Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (60 page)

“Great,” said Lucy, who was already looking forward to their get-together. “Gee,” she added, in a burst of candor, “this is pathetic. I can’t tell you how excited I am about actually having some place to go and getting out of the house.”

“I hear you,” said Sue. “Sometimes I just pack my bag and head to my mother’s for a night, just to get some time to myself.”

Lucy felt a stab of jealousy. “Does she live nearby?”

“Boston. Close enough, but not too close, if you know what I mean. The drive’s long enough that I have time to decompress, get rid of that ‘I’d like to kill my husband’ feeling.”

Lucy was a bit shocked by Sue’s frankness. “Doesn’t your husband mind when you leave?”

“No. To tell the truth, I think he enjoys it. I mean, he probably wants to kill me sometimes, too, impossible as that seems.”

“Not that impossible,” said Lucy. “I think that if anybody was counting they’d discover that lots more wives are killed by their husbands than vice versa.”

“I know,” agreed Sue. “And I can never quite understand. Take that awful guy in Boston who shot his wife and killed her and then shot himself to make it seem like they were attacked by some entirely innocent black man—all that fuss when he could have just filed for divorce.”

“Divorce is no picnic, either,” said Lucy. “Imagine thinking you’re in a perfectly happy marriage and then one fine day, your husband looks at you over the morning paper and says ‘Honey, it’s been great, but I’ve found this hot little chick and I like her much better than you, she never nags me about taking out the trash like you do, so what do you say we get a divorce?’”

Sue laughed. “I see your point. If he shoots you, well, he’s a real bastard and all, but at least you can go to your death without feeling like a failure because he’s having an affair.”

“Yeah,” agreed Lucy, thinking of Judge Tilley’s insistence on maintaining appearances. “Like it was a perfect marriage right up to the moment he killed you.” From the distance, she heard Bill calling her. “Gotta go save my marriage by stripping the wallpaper in the front hall.”

“Honey, you’d do better to strip yourself.”

“Point taken,” said Lucy. “See you tomorrow.”

L
ucy knew she couldn’t leave Toby with Bill when she met Sue for coffee so she didn’t even ask. She was as big a believer in women’s liberation as anyone, but it was unrealistic to expect anyone to keep an eye on an active preschooler while working with dangerous tools to perform tasks that required a great deal of concentration. Bill had explained this to her so many times that she’d come to believe it, though she did wonder why it didn’t apply to her. After all, she managed to keep an eye on Toby while she chopped up chicken with a cleaver, or used pins and needles to mend a tear, or boiled up a kettle of water to cook pasta. Those were every bit as dangerous as his work with saws, and hammers and nails.

She explained it all to Sue when she joined her at a table in the back corner of Jake’s Donut Shack. As Sue had predicted, the place was quiet, with only a scattering of retirees who had time to linger over their morning papers.

“Bill,” she told Sue, “has a male brain. He can only concentrate on one thing at a time, which makes it impossible for him to mind a child at the same time he’s cutting a board. I, on the other hand, have a female brain, which we know is larger and generally superior in that it can accommodate several thoughts at once.”

“Right,” said Sue. “Like how there’s a designer handbag sale at Filene’s Basement and a coat sale at Jordan Marsh.”

“Exactly,” said Lucy, smiling and nodding.

“I fundamentally agree with you,” said Sue, tearing open a pink packet of low-calorie sweetener and stirring it into her coffee, “but what I can’t quite figure out is how, if we’re so smart and all, we always seem to get stuck with the kids.”

“It’s because,” said Lucy, taking a sip of coffee, “we remember the fact that we actually have a child. Men’s brains can’t handle that information, which is why they tend to lose the children on the rare occasions that they take them anywhere.”

“I think you’re on to something,” said Sue. “My husband, Sid, completely forgot he was supposed to pick up Sidra from nursery school the other day.”

“Nursery school,” said Lucy, wistfully, watching as Toby ripped open a sugar packet and poured the contents all over the table. “I wish we could afford nursery school.”

“You know,” said Sue, setting down her cup, “you’re not alone. I bet there are a lot of people here in town who need child care but can’t afford it. Maybe we could get some sort of cooperative going or something.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” said Lucy, watching as Toby licked his finger and then dipped it into the sugar. For some reason the repeated licks and dips reminded her of a video she’d seen at the American Museum of Natural History. “If he used a spoon, he’d be as smart as a chimpanzee,” she said.

Sue looked at her oddly. “I’m going to talk to some people, see if we can’t get some start-up money from the Seaman’s Bank. Maybe the church. Maybe the town, even. There’s definitely a need here.”

Toby was squirming, trying to get out of the high chair. “I guess it’s time to go,” said Lucy, reluctantly. “We ought to do this again. It’s been great to have an adult conversation.”

Sue smiled. “Men don’t count, do they?”

“No,” said Lucy, grinning. “But they are good for killing spiders, opening jars, and heavy lifting.”

“I’ll call you,” promised Sue.

Toby seemed to have lots of energy so Lucy decided to take him for a little walk before putting him back in the car seat for the ride home. It was a typically gray December day, the temperature was around the freezing mark and the snow lingered on lawns and was piled alongside the cleared roads and sidewalks. She held Toby’s little mittened hand tightly as they walked along Main Street, careful not to step on any cracks, just like in the A.A. Milne poem. They played the name game as they walked along, naming the colors of cars, the kinds of stores and the items displayed in their windows, the shapes of the signs. But all the while, Lucy’s mind was busy mulling over the information she’d uncovered in her investigation. Everything she’d learned so far pointed to two suspects: Judge Tilley himself and Emil Boott. Mrs. Sprout, the cook, was out for the simple reason that Lucy liked her daughter, Hannah, and found her account of life in the Tilley household entirely believable. She was also inclined to cross the nurse, Angela DeRosa, off the list of suspects. Nobody seemed to have a bad word to say about her. And then there was Miss Peach, Katharine Kaiser. Nobody seemed to have a good word to say about her, but Lucy didn’t have a sense that anybody suspected her of murdering Mrs. Tilley. Lucy was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, especially since she’d been pregnant at the time. She found it hard to believe that a woman could be both a creator and a destroyer of life, especially at the same time. But maybe that was a fallacious assumption, she told herself, especially considering Miss Kaiser’s self-indulgent and independent lifestyle. But there was an even more compelling reason to cross her off the list: Miss Kaiser had been out of town, purportedly caring for a sick relative, when Mrs. Tilley died.

It wasn’t long before they reached the library and Lucy decided to pay a visit to Miss Tilley. She wanted to update her on the progress of her investigation, but she wanted to do it as delicately as possible. After all, a father’s infidelity would be a sensitive subject for anyone.

Miss Tilley was sitting in her usual spot at the circulation desk when Lucy and Toby entered and greeted them warmly. As far as Lucy could see there wasn’t anybody else in the library, so she could talk frankly. She pulled off Toby’s hat and mittens and unzipped his jacket and let him loose in the children’s corner, where he made a beeline for the box of toys and began pulling them out and tossing them over his shoulder.

“Toby! That’s no way to play,” she reminded him.

“Never mind,” said Miss Tilley. “We’ll help him tidy up afterward.” She leaned forward. “How’s the investigation going? I’m eager to hear what you’ve learned.”

Lucy looked at Miss Tilley, taking in her frail, birdlike shape and her wispy white hair, caught in a bun that barely held together despite an enormous quantity of hairpins. She seemed the very model of a typical old maid, right down to the cameo pin that caught both wings of her starched white lace collar. Suddenly Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted to bring up such a sexually charged topic as Judge Tilley’s infidelity.

“I understand you’ve been talking to Hannah Sprout,” coaxed Miss Tilley.

“That’s right,” admitted Lucy, wondering if she was doing the investigating or being investigated. “How did you know that?”

“I ran into Emily Miller at the IGA. This is a small town, you know, and all we really have to talk about is each other.”

It was true. Lucy thought of the “Social Events” column in the weekly Pennysaver newspaper that included items such as “Mrs. William Mason and her daughter, Mrs. Henry Tubbs, entertained Mrs. Hildegarde Wilson and Miss Susan Wilson for tea on Wednesday afternoon,” and “Mr. and Mrs. James Nesmith recently took a motor trip to Prince Edward Island in Canada where they visited with Mrs. Nesmith’s cousin, Winifred MacDonald.” She always read it, finding it oddly fascinating since she rarely recognized any of the names.

“Well, she’s right. I did talk to Hannah Sprout at the coffee hour after church on Sunday….”

“So you’re a churchgoer?” inquired Miss Tilley.

“Occasionally,” said Lucy. “It was the Christmas pageant. I think the whole town was there.”

“Not me,” said Miss Tilley. “I’m boycotting.”

Lucy was surprised. “Why?”

“Oh, something that happened a long time ago. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“Okay.” Now Lucy was truly flummoxed. She’d been encouraged by the fact that Miss Tilley probably knew all about her conversation with Hannah Sprout, but now it seemed the librarian was setting limits and she was afraid once again of offending her. “Well,” she began, blurting it out all at once, “Hannah Sprout said her mother thought your father was having an affair with his secretary, and she left town for six months because she was pregnant with his child.”

Lucy held her breath, waiting for Miss Tilley’s reaction.

“Papa always was one for the ladies,” said Miss Tilley, smacking her thigh with her hand. “He was an old devil.”

Lucy exhaled. “So you’re not upset.”

“Not a bit. It just confirms what I always thought.”

“You thought he had an affair with Katherine Kaiser?”

“I thought he was a mean, selfish hypocrite.”

Lucy couldn’t help it. She was shocked. Not knowing quite what to say, she looked across the library to the children’s corner, where Toby was pushing a wooden truck across the floor.

“I suppose the affair could be a motive for killing your mother,” she finally said. “But why didn’t he marry Katherine Kaiser?”

“I expect he thought it would be an admission that he wasn’t as pure as the driven snow.”

The baby kicked and Lucy rubbed her stomach. “I can’t quite imagine a man turning his back on his own flesh and blood like that and letting somebody adopt his child.”

“I don’t think men make the connection between the sex act and the arrival of a child nine months later. Not unless they’re married, that is.”

“Not even then,” said Lucy, laughing.

“Well, you would know better than I. I can only draw on what I’ve observed. And my experience as a child, but it seems to me that men throughout history have had remarkably little interest in assuming responsibility for their offspring, especially female and illegitimate offspring. My father always behaved as if Harriet and I were my mother’s hobby, like stamp collecting or knitting, and had nothing to do with him.”

Just then there was a crash and Toby began to cry, so Lucy jumped up and hurried over to the children’s corner, where she found Toby had knocked over a tower of blocks which came tumbling down on his head. She picked him up and kissed the boo-boo, a little bruise on his forehead, assuring him that he was all better. When she returned to the circulation desk, carrying him on her hip, Miss Tilley had a cookie waiting for him. She sat down with him in her lap.

Miss Tilley beamed at him, tickled his tummy and gave him another cookie. “So where do we go from here?” she asked.

“Well, I guess I better get Toby home for lunch before you spoil his appetite with any more cookies,” said Lucy.

“I was referring to the investigation.”

Toby leaned back against his mother, chewing on the cookie. “Well,” said Lucy, “I think we can safely eliminate two suspects: Mrs. Sprout and Miss Kaiser. Your father sent Mrs. Sprout home on Christmas Eve, so she wasn’t there when your mother fell. According to her daughter she always blamed herself for leaving, wishing she could have prevented the fall.”

“And it appears that Miss Kaiser, vain and wicked vixen that she most certainly was, was also out of town and otherwise occupied at the time of my mother’s death.”

“But both those facts tend to point toward your father,” said Lucy, smoothing Toby’s hair with her hand. “But we also can’t eliminate the handyman, Emil Boott, and the nurse.”

Miss Tilley shook her head. “I knew Angela. I simply can’t believe she would have hurt a hair on my mother’s head. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.”

“Well, there is a link of sorts between Emil Boott and the glass cane. He worked in the office at the glassworks, but that’s all I’ve been able to find out about him.”

Miss Tilley leaned forward. “I never trusted him, you know. There was something about him, the way he looked at me, that made me afraid.”

Lucy tapped her chin thoughtfully. “The glassworks must have kept records about their employees. Do you have any idea what happened to them when it closed?”

“No, I don’t,” said Miss Tilley. “But I do know someone who may be able to give you some information about Emil Boott. His name is Sherman Cobb, he’s a lawyer here in town and his father was the sheriff who ran the prison when my father was on the bench.”

“I’ll talk to him,” promised Lucy, “but now I’ve got to get this little boy home for his nap.”

Toby’s eyes were drooping when Lucy buckled the car seat and she drove as fast as she could, hoping to get home before he fell asleep. She knew from experience that if he dropped off, even for a minute, she’d never get him to settle down for a nap.

But as she sped along the route that was already becoming so familiar to her, she found herself thinking about men and women. She and Sue had been joking when they made fun of their husband’s short attention spans but she sensed that Miss Tilley had a deeper antipathy toward men. Lucy remembered reading somewhere that a woman’s relationship with men depended on her relationship with her father. A woman like herself, who had a strong relationship with a caring father, generally had successful relationships with men. Daddy’s girls, who had flirtatious relationships with their fathers, rarely found men who measured up. And girls who were abused or neglected by their fathers had destructive relationships with men, or avoided them altogether.

It was all pseudo psychology, she admitted, turning into the driveway, but she thought there was some truth to it, especially in Miss Tilley’s case, but it did make her wonder if she could trust the librarian’s assessments of Judge Tilley and Emil Boott. She turned off the ignition and turned around to see if Toby was still awake and that’s when she heard the boom and felt the car shake.