Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) (8 page)

Bert ushered us into a comfortably cluttered living-dining room. Every level surface was topped by bright squares of printed cotton material in stacks. A muted television played quiz shows without ceasing.

“Hester’s doin’ one of her projects,” he said apologetically, and moved several stacks from the sofa. “This time of year, she makes quilts. That one over there won second prize at the state fair.” He pointed to an ornate example of Hester’s craft hanging on one wall. “It’s called the Wedding Ring.”

Bert’s broad face shone with pride. He was a burly man, balding on top, but still handsome, with a deep dimple on one side of his mouth that he displayed frequently.

Over huge wedges of apple pie and steaming cups of excellent coffee, Gil tried to get down to business. “About Marie—”

Hester interrupted, “Marie’s the one give me the recipe for this pie. It’s really for a cobbler that serves a hundred, but I pared it down a little.”

There was a pause while we continued to appreciate Hester’s culinary skill.

Bert leaned forward. “Don’t you get it?”

Gil and I looked up, chewing.

“Get whup?” Gil asked, his diction impaired by a mouthful of hot apple.

“The recipe—she
pared
it down. Pared, apples? It’s a joke!” He slapped Gil on the knee and roared with laughter.

“That’s pretty witty,” Gil said.

“You bet it is!” Bert’s admiration for his spouse seemed limitless.

Hester came out of the kitchen with the coffeepot. “Honey, I just figured out who this lady is,” she said, refilling my cup. “You’re the teacher, aren’t you? The one who found Marie’s girl. That must’ve been terrible.”

“It was,” I admitted, fingering my bandage.

Hester clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Tragic. Such a young girl. And poor Marie.”

Gil took advantage of the moment to get to the point. “Bert told us you saw Marie leave today.”

“That’s right,” she said, stepping into the kitchen to replace the coffeepot. She returned and sat in an easy chair in the living room, where she took up her quilting work. “Seemed odd to me.”

“When was that?” Gil was in journalist mode.

Hester donned a pair of glasses and threaded a needle. “Right after I got back from work, so it would’ve been about, oh, two or so.”

A square of patchwork fabric, sandwiched around some white fluffy stuff, was stretched in a wooden hoop the size of a steering wheel. Hester held it level in her lap and plunged the needle dead-center. A second later, it peeked up from underneath, a millimeter from the point of entry. She pulled the thread taut, then dipped the needle rapidly several times into the fabric.

For a few moments, we sat transfixed, watching Hester’s hands move hypnotically up and down with the precision of a machine.

“Did you talk to her?” Gil asked, his eyes still on the quilting. “Find out where she was going?”

Hester pulled the thread taut. “Heck, no! You won’t catch me interfering with the police.”

“Police!” Gil and I exchanged glances.

“Besides, I was having my own problems,” Hester said. “I was taking Flippy, my dog—our dog—” Her voice broke.

Her hands drooped over her work. She bowed her head and removed her glasses. When she looked up at us, she was blinking back tears.

“I was taking our little dog to the vet’s. For the last time—” A sob escaped, and she fumbled on a side table for a box of tissues.

Bert shook his head wearily. “Poor ol’ Flippy. He was real sick. It was his time.”

“He was like our baby, you know?” Hester looked at me as she dabbed her eye.

I nodded. I was lying, of course. I had no idea. I was never much of a pet person. Ask Sam.

“We were gonna do it ourselves. Kinda like pulling the plug or something. Bert’s cousin—he’s got a farm out in Chazy—give him some capsules.”

“Honey,” Bert protested, “they don’t want to hear all this sad stuff.”

Hester was not to be diverted. “Just put a couple down his throat like vitamins, he told us, and Flippy’d go to sleep.” She ended the sentence on a high note of pain. “We were gonna bury him out in the yard with a little stone and everything.”

“Honey—” Bert said.

“We couldn’t do it.” Hester turned a shaky smile toward her husband and reached out her hand. Bert stepped forward and grasped it firmly. “This great big man has such a soft heart—” She blew her nose. “Oh, I’m sorry. It just gets to me, taking our little baby to strangers.”

“He didn’t feel a thing, Hester,” Bert pointed out gently.

“I know.” Hester was resigned. She looked at Gil. “Anyway, I was just thinking I kind of knew how Marie felt when I looked over and saw her locking her front door and getting into a police car.”

“Were they arresting her?” I asked. “I mean, did they have—handcuffs on her?”

“Didn’t see any.” Hester donned the spectacles and resumed her quilting. “One of the cops was helping her carry a suitcase. She just got in the car and they drove off without a word to us.” She shrugged. “Bert ’n’ I were gonna keep some of her out of town people here in our spare room. For the funeral, you know. Guess that’s off.”

Bert was gathering up our pie plates. “Maybe not. She might be coming back. You should’ve asked.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to embarrass the woman right there on the street with the police and all. Remember what a ruckus there was over your dad.”

“That was years ago. Nobody wants to hear it any more. You folks like some more coffee?”

I declined, but Gil accepted. Apparently, the interview wasn’t over yet.

“It was just for smuggling,” Hester whispered while Bert was in the kitchen. “Whiskey out of Canada. Everybody did it, only his dad had to sample it too. That’s how he got caught—” she broke off as Bert returned with Gil’s refilled cup.

“Couldn’t leave it alone, could ya, Hester?” said Bert good-naturedly. “Careful there, Dickensen, you’re gonna spill it. Trouble is, she never tells the end of the story. My dad was let off due to lack of evidence.”

“It was all drunk up!” said Hester and giggled.

Gil nursed his coffee through several more questions, but it was soon apparent that the Swansons had nothing else to tell us.

“Well, I’d better get Miss Prentice back home,” Gil said at last. “She’s had a tough couple of days and she needs her rest.”

Amid a flurry of thanks and return invitations, Hester pressed her apple pie recipe on me, and Bert insisted on walking us to the car.

“It’s a sad business, Dickensen,” he said as Gil slid into the driver’s seat, “and Marie’s a fine woman.”

“You’re right about that,” Gil agreed. “Don’t worry, we’ll find out where she is.”

“Not like that daughter.” Bert scowled. “She was something else.”

Even in the dim light, I could see Gil’s eyebrows wobble with interest. “Really?”

“Played little games if you know what I mean.” He pressed his hands on the car door and leaned in. “Tried to make it look like a man was doing something he shouldn’t. You couldn’t believe a word she said.”

“A tease, was she?” Gil asked.

I frowned in the darkness but kept quiet.

“Don’t you know it! And then some—takin’ sunbaths in the back yard and coming over all the time, borrowing things. Then gets all riled up like a man did something wrong. Well, it just wasn’t right, that’s all. Couldn’t believe a word she said,” he repeated.

“Sad business all around,” Gil conceded.

Bert sighed, and gazed at Marie’s house. “That it is. Well, you folks have a good evening and come again.” He slapped the top of the car affectionately and stepped back as Gil pulled away from the curb.

“And what was all that about?” I asked as we rounded the corner.

Gil grinned. “Oh, you mean Bert?”

“Yes, all that male bonding she-was-a-tease, the-devil-made-me-do-it stuff.”

“I have my theory. What’s yours, Miss Prentice?”

The sardonic tone was familiar. Oh, well. We were back to square one.

“Well, my guess is that Bert made a pass at Marguerite. She probably rebuffed him and he was afraid the whole thing would get back to Hester.”

“Don’t you bet there’d be hell to pay if it did?” Gil agreed.

“But Gil, can you imagine this is the first time this thing ever happened with a man like Bert? I can’t buy that. I think an intelligent woman like Hester would be well aware of what’s going on.”

“And she puts up with it?”

“Look at it this way: When Bert and Hester married, Bert was probably the catch of the century. I’ll bet she’s been doing the Superwoman bit ever since, just to keep him. He’s still a good-looking man. It must take a lot out of her.”

Gil laughed. “Why, Miss Prentice, how perceptive, how downright earthy of you! You’ve been holding out on us all these years!”

“Not at all. I read about it somewhere. You know we spinsters live on soda crackers and ice water and never allow the word S-E-X to pass our lips.”

We were stopped at a red light. Gil gave me a long, searching look. When the light turned green he accelerated, still watching me.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been here all the time.” I was tired of all these on-again, off-again games. And my head hurt.

“Forget I said that. Answer me one other thing about Hester. Do you believe what she said about Marie—that the police took her?”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you see that big freezer on the back porch? What if Bert got too friendly with Marie too? If Hester’s the hard-headed woman you say she is—”

“Oh, come on, Gil.”

“I mean it. Who was it took the dog for the last walk? Bert didn’t have the heart, remember? Maybe he’s a lover, not a fighter.”

“I thought journalists only dealt in facts, not speculation.”

“This is investigative journalism. It sometimes takes imagination.”

“So I gather, judging by your editorials lately.”

“Ouch,” said Gil, but he was laughing.

We pulled up in front of my house.

“You and Lily are going to have a busy day tomorrow.” So he had been listening to me, after all. “Go get a good night’s sleep. I’ll use my sources to check out this police thing.”

“And you’ll let me know what you find?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll let you read about it in one of my editorials.” He sped off.

As I trudged up the steps, I realized I was glad to be home. I felt terrible, tired and sore all over. I touched my bandage gingerly. I hadn’t seen a doctor about this yet. Maybe I would sometime tomorrow.

Later, in bed, as I pulled the covers over my shoulder and settled in for the night, I thought about Hester and Bert. We had been pretty quick to judge them, and they had been nothing but gracious to us. I felt ashamed.

Still, I had to wonder: what had happened to the capsules that Bert had failed to use on Flippy? And were they as toxic to young women as they were to little dogs?

CHAPTER SIX

I was just washing up my breakfast dishes when Lily Burns rang the doorbell. I looked at my watch: eight-fifteen on the dot.

“Oh, no,” I murmured as I went to open the door. I had forgotten all about our trip to the JJ Peasemarsh sale. My plans for the day, as I had mentally outlined them over my morning cereal, were to include a little grocery shopping and a surprise visit to the newspaper office to see if Gil had learned anything.

“Come on, Amelia, get moving. The ferry won’t wait for us, you know—ohhhhh, look, it’s my tweetheart!” Lily had spotted Sam. Without even breaking stride, she changed her tone from brisk and businesslike to utterly idiotic.

“Pwesious kitty,” she cooed, “is oo gwad to see me? Is oo?” She scratched behind Sam’s ears and his answering purr needed no amplification to be heard all over the room. “Does oo know what Mama got here?” Lily asked teasingly, reaching into her purse. “Does oo want a widdle turprise?” she squealed, pulling out a tiny gray felt pillow and tossing it across the kitchen.

Sam, fat as he was, could move rapidly when he had a mind to, and today he did. He was a blue-gray blur, pouncing on the catnip mouse, rubbing his nose on it, wallowing on it, and batting it around the room in a decidedly pointless manner, all the while uttering the most uncivilized noises.

“For heaven’s sake, Lily,” I complained as we locked Sam in the house, happily alone with the object of his desire. “Was that necessary? He makes such a fool of himself over those things.”

“He’s having fun, isn’t he? Give the poor ol’ guy a break.” As Lily unlocked the door of her big black car, the passenger door unlocked also. I slid in.

“I guess Sam does get some exercise that way,” I conceded, “but it seems like we’re robbing him of his dignity.”

Lily turned on the engine and looked at me meaningfully. “You already did that some time ago.” She pulled out into traffic.

“That’s none of your business. Besides, the veterinarian recommended it.”

Lily shrugged and changed the subject. “I noticed that you’re wearing our coat. I thought it was my turn today.”

I looked down at my olive green trench coat. “That’s ridiculous. So we both have the same coat? Who cares?”

“I do. We look like a couple of Girl Scouts.”

“What do you know about Girl Scouts other than cookies?” I asked, smiling.

Lily gave me a frosty look.

I laughed. “Look, here’s that scarf you gave me for Christmas,” I said, pulling it from my coat pocket. “I’ll drape it over my shoulder thusly and tuck it in here,
et voila
, we’re twin Girl Scouts no more.”

“And what about the shoes?”

“Shoes?” I looked at my feet. “Oh no.” I had originally dressed to see Gil, not to go shopping. I was wearing my high-heeled Sunday shoes, which were surprisingly similar to Lily’s.

“So who’re you dressing up for, Amelia, hmm?” she asked. “Gil Dickensen, maybe?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, too loudly, too quickly.

Lily shrugged again. “It’s no skin off my nose, of course. It just seems more than a coincidence: Gil Dickensen’s car sitting in front of your house to all hours, then you get gussied up for no apparent reason. Reach in my purse and hand me a Salem, would you?”

I folded my arms and arched an eyebrow at her.