Swan Song (19 page)

“Sorry, Sugar, but I couldn’t stand it out there for another minute,” Margo explained. “What on earth is goin’ on here?”

John, his expression unreadable, eased into the room and set his wife down carefully in a chair I hastily righted. After years of Margo’s and my escapades, I doubted that anything in which we were involved would surprise him.

“That’s just what we were about to discuss,” Officer MacNamara told her. “Morning, Lieutenant.”

John nodded and picked his way through the debris to the kitchen, then turned left down a short hallway and proceeded to the living room, which filled the entire left side of the lower level. He completed the circuit and re-entered the dining room, his face somber. He frowned at Margo and me before taking both of May’s hands in his own. “At some point, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go in there with me,” he said, “but not right now.” He picked up another of the ruined chairs and set it on its legs. “First, I want you to have a seat and tell us exactly what’s been going on around here. I have the distinct impression that your niece and her partner haven’t been entirely forthcoming with me.”

Margo and I exchanged guilty glances and remained silent while May outlined to John the situation that had evolved over the past week. MacNamara and Johansson took notes but kept equally quiet, no doubt noting John’s changing expression. He tended to glower when upset, much as my Armando did. The only other sign of agitation was the clenching of his jaw muscles from time to time as May spoke. When she had brought him up to date on our activities of the last twenty-four hours and added our assumption that Renata Parsons and Martin Schenk were probably tailing us, although perhaps not together, she stopped and waited for the explosion. None came, which was possibly even more disconcerting.

“Officer MacNamara, I need you to get Mrs. Harkness to the emergency walk-in center on the Silas Deane Highway to get her ankle looked after. I’ll pick her up from there in our Volvo, which is outside in the street. Then take Mrs. Farnsworth and Ms. Lawrence to the station to make formal statements. After that, arrange transportation for them to Ms. Lawrence’s condominium at The Birches. That’s probably plowed out already, but I’m afraid it’s going to take some work with a shovel here to make a passable walkway to your cruiser. Sorry,” he added as MacNamara sighed audibly. It had already been a long night for him and his partner. “I would advise you to avoid the larger tracks in the snow leading to the back of the garage, in case they offer any clues to the intruder here, but I’m afraid those were pretty well been messed up by Mrs. Farnsworth and Ms. Lawrence on the way in. At any rate, there are plenty more of the original tracks leading around to the back of the garage where the window is broken. Is all of this okay with you, Kate?”

I nodded and refrained from looking at Margo, who was avoiding looking at her husband.

“Officer Johansson, you’ll remain here with me and finish documenting the damage. Then we’ll turn the house over to the investigators to photograph and fingerprint. That will be helpful evidence for your insurance company, May,” he added as an aside. “We’ll also have to track down Parsons and Schenk. If we can locate them, we’ll bring them in for some serious questioning.” He paused and looked around once more at the devastation that had once been May’s cozy little home. “I’m really sorry this has happened, May,” he told her before turning to me.

“Kate, will you help May pack a suitcase? She’ll be staying with us until we can get this mess sorted out. Until then, I’m afraid this house will be a crime scene.”

May’s face crumbled. “Yellow tape and everything?” she whispered.

John nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

For a minute, May looked as if she might give in to the tears that filled her eyes, no doubt remembering her humiliation of two years ago in full view of her neighbors, but she squared her shoulders and rose from her chair.

“All right, John,” was all she said. Then she and I picked our way to the stairs leading to the second floor, braced for the further heartbreaking damage we knew we would find there.

By the time May and I had made our statements at the Wethersfield Police Department headquarters and been driven to my condominium at The Birches, it was nearly two o’clock. We were exhausted and famished. I checked on Margo by phone and learned that her ankle had been x-rayed and was not broken, which was good news, then given a walking cast and released to her husband, which was not. “I can’t understand why he’s bein’ so … I don’t know, just plain pissy with me,” she whispered. “It’s not as if I made up a story about where we were last night. I told him when I called him exactly where we were and why. I just sort of forgot to mention that we were probably bein’ followed by two people who very likely are responsible in some way for May’s friend Lizabeth’s death.”

“Mmmm,” I agreed. “It was just a little sin of omission, so to speak. You simply didn’t want him to worry.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “I mean, he’s carryin’ on as if we do this sort of thing all the time just to provoke him and make him look silly in front of the other police.”

“Um, that’s actually true—not the provoking and making him look silly part, but you have to admit that we do tend to get ourselves involved in dangerous situations. Just be a very, very good girl tonight. I’m sure John will snap out of it in the morning. Was he able to get any information on Renata Parsons and Martin Schenk yet?”

“Not that he’s tellin’ me,” she whispered. “Sorry, I’ve got to run, Sugar. I’m supposed to be soakin’ in a bubble bath.” She disconnected.

I reported the conversation to May, who was in my kitchen, heating up a can of soup and making tuna fish sandwiches, all of which we wolfed down standing at the counter. “I don’t know about you, but the part about the bubble bath sounded really good to me,” I told her, wiping my mouth on a paper towel. “This place has two nice, big bathtubs, one up and one down. Shall I put out a fresh towel for you down here? I think my legs will just about carry me upstairs, and all my shampoo and stuff is up there. After that, we might feel like sitting down and trying to make sense out of the last twenty-four hours.”

“The bath part sounds good,” May said wearily. “I feel grubby from head to toe. Luckily, I have my overnight things with me, so I have something clean to change into before John comes to drag me over to their place.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Stay here with me for the night. Armando doesn’t return from Florida until tomorrow night. It will give John and Margo time to kiss and make up. We’ll get clean, and then we’ll feel better. We can chuck most of what we’re wearing right into the washing machine, and then you’ll have another spare outfit. Since we’re plowed out, and the streets are passable, I’ll just make a quick run down to the pond and spread some corn for the water fowl and feed the little birds by the overpass. They hunker down during a storm, but they’ll be hungry now, and they depend on me.”

“Can’t Duane and Becky do that for you?”

“I don’t even know where they are at this point, but I’d be willing to bet they’re still at the Hilton. It’s no problem, really—won’t take me more than fifteen minutes, I promise.”

After a restorative soak and a change of clothes, I pulled on my boots and parka and headed for the pond. As usual, the town maintenance crew had plowed out the narrow street between the pond and the marsh, so it was passable. Having come to recognize my car as the chuck wagon over the preceding few months, the geese and ducks that were huddled together on the banks roused themselves and gave me a noisy greeting. I scrambled to spread twice as much cracked corn as usual on both sides of the road, and all of the waterfowl were soon lined up, eating busily. I looked around for my old goose with the angel wing, but Fray was nowhere in sight. Neither were the swans, but since they were perfectly capable of flying to open water—probably the Connecticut River, I didn’t worry about them so much.

I refilled my pitchers with the nutty, fruity wild bird food I kept in a bin in the trunk and drove to the Main Street end of the pond, where it morphed into another stream that ran under the road. Again, the sidewalks were nicely cleared, and I was able to pull into the parking area of a nearby insurance business and walk down to the overpass. I whistled my usual two-tone arrival notice and was gratified when my cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, and a variety of finches and other small birds flew immediately to meet me. I spoke to them quietly and poured out my offerings in a long row to give them all plenty of room to eat without jostling each other. One of the cardinals, a regular I called Pip-Pip for the noise he made when flying, sat on a branch overhanging the fence next to the sidewalk and watched me with beady interest, his head cocked at an angle. As accustomed as he’d become to my presence, he always waited until I’d retreated a good fifty yards down the sidewalk before fluttering to the ground. Instead of getting my feelings hurt, I applauded his caution. These were wild things, and I wanted them to remain wild with a healthy wariness of human beings.

As I walked slowly back to my car, I reflected on the events of the past week or so. How surreal it all seemed in the cold light of day, a mystery
about
a mystery, in effect, with a cast of characters that would boggle the mind of Christie herself. A mystery publisher dies a mysterious death while attending a mystery convention attended by hundreds of mystery writers. It seemed more than a little implausible, but those were the facts. Said publisher, who is a longtime friend and colleague of my business partner’s Aunt May, leaves a letter indicating that she wants to leave the aunt an extremely valuable manuscript, but only if May can solve a puzzle pointing to the location of the USB drive on which the manuscript resides. But despite breaking the initial code and learning everything possible about the author’s life, the drive drive remains as elusive as the author did himself during his lifetime.

The situation is further complicated by the appearance of a hotel security officer who is not, in fact, a security officer and the author’s former agent, who may or may not be stalking May. Whatever the case, both seem determined to locate the drive and its manuscript first—or to steal it from May if she gets to it faster.

I climbed into the Jetta and turned the key, reassured by the engine’s sturdy rumble. My head ached, and I longed for my bed. If I felt that way at my age, I wondered, how must May be feeling? I had a sudden fear of her possibly nodding off in the bathtub, so I eased the car into gear and headed for home.

I found May comfortably ensconced on the couch in my family room, my wireless phone pressed to one ear. I could hear the washing machine chugging away. I turned back toward the kitchen to make us both a cup of tea, but she held up one finger, signaling me to wait.

“Sounds as if you’re having fun. How about Becky?” She listened for another moment with a smile on her face. “I’m not surprised. Becky is a very attractive young woman. Hold on a minute. Here’s Kate. Tell her what you told me.” She handed me the phone and whispered, “News on the Renata Parsons front.”

I took the phone eagerly. “Hey, what’s going on there?”

“These guys are so weird, you would not believe the pranks they play on each other,” Duane said without preamble.

I headed off any retelling of humorous mortician stories. “I can’t wait to hear all about it, but May says you have news about Renata Parsons?”

“Yeah, I do, but I don’t think you’re going to like it much.” For a moment he sounded unsure about how to proceed, but he pulled himself together. “I already told May, so I guess you can handle it,” he decided.

Gee, thanks, I responded silently.

“There was a big storm party at the hotel last night, since all the guests and staff were stuck here until the snow stopped, and Becky and I got to meet a bunch of regular hotel employees who got drafted to help serve food and stuff. They got lots of overtime, so most of them didn’t mind.”

“Uh huh,” I said while my eyelids drooped.

“I was assigned to the buffet table to help serve, and the girl next to me was on desserts, so we got to talking. I asked what she did on her regular job at the hotel, and she said she was a maid on the early shift. She’s in college during the day, so working from four to eleven a.m. fits the schedule she needs. I’d be a zombie, if I had to get up in the middle of the night, but she …”

“Duane? I don’t mean to rush you, but May and I are pretty much
both
zombies at the moment, so if you could please get to it?” I pleaded.

“Oh! Sorry. It’s just that Becky and I are having such a great time, it’s hard to stay focused. Did I mention I’ve been hanging out with the Hilton’s chief wine steward? He has a two-year degree, and he’s studying to be certified as a master sommelier. There are only a couple of hundred of them in the world. He asked me to be his assistant at the first dinner, and it’s wicked interesting. We really hit it off, so he’s letting him follow him around when I’m not assigned to do something else …”

“Duane?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” May rose from the sofa and snatched the phone from my hand. “Duane? Go on back to having fun, and I’ll fill Kate in. Say hi to Becky for us, and remember, be discreet with the questions. ‘Bye now.” She disconnected and pushed me onto the other end of the sofa.

“It’s amazing,” I murmured. “I can’t remember the last time I heard Duane sound so animated. He’s been in sort of a funk since Charlie left for UConn, but not now. Becky’s having a good time, too, I guess. Do you think we’re losing two employees?” I was only half joking.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” May reassured me, “but I have a feeling those two are going to be accepting weekend catering assignments from the Hilton from here on out.”

“Sounds exhausting, but hey, they’re young. I can’t even remember what it feels like to be nineteen, but I know those two can handle it. Now what is it that Duane never got around to telling me?” I pulled my feet up under me and got comfortable.