She shifted into a lower gear. The other driver sped past several easy pull-off points and continued to bear down on them.

“Simmy, I think you’d better pull off. He’s not slowing down.”

“Thank you for that helpful observation, honey. But as you can see, there’s no place to pull off unless you want to hit a tree or end up boob-deep in sand and mud.”

The approaching headlights became ever larger, filling Lindsay’s vision like twin suns on a black horizon. It was clear that the truck was going to run straight into them or run them off the road. At the last possible moment, Simmy managed to wrench the truck into a little spit of sandy shoulder. A red Ford truck roared past them, seemingly heedless of the near collision.

“Flippin’ flapjacks!” Simmy cried. She tried to rock the truck free, gunning the engine and shifting through the gears. “I think we’re stuck. And look at this. My hair’s gone all whomperjawed.” Her wig had tipped backwards, revealing the thin wisps of gray hair underneath. She pulled it back into place and clicked her tongue. They hopped out of the truck and discovered that they were indeed deeply mired in a bank of soft, wet sand. Simmy climbed back into the cab and tried rocking the car back and forth again, but the pickup was tipped forward at an odd angle, preventing it from gaining enough purchase to extract itself.

“I’ll try to push it,” Lindsay offered.

“No offense, baby, but you and I together weigh about as much as a swallow’s nest. I don’t think we’re going to budge this thing.”

“Well, maybe we should just walk the rest of the way. It’s only another half mile. Aunt Harding can pull us out with her truck.”

Simmy sighed. “I guess we don’t have a choice. Not likely that there’s gonna be much passing traffic tonight.”

“Did you recognize the truck?” Lindsay asked. Most of the locals, especially old-timers like Simmy, knew each other’s vehicles.

“Nope. Must’ve been one of the renters from further up the beach. They come out here for the solitude, but then half the time, they’ll run outta beer mid-party and have to make an emergency run down to the liquor store,” she frowned with disdain and continued to comb through her wig with her thin fingers. “That maniac must have been going 50 miles an hour. In a storm like this, he must have been trying to commit suicide.”

“Or homicide,” Lindsay whispered, the words so quiet that Simmy didn’t hear her above the sound of the rain.

Chapter 7

Aunt Harding’s weather-beaten little house looked the same as it had when Lindsay first arrived, in the back of a stranger’s Land Rover, 25 years before. After her parents’ arrest, the six-year-old Lindsay had been driven from Mount Moriah to Corolla by the social worker who had been assigned to her case. The trip was long and tedious, and in a time before GPS and Google maps, the road’s abrupt end took the poor woman by surprise. The social worker had climbed out of her old Buick, leaned against the hood, and lit up a Virginia Slim. Lindsay had sat silently in the backseat, staring with wide eyes.

At last, a wizened old ‘Banker had pulled up, listened to their plight, and offered to deliver the little girl to Patricia Harding’s doorstep. He was going hunting up that way anyway, he reckoned. Without hesitation, the social worker loaded the two plastic garbage bags filled with Lindsay’s things into the man’s vehicle and drove off. No paperwork. No home check. Just up and left. In hindsight, Lindsay could hardly believe that such a thing was possible, but she’d checked her version of events with Aunt Harding, who had confirmed it to be true.

As they trudged toward the house, Simmy hesitated. “I think I’ll just wait by the truck, honey. You can come out and meet me.”

“Don’t be silly, Simmy. Your hands are still shaking after that drive, and the weather’s only getting worse. The temperature’s dropping fast, and you’re not dressed for it.”

“I’m not sure Patty wants me there. We didn’t part on the best of terms last time I saw her.” Simmy looked genuinely nervous about going inside.

“It’s Christmas Eve. Even Scrooge has a soft spot for Christmas.”

Simmy and Lindsay sloshed up the front steps to the covered porch. Although Aunt Harding had the house painted regularly, the elements were always one step ahead of any maintenance regimen. Over time, the front door had taken on the weathered appearance of driftwood. The narrow covered porch that wrapped around the house on two sides did little to shield them from the pelting rain.

Lindsay had made the long walk carrying her large travel backpack over her shoulders and holding a Tupperware box containing her Jell-O mold. She handed the Tupperware box to Simmy and tried the door, but, to her dismay, she found it locked. She pounded with her fist, hoping to be heard over the sound of the wind. As her knocks announced their presence, the staccato barking of a large dog bore down on them from inside the house. They could hear the dog thundering toward the door like a charging rhino. Lindsay looked at Simmy in wonderment. Aunt Harding had never kept a pet, and had always seemed far more likely to shoot an animal than keep one in her house. Simmy didn’t meet Lindsay’s gaze; her eyes were fixed on the door, as if she doubted its ability to contain the animal on the opposite side.

“Hush, Kipper! I said hush!” Aunt Harding’s sharp command silenced the dog. The old woman opened the door. But only a crack. “Who’s there?” she called suspiciously.

“It’s me, Aunt Harding. Did you forget I was coming?”

“Who’s that with you?”

“Simmy.”

“Why’s she here?”

“Let us in. We’re soaked.”

Aunt Harding reluctantly backed away from the door and allowed them to pass. Lindsay’s eyes first fell on the menacing visage of a black and orange Doberman. It stood rigidly alongside Aunt Harding, coiled like a cobra about to strike. Her eyes flitted around as she tried to remember if it was best to make or avoid eye contact with a fierce dog. She settled for avoidance. There was no way on earth she was going to convince that creature that she was the Alpha dog.

As she took stock of her surroundings, she saw that the addition of the ferocious dog wasn’t the only dramatic transformation the house had undergone since she had last visited. In the past, the furnishings had reflected their owner—Spartan, hard, and not designed to entertain. The dominant piece of furniture in the house was a large steel gun safe, which stood in one corner of the dining room. Aunt Harding had always kept a collection of a few dozen guns, mostly antiques and rifles for duck hunting. Lindsay had been fascinated by the weapons when she was a child—by the way Aunt Harding caressed them with a cleaning cloth with a gentleness she never showed to people, by the way their disassembled components would lay in orderly lines across the dining room table like soldiers mustering for battle. Lindsay was never given the combination to the safe, and she never asked for it. Even when Aunt Harding gave her a rifle for her tenth Christmas, she had to relinquish it to be locked away for safekeeping whenever it wasn’t in use.

The house still held little in the way of soft furnishings—it remained the only home Lindsay had ever seen that didn’t contain a sofa. Yet, it had undergone an undeniable softening. Flowered curtains hung in the windows. A fleece blanket was draped over the back of one of the wooden chairs which served as the living room furniture. There was even a two-foot tall, plastic Christmas tree on top of the gun safe. It rotated in its stand and lit up with a rainbow of LED colors.

Most surprising of all, the smell of home cooking filled the house. Aunt Harding’s culinary repertoire had consisted mainly of oatmeal, baked potatoes, and cheese on toast. If she’d had a good day fishing, she was occasionally known to fry up a fillet of black drum or king mullet in butter. Even all these years later, Lindsay felt slightly cheated that she had spent the best years of her childhood in a place that was totally devoid of chocolate chip cookies or ketchup, with a woman who thought of butter as a luxury.

“Well, you gonna stand there gawping like a caught fish, or are you gonna get inside?” Aunt Harding demanded.

Aunt Harding herself seemed unaltered by the passage of years. The same stout little body. The same Brillo pad of tightly curled, gray hair cropped close to her head. The same implacable set to her heavy jaw.

Lindsay and Simmy passed further into the room. As Lindsay set down her backpack and Jell-O mold, the dog issued a low, frightening growl.  “Good Lord!” Lindsay said, taking a few steps backwards. “You never mentioned that you got a dog.”

“Or a rabid Grizzly bear,” Simmy mumbled under her breath.

“This is Kipper,” Aunt Harding said, indicating the creature with a nod of her head. “He’s a good guard dog. Kipper, go lay down.” Kipper sauntered moodily across the room and lay down on the rug. His eyes never left them.

“Is everything all right, Aunt Harding?” Lindsay asked, returning Kipper’s wary stare.

“’Course it is.”

“I waited at the bait store for a long time.”

“Something came up.”

“Are you sure everything’s okay? You’re never late. And the house looks so…different. Also, when did you get Kipper?”

“What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

“I’m worried about you. Simmy says that you’ve basically become a recluse and you hardly leave the house.”

Aunt Harding glared at Simmy. “I don’t care what people say about me. I ain’t runnin’ for office.”

Simmy could no longer hold her tongue. “You left Lindsay standing around for hours in the cold on Christmas Eve and you don’t even have the decency to apologize? We both know that you owe her an explanation. About a lot of things,” she snapped.

“I don’t remember inviting you. In fact, I distinctly remember tellin’ you to go to hell,” Aunt Harding said.

“Fine,” Simmy said, shooting Lindsay an “I told you so” look and turning to go.

Lindsay grabbed her arm. “Aunt Harding, we were just nearly run over by a maniac on the way here. Simmy’s truck is stuck in the sand about a half mile up the road.”

“She can walk. She’s survived worse weather than this.”

Lindsay kept hold of Simmy’s sleeve. This was partly to keep Simmy from storming out, but more to keep the older woman upright. She could feel Simmy shivering violently, and she seemed suddenly unsteady on her feet.

“You cooked?” Lindsay asked. For the first time, she noticed that the dinner table was elaborately set with wine glasses, cloth napkins, and candles. “Why are there three places set for dinner?”

Aunt Harding sighed, but the sound emerged as more of a snort. “Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you. I have a lodger. We’re all having Christmas Eve dinner together.” She called over her shoulder, “Lindsay’s here! You can come out.”

A moment later, the swinging door to the kitchen burst open, and a petite middle-aged blonde woman emerged, carrying a roast chicken on a platter. She smiled brightly at Lindsay and loudly said, “Surprise!” She acknowledged Simmy as she set the platter down on the table. “I guess I’d better set out another plate.”

Simmy’s twig-thin arms flailed towards Lindsay. Lindsay herself was so shocked that she could barely keep the older woman on her feet. Even as Simmy slumped into her arms, Lindsay was unable to take her eyes off the blonde woman.

“Is she all right, sugar? Do you need help?” The woman asked. She rushed towards them with a look of concern that Lindsay was convinced was every bit as fake as the woman’s thick, black eyelashes.

“You stay away, Sarabelle. I can handle her myself.”

Chapter 8

Lindsay entered the small spare bedroom carrying a juice glass half filled with bourbon. Simmy lay with her eyes partly closed in the narrow bed—the same bed Lindsay had slept in for four years of her childhood. While Simmy had managed with great effort to keep from fainting, she remained weak-voiced and wobbly.

“I’m sorry to make such a spectacle of myself, honey. I think that business with the truck and all that cold rain affected me worse than I thought. Seeing your mama pop outta the kitchen like a jack-in-the-box was just one shock too many for my nerves. Sometimes, when I forget that I’m old, my body finds a way of reminding me.” She propped herself up and took a grateful sip of the bourbon. “You probably need a drink more than I do. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t imagine why Aunt Harding would invite that scheming viper into her house.”

“It must’ve been quite a surprise for you.”

“Surprise?! Honestly, I would have been less surprised to find Vladimir Putin and Smurfette having a tea party in my kitchen. I think I will have a drink after all,” Lindsay said, taking a swig of Simmy’s bourbon. “Did you know she stole my father’s Billy Graham Bible? What kind of person steals a Bible from a minister?” She shook her head in disgust.

“It’s sometimes hard to believe that y’all are related.”

“Strange but true. Flugelhorns originally came from Germany, but so did Nazis.”

“Now, honey, like it or not, that woman gave birth to you. She’s family. You can’t burn that bridge.”

“I didn’t burn it. She did. Then I rebuilt it, and she set it on fire again. That woman is a serial bridge burner.”

There was a sharp knock, and the door flew open to reveal Aunt Harding standing there, flanked by her ferocious dog. “Supper’s gettin’ cold. Y’all coming or not?”

“Patty, don’t you think you owe Lindsay an explanation? It should really come from you.”

Aunt Harding emitted another snort-sigh. “Fine. But only ‘cause I don’t like eating cold chicken. If you must know, Sarabelle showed up on my doorstep a few months ago. She’d lost her apartment, her man, her car. She was thin as a rake, practically starving.”
              “She brought all that on herself! My dad told you what she did. She tried to blackmail him. She sicced that scumbag boyfriend of hers on us and God only knows what he would’ve done to us if he hadn’t been arrested!” Lindsay’s voice was so shrill she feared that it could only be heard by Kipper. “Anyway, since when do you have such a tender heart? I’ve never known you to take someone else’s problems on yourself.”

“What do you think I did when you turned up on my doorstep? Were you my problem? No. But I wasn’t gonna let you end up in some nasty foster home, getting the fire beat outta your scrawny behind every day by some other strange orphan children that nobody else wanted.”

The shot hit home, and Lindsay felt the familiar ache of her parents’ abandonment and the familiar sting of Aunt Harding’s frostiness. When Lindsay spoke again, her words were quieter.
“She’s not even a blood relation to you.”

“But she is to you, so why don’t you act like it. Now y’all come on out here and eat this damn chicken.”

Lindsay considered her options. She could head out in the stinging rain and pitch darkness to spend a couple of hours trying to winch Simmy’s Toyota out of a sandbank with a tow rope. She could hide in the bedroom, drinking bourbon until her liver exploded. Or she could go out into the dining room and eat Christmas Eve dinner with the person she most despised in the world.

Five minutes later, Lindsay was sitting at the table, filling her plate with mashed potatoes and buttered carrots. Sarabelle might be a despicable human being, but there was no denying that the woman could cook.

Simmy sat next to her, still looking nervous and slightly wobbly. Aunt Harding perched at the opposite side of the table, stiff as a concrete pillar. Sarabelle sat at the head of the table wearing full makeup and a smile straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. “I’m so glad you decided to join us, sugar. It’s real good of you to overlook that situation we had last summer,” she said to Lindsay.

Lindsay glared at her. “Aunt Harding, I hope you counted your silverware and locked up all your medications.”

Sarabelle ignored the insult and continued, “I even got myself a job in town. Just started a couple of weeks ago. I’m decorating cakes down at the Food Lion during the holiday season. The people there are real nice. Mr. Price? He’s the manager? Says he might want to take me on permanent. Says I’m real fast.”

“Yeah, I bet a lot of men say that about you,” Lindsay snapped.

Sarabelle carried on speaking as if she were engaged in an entirely different, completely civil conversation with her daughter. “Ain’t this nice?” she sighed. “After all these years, to have Christmas all together as a family. It’s a shame your daddy couldn’t be here to join us.”

“He finally divorced you, you know. All that stuff last summer was the last straw.”

Sarabelle inhaled sharply, as if she’d been kicked. “Can’t be. I never signed any papers.”

“It’s all official. The notice was in the newspaper. The court date happened just before Thanksgiving.”

Sarabelle’s fork screeched across her plate. “I hadn’t heard that.” Her mouth tightened.

“You didn’t tell her?” Lindsay asked Aunt Harding.

“There was no reason to tell her,” Aunt Harding said coolly. “She’s happy here with me. She’d only have gotten her knickers all in a knot about it.”

Sarabelle rose abruptly from the table, causing Kipper to leap to attention. She soothed him with a quivering voice. “It’s okay, baby. Mama just needs to check something in the kitchen.”

As soon as Sarabelle left the room, Lindsay wheeled around on Aunt Harding. “It’s so nice to hear that Sarabelle is happy out here with you. I’ve been
so
concerned about her happiness ever since she and her boyfriend robbed and stalked me and my dad last summer.” Again, Lindsay’s voice rose to a screech. “How can you have that woman in your house?!”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you or anybody else. All’s I’m gonna say is that it suits me. I have my reasons. And as long as you’re stayin’ under my roof, you’re gonna be civil to her.” A warning look passed between Aunt Harding and Simmy, but it was so lightning quick that Lindsay didn’t have time to read the meaning behind it.

“Maybe you should go talk to Sarabelle, Lindsay?” Simmy suggested.

“No.” Lindsay concentrated on her plate. She was a notoriously picky eater, and normally she subsisted on a diet of peanut butter, coffee, sugary cereal, and bananas. When it came to Sarabelle’s food, though, she had always been able to eat like a champion. Now, however, she pushed the food around irritably.

Simmy sensed her roiling emotions and put a comforting hand on top of hers. “I know this is hard, honey. But talking to her might make you feel better. Just try. For me, okay?”

Lindsay looked at her over the top of her glasses and frowned.

“You should listen to Simmy. For once, she’s not talkin’ a load of manure,” Aunt Harding said.

Lindsay could see that she was outnumbered, but she still couldn’t bring herself to yield to their pressure. Why should she make peace? Sarabelle was the one who didn’t belong there. Tears sprang to her eyes. Lindsay hated the person she became when her mother was around—moody, uncertain, and brittle as late winter ice.

“Please, honey. It’d be your Christmas gift to me,” Simmy said gently. Her liquid blue eyes were wide and pleading.

Lindsay squeezed Simmy’s hand and nodded reluctantly.

“And while you’re up, you can get me some more wine,” Aunt Harding added, holding up her empty glass.

Lindsay went into the kitchen to offer up a temporary truce. Sarabelle stood by the sink, her eyes puffy from crying. She looked every bit of her 50 years. Lindsay felt a small pang of remorse for her acid-tongued insults. She knew that the news of the divorce would hit Sarabelle hard. Despite everything, Jonah had stood by his wife for more than 30 years, and up until he filed for divorce, he had held true to his marriage vows. Sarabelle had clearly come to rely on his enduring faithfulness to her, and as she aged, she must have clung ever more desperately to the idea that she was somehow irresistible to him.               

“I clean forgot to turn the oven on for the pie,” Sarabelle said, looking utterly defeated. “It’s stone cold.” She smiled and hastily wiped her tear-streaked face with her sleeves.

“Oh.” Lindsay looked at her mother, who continued to stare at the pie with downcast eyes. Sarabelle’s breath was shaky; it was obvious she was trying with all her might not to cry in front of her daughter.

Despite her deep anger, Lindsay’s natural instinct to ease the suffering of her fellow human beings kicked in. “I brought Christmas Jell-O.” Lindsay extended the words to her mother like an olive branch.

“You made dessert?” Sarabelle said, her face instantly brightening. “That’s wonderful, baby! When did you learn how to cook?”

“Well, it’s not really cooking. That’s why I made it. I bought this little mold that makes Christmas bells. You just do a layer of green Jell-O for the bells and maraschino cherries for the clappers. Impossible to burn.”

“Thank you so much for bringing the Jell-O,” Sarabelle said, clutching her fists to her bosom like she’d just won the Miss America crown.

The two women walked back together into the dining room where they found Aunt Harding and Simmy bent towards each other, whispering furiously.

“It’s not up to you to decide,” Simmy hissed. When Aunt Harding caught sight of them, she slid back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her wide chest as if taken by a sudden chill.

Lindsay regarded them closely. There was clearly more to their feud than they were letting on, but whatever dark emotion had passed between them seemed to have slipped away before she could grab hold of it.

Simmy turned to her with a smile. “How’s dessert coming along?” she asked cheerfully.

“Lindsay’s just on her way to get it,” Sarabelle said, matching Simmy’s bright tone. Either she hadn’t noticed anything unusual, or she was allowing them all to preserve the illusion that everything was normal.

Lindsay retrieved the Tupperware from where she’d left it near the front door. The container had gotten wet in the rain so she used her sleeve to wipe the beads of moisture from the top.

“Here, honey. Go ahead and turn it out on this plate,” Sarabelle said, handing her a wide platter from the sideboard.

Lindsay flipped the box upside down and tapped it to release the Jell-O. A horrible sucking sound, like a clog being released from a drain, could be heard as the dessert slipped onto the platter. Lindsay pulled back the mold to reveal—boobs. A pair of lime green boobs complete with maraschino cherry nipples. Rainwater had apparently seeped into the container, causing the gelatin to settle in an unintended, and most unfortunate, shape.

“Oh no!” Lindsay said, horrified. She could feel heat rising from her cheeks and knew that they must be burning redder than the pornographic cherries.

Simmy and Sarabelle instantly exploded into torrents of laughter, and a hint of a smile even crept into the corners of Aunt Harding’s mouth. Always a master of comic timing, Simmy held the dish up at chest height to offer it around. “Dessert anyone?” she asked in a mock-breathy movie vixen voice. She gave a little Jell-O-wiggling shimmy as she held the dish out toward Aunt Harding. Lindsay’s embarrassment evaporated and she joined in as Simmy and Sarabelle collapsed into another round of hysterics.

While the three other women laughed, the usual grim set returned to Aunt Harding’s jaw. She shook her head. “I don’t like sweet stuff. Makes my teeth hurt.”

Simmy shoved the plate further toward her, causing the gelatinous bosoms to jiggle suggestively.

Sarabelle laughed so hard that she almost fell out of her chair. “Come on, Patty. Live a little,” she said.

Aunt Harding sniffed. “Live a little? For Pete’s sake, it’s boob Jell-O, not bungee jumping off a bridge.” While the others giggled and ate the obscene creation, Aunt Harding continued to wear her customary scowl, looking like a vegetarian in a slaughterhouse.

After dinner, Simmy and Lindsay went back out into the night to retrieve Simmy’s truck. Lindsay had vigorously declined Sarabelle’s strange offer to send Kipper along for protection. Aunt Harding had made no offers of help, but after some initial objections, she did deign to allow them to use her Chevy pickup. By the time they reached the place where the truck had been abandoned, the initial band of rain had passed, and a mass of cold air had moved in to take its place. With numb fingers and sore backs, the two women struggled to attach the tow rope. Finally, after an orgy of tire spinning and a fair bit of cussing, they managed to pull the stuck vehicle free.

Simmy sat in the driver’s seat of her truck, her wig crooked from exertion. She rolled down the window and spoke to Lindsay. “Well, honey, I hope you have a nice time with Patty and Sarabelle.”

Lindsay frowned. “I just don’t get it. Why didn’t she tell anyone that Sarabelle was staying there?”

“Maybe she was afraid you wouldn’t come if you knew. I know I would’ve been.”