The Feed Store Floozy (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series) (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Mother, it’s all right. He told me he was going to sneak you in here tonight.”

“You told him it was all right?”

“I couldn’t tell him that.”

“You just pretended you didn’t hear him.”

Bradley shrugged.

“Why don’t you tell her the rest of it?” Sam asked.

Penelope, sitting in the darkness on the bottom stair, leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to know.”

“We were up there this morning,” Bradley said. “Sam had a hunch about something. On the way out, he said you wanted to see the place before Darby Dolan dismantled it.”

“How long has he…has Harvey been up there…like that?”

“I’d say
no longer than a couple of hours,” Sam said.

“Right.” Bradley put his hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“I’ve got to call Chief Malone and get Parnell over here to help me. You should go home.”

Sam hauled her to her still-unsteady feet. “I’ll take her.”

“I threw up my supper in the hall,” Penelope said to no one in particular.

“I’ll go up and take care of it,” Sam said. “That is, with your permission, Sgt. Pembroke.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

The sudden formality of their exchange brought home the gravity of the situation. As if he’d read her mind, Bradley said, “Don’t worry, Mother. In the first place, Chief Malone won’t even come down here, and Parnell can keep his mouth shut.”

“Is that standard police procedure?”

Bradley let out a long sigh. “It’s common sense, and three back-to-back murders in a town like Amaryllis is anything but standard.”

“What about Brice Dolan?”

“What about him?”

“Did he come back from wherever he was and do this?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble, Bradley.”

“You haven’t. Just go on home with Sam.”

Sam came downstairs, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Call me if you need anything,” he said to Bradley.

“Thanks, I might do that.”

“Come on, Nell. Let’s get you home.”

****

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said as he sat beside her bed holding her hand. “This is a nightmare, and I just want to wake up.”

“It’s no nightmare, Nell. It’s real, and you can’t wake up and say it never happened.”

“I guess you know about things like that.”

“I guess I do.”

She closed her eyes. “Don’t leave me, Sam.” She felt the warm pressure of his fingers around hers.

“I’ll be right here,” he murmured. “Always.”

****

If Jake knew anything was amiss the next morning—and Penelope was sure he did—he didn’t ask questions. While they ate breakfast, Sam talked about baseball. Later, after Jake had gone off on his usual morning jaunt to meet the Toney Twins, Sam took Penelope into the parlor and sat on the sofa holding her until they heard Mary Lynn in the kitchen.

“I’ll be upstairs,” Sam said.

“Harvey Hadden’s dead,” Mary Lynn said as Penelope came into the kitchen. “Murdered in Miss Madeline’s room like the others.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s all over town.”

“I haven’t been anywhere to hear it.”

“I watched them bring his body out the back door of the feed store right before I came over here. He’s so big it took five men to load him in the back of the coroner’s van.”

Penelope shuddered.

“And that’s not all.” Mary Lynn shoved Abijah out of the chair and sat down. The cat hissed and stalked off, then turned to glare at her. “We, Harry and I, ran into Bradley, and he told us to come over here and said he’d be along.”

“Over here? Why?”

“He’s going to question us again. I guess he wants to make it as unobtrusive as possible.”

“Oh, Mary Lynn, he can’t possibly think you and Harry—where is Harry, by the way?”

“He’ll be here.” Mary Lynn put her head down on the table.

Penelope made fresh coffee and transferred a bag of sugar doughnuts from the freezer to the microwave. Harry didn’t speak to her as he stepped inside the screen door and went to stand behind Mary Lynn with his hands firmly planted on her shoulders.

Bradley wasn’t far behind.

“I’ll go in the other room,” Penelope said.

“No, Mother, stay.” Bradley touched Mary Lynn’s bent head. “Aunt Mary, I need the truth.”

Her head came up. She and Harry exchanged glances, and he nodded. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Start with the night Wally Powers was murdered.”

“Harry left the house about seven-thirty, saying he was going to the office. But I didn’t believe him.” Her eyes filled up as she looked at her husband. “I knew where you were going, Harry, so I followed you.”

“Then what?” Bradley prompted.

“I saw him go into the feed store through the back, and I waited until he came out.”

“How long was he in there?”

“Five or six minutes.”

“Did you hear anything? A shot?”

“No, and that’s the truth.”

“What happened next?”

“Then I saw him come out, and I went home. When you came later to question h
im, I lied about our being home together all evening.”

Bradley turned to Harry. “Now I need to hear from you.”

Harry’s pale, sweating face worried Penelope and sent her into nurse-mode. “I meant to go to my office, but I saw a light upstairs in the feed store, so I went there instead.”

“Why?”

“I figured it was either Wally or Brice up there. I wanted to talk to them about what they were doing…about how they could hurt people for no reason.”

“Did you see or hear anyone in the building?”

“Just Wally Powers, and he was already dead. I stood there staring at him for what seemed like a long time, not wanting to believe it.”

“And you don’t think anyone was around the store?”

“When I was leaving, I thought I heard someone moving around in the main showroom. Later, after I realized he’d been there, I knew it was Hal Greene.”

Bradley nodded. “Okay. Why didn’t you tell me the truth the first time?”

“I should have, I know that. But when Mary Lynn jumped in and said we were home all evening, I figured I’d just leave it at that. I knew I hadn’t killed anybody.”

“But you wrote the letter to Hal, didn’t you?”

Harry nodded. “The next morning, he came to my office and said he saw me coming downstairs at the feed store. He figured I killed Wally Powers. I told him I didn’t, and I thought he believed me, but then I wrote the letter to kind of scare him off from saying anything.”

“Why did you write it on city hall stationery?” Mary Lynn’s voice rose.

“A lot of people had access to it. I thought I could bluff it out.” He swallowed a couple of times. “It was a stupid thing for a lawyer to do.”

Mary Lynn put her hands over his. “A good lawyer. A smart one. And honest.”

“Everyone knows what you are, Uncle Harry,” Bradley said. “Did you know about Madeline Hadden’s daybook?”

Harry frowned. “Her what?”

“She kept a daybook with the names of every man who…um…availed himself of the upstairs…um…facilities,” Bradley said.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“I don’t either,” Mary Lynn said. “How do…”

“Never mind. Okay, is there anything else?”

“Nothing, Brad.” Harry mopped his forehead with a plaid handkerchief. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I’ll go to my office and write my resignation as mayor right now.”

“Don’t do anything hasty,” Brad said. “Nobody knows anything about all this except the four of us. But lying to the police, even
if it’s your godson, Aunt Mary…”

“I know. I’m sorry and ashamed.”

“It was ridiculous to get worked up over something that happened a hundred years ago,” Harry said. “I guess there’s a skeleton in every closet.”

“I guess there is,” Bradley said. “Okay, just hang in there, and I’ll get back to you.”

Penelope followed him to his car. “I don’t like for you to have to keep secrets.”

He turned and smiled at her. “Mother, I’ve forgotten more secrets than you’ll ever know. All of this will go into
my report, but it doesn’t have to go to the newspaper. We’re lucky to have a man like Chief Harley Malone in charge of that.”

Penelope touched her son’s face. “I’m lucky to have you.”

****

Sam sat waiting half-way up the stairs. When he opened his arms, Pe
nelope sank into them and told him the latest. “I’m so relieved about Harry and Mary Lynn.”

“You didn’t really suspect them, did you?”

“No, but seeing Harry come out of the feed store just before Wally Powers’ body was discovered could’ve been pretty damning.”

“Could’ve been but wasn’t as it turns out. And
I still say—and Bradley agrees—that Harvey Hadden didn’t use a small-caliber handgun to kill Wally and Jill.”

“What killed Harvey
?”

“As nearly as I could tell, somebody shot him point-blank with a small-caliber handgun.”

Penelope shivered. “He did run me off the road. And somebody in a big pickup like he drives…like he drove…tried to run Bradley and me down on the street in front of the feed store.”

“So who’s left?”

“Just Brice, I guess.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Nobody else is involved. Hal Greene scooped Wally. He didn’t have any reason to kill him, and besides, Hal wouldn’t do something like that anymore than Harry would.”

So you’re putting your money on Brice Dolan.”

“Aren’t you? It looks bad for him that he’s just disappeared.”

“I’ll admit he looks like a person of interest.”

“But why? Wouldn’t he realize he’d be the first suspect, especially where Jill Jerome was concerned?”

“You’d think so. I did a little detective work on the computer while you were in with the Hargroves and your son. Found some pictures of Wally a few years ago when he got an award from a prestigious magazine. But awards—unless you sell them—don’t earn you any money, and he was worth a pretty penny.”

“Well, he sold a lot of stories, didn’t he?”

“The scuttleb
utt in the writing community is that he sold a lot to less-than-outstanding markets.”

“You mean the tabloids?”

“Complete with pictures—but not with his byline. Jill Jerome’s name is on most of the articles attributed privately to Wally Powers.”

“She must’ve hated that.”

“And she knew it was going to happen again. I made a couple of phone calls, and this story was headed for the tabloids, too.”

“Under Jill’s
name?”

“Not this time. Wally
Powers had had his day in the sun, and it was a while back. He hadn’t sold anything of any note in something like ten years. The money from the tabloids kept him going, but I expect he didn’t split fifty-fifty with Jill.”

Penelope turned around to face him. “So Jill killed Wally?”

Sam shrugged. “Brad will figure it out.”

“Does he know what you found out?”

“I just emailed him.”

“You have his email, too?”

Sam wiggled his eyebrows. “All for one, and one for all.”

“Law enforcement?”

“Could be.”

“Sam, who
are
you?”

“The man who loves you,” he whispered just before his mouth came down on hers.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The next morning, Jake invited Sam to go uptown with him for coffee and meet the Toney Twins. “Go ahead,” Penelope said when Sam seemed to be waiting for her approval. “I’m going to stop at the library to see Shana and then run by Mary Lynn’s.” She was on her way upstairs to get her purse when the doorbell rang.

Through the oval glass on the front door, she saw Darby Dolan.
What does she want? She lied about not knowing where Brice was. Who knows what else she lied about? Now there’s been a third murder in the building she gave Brice the money to buy. What the heck is she doing here again?

She considered not answering the door, but it was too late. Darby had seen her.

Penelope opened the door, noticing the screen wasn’t latched. “Hello, Darby. What brings you back here?”

“I need to talk to you. May I come in?”

“Actually, I was just on my way out.”

“It won’t take long, and it’s important.”

Penelope stood away from the door. “Come on in.” Instead of heading for the kitchen, she turned into the parlor. “Have a seat.”

Darby glanced around the room. “This is nice.”

“Thank you.”

“I guess you heard about Harvey
Hadden.”

“Everybody’s heard.”

“So that’s that.”

“How do you figure?”

“Obviously he killed Wally and Jill over that daybook.”

“Maybe so, but who killed him?”

“Brice did.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“He’s the only one left, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know. I’m not the police.”

“But your son is. What does he say?”

“He doesn’t talk about an open investigation to anyone, especially his mother.”

Darby frowned. “He was pretty forthcoming the other day.”

“That was unusual, I’ll admit.” Penelope studied Darby’s face, perfectly made up, composed—almost a mask.

“I just dropped by to tell you that if you’re sure the local museum doesn’t want the things on the second floor, I’m going to send a truck for them.”

“Mary Lynn’s pretty adamant about not wanting them.”

“It was just a thought. I’ll donate them elsewhere.”

“Wouldn’t the furniture fit your inventory? It’s antique.”

Darby’s mouth twitched. “Everything up there is a reproduction—including the clothes.”

“Fakes?”

“Good ones, but not the real thing.”

“But why? And if you knew it was all fake, why would you offer it to the museum?”

“Nobody who doesn’t know antiques would realize what it is. I’m sure the rooms were furnished much like that back in the day.”

“That seems a little dishonest to me. Who put the stuff up there? You or Brice?”

“We did it together. He said he was finally going to get ahead of Harry Hargrove.”

“Why now, after all these years?”

Darby shrugged. “It’s a moot point now.” She moved to the mantle and took down a brass candlestick. “Now this is the real thing.”

“My mother brought it from her home near London the last time she went back. She said it belonged to her great-aunt.”

Darby turned the piece in her long, well-manicured fingers. “It’s beautiful. And I notice it’s part of a pair.”

“Yes.” Penelope felt a sense of unease.

Darby moved toward Penelope. “That timeline you made the other day—you said something was missing.”

“It seemed that way to me.”

“Did you ever figure out what it was?”

“Not a clue.” Even as the words left her lips, Penelope knew.
It was you, Darby. You thought Brice and Jill were at it again, but they weren’t. Then somehow you found out about the deal between Brice and Harvey Hadden.

Darby tapped the candlestick against her palm. “You have the look of ‘Eureka, I found it!’” she said.

“Do I?”
It was like Parnell said—if all Harvey was doing out there in the Hollow was making shine, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but he was doing more…a lot more…and Brice knew it and wanted in on it. Why would he buy a building in a hick town, even a tax auction, and bring in merchandise that would take years to sell?

“As a matter of fact, you do.” Darby advanced a step closer.

“I was just thinking about Harvey Hadden,” Penelope lied. “He wouldn’t care about his great-grandmother being a madam, but he would’ve taken money for the other names.”
That wasn’t it at all. Harvey never had the daybook. That’s what Brice found upstairs somewhere, what gave him the idea to furnish the place and say it was original. It was a blind to cover up the really big deal he was making..

“You may be onto something.” Darby stood still.

“It’s possible.”
After
Brice read the book and knew what the place had been—he decided to use it against Harry and kill two birds with one stone—or maybe it was another diversion for what he’d agreed to with Harvey. For whatever reason, he didn’t count on Wally mucking things up, as Mum used to say.

“You think Wally and Jill stiffed Harvey on payment for the book?” The candlestick in Darby’s hand went still.

“Why not? With Harvey’s reputation, he couldn’t make much noise about anything.”
Jill was fed up with Wally using her, so she killed him. Then she found out about the deal between Brice and Harvey, and she wanted in on that, too. After all these years, it was her turn. Maybe she tried to muscle in on the deal, so Brice killed her. Harvey set the fire for his own reasons.  But who killed Harvey and why?

“Now what are you thinking?”

“Did you know that the feed store—when it was a grocery store, back during Prohibition, was a sort of way station for illegal alcohol?”

“In the middle of town? Across from the police station?”

“People, even the police, turned a blind eye to that sort of thing sometimes. To prostitution, too. I mean, when the Depression hit, everybody had to make a living somehow.”

“I see what you mean.”

Penelope stood up and strolled toward the French doors with what she hoped was a casual air. “And history repeated itself—didn’t it, Darby?”

Darby’s eyes darkened. She tapped the candlestick against her palm again.

“Back then it was bootleg hooch. Now it’s pot. That’s what Harvey was growing out there, and he was going to move it through the antique mall, wasn’t he?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Darby was a coiled snake, ready to strike.

“Sure you do. I don’t know how Brice found out the history of the place—maybe the same way I did, by researching it, but he figured it was a good way to make some money. Money that wasn’t yours. But you found out.”

Penelope eyed the distance between herself and the front door.

“Brice wasn’t smart enough to pull off all that. He tried all right, but my money financed our business and educated our daughters…and I wasn’t going to let him give any of it to a stupid backwoods clod for a marijuana crop!”

“
Wasn’t
that smart? So he’s dead, too.”

“He got what he deserved.”

“From you?”

“I wish it had been me.”

“Harvey then.”

Darby laughed. “He was a fool.”

“Did he kill Brice for you, so you had to kill him to keep him quiet?”

Darby set down the candlestick and reached into her purse.

The gun…I’m going to be the fourth person it kills.

“I underestimated you, Mrs. Pembroke. I thought bringing you the daybook would tie up all the loose ends and satisfy your curiosity, but I was wrong. When you drew that timeline, and your son showed such an interest in it, I knew you wouldn’t let go of this.”

“So now you’re going to get rid of me.”

“The gun belongs to Brice.”

“But Brice is dead.”

“No one will ever find him. Harvey
Hadden swore to that. So it will look like Brice struck yet again and disappeared.”

Penelope licked her dry lips and tried again to gauge the distance to the front door.
I’ll never make it. She’ll shoot me and get away before anyone knows what happened…and Daddy and Sam will find me…Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women and…

The voice from the small, unused office opening off the parlor belonged to Bradley. “Drop the gun, Mrs. Dolan.”

Darby spun around and fired a single shot which went wild and lodged in the mantel. She brought her hand up to fire again when a familiar arm came out of nowhere and sent the gun spinning across the floor.

Penelope stood frozen to the floor as she watched Bradley spring out of the office and handcuff Darby Dolan. Then she saw Sam, his face contorted with something beyond anger, stalk out of the parlor toward the front door.

****

“Sam, you’ve got to quit sneaking up on me this way!” Penelope pivoted on the third stair and twisted in his arms until she could see his face.

“Why?”

She gave herself up to the warmth of his body. “I don’t know. It’s been three weeks and three days this time. Not even an email after I laid out that ghastly amount of money for the laptop.” She touched his face. “You saved my life—and Bradley’s.”

“Nothing so dramatic. Parnell Garrett and Rosabel were positioned as backup.”

“You didn’t go downtown with Daddy after all.”

“I got him out of the way, then made an excuse to leave. Brad knew Darby was ready to tip her hand when he saw her in town last night. Ostensibly, she was getting things ready to be moved out of the shop, but he had a feeling she wasn’t quite finished here. Also, he took a dealer from Little Rock to look at the upstairs, and when he found out everything was a reproduction, he added up the evidence again.”

Penelope stared at him.

“Brad’s a good cop, Nell.” He grinned and nuzzled her neck. “Sorry I snuck up on you again.”

“Are you really?”

“I’ll show you just how sorry I am if you’ll let me.”

She shook her head. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“So fill me in on three weeks and three days.”

“I’ll bet you know it all.”

“I might.”

“Being the world-traveler again, I suppose.”

He shrugged. “Your room or mine?”

“The kitchen.”

“Curses, foiled again.”

“You betcha.”

She served him warmed over lasagna and sat down across the table. “I don’t know why I’m telling you anything. You probably already know it all.”

“I like the way you tell stories.” He grinned at her.
             

“Okay, this isn’t official, but Hal Greene usually gets things straight. Brice bought the building with Darby’s money, but his real purpose was to make enough in partnership with
Harvey so he wouldn’t be dependent on his wife anymore. He planned to file for divorce and take off, but not with Jill Jerome. But he made the mistake of shooting off his mouth and getting Wally Powers involved, and Wally brought in Jill Jerome. It was a tangled web. Are you sure you don’t know all this?”

Sam helped himself to a garlic breadstick. “Keep talking.”

“Well, anyway, when he first went upstairs, it was empty. He’d heard about the brothel back during his great-grandfather’s time, so he was pretty disappointed. Then he stumbled on a loose floorboard and found Madeline’s daybook, and somehow he got the idea to use it to embarrass Harry. He knew how proud Harry is of his family and their place in Amaryllis.”

“Sounds like bad fiction to me.”

“He told Darby that much, trying to throw her off what he really meant to do. Beyond that, everything is just a guess, except that it was Darby’s idea to furnish the second floor to look like the girls had just left yesterday. He was going to give tours and really play it up. When the time came, Darby would play Miss Madeline and keep an eye on things at the same time. She’d find out what Brice was really up to. And she did.”

Penelope sat back and observed Sam for a few minutes. “I’ll bet you knew every bit of this.”

“Some of it.”

“You’ve talked to Bradley?”

“A good rule of thumb is never to reveal your source. But you were right, Nell—there was something missing from the timeline, the connection between all the actors in the drama. Brad had started putting two and two together, and then you did it, too. Darby Dolan should’ve let well enough alone with that daybook.”

“I couldn’t imagine why she’d bring it to me.”

“It’s what helped Brad piece all this together.”

“I’m glad for that.” She watched him scrape the remaining sauce onto his fork. “You’re always hungry.”

“I’m a growing boy.”

“Sure you are.” She got up and went to the refrigerator for a carton of ice cream.

****

Sam helped her clean up the kitchen before they went upstairs. “Which way do I go?”