Scene of the Brine (24 page)

29

L
ydia knew she was being followed. That became obvious to Piper as the Lexus wove down the middle of the narrow, shoulderless road as if to block any attempt by Piper to pull ahead and block her—a scheme that only a mad person would try, what with all the twists and turns they were navigating. Heading to Sugar's, then, could mean only one thing. Lydia, Piper feared, had given up any thought of getting away with murder and had decided, as some demented form of satisfaction, to strike at one last person while she could.

Piper had tried to warn Sugar, calling both her landline and cell phone, but got no answer. Did that mean she wasn't home and that her cell phone wasn't on? Maybe, but though she hoped that was the case, Piper couldn't count on it.

The road finally opened up, and Piper recognized Sugar's white house up ahead. Lydia apparently knew it, too, as she picked up speed. Her Lexus swerved onto the driveway, tires spraying gravel, and Lydia was out of the car in seconds. Piper pulled up behind the Lexus within moments and blocked her in as Lydia raced to the front door. She pounded Sugar's door with her fists and rattled the doorknob, but the door, thankfully, must have been locked. Piper jumped out of her car, hoping again that nobody was home. Then she saw Sugar come around the side of the house from the backyard, drawn by the racket.

Piper tried to wave her back, but it was too late. Lydia caught sight of Sugar, too.
Where was the sheriff?

“You!” Lydia cried.

Sugar stopped, looking stunned into immobility at the sight of Lydia on her front stoop, skirt twisted, blouse hanging loose, and hair in disarray.

Lydia flew at her, fingers curled into claws. “You'll never have my son!” she screamed. Lydia wasn't a large woman, but the momentum of rushing at Sugar, along with the element of surprise, pushed Sugar off balance and to the ground. “You'll never be a Porter! I'll see to that! I'll kill you first.”

Lydia had both hands at Sugar's throat and was pressing down hard enough that Piper could see Sugar struggling for breath. She rushed up and tried to pull Lydia off, yanking at her arms. The woman was surprisingly strong, plus the tangle of legs kicking out—both Sugar's and Lydia's—made it difficult for Piper to brace. There wasn't enough of Lydia's silvery, short-cut hair to grasp, so Piper swung one arm around Lydia's neck, grabbed onto her own wrist, and squeezed.

“Get . . . off . . . !” Lydia gasped, but Piper held firm until she saw Lydia's hands leave Sugar's throat.

Lydia fell sideways to the ground and Sugar rolled away, breathing hard.

“Help me hold her,” Piper cried, quickly grabbing Lydia's hands and pulling them behind her back. Sugar scrambled over and plopped onto Lydia's legs.

“What . . . ?” Sugar started to ask until the sound of sirens pulled her attention to the road.

Piper sighed with relief. Sheriff Carlyle was on his way. She felt Lydia's struggles slow, though Piper continued to hold on to her tightly. No way was this murderer going to slip away from justice.

Before the sheriff's car appeared, a tan pickup drove up behind Piper's hatchback. Two people jumped out from each side of the cab.

“Mom?” Zach cried, frozen for a moment before running toward them. “What the heck? What's going on?”

Sugar looked up in astonishment to see her son standing over her, with Ralph Strawbridge coming up from behind.

“Found him,” Ralph announced, calmly, just as Sheriff Carlyle's flashing lights rushed down the road.

. . .

L
ydia sat, handcuffed and nearly unrecognizable in her current state, in the back of the sheriff's car as Sheriff Carlyle continued to interview Piper and the others. Sugar was smiling from ear to ear as she held on to Zach's arm and looked like she had no intention of letting go for quite a while.

“He was at his girlfriend's,” Ralph said early on, and when Sugar looked puzzled, Zach explained.

“Her name's Lauren. My friends don't really know about her, yet, but I mentioned her to Ralph, when we were talking, one time. I was going to tell you about her, Mom, but then all this stuff happened. She's really special and she didn't know about any of this,” he said, waving toward the sheriff. “Lauren thought you and I were having problems and I needed a place to cool down.”

“If she's really special,” Sugar said, “you'd better start being more honest with her.”

Sheriff Carlyle had enough to charge Lydia with for the time being—her assault on Sugar—but wanted the rest of the story.

“All I know for sure at this point,” Piper said, “is that Frances Billings had worked at Tedbury Academy when Lydia was a student there. She must have known something that Lydia wanted hidden badly enough to try to silence her. Is Frances okay?”

“She's alive and apparently recovering. Thanks to you, they knew exactly how to treat her at the hospital.”

“Thank goodness.”

“We'll get her story as soon as she's able to talk with us.” The sheriff turned to Zach. “As for you, young man. We need to talk more, too.” His stern expression relaxed a smidgen. “That can wait until tomorrow. I imagine your mother has a few words for you, first.”

“Yes, sir,” Zach said, looking relieved.

They watched the sheriff drive off, Lydia facing stonily ahead. Then Sugar urged them all to come inside. “I haven't been able to cook for days. Now I have an amazing reason!”

Piper excused herself. This was family time. And from the looks of it, Ralph would be sharing that title before very long. Sugar was extremely grateful for his actions in finding Zach, of course. But the looks of affection Piper had seen flowing between them came from much more than gratitude. She gave and received hugs all around, then headed on home. There were plenty of people who were waiting for news.

And she could hardly wait to tell them.

30

W
ell,” Emma Leahy said Monday morning at Piper's Picklings, “between Joan Tilley and Frances Billings, there's been plenty of mileage put on cars running between Cloverdale and Bellingham Regional Hospital.” She handed Piper the two jars of spiced apple butter she was picking up for Joan Tilley.

Piper nodded agreement. “At least Mrs. Tilley is home now.”

“Yes, and her appetite for your preserves has returned. Frances has a ways to go yet, but she's getting there. Tell me exactly why Lydia wanted to get rid of her, would you? When Judy called me, I was so astonished I wasn't able to take it all in.”

Piper finished ringing up the apple butters and reached for a bag. “Frances was the librarian at Tedbury Academy years ago, when Lydia was a student. She was Frances Kingsley, then, so Lydia didn't make the connection when they met again all those years later. And, of course, besides the name, Frances herself had changed.”

“So what clued Lydia in?”

“I did, I'm afraid. I told Mallory about Frances having been on the Tedbury staff. Then for good measure, I told Lydia, too, when she came here the next day with her sister, Gwen.” Piper grimaced at the memory, though she'd done it quite unwittingly at the time. “I'm sure Lydia had heard the Kingsley family name mentioned as the original owners of the house, and she finally connected Frances Billings as having been Frances Kingsley from Tedbury.

“When I started putting all the pieces together—that Lydia had something so important for her to hide that she resigned from her prestigious position at Tedbury, and that Frances must have known Lydia in her student days—I became very afraid for Frances, though I didn't know the full story yet. I got that later from Frances.

“Lydia, it turns out, left Tedbury under a cloud during her third year as a student there. She was pregnant. The school kept that very quiet. In those days, I'm sure you know, and at that school, particularly, a student being pregnant was not something to be talked about. But Lydia was certain that Frances must have known about her condition, that she must have been Dirk Unger's source of that information when he informed Lydia that he knew, and that she would also let it out to others in Cloverdale. Lydia couldn't stand the thought of what that would do to the perfect image she'd so carefully built up. The sad thing is that Frances, once she realized who Lydia was, wouldn't have said a word about Lydia's past. Gossip about former students was unthinkable to her. She told me when I saw her at the hospital that if Lydia had spoken to her about it, she would have assured her of that. Lydia, unfortunately, acted on her own assumptions.”

Emma nodded. “People tend to believe others will behave the same as they would.” She thought about Piper's revelations for a moment. “So Jeremy was born out of wedlock?”

“No, not Jeremy. He was born a few years later, after Lydia married. She didn't keep her first baby. These things happen, and I'm totally sympathetic to teens who find themselves in that situation. But I can't forgive Lydia for being so hypocritical regarding Sugar. Lydia, of all people, should have understood. Instead, she denounced Sugar for being a single mom and pronounced her unworthy of any connection to the exalted Porters.”

“Sugar's lucky she got away from that family when she did.”

Piper spotted someone at her shop door. “You're not the only one who feels that way. Hi, Ralph!” she called as Ralph Strawbridge walked in.

Ralph looked much more relaxed than he had the last several days. He greeted both women, then said, “I thought you might like to know what was up with Stan Yeager's sudden disappearance.”

“Absolutely!” Piper cried. “With everything else, I'd almost forgotten about Stan. Is he okay?”

“He's fine, and both Stan and his wife are back home. Neither of them had a clue that anyone was concerned about their absence.”

Sugar, of course, in her anxiety to see her son cleared of suspicion, had been convinced that poor Stan was a murderer, but Piper didn't bring that up.

“Where were they?” Emma asked.

“In Cleveland.” Ralph grinned at the
huh?
looks he got back from that information. “His daughter was going through a high-risk pregnancy. Stan's wife went first, to be with her and help out. Stan followed later, when the delivery seemed imminent.”

“So that's why he seemed so anxious the last several days,” Piper said. “He was worried about his daughter!” She thought about Stan's last visit to her shop. “He bought kimchi and said it was for her.”

“Kimchi?” Emma asked. “For an expectant mother?”

“He said she liked it. He didn't say anything about her condition.”

“Some people,” Emma said, “especially men, don't like to talk about things they're worried about—particularly female-type things. Did she have the baby yet? Is everything okay?” she asked Ralph.

“She did—a boy—and all is well. Stan is back at his office and has blue ‘It's a Boy!' balloons in the window. That's how I found out.”

“That's terrific,” Piper said, delighted for the Realtor. “I remember we had wondered where Stan was when Dirk Unger was poisoned. Stan had closed his office at five thirty but didn't show up at the party here at the shop until seven.”

Ralph nodded. “We may never know what he did in that time frame, unless . . .” He looked from Piper to Emma. “Either of you feel like asking?” Ralph grinned as both firmly shook their heads. “So, we'll just assume he went somewhere by himself to deal with his worry over his daughter and leave it at that.”

“Good thought,” Emma said, then smiled broadly. “A new grandson! I'll have to run over and congratulate Stan.”

“I'm heading back that way if you'd like a lift,” Ralph offered, and Emma readily took him up on it.

“Oh, but before I go,” she said, “there's one more thing I was wondering about. That bloodroot leaf that Sheriff Carlyle found in Zach's book. Did Zach ever explain why it was there?”

“It's only a guess,” Piper said. “But Zach thinks Lydia put it there. He said he spotted Lydia at the library the day before. He kept his distance from her, but he remembered leaving his backpack unguarded at his study table, when he went in search of another book. Zach thinks Lydia could have planted the leaf in one of his own books—one he seldom referred to that he kept in his backpack—at that time.”

Piper paused, thinking. “At Lydia's tea,” she said, “I browsed through the books on the house's library shelves. I came across one called
Healing Plants
and checked the index for bloodroot and I didn't find it listed. But Frances had told me most of those books had been bought by Dirk Unger from an estate sale, so I didn't think it mattered, one way or the other. Lydia wasn't really on my radar, then, as a suspect.

“The sheriff found that book when they searched the Porters' house. It turns out it hadn't been part of the bulk sale but was Lydia's own book, which she'd hidden in plain sight. Bloodroot was definitely discussed in that book—how it can be medicinal if used properly—but it was listed under its Latin name. Lydia apparently was interested in how it could be used in a deadly way.” Piper grimaced. “I wish I'd figured her out much sooner.”

“Lydia fooled all of us,” Emma said. “We never thought to wonder where she was when Dirk Unger was poisoned.”

Piper nodded. “She could have added bloodroot to his salad very easily. She knew when he'd be with Jeremy and away from his house, and she surely knew about his habit of misplacing his keys and therefore leaving his doors unlocked. Dirk somehow discovered Lydia's secret and was using it for his own selfish ends. I'm sure it's the reason Lydia left her prestigious position on the Tedbury Academy board and came to Cloverdale. Although she claimed it was to be close to her son, it was more likely to keep an eye on Dirk and to watch for a chance to get rid of him.”

“She must have been responsible for Joan Tilley's poisoning, too,” Emma said, showing more anger over that than over Dirk Unger's poisoning.

“I'm sure she was. Lydia had bought a jar of my brandied cherries the first time she was in my shop and she later claimed that Mallory loved it. But Mallory told the sheriff she never even saw the jar. She simply backed her mother's claim out of her habit of obedience.”

“So when Lydia realized you might be getting close to finding her out,” Ralph said, “as well as possibly for interfering with her control of Mallory, she must have poisoned the jar she already had and slipped it back on your shelf, hoping to derail your efforts.”

“Evil woman,” Emma said. “She didn't care who she hurt, did she? You were very clever, Piper, to put things together when you did.” Piper shrugged, still badly wishing she'd been quicker.

Emma turned to Ralph. “On to Stan's, now, to congratulate him on his new grandson!”

Piper smiled as the two took off, highly pleased that Stan's life had taken a happy turn instead of the kind she'd once feared for him. They'd barely left, when Tammy Butterworth walked in, glancing over her shoulder at Ralph's truck disappearing in the distance.

“That was Ralph Strawbridge, wasn't it?” she asked Piper. When Piper agreed it was, she said, “I heard about him figuring out where Zach was all that time. Clever man!”

“He certainly is. There's a lot more to Ralph than expert woodworker.”

“Oh, I knew that.” Tammy's eyes twinkled mischievously.

“You did?”

Tammy glanced back at the street Ralph had just driven down. “He doesn't know me, but I know him.”

Piper waited, and, when Tammy only grinned, cried, “Well? Are you going to tell me?”

Tammy laughed. “The cat's going to be out of the bag soon, so I might as well. Ralph's a millionaire. Maybe billionaire.”

“What!”

Tammy nodded vigorously. “He was one of the developers of that social networking site, Frendz. Are you on it? Seems like everyone in the world is, nowadays.”

“How do you know this?” Piper asked. “I mean about Ralph being the developer?”

Tammy smiled, clearly enjoying her tale. “My mother was his nanny. It was years ago, of course, but she was very fond of him and liked to keep track of things he did as he grew up. She talked about him so much and was so proud of him—Mum liked to claim it was her proper potty training that set him on the right path—and after she died I kept an eye on his comings and goings, too. It wasn't hard. He was in the papers a lot, mostly the financial pages. He made a bundle when he finally left with all the Frendz stock options he'd held on to.”

“He did? Then why is he making doors and bookcases? I mean, I'm glad he is doing his woodwork, but . . .”

“Well, I'm sure he has more money than he could ever use and doesn't need to make any more. My guess is he's just decided to live the simple life and do what makes him happy.”

“Oh my gosh!” Piper sank down on one of her stools as she took in that information. “I remember him giving Amy some pretty thoughtful business advice about setting up her restaurant one day, but I never dreamed . . .”

“He's a crafty one.” Tammy cackled. “Sugar Heywood's going to be pretty surprised, wouldn't you say?”

“Whoo! You got that right.” Piper thought about Sugar's initial, single criticism of Ralph, that he wasn't ambitious enough. She'd obviously long since put any concern of that sort aside but Sugar was still going to be bowled over when the full story came out. Which it surely would. Piper remembered Sugar's admonishment to Zach about being honest with the girl he cared for. Ralph was going to have to fess up. Piper wished she could see Sugar's reaction when that happened.

“Well, what I came in for was some of your lemon curd,” Tammy said. “I'll be going over to Jeremy's and wanted to take him some. It's small comfort, I know, for what he's going through. But it's something.”