Tying the Knot (9 page)

Beatrice sighed. Meadow could be very nosy, but she also did have good advice sometimes. Maybe Beatrice could use some advice. “We did have breakfast together the morning we talked with Harper and Daniel after they'd returned to town.”

“Have you seen him besides that?” asked Meadow.

“Oh sure. I saw him at Trevor's funeral, of course. And Harper and Daniel's wedding, too.” Beatrice's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Meadow made a scoffing sound. “Seeing someone at a funeral or wedding is hardly a date, Beatrice. Especially when you're there with the minister who's presiding over those events. What about that volunteering you said you were going to do? In order to see more of Wyatt at the church? What's become of that?”

“I'm still planning on doing it. I know I have an ulterior motive, but I really do believe in volunteering and supporting the community I live in. I think, with Trevor's murder, I've been sort of sidetracked,” said Beatrice.

Meadow said thoughtfully, “Mmm. There were a couple of things in the church newsletter that maybe you'd be good to help with. I know you enjoy working with the elderly, for instance.”

“Aren't I elderly myself?” asked Beatrice with a snort. “It's more like just visiting.”

“Early sixties—elderly? Absolutely not! The elderly are our octogenarian and nonagenarian friends,” said Meadow, sounding fairly miffed.

“Oh, I see. What type of volunteering is it?” asked Beatrice.

“The type where Wyatt goes,” said Meadow simply.

Beatrice said in a warning tone, “Now, Meadow, I mentioned that my volunteering won't simply be a scheme to spend more time with Wyatt. That's just a pleasant by-product of it. So, what type of work is it?”

“A group goes to a local retirement home and visits with the residents,” said Meadow. “It's one of those multifunctional retirement homes, so there's also a nursing unit there. Sometimes the group eats with residents. Sometimes they play a game of checkers or help work on a jigsaw puzzle. Most of the time they're simply providing fellowship.” Meadow registered Beatrice's look of surprise. “I'm not one of the volunteers, but I know someone who is and loves it. She talks about it all the time.”

“Who is that?” asked Beatrice, pulling into Eleanor's shrub-lined driveway.

“Miss Sissy.”

Beatrice nearly took out one of the shrubs as she looked at Meadow. She carefully corrected the wheel and slowed down a little. “Miss Sissy! She should be in a retirement home herself!”

“Probably. But she only wants to visit there. Wyatt takes her along with the others in the church van.” Meadow mused, “I think one of the big draws for Miss
Sissy is the snacks. The staff always provides snacks there.”

“I don't know if spending an afternoon with Miss Sissy is something I'm really up for right now. But I'll keep it in mind.”

Beatrice focused on parking close to the house and missed the look on Meadow's face. She'd have recognized it, if she had—it was the look of Meadow on a mission.

Beatrice looked admiringly at Eleanor's yard as she and Meadow approached the front door of the white Colonial Revival–style home. “I can certainly tell she enjoys gardening,” said Beatrice. “No wonder she's a florist.”

Crepe myrtle shrubs framed the front porch, and tall hollies created a natural hedge between the neighboring houses. Forsythia bushes with branches full of delicate yellow flowers waved gently in the breeze. It was clear that Eleanor took great pride in her yard and had already spruced it up with annuals, despite the chilly May temperature.

Eleanor managed a smile when she opened the door, but her eyes still held an exhausted expression. “Here, let me help you with those boxes,” she said quickly.

Beatrice and Meadow demurred. “It's one of those things that if we tried to hand one to you, we'd probably drop the boxes,” explained Beatrice. Although that wasn't really the truth. The truth was that Eleanor Garber looked frail beyond her years and didn't seem capable of holding any boxes herself. It was as if she were truly carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“Where should we put them?” asked Meadow in something of a belabored voice as she tried to shift the large box she was carrying to a slightly more comfortable or secure position.

Beatrice blinked as she faced the room in front of her. Where indeed should they put the boxes of vases? She very carefully kept her features neutral as she looked out at the foyer and living room and into the dining room. There didn't seem to be a single spot anywhere that was clear. There was, actually, no way that the house could have gotten in this shape since Trevor's death. This type of clutter was surely years in the making. And it was such a shock after the carefully tended front yard.

Beatrice saw Meadow's eyes widen as she surveyed the rooms before she carefully arranged her expression into one as blank as Beatrice's.

There were unopened boxes from mail-order companies stacked floor to ceiling. As well, there were brand-new appliances, stacks upon stacks of folded clothing for men and women and even children, empty containers, books, catalogs, mail, and newspapers.

Eleanor gave them an uneasy look, and Beatrice and Meadow smiled reassuringly back at her. “Let's see,” said Eleanor slowly. “What group should I put the vases with?” She frowned as she tried to figure out what stack the vases belonged with.

Meadow said, “Kitchen items? I usually keep my vases in my cabinets with my glassware.” She stopped elaborating on that when her eyes fixed on a stack of cans that were there in the living room, right next to tubs of what appeared to be craft items.

Eleanor's grouping system didn't make immediate sense to Beatrice, so she decided to stay quiet and await her instructions.

Eleanor's decision making was painstakingly slow, however, and Beatrice shifted the medium boxes she was carrying to try to hold on to them better. Then Eleanor's face cleared. “I know. The dining-room table. It's this way.”

The reason that Eleanor had to lead the way is because there was a specific path one had to take to navigate the piles and stacks of things in her home. Meadow, following behind Beatrice, gave Beatrice an alarmed look. Beatrice nodded back. This was much worse than just a little clutter or falling behind on housekeeping.

When Beatrice finally spotted the dining-room table, she had to bite her tongue to keep from asking Eleanor how they could put the boxes there. The entire table was covered with stacks of newspapers, catalogs, and old paperback books.

By this time, Beatrice's arms were groaning with the strain of carrying the heavy lead-crystal vases. She couldn't see even a conceivable spot to put the boxes down where they might not topple over and break. “Eleanor, do you think this is a good spot?” she asked weakly. “I'm worried they might break here.”

“Oh! Oh, not up on top of the table. Underneath it. Can you put them underneath?” asked Eleanor a bit uncertainly.

Beatrice and Meadow stooped to check. Beatrice found that although the stacks under the table were pretty tall, there was still room to put their boxes on top of them. She finally unloaded the boxes with relief and slowly stood back up.

“Thank you so much for bringing those in for me,” said Eleanor, real gratitude in her voice. “I can see now
that there was no way I'd be able to do it myself.” She shyly asked, “Would you like to sit for a few minutes? I could get you some lemonade, and we could visit. It's the least I could do after you had to haul those heavy boxes.”

Meadow, standing behind Eleanor, raised her eyebrows. Like Beatrice, she must have been wondering where on earth they would be able to sit.

Eleanor quickly added, “Why don't we go into the kitchen?”

Beatrice wondered if the careful stacks hadn't yet extended into the kitchen. But they had. Most of the stacks there didn't appear to be kitchen related, either. Beatrice and Meadow hung back by the kitchen door as Eleanor swept in and started pulling glasses out of the cabinets and poured them some lemonade from a pitcher in the fridge.

“You know,” Eleanor said, “I usually like to perch on those piles right there.” She gestured to a newspaper pile and a magazine pile. “They're pretty comfortable. And you can reach the table from there.”

Beatrice wondered what had become of the kitchen table that Eleanor was referring to. It must be somewhere, buried under the folded clothing. A sense of sadness rose in Beatrice as she surveyed the cluttered house. No wonder Eleanor hadn't wanted anyone over here. And what kind of stress or unhappiness had she been dealing with for it to manifest in this way?

Eleanor handed Beatrice and Meadow some glasses of lemonade, and then she settled down on a third stack to give them a tired smile. She said, “I wanted to thank you, too, for coming to the funeral yesterday. It
meant a lot to me, and I'm not sure I showed that to everyone. I was just trying to make it through the day.”

Meadow said staunchly, “Everyone knew you appreciated their being there. And they all
wanted
to come, after all. To show support for you.”

Eleanor said with a faint smile, “You think so? To show support for
me
?”

“Absolutely!” said Meadow. “After all, it wouldn't mean anything to poor Trevor whether people were there or not. They were there for you.”

This seemed to please Eleanor, and a rosy glow tinged her pale features as she thought about it.

Then Eleanor looked down at the floor. Or, rather, at some brown paper grocery bags that were stacked there. She said, “I had a lot of mixed feelings about being there yesterday. I was trying to be strong and not show them.”

Beatrice said, “I'm sure you must have. My emotions would probably swing from one extreme to another on a day like that.” She took a cautious sip of her lemonade. But Eleanor's lack of housecleaning or organizing didn't seem to extend to her beverage production. The glass was pristine and the lemonade tasted homemade.

Eleanor gave Beatrice a relieved look, as if glad that someone understood. “That's exactly right,” she said. “Extreme emotions. You see, in some ways—this is horrible to say—but it was something of a relief when Trevor died.”

Beatrice and Meadow froze. Beatrice hadn't dreamed that Eleanor, as fragile as she seemed right now, would be so up front with them about that.

“Trevor hadn't been acting like himself for months,” Eleanor explained. “Our relationship was experiencing a lot of stress.” She sighed, and the lines on her face showed in sharp relief as she reflected on the problems she'd had with her husband. “But then I did feel this huge sadness, because Trevor was determined to finally turn things around. When Daniel dropped Trevor as best man, it made Trevor realize that he needed to start behaving better. It made me very sad that he never had the chance to prove that he could make changes.”

Eleanor paused again. “I'd also told Trevor that
I
was going to make some changes,” she said quietly. She glanced around the room absently. Then she gave a small smile. “I'm sure you've noticed that things are a little cluttered in here.”

Beatrice and Meadow didn't say anything, just smiled at her encouragingly. It seemed like the best thing to do.

“I'd told Trevor that I was finally going to be able to clear out my things here.” Eleanor grimaced, as if it pained her to say the words. She swallowed and continued. “It's hard for me, you know. To throw things out that I might be able to use in the future. And there's so much information here that I might need to read and learn from.” She indicated the stacks that Beatrice and Meadow were sitting on. “But I knew we both wanted to be able to have people over again. To host our grown children at Christmas. To have friends over for supper—that kind of thing. We were both going to work on changing.” Eleanor's eyes were full of sadness.

Beatrice said, “That's why this is such a tragedy. I'm actually trying to help figure out who might be behind Trevor's death, Eleanor. I've had some success in the
past with helping solve local cases. Did you see anything during the wedding or hear anything, or have any idea who might be responsible for this?”

Eleanor's eyes widened in surprise. “Of course. I know exactly who did it. It was Lyla. Lyla Wales.”

Beatrice stiffened and said urgently, “Have you told Ramsay this?”

Meadow fussed. “Why wouldn't Ramsay have arrested her already, if you saw Lyla tamper with Trevor's drink? I swear, that man can be so poky sometimes.”

“I did tell him. But he wasn't really listening,” said Eleanor. Her hands tightened as she clasped them until her knuckles were white.

“Not
listening
?” Meadow gaped at her. “I mean, I know he's not listening sometimes when I tell him gossip that I've heard at a guild meeting, but he was interviewing you. He
should
have been listening, by golly!”

Eleanor shrugged a thin shoulder. “Ramsay asked if I'd seen Lyla actually putting powder in Trevor's drink. I told him I hadn't, but that I hadn't had to, that I knew she'd done it, sure as anything.”

Meadow snapped her mouth shut again and gave Beatrice a wiggle of her eyebrows to signify that Ramsay might need a spot more evidence than Eleanor's say-so.

“Why are you so certain that Lyla is responsible?” asked Beatrice intently.

“She's responsible for a lot,” said Eleanor with a bitter laugh. “What's one more thing? She was the one who flirted with Trevor and lured him away from me. Then, once they'd had their affair, she was finished with him. Done. She called it quits, but Trevor couldn't
seem to accept it was over. He kept embarrassing himself . . . embarrassing me. He'd follow Lyla around and try to convince her that they should be together.”

“And you knew about it?” asked Beatrice. She winced as she said it.

“He was so focused, so driven, that at that point he wasn't even thinking about me. The only reason I could handle my own pain is because he was in so much pain himself. Then he started drinking, and everything started into a downward spiral. We were already deeply in debt, already in trouble. Not receiving paychecks certainly wasn't helping. And Trevor had gotten to the point where he really wasn't functioning—all he was doing was chasing Lyla,” said Eleanor. She said it in a very matter-of-fact way.

“Why do you think that Lyla would have killed him?” asked Beatrice again.

“Because she needed to get rid of him.” Eleanor waved her hands in a
poof
motion, as if making something disappear. “He was obviously driving her nuts. She was clearly trying to avoid him. Lyla was probably worried he was going to make her lose her job, since he was showing up at her office so often. And she wouldn't have wanted her husband to know about their relationship. I can't imagine he
wouldn't
have known, except that he's been traveling for work so much.”

Beatrice said, “Why do you think Lyla got involved with Trevor to begin with? I know the two of you were friends.”

Eleanor looked directly at Beatrice and said, “Because she
could
. She had the ability to make Trevor fall for her, and she did. It's all a game to her.”

Beatrice nodded. She wasn't totally convinced about Lyla, but she could see that Eleanor was certainly convinced. She decided to take their conversation in another direction.

But she was interrupted by Meadow, who was looking anxious. “But you signed up for the quilting workshop that Lyla is giving at the Patchwork Cottage tomorrow. Why would you have done that if you feel so strongly about her?”

Eleanor raised her chin. “Because I want to show her that I'm not intimidated by her. That I know exactly who—what—she is. And that she shouldn't think that she's won.” Eleanor's voice was fierce, and a sort of feverish gleam lit in her eyes. Then she added, a bit more quietly, “Besides, I've always wanted to learn to quilt. That's really the way to connect here in Dappled Hills, isn't it? Now that I'm going to clear the house, I'll need to find some ways to connect here in town. I should invite people over when I'm done tidying. I've got all these craft tubs, too.” She gave a vague wave around her to indicate that the craft tubs were somewhere.

“You're not there to start a fight?” Meadow asked in a protective voice. “This workshop is important to Posy—to all the quilters. We're trying to show a younger generation that quilting doesn't have to be hard or time-consuming. It would be terrible if something happened to overshadow what we were trying to do.”

Eleanor said, “I'm only going to show her that I'm not a pushover.” There was a mulish tone to Eleanor's voice that made Meadow shift uncomfortably.

Before Meadow and the quilting workshop could completely hijack the conversation, Beatrice quickly
injected, “Eleanor, I was also wondering if you could shed some light on something for me. Before Trevor died, I saw him in a restaurant, having an argument with a tall man with shaggy gray hair. Then I saw what looked like the same man standing outside the wedding reception. He was also at the funeral.”

Eleanor knit her brows. “Sort of deep-set eyes? That's Patrick. Patrick Finley.”

Meadow gave Beatrice a confirming nod.

“Were you and Trevor friends with him?” asked Beatrice. “I was just wondering at the connection, since he didn't seem as though he were invited to the wedding, judging from the way he was acting, and then there was that argument they had.”

Eleanor squeezed her hands together in her lap. “Patrick was a friend of ours, yes. But then Trevor . . . well, he wasn't acting like himself, as I've already pointed out. It wasn't like the Trevor I married to do
any
of the things he was doing. But he told me, on one of those days where we actually had a conversation, that he had seen Patrick make a huge mistake in the operating room. Trevor, you might know, was an anesthesiologist. Trevor and Patrick were both on call and had been out drinking with each other. Trevor was starting to fall into some bad habits. They both got called in—it was the same surgery. Some sort of an emergency surgery—maybe a car wreck.”

Meadow looked horrified. “And they worked on the patient even though they'd been drinking? How much had they drunk?”

Eleanor shook her head. “I'm not sure. At any rate, it was enough for Patrick to really botch the surgery.”

Beatrice asked, “The patient died?”

“He did. But Patrick covered it up. He didn't admit to any wrongdoing. Instead he said that the trauma from the car accident had been irreversible. Trevor was the only one who knew the truth—that Patrick had been drinking and was incompetent to perform surgery.”

“What did Trevor say?” asked Beatrice. “Did he threaten to do something with the information he had?”