Ellen McKenzie 04-Murder Half-Baked (9 page)

“You woke me up!” Her eyes opened, and her mouth snapped shut. “I sleep every day at this time. Pretty darned uncomfortable car you got. Couldn’t get the seat back. Police here yet? Took them long enough.”

My own mouth flapped open and closed a couple of times. Before I could say anything, Gary was at my window, a coffee flask in one hand, a slightly dented Styrofoam cup and a faded green plastic mug in the other. “I hope you both don’t mind black.”

Silently, I passed the Styrofoam cup to her and took the plastic mug. Luckily it was partway full, so I couldn’t see what probably resided on the bottom. My grumpy friend took a sip. “Dear God in heaven, what is this stuff? Tastes like dirty socks.”

I sniffed mine. She was right. “How long has this been in there?”

Gary’s face got red. “Don’t rightly remember. A couple of days?”

“More like a week,” the old lady grumbled. “You got any water?”

Gary took off, fast. I didn’t know if he went for water or just to get out of there. I could hardly blame him. I wondered if she was always like this, or if shock had made her irritable. I quit wondering.

“Was it Doctor Sadler? Roll this window down.”

I did as she asked, or rather
commanded
. “I don’t know. I didn’t get very close to it
…
the dead
…
him, and I don’t really know Doctor Sadler.”

“Humph. Lucky you. Meddlesome old fart. Thinks he knows everything, what’s best for everyone. Donates his time to the home and drives us all crazy. Calls us all old. What in tarnation does he think he is?” She paused to lean out the window and dumped her coffee on the gravel. “If that’s him up there, and I’d be willing to bet cash money it is, he won’t get any older.”

What a lovely day this was turning out to be. First my wedding cake was about to grow bright red poinsettias, then all the drama at Grace House, a corpse in the cemetery, and as an added extra bonus, I was sitting next to one of the most foul tempered old ladies I’d ever come up against.

“You mentioned a home.” I poured my own coffee out the window, crime scene or no crime scene. “Are you at Shady Meadows?”

“Do you know another old folks’ home in this godforsaken excuse for a town?”

I wasn’t sure which part of that to respond to. Maybe none of it, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t find out who she was or how she got here.

“Ah.” Now there was a real conversation starter. “I’m Ellen McKenzie. My family’s been here a long time. The Pages. Maybe you know my
...” It would have to be my grandmother. My mother was way too young to have ever hung out with this old lady.

“Miriam Page. I knew her. You don’t look a thing like her.”

Okay. We’d made some progress. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Probably because I didn’t give it.”

“You might want to now. We’ll need it for our records, you know, because you found the body and all that.”

I whirled around, banging my elbow on the steering wheel. Dan was standing at the window, a faint smile on his face.

“Ouch. Do you have to sneak up like that?”

“Who are you?” The old lady peered at him, distrust and suspicion blaring from her rheumy little eyes.

“This is Dan Dunham, chief of police of this God forsaken town.” It just slipped out. My elbow hurt, the day had been horrible, and I was rapidly getting as grumpy as my wizened companion.

Dan glanced at me, obviously surprised. He looked suspiciously as if he was going to laugh. I glared at him. He smiled back and turned his attention to the occupant of the passenger seat. “Can you tell us your name, ma’am? And what you were doing when you
…
u
h
…
found the
—
”

“The body?” She seemed to relish being blunt. “I’d come to put flowers on my late husband’s grave. He was a mean old goat, but I like to visit him. Rub it in that I’m still here and he’s not.”

Dan and I looked at each other. This time I thought he was going to laugh out loud. I didn’t think it was so funny. Her poor late husband had probably died in self-defense.

“That darn fool bus, Dial
-
a
-
something, dropped me off at the gate, wouldn’t take me inside,” she continued. “Took me awhile to climb that hill, and when I got up there, I saw the angel on the ground. Went over to have a look, and there he was, Doctor Sadler. All dead and bloody.”

“Did you see anyone else?” Dan was waving over one of his uniformed officers while he talked to her. “Anyone driving away, walking around?”

“Not a living soul.” She evidently thought this was funny, because she started to cackle.

Dan seemed to have lost his inclination to laugh. He looked pinched around the mouth. “Your name, ma’am?”

“Eloise Hudson. Mrs. Hudson to you youngsters.”

“You live
…
where, Mrs. Hudson?”

“Shady Acres, of course. Not that it’s so damned shady. Mowed down all the trees when they built the place and now there’s nothing but twigs. Not a leaf on any of them.”

I started to say something about December, natural for trees to lose their leaves in the winter. Instead, I let my head drop on the back of the seat. Let Dan deal with her. I wasn’t up to it.

“I gotta pee.”

For the first time, Dan seemed out of his depth. He looked around a little wildly, evidently
in search of
a facility, but there wasn’t one. He no longer depended on hand gestures. He hollered. “Jennifer, get over here.” A red-haired uniformed policewoman came running. “Mrs. Hudson,” he pointed
—
unnecessarily I thought
—
at the old lady, “found our victim. Now she needs to find a ladies room. Can you help her?”

“Take me home.” Mrs. Hudson’s tone left no room for argument. “It’s not that far.” I took another look at her, and for the first time, agreed.
She had turned a rather alarming shade of gray, and her mouth looked tight and colorless. Did they have a nurse at the home? I sure hoped so.

“Take her home, Jennifer. Do you have a car?”

“I came with Gary.”

“I’ll take care of Gary. Take the black and white and get her to the home. After she uses the bathroom, you might
ask for
a little more information on what she saw today.
What time she got here, all that.”

If Jennifer had been assigned a thirty-page essay on the history of ancient Greece, complete with footnotes and due tomorrow, she couldn’t have looked more appalled. She glanced at the old woman, then back at Dan. His face was pure stone. She sighed, went around the other side of the car, opened the door, and helped her charge to her feet. “Okay, Mrs. Hudson. My car is right over here.”

“Can we turn on the siren?” Head up, wispy white hair floating in the breeze, she
started
for the squad car almost at a trot. Poor Jennifer.

We watched them go. “Jen’s a good girl,” Dan finally said. “Hated to do that to her, but she’s a lot more likely to get something out of the old
…
dear
than anybody else.”

I laughed for the first time all day. “You don’t have to pretend with me. She’s awful. Can you imagine having her as your grandmother?” A thought struck me. “She’s not coming to our wedding, is she?”

That brought Dan’s attention back to me. Fast. “Good God, I hope not. Why? Do you know her?”

“No, but she knew my grandmother and, well, you know my mother. She’s invited everyone else in town.” I paused, wondering why mothers of the bride got so carried away with weddings. Would I be like that? Grooms
’
mothers were just as bad. Dan’s mother was. “Whoever my mother missed, your mother found.”

“Yeah.” Dan watched the car disappear down the drive. “They’re out of control.” He paused, taking the threat of Mrs. Hudson attending our wedding seriously. “I don’t think my mother knows the Hudsons. And even your mother wouldn’t invite someone your grandmother
…
would she?”

“I don’t think so.” The back of my neck began to prickle. “Unless she sent out a blanket invitation to everyone in Shady Acres?”

Dan’s smile was back. “Mary would stop her. Go home. I have a lot of questions to ask you, but I’d
much
rather get answers over a beer and some dinner. Get out of here.”

I didn’t need a second invitation. Dan stepped away from the car. I put it in gear and moved it slowly through the maze of emergency vehicles. The old Cadillac was wedged between an ambulance and a black and white, its back door still open, the mat still on the gravel. Waiting. I shuddered and headed for the gate and home.

I
pulled the car into my driveway and turned off the engine. The effort of opening the door and getting out seemed too much. Instead I sat, staring at the closed garage door. I’d had some emotionally racking days before, but this one made th
em
seem almost joyful.

Susannah appeared on the steps. “Why are you sitting there?”

I
rallied enough to
open the door. My feet rested on the driveway but the rest of me didn’t want to move. I finally reached for my purse and made it out of the car. The briefcase could stay where it was.

“Oh oh. It hasn’t been a good day.” Susannah walked down the rest of the steps, a can of soda in her hand, reached around me, and grabbed my briefcase. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I need to get rid of these shoes and
drink
a glass of wine. Maybe not in that order.”

She preceded me into the kitchen and set my briefcase down beside the hutch.
“Red or white?” she said as she slid a glass off of the rack. She
guided
me onto one of the kitchen chairs and turned to the wine.

“White. There’s a bottle chilling in the refrigerator.”

It wasn’t until there was a glass in front of me that Susannah pulled out her chair and sat down opposite. “Give.”

So I did. I started with the bakery, meeting Gina, then the surreptitious removal of Janice and her kids to a new safe house. I wasn’t sure I’d adequately described the fear that had gripped me, that had gripped everyone, but she seemed to get it.

“How awful.” Susannah’s eyes were wide, her face drawn. “We’ve been talking about this kind of thing in our sociology class. How women
enter
into these relationships and why they don’t seem to be able to get out. It destroys their confidence, for one thing. It’s hard to believe. Although, maybe not for you.”

I didn’t know if she was referring to this afternoon or my marriage to her father. I decided not to ask. “That’s only half of it.”

“There’s more?”

“Oh
,
yes.” I told her about the old woman and finding Doctor Sadler’s body in the cemetery.

She didn’t say anything for a while, just kept staring at me, twirling the soda can between her fingers. “You sure know how to fill up a day.”

I laughed. It was tinged slightly with hysteria, but still, it felt good. “Luckily, most of them aren’t quite this full.”

The screen door on the back porch slammed. “Okay, tell me what’s going on.” Aunt Mary marched into the room, glaring first at me, then at Susannah. “What’s all this about you finding Owen Sadler dead in the cemetery, ordering traffic stops on our local TV weatherman, and generally creating havoc in this town?”

The information age started in small towns. We don’t need the Internet; we have the phone. Even though the party line is
history
, information spreads faster than a California wildfire. So I didn’t bother to ask how she knew all this. I only asked where she wanted me to start.

“With Owen Sadler. Then you can tell me about the rest.”

So, once again, I went through my story. Aunt Mary listened intently until I told her the old woman’s name.

“Eloise
Hudson? Is she still alive? Last I heard, she was taking up her oldest daughter’s spare bedroom and her son-in-law and granddaughter were threatening to move to Alaska.”

“I guess they won, because she now terrorizes Shady Acres.”

Aunt Mary laughed. “That I can believe. Mother used to hide when she saw her coming up the walk.” Immediately she sobered. “That’s horrible about Owen. Do you have any idea what happened?”

“No. Only that it wasn’t an accident. Someone bashed his head in with the arm of an angel.”

“What?” Aunt Mary exclaimed.

“You’re kidding,” Susannah said.

The screen door slammed, and Neil
—
Pat Bennington’s son and Susannah’s reigning candidate for husband
—
walked in. He hung his Stetson on the back of a chair, bent down, and gave Susannah a peck on the cheek. “You hear about old Doctor Sadler? Someone bashed in his head with the arm of an angel. Can I
have
a beer?”

I nodded and he headed for the refrigerator. “The angel was one of those grave marker things. It had fallen over, and the arm was off. Someone picked it up and swung it at him. It was lying right beside him, covered with
…
” I shivered, remembering the gory condition of the angel arm.

“Oh, yuck.” Susannah put down her soda can and stared at me. “And you had to see all that? Poor
M
om.”

“Poor Owen,” Aunt Mary said.

“Did I know him?” Susannah asked.

“No.”

“I did.” Neil closed the refrigerator door and popped open the top of his beer can. “He scared me when I was a kid. But I think he was a good doctor. Pretty opinionated though. Must have pushed someone a little too hard.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of who had killed him or why. I hadn’t had time. “He was an old man. Why would someone do that deliberately? Robbery makes more sense.”

“You didn’t know Doctor Sadler.” Neil took a big swallow of the beer, came up for air, and grinned.

“What does Dan say?” Aunt Mary eyed my glass of wine. Susannah got up, took another glass off the hanging rack, filled it, and put it in front of her. Aunt Mary smiled at her and took a sip.

“Dan hasn’t said anything. He didn’t get a chance. Except that he’d be home for dinner.”

I thought about that. Home. Not “coming over
,
” but home. It sounded good. Getting dinner didn’t. I groaned.

“I’ll get dinner.”

I looked up, surprised. Susannah had many interests, but kitchen chores of any kind had never been among them. She smiled brightly at Neil. Hmmm. However, my energy level was at zero, so
,
since she
had
offered
..
. “Okay,” I said. “You’re on.”

She looked a little startled. “What do we have?”

We might as well make this easy. And edible. “There’s Marinara sauce in the freezer, and some rolls. Pasta in the pantry. There must be something around here for salad. That should do it.”

“Should I take the sauce out now?”

“If we’re going to eat tonight, yes.”

Susannah pushed back her chair and headed for the freezer on the back porch. Neil watched her proudly, then pushed back his own chair and followed.

“He won’t be so darned pleased with her when he finds out she has no idea how to fill a freezer with anything but ice cream,” I muttered.

Aunt Mary smothered a laugh and watched Susannah carry a large carton into the kitchen, clearly marked Marinara sauce.

“Is this it?”

I sighed and took another sip of wine. “That’s it. Put it in the sink and let the hot water run on it. It’ll never defrost in time if you don’t.”

“Really? Okay. Tell Aunt Mary about the woman who escaped from her husband.”

“Does this have anything to do with your traffic stop?”

“I’m afraid so.” I told my story once more.
 

After
I finished, Neil star
ed
at me, open mouthed. Aunt Mary’s lips made a tight straight line.

“I never did like that man,” she said. “What did Anne say?”

“Not much. We talked about what kind of house she needs and how much I can get for the one they’re in, but she’s leaving
the
financing up to the board.”

Aunt Mary grimaced. “I have no idea how you do something like that. Maybe some of the others know.”

“You’d better find out. We’re going to have to buy it before we sell the old one. I can see why Anne wants a bigger house so badly. She has a lot of great ideas, and she can’t carry them out where they are now. I was just leaving when we had our little drama.”

“Don’t be flip.”

“I’m not. Really. It’s just that I’ve had about as much horror as I can absorb for one day.”

Aunt Mary examined me closely. “You do look pretty undone. What time will Dan be home?”

She was doing it, too. Dan. Home. Here. It sounded so natural it was a little unnerving. It had taken me more than a year to decide Dan wasn’t my ex-husband, Brian, and that he wouldn’t dump me as Brian had. I loved Dan,
really
loved him, as a friend and as a lover. Moreover, I trusted him. A remarkably comfortable and surprising feeling.

“Hopefully, pretty soon.”

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get freshened up? I’ll help Susannah get dinner ready.”

A nice, tactful way of saying my hair was a mess and my makeup was smeared. But a washcloth, maybe even a shower, sounded wonderful. I reached for the wine bottle, poured a little more in my glass, and
stood
up.

“There’s fresh Parmesan cheese in the refrigerator but it needs to be grated.” I said. “The rolls are frozen, so they should go into foil, and the sauce needs
—
”
 

“We’re on it. Get.”

I was halfway up the stairs when I remembered I’d forgotten to tell them about the wedding cake. Doctor Sadler had been in the bakery earlier, and then he’d shown up at Grace House. Or had it been the other way around? Either way, he’d ended up at the cemetery. I paused. How odd. I hadn’t thought about Doctor Sadler in years. There had been no reason I should. And yet today he had turned up three times. I shivered again at the thought of him, dead on that grave. It was going to take a long time to get over the sight of him, lying there, bloody and bashed
… P
oor old guy. Whoever had done that had either been full of rage or completely panicked. And poor Dan. He was the one who was going to have to find the person who did it. I sent up a quick “thank you” that I didn’t have to get involved in any of it and climbed the rest of the stairs
on my way to
the shower. I planned on standing under very hot water for as long as I could. Maybe I could wash away some of the tragedy that had weighted down this day.