Aunt Dimity: Detective (7 page)

Theodore Bunting's mouth twitched with a suggestion of a smile, and Lilian beamed as happily as if her husband had burst into song. As I watched the vicar tuck into his green salad, I felt a surge of confidence in my newly launched joint venture.

Nicholas truly did have a way with people.

Chapter 8

The luncheon was more enjoyable than anyone could have anticipated. Lilian made sure that our conversation centered on my recent visit to the States—anything to divert her husband's attention from local events—while Nicholas and I attempted to polish off the roast beef, new potatoes, fresh asparagus, and assorted side dishes that Lilian had so lovingly prepared. We were attacking the dessert—a dreamy crème brûlée speckled with freshly ground vanilla beans—when I sat up abruptly and stared out of the window.

“You could charm the whiskers off a cat,” I said to Nicholas. “How are you with dragons?”

“Undaunted,” he owned.

“Then polish up your armor,” I told him, “because we're about to do battle.”

Nicholas followed my gaze in time to see Peggy Taxman walk determinedly past the vicarage. She was dressed in black from head to toe and gripped a cellophane-wrapped floral bouquet in both hands.

“She's going to the churchyard,” said Lilian. “She goes there every day. She must be spending a small fortune on flowers.”

“Worldly wealth is of little consequence when one has lost a friend,” the vicar observed.

“Be that as it may,” Lilian said tartly, “I've never known worldly wealth to be of little consequence to Mrs. Taxman.”

While his aunt and uncle debated the point, Nicholas calmly finished his crème brûlée and put down his spoon.

“I've been meaning to pay my respects to the dead,” he murmured. His sea-green eyes twinkled as he gave me a sidelong look. “Care to join me?”

“I'll bring the gilded gingerbread,” I said. “You bring the graveside manner.”

 

 

Saint George's Church stood at the top of Saint George's Lane in the midst of a manicured churchyard bounded by a low stone wall and entered by means of a shingle-roofed lych-gate. It was a tranquil place, crisscrossed with graveled paths, dotted with weathered tombs, and shaded in summer by two towering cedars of Lebanon.

Aunt Dimity's mortal remains were buried there, beneath a tangle of vines that would soon be awash in a froth of fragrant pink roses. I was irrationally pleased when I saw that her final resting place was nowhere near Mrs. Hooper's. I doubted there would ever be two less kindred spirits.

Saint George's newest grave had been dug at the front of the churchyard, in the tussocky southwest corner. We spotted Peggy Taxman standing over it as we came up the lane. She stood facing us but gazing downward, her eyes closed and hands folded, as if in prayer. By the time we'd passed through the lych-gate, she'd finished her devotions and stooped to tweak her most recent floral offering into a more pleasing position.

I crept toward her, bracing myself for the first blast of her voice. Peggy Taxman was neither tall nor unusually wide, and her attire was exactly what one would expect of a middle-aged woman in mourning, but the sheer force of her personality more than made up for her modest appearance. When she spoke, Finch trembled.

“Good afternoon, Peggy,” I said, crossing to the far side of the grave. “Forgive me for intruding, but I wanted to let you know how sorry I was to hear about your friend.”

“Thank you,” she said in unnaturally subdued tones. She favored Nicholas with a measuring look as he came up beside me. “You're Lilian Bunting's nephew. Nicholas, isn't it? You've been calling on the Pyms, I hear.”

If Nicholas was surprised by Peggy's artless demonstration of the grapevine's efficiency, he didn't show it.

“The kind sisters took pity on a footsore rambler,” he said politely.

“Did they take pity on you, too, Lori?” Peggy's eyes narrowed shrewdly behind her rhinestone-studded glasses. “I heard that you dropped in on them on your way to the vicarage.”

“Ruth and Louise asked me to deliver their gilded gingerbread,” I answered half-truthfully. I looked down at the grave to avoid Peggy's penetrating stare. The upright headstone, with its crisply carved inscription, stood in sharp contrast to its lichen-clad and crazily tilting neighbors. “Their motor, er, car isn't working.”

“First I've heard of it,” Peggy snapped. “I suppose they're waiting for Mr. Barlow to repair it. Did they say when he'd be back?”

“No,” I replied. “The only thing they told us was that he'd gone up north to visit relatives.”

“No one seems to know when he'll be back,” Peggy grumbled. “It's suspicious, if you ask me.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Don't you know?” Peggy barked. “Billy Barlow left town the same day Prunella died. At the crack of dawn, so I've heard. And no one's had a word from him since.”

“No one would expect to hear from him,” I reminded her. “Mr. Barlow never keeps in touch with anyone in Finch when he's away.”

“That's as may be,” Peggy growled irritably. “But what was he doing out there on the square so early in the morning? That's what I'd like to know. The police would, too, I've no doubt.”

I quaked in my boots at the resurgence of Peggy's familiar, unsubdued personality but ventured gamely, “He was probably taking Buster for a walk before the drive up north.”

Peggy scowled but admitted that I might be right. It was common knowledge that Mr. Barlow was mad about his terrier.

“Far be it from me to cast aspersions,” Peggy intoned, “but no one can deny that Mr. Barlow didn't get on with Prunella.”

“He must be hard to please,” Nicholas observed. “My aunt and uncle told me that Mrs. Hooper was an admirable woman.”

Peggy looked at him closely, as if suspecting sarcasm, but Nicholas's face betrayed nothing more than sincere sympathy.

“She
was
an admirable woman,” Peggy insisted. “She may not have been everyone's cup of tea, but she was a good friend to me.”

“No one can be everyone's cup of tea,” Nicholas reasoned.

“She took an interest in people,” Peggy went on. “There's no harm in that, is there?”

“No harm at all,” Nicholas soothed.

Peggy's gaze slewed toward me. “Seems she had good cause to take an interest in Nell Harris's welfare.”

A red mist seemed to float before my eyes, and my grip tightened on the box of gingerbread. If Nicholas's elbow hadn't pressed lightly against mine, I would have made a heart-felt effort to knock Peggy Taxman's block off.

“I'm sure that Mrs. Hooper took an interest in everyone's welfare,” he said. “I know that she was enormously helpful to my uncle. He thought the world of her floral arrangements.”

“She wanted to be of service to the church,” Peggy said earnestly, successfully diverted from making further snide remarks about Nell's so-called welfare. “If the vicar chose her to dress the font for Easter, it was because he knew she'd do it well. And if his decision put a certain person's nose out of joint, it wasn't Prunella's fault. Though to hear a certain person talk, you'd think Prunella had plotted and connived to get the job.”

“Which she would never do,” Nicholas interjected, “because there was no need.”

“No need at all.” Peggy clasped her hands at her waist and sniffed haughtily. “Still, resentment can lead to anger, and anger to retaliation. I'm not saying that it did, mind you, but everyone knows that that it can.
Particularly,
” she added, with a significant nod, “when a certain person is as short-tempered as a troll.” She bent to give the cellophane-wrapped bouquet a final tweak, then straightened. “You must come by the Emporium, Nicholas. I'd like to introduce you to my husband.”

“It would be an honor,” said Nicholas. He pried my hands from the box of gingerbread and presented it to Peggy. “Please accept this gift from the Pyms with their best wishes for a joyous Easter—as joyous as it can be, under the circumstances.”

“Thank you,” Peggy said, accepting the tribute with regal dignity. “And welcome home, Lori. It'll be good to see you back in church on Sunday—you and
your husband.
He's back from London Saturday, isn't he? I'm sure you'll be glad to see him.” Without deigning to wait for a reply, she marched out of the churchyard and down Saint George's Lane, toward the square.

When she'd disappeared from view, Nicholas took me by the shoulders and subjected my face to a minute inspection. As his eyes darted from my forehead to my chin, I couldn't help thinking that his craggy features weren't so much homely as
interesting,
full of character, kindness, and a certain elemental strength.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Checking for scorch marks.” He released his hold and stood back. “I think she may have singed your eyebrows with that last crack about your husband, but otherwise you seem to be unscathed. How about me?”

“I think Peggy wants to adopt you,” I said, laughing. I sobered then and added quietly, “Thanks for steering her away from Kit. If you hadn't been here—”

“Anger would have led to retaliation,” he finished sententiously, “as it so often does.” He walked over to sit on the low stone wall. “What a remarkable performance. What was it the Pym sisters said? ‘Mrs. Hooper stung her victims, and now they sting each other'? Mrs. Taxman is bubbling over with venom.”

I kicked a clod of mud into a clump of grass. “It's amazing how many people she didn't cast aspersions on.”

“Let's see,” said Nicholas. “There's Mr. Barlow, who didn't get on with Mrs. Hooper and whose whereabouts are conspicuously unknown. There's Kit, the convenient scapegoat. And there's the certain person who resented Mrs. Hooper's church activities.”

“The certain troll-tempered person?” I squashed another mud ball beneath my heel before walking over to sit beside Nicholas. “It's got to be Sally Pyne. She owns the tearoom, and she's always been in charge of decorating the baptismal font at Easter. I'll bet she was ready to spit tacks when the vicar gave the job to Pruneface.”

“But was she ready to inflict bodily harm on the usurper?” Nicholas brushed his hair back from his face and let his gaze travel slowly around the churchyard.

The air was sweet and still and filled with birdsong. A pair of robins scouted the cowslips for worms, a chaffinch flickered from one tomb to another, and a flock of twittering cousins filled the cedars' wide-spread branches.

I settled myself more comfortably on the wall and mused aloud: “It doesn't seem right to mention violence in such a peaceful place.”

Nicholas folded his arms. “I'm sure the dead don't mind.”

“You'd be surprised,” I quipped, and promptly wished the words unspoken.

It was too late, however. Nicholas was already giving me an inquisitive sidelong look.

“I'd be extremely surprised to learn that the dead mind anything,” he said. “Wouldn't you?”

I fixed my gaze on Pruneface Hooper's grave and replied cautiously, “I've had some unusual experiences in England. It may sound crazy to you, but those experiences have led me to believe that a person's spirit can be quite active even after his body has turned to dust.”

“Interesting.” Nicholas pursed his lips, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Let's hope Mrs. Hooper's spirit isn't one that remains active. She caused more than enough trouble in the flesh.”

I felt a surge of relief and gratitude, as if Nicholas had helped me leap a treacherous hurdle. Still, I was appalled by my indiscretion. I never breathed a word about my experiences with Aunt Dimity to any but the closest friends and family, yet here I was, discussing my views on the afterlife with a man I'd known for less than forty-eight hours.

“Nicholas,” I said. “Has anyone ever told you that you're easy to talk to? Peggy doesn't usually confide in strangers, but she couldn't stop yammering at you. As for me, if I'm not careful, I'll wind up giving you my secret recipe for oatmeal cookies.”

“I'd refuse to listen.” Nicholas wrapped his arms around his stomach and groaned. “I'm far too full to even think about food.”

“In that case, we'd better wait until tomorrow to do the tearoom,” I said. “Because Sally Pyne will insist on feeding us, and everything she makes is rich and gooey.”

Nicholas shuddered and readily agreed to meet me at the tearoom at ten the following morning. As we made our way back to the vicarage, I doubted that anyone's secrets would be safe for long from my secret weapon. Finch didn't stand a chance against the easygoing, charming Mr. Fox.

Chapter 9

I reported in to Aunt Dimity as soon as Annelise and I had put the twins to bed.

“We have liftoff,” I announced upon opening the blue journal. “The investigation into the untimely death of Pruneface Hooper is under way.”

Hoorah.
Aunt Dimity's elegant copperplate curled and looped across the page without betraying undue signs of great excitement.
Have you garnered any useful tidbits?

“Maybe.” I leaned back in the leather armchair and put my feet up on the ottoman. “It seems that Mr. Barlow was on the square the morning Mrs. Hooper was killed and that he disappeared shortly thereafter. He hasn't been heard from since.”