by Ellis Quinn
“Let me send some of these with you,” she said, and packed up cookies for him while he got his coat on.
* * *
With Marcus gone, she and Pris returned to the kitchen to finish their bottle of wine and get the dried dishes back in cupboards.
Pris said, “Wish Cherry had a secret alibi like Stephen, sure would make things awful easier for that poor girl.”
“I know,” Bette said, lifting a platter, then pausing. She put the platter down, leaned forward and looked out the kitchen window.
Pris said, “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
Bette laughed and turned to show her the baking sheet left on the window. The cookies were gone. “I think Marcus snuck around and stole my apple cookies like we used to do to Pearl. Giving me a taste of my own medicine.” She laughed again and tossed the baking sheet into the soapy sink.
Pris came and looked out into the dark. “Grown man acting like a fool teenager. Wonder what’s got into him?”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON
Charlotte Dawson stood by the quarter-moon glass arc of the butcher display case at the Cove Grocer; arms folded, hip out to one side, weight on one leg. The other foot—in a high heel shoe during the mid-day, of all things—tapped on the chocolate-brown floor tiles. There was a lot Bette could tell by a person’s posture, and if she were to take this art of detecting seriously, she ought to begin by trusting her gut and her intuition. And what could she surmise of the mayor’s wife? . . .
First thing this morning Vance is talking about his dinner with Cherry, how she cooked him pulled pork and they ate out back and played with the chickens and how Cherry makes the best desserts. All she kept thinking were unexpected jealous thoughts like, hey, Vance, maybe if you’d had dinner with your mother you might find out she’s pretty good at baking too. And you know what’s as good as pulled pork? roast beef, that’s what.
But her son got Cherry set up with security and for her friend’s future safety and survival she was grateful to her son. And grateful of course that Cherry had fed him as thanks for his efforts.
She wouldn’t be a poisonous mother as she imagined Charlotte would be.
Vance had spent the morning with her, hanging out and helping with chores, and doing some reading and writing for school. But then it was caffeine time, he said, and he would run into town and did she want to come? She let him go on his own because the trip had little to do with coffee and a lot to do with her son’s interest in the pretty young woman who owned the café.
Then she went into town after all, to grab some supplies.
A quick trip to the Cove Grocer brought her face-to-face with Charlotte and Stephen.
Mother and son stood by the butcher, oblivious to Bette’s presence as she studied Charlotte. The stance, the perfect makeup, perfect nails, expensive jewelry, the fancy hairdo and color job; the outfit . . . Charlotte Dawson was a woman with a lot to prove. And with such high expectations came tight and choking obligations and steep standards to uphold.
From Charlotte’s haughty demeanor, a theory materialized like a stranger emerging from the fog. She said hello to the theory and examined it: wasn’t it Charlotte who would benefit from Cherry’s involvement in the murder, and wasn’t Charlotte the kind of person of low morals and high expectations who would seek to encircle Cherry in a ring of guilt?
Maybe Charlotte could steal the Crockett Anchor to frame Cherry, but would she murder someone? Murder her own son?
Charlotte and Jack had their squabbles, but a mother could never do that. Though it wasn’t as if that hadn’t ever happened before. There were plenty of cases. Even had its own name, like filicide or something like that.
It wasn’t impossible.
The best course of action, if detective novels were to be believed, is to next stir up the murky bottom and see what might float to the surface.
Two steps toward Charlotte and Stephen, and she paused—the pause producing a loud squeak of sneaker foot on aging commercial floor tile. Her eyes went down, regarded her attire. Compared to the out-of-place small-town glitz of Charlotte, she wore jeans and sneakers, and an untucked flannel shirt that had been Vance’s in high school. Over that, a suede jacket with a quarter-sized strawberry jam stain on the right forearm. Wait a second, though, wasn’t she more appropriately dressed than Charlotte?
When her eyes moved upward, there was no backing out: Charlotte and Stephen regarded her. Charlotte coolly, Stephen politely.
She moved her hand-basket to her left arm, showed them a small wave. Returned the basket to her right arm, hooking it to hide the jam stain. She continued her approach.
“Hi, Bette,” Stephen said, “how are you doing?”
“I’m all right,” she said. “Are you two doing okay? Is there anything I can do to help?” At times like these, sometimes meal preparation could benefit the bereaved. But Charlotte wasn’t interested. Made no audible scoff, though her face showed disdain. Like the comment instead of offering help was an offer of insult.
Stephen said, “Not at all. We’re managing.”
Charlotte said, “I take great care of my family,” then smiled toward Stephen, her head cocking amiably as her hand stroked up and down the back of his arm.
“I’m glad,” Bette said. “Oh, and Stephen”— here came the mud stirring—“I really wanted to thank you for what you did. You and your father going by Cherry’s café and having lunch seem to have an effect. Not just on the town, but Cherry. I know she was really touched, and it made her feel welcome again.” She smiled because it was the right thing to do, and because she wanted Charlotte to see it.
Charlotte’s cool expression stayed chilled. Didn’t overheat, her interior needle arced toward the red zone, but her face didn’t show it. It was in her posture. A stiffness, an increase in head tilt toward her son. Charlotte didn’t know about them visiting.
Charlotte said to Stephen, “Did you do that? You and your father went for a visit to that . . . I guess you’d call it a café or something.”
Stephen’s shoulders sagged by a degree. The point of his tongue touched his upper lip and his eyes looked downward. He said quietly, “We did.”
Charlotte said, “What a nice thing to do.” Her voice was a threatening purr, all cuddly smooth on the outside, claws and sharp teeth on the inside.
Stephen sensed it too. He said, “We don’t need to ask permission.”
Charlotte feigned surprise. “Permission? Not at all. I was only wondering why I wasn’t invited.”
Stephen looked away, peering down a shopping aisle; his hands went into his pockets, and his brow lowered. “You know why.”
“What was that?” Charlotte asked, all velvety smooth again.
“I said you know why.”
“Why I wasn’t invited to have lunch at the place where your brother was murdered?”
Stephen grumbled and shook his head. He said no more.
Charlotte stared at the side of her son’s head, taking a long moment before saying, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Stephen, I’m just disappointed no one asked me to come along.”
“Mom,” he said, “it was nothing. We went to have a bite to eat. That’s all.”
Bette said, “I have to tell you, Cherry really appreciated it. She gushed to me how much it meant.” Stir, stir, stir. Her eyes moved to Charlotte, who had trouble concealing the irritation.
Charlotte said, “What two wonderful men you are,” the sarcasm idling with high horsepower underneath her smooth and cultured voice.
Stephen shook his head again, the shake traveling down his shoulders, getting him shivering—like Buster when he would come out of the water. He said, “It just occurred to me I need to pick up peanut butter.”
His eyes moved to Bette, and out of politeness he smiled. He said, “It’s really nice to see you, Bette.”
“Nice to see you too, Stephen,” she said as Stephen wheeled and headed down the shopping aisle.
Bette stayed smiling, looked to
Charlotte, the smile growing, then looked down the aisle to Stephen again. She called out, “Peanut butter’s in aisle four, Stephen, turn right at the end. . . . That’s it, you got it.”
She returned her gaze to Charlotte. “Unless he wants the imported peanut butter. I think that’s in the imported section—aisle seven.”
Charlotte’s smile stayed, but her eyes narrowed with meanness. She looked Bette up and down, and Bette let her. Even switched the shopping basket to the left arm and put the strawberry stain on display. No regrets.
Charlotte spotted the stain, and it confirmed everything she thought about Bette. An affirmative sound chuckled in her throat: a satisfied harrumph. She said, “You certainly know your way around the grocer. You’ve been away a long time and things have changed around here.”
“Store’s basically the same,” she said, looking around and up at the high rafters of the old grocery. “Prices might’ve gone up, but everything is about where you think it’d be.”
Charlotte eyed the bag of dog food in the basket. “Some new diet I haven’t heard of?”
“I want to go keto, but it’s so expensive. Turns out this kibble here’s mostly all protein. Hardly any carbs at all, just some carrots and blueberries. I’m going to be fit as a fiddle in no time.” They both smiled at each other, Bette enjoying for a moment how Charlotte had no capacity to deal with her aloofness.
“I see,” Charlotte said.
Bette let her off the hook. “The kibble’s for that beautiful dog you’ve seen me with. Took him to the pound, but nobody’s claimed him yet. He’s mine for the moment. That’s why I’m buying the small bag of dog food.”
The pointy corners of Charlotte’s red lipstick smile curled upward at a Grinch-like angle. Bette knew she was about to be zinged. Charlotte said, “The Whaleys certainly are very good at taking in strays, aren’t they?”
Not too shabby. A little clumsy, but she got the inference: her and Pris taking young Cherry into their circle of friendship, Charlotte equating Cherry to a stray dog.
Bette patted the bag of dog food in the basket, noticed her jam stain like it was the first time. “Oh dear, seems I enjoyed my breakfast a bit too hastily. But I’ll tell you one thing . . .”
She let it hang, both of them looking at each other without speaking while Muzak played from the grocer’s old sound system. Copacabana.
“I forgot how much I like Barry Manilow,” she said.
And Charlotte said, “I like him too. You’ll tell me one thing what?”
She winked. “It’s better than having no real friends at all.”
THE NEXT EVENING
In the Fortune’s newer wing built in the 1870s there was a room at the end of the hall on the front driveway side, across from where Vance slept while he was here. When Bette was little, the room was her mother’s bedroom. Mom loved pranks and practical jokes and playing silly games, especially on rainy days. Pearl would be in the kitchen, and Bette and her mother would play hide and seek. There were plenty of places to hide in the old mansion. Odd corners and strange shaped rooms—even two secret rooms. One with a bookcase wall that slid aside to reveal a hidden parlor. The parlor—about six feet by six—big enough for two leather armchairs and a dry bar; a secret drinking room from when Maryland had gone dry during the National Prohibition. Not that Maryland had been a state you could easily wean off alcohol. Too much a part of the immigrant culture. Nonetheless, it was her great-great-grandfather who’d built the secret room in case things got testy with the federal government when the Maryland government refused to enforce the law.
Access to the secret drinking parlor was provided by a book that when pulled activated a wooden locking lever and the bookshelf could slide aside. The parlor was named The Two Wine Theory Parlor, and the fake book that operated the lever had that title written on its spine. The Two Wine Theory being that if Jesus drank wine in the bible, and wine was immoral, then the wine Jesus drank must not be the wine we think of today.
There’d been one hide and seek game that stuck out in her memory. One day where Mom had seemed to vanish. Little seven-year-old Bette had checked all the hiding places she knew. Checked the secret rooms, even gone into the speakeasy parlor. But there was no sign of Mom. Her developing brain created a panic for itself, but she’d subdued it, appearing calm in the kitchen and asking Grandma Pearl if she knew where Mom was. “No idea, pet,” Pearl said, “but it looks like she found a good hiding spot.” Then aside, as if to herself: “I hope she hasn’t gone and fallen in the well.” Sure, it was a funny thing for your grandma to say, but the more she sought her mother with no results, the more frightened she became. That was when she discovered one more secret hiding spot in Whaley’s Fortune . . .
And that’s where she was now, taking full advantage of the best hiding spot the Fortune had.
In what had been her mother’s bedroom when Mom stayed at Whaley’s Fortune with her mother Pearl and her young daughter Bette, there’d been a secret space inside the walk-in closet. When she found her mother that day, it was checking the closet one more time, this time parting all the hanging dresses and shirts and slacks and skirts, and peering in behind the clothing to find there was a hidden space. Raised up off the floor and set back six feet, Bette’s mother Scarlet had used it to store her shoes. When she finally found her mother, she blubbered. Mom had laughed herself breathless, but fretted seeing the tears streaming her daughter’s face. Scooped Bette up then, comforting hands under her armpits (what Pearl and Mom and Aunt Pris sometimes called oxters), and hoisted her into an embrace. She’d hugged her mom and buried her sniffling face in her mom’s thick waves of red hair.
Wedged in this space now, she peered out to the bedroom from a part between Pearl’s hanging winter coats. Mom’s shoes were gone from the space, but in their place were boxes of things Pearl had tucked away. She was in here waiting for her adversary whose collar jingled downstairs. He raced from room to room, snuffling the floor and trying to track down his new (but, ugh, temporary) owner.
Snuggled deeper into the alcove she heard Buster mount the stairs to the second floor again. Doggy footsteps tapped the hall toward the bedroom, her smart dog taking his second upstairs tour in an organized fashion, taking each room in turn, going clockwise. Her dog had an organized mind. The quickness of his nails on the floor gave away his excitement.
He went into the first room, then the next . . . at last she heard him enter the bedroom. A hand cupped over her mouth prevented snorting or chuckling, and giving herself away.
Buster searched around the room. It sounded like he’d poked his head and half his body underneath the bed. Then he was out, snuffling, trotting off to another room. Her body’s tightness eased.
While Buster went around the rooms again, her mind wandered to Charlotte’s demeanor in the Cove Grocer. There was more than just a strange coldness to that woman. Bette had never met anyone like her. Lots of people with similar orgulous tendencies, but not one so committed as Charlotte.
And there was more than just that superior attitude Charlotte had, there was something else underneath. It was woven like thread with the coldness; a diagnosable pathology for getting her way no matter the cost.
Now with Buster prowling around the opposite end of the second-floor wing of Fortune, she tested every theory that would allow Charlotte to be the murderer. It was hard to make it hold water unless you were to believe that she was sociopathic and without morals. It wasn’t out of the question. There were people in this world who could kill heartlessly. Not every murder resulted from bad business dealings or cheating spouses or life insurance policies or what may have you. Sometimes murder came out of simple cruelty. Sometimes someone just killed for the sheer pleasure of it. But could that describe Charlotte?
It would be easier to believe that Charlotte was guilty if there was some way to prove she benefitted from Jack’s death. Jack was no longer an embarrassment to the family since his turnaround, so it couldn’t be to silence his bad behavior. Coul
d there be monetary gain? . . .
Buster was back in the room now and she stiffened, held her breath and waited. It was like he was crossing rooms off his list, but this one he couldn’t just quite bring his pen across to remove it from his list of possible suspects. Her smart Buster knew she was in this room, but he couldn’t figure it out.
Now she felt for the poor guy. Had a heart for him. Remembered that day and how upset she’d been when she couldn’t find her mother. And remembered the pure joy she felt—so much joy she cried—when her mother laughed and put her arms around her and made her feel better.
With the tip of her fingernail, she made a small scratching sound on the hard plank surface of the closet alcove.
There was a scratching dog-foot-on-rug sound as Buster must’ve spun around. Then the sound of his shuffling body passing into the cupboard, going around in circles, sniffing on the floor.
She made the scratch again, and in a split second Pearl’s winter coats thrust open as a thundering eighty-pound dog body tried to hurl up into the alcove.
She burst out laughing and it only made it worse: now Buster found his footing, and heaved up into the alcove with her, the two of them wrestling around and knocking over boxes, tossing winter coats and plastic wrap off their hangers and onto the closet floor. Arms thrown around him, she gave him huge hugs as he snuffled in her ears, licked her face, nibbled on her chin.
Play session over, she wiped sticky tongue kisses from her face. Buster sat, stooped and panting in the small hidden space of her mother’s old closet. She sighed, pet Buster’s head and stroked his cheek with a thumb.
“Look at this,” she said to him.
With the coats parted, evening light lit the alcove and amongst the boxes and clutter, she could see against the wall a polished teak leg, and knew what it was right away. Something she’d forgotten about, but now came back in a flash.