Cardinal Sin

by J. R. Ripley

  “I have the mother of all hangovers, thank you very much.”

  “Don’t go thanking me. You have only yourself to thank.”

  Kim took the coffee. I had made it hot, and I had made it black. She took a comforting sip.

  I moved to the kitchen and filled a cup with coffee for myself. I dropped a couple slices of sourdough bread in the toaster.

  Kim ran her free hand through her tangled hair and took another sip. A loud yawn followed.

  “Where did you leave it with Dan yesterday?”

  Kim reddened. “I sort of stormed out.” She clutched her head in her hands. “I made a fool of myself in front of Paula. How embarrassing.”

  I couldn’t argue otherwise so didn’t bother to try. “Why don’t you take them some cupcakes and some coffee? A peace offering,” I suggested. “I’m sure there are no hard feelings.”

  “But I’m so embarrassed,” whined Kim.

  “Suck it up, girl. You don’t want Dan to see you behaving all crazy. Save the lunacy for me.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Seriously, you don’t want to drive him off or scare him away, do you?”

  “Of course not.” Kim pouted.

  “Then off you go.” I pushed her toward the door. “Man up, woman!”

  “But I haven’t had breakfast yet.” Kim dragged her heels. Between being hung over and stiff from sleeping on the sofa, she was no match for me. “That’s what cupcakes are for.”

  Kim excused herself to go wash up. Some minutes later, she exited the bathroom, looking almost human.

  “How do I look?” Kim fluffed her hair, which still looked like a squirrel had built a nest in it. Sleeping off a bender on a couch was definitely not the equivalent of a beauty rest.

  “Perfect.” I gave her a big A-OK sign.

  “Okay. I can do this.” Kim took a deep breath and shrugged into her coat.

  I watched as Kim tumbled unsteadily down the stairs to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. Seeing she was safely underway, I returned to the kitchen to appease my grumbling stomach.

  Stuck with two pieces of sourdough toast, I was forced to slather an inch-thick layer of Nutella between them and eat the entire thing for breakfast.

  My life is full of sacrifices.

  Downstairs, I greeted Esther. I noticed she already had the lights on and the store open. “I have some errands to run.” I smelled coffee brewing in the alcove. “Would you mind handling the store for a while?”

  Esther harrumphed to let me know she was being put upon when we both knew perfectly well that she always preferred it when I wasn’t there.

  She said the store ran better that way. She liked things done her way. I liked things done my way.

  Life is a constant battle between pester and pestee.

  “How long will you be?” Esther adjusted the assistant manager badge on her sweater. Every time I saw the badge, I was surprised that she hadn’t swapped it for a new one that said co-owner, which she now was due to her investment in the business.

  Which was due to my home and business’s many needs and my major lack of sufficient funds to handle those needs.

  To my amazement, Esther had invested in the business. I had no idea she had any money, let alone enough to invest in my fledgling operation.

  Then again, there was lots I didn’t know about Esther. Some of which she said she’d have to kill me if she told me. After some of the things that had happened lately, I believed her.

  As for the badge and her title, I wasn’t saying a word because the minute I did, she’d order herself a new badge. At store expense.

  I grabbed my hat and coat and retrieved my van from the back parking area. The interior of the van was cold. I cranked up the heater and the Broadway show tunes.

  Music couldn’t stop a bullet, but it could soothe the soul.

  I had been in such a hurry to get Kim on her way that I had forgotten to ask her if she’d learned anything new about the Yvonne Rice murder investigation from Dan.

  Then again, I rather doubted it. She’d had other things on her mind. Plus, from what she had described of the scene yesterday, the subject of murder hadn’t come up.

  Well, it might have come up in Kim’s mind, but the victim she’d have had in mind would have been one Paula d’Abbo, not Yvonne Rice.

  I made a personal vow to help Kim with her personal issues later. Right now, Yvonne Rice’s murder was weighing heavily on me. I’d learned that the only way to lift that weight was to push back.

  10

  Wanting to pay my condolences and set Yvonne’s brother straight, I drove to Yvonne’s cabin, or at least tried to. Construction vehicles and barricades blocked my intended route. A man in an orange vest lethargically waving a yellow flag explained that work was being done on a bridge over one of our many streams. I was forced to make a circuitous detour.

  Coming along the snaking road from the other direction, I spotted a small wooden sign half-buried in some tall grasses: Webber’s Pond. This was the community where Yvonne’s dinner guests dwelled.

  I slowed. There was a compact log cabin, not dissimilar to Yvonne’s, located near the road. The property was narrower along the road front, maybe a hundred yards or so, with the bulk of the property spreading behind in a wedge shape.

  I counted five more cabins spread throughout the glen. A rutted, hard-packed trail the width of a set of car tracks went around the outside of the other five cabins, as if stringing them all together like rough stones on a primitive necklace. The other side of the road contained nothing but woodland.

  At the first cabin, a woman was bent over in a garden bordered by a weathered split-rail fence. Wind gave life to her light-colored hair. She turned her head and brought her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun.

  It was Madeline Bell.

  I waved and eased to a stop in her gravel drive. My feet crunched over the loose stones as I approached her. Madeline Bell stood, hands on hips, waiting and watching. She wore a billowy white apron showing signs of dirt and wear. Wrinkled, baggy khakis protected her legs, and a red-and-black-checked flannel shirt kept her warm.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Bell.” I opened the garden gate and stepped carefully between rows of neatly planted vegetables.

  “A good morning for you maybe.” Madeline Bell toed the ground with a pair of dusty brown lace-up boots. “Not for me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Somebody has been vandalizing the garden again.”

  “Vandals? Out here?” I did a turn. Madeline Bell’s house was nearest the road. There was a broad meadow with Webber’s Pond near the middle of it. A big, wet, tear-drop-shaped stain surrounded by cattails.

  “They’ve tramped over everything. Nasty kids. They’ve dug up carrots, kale, and my broccoli.”

  What kids would drive all the way out here to ransack her vegetable garden? And for kale and broccoli, no less. Sure, plenty of kids hate broccoli, but would they spend precious gas money scouring the countryside to rid the world of the green plague?

  I kept these thoughts to myself. “I’m sorry. Can I help?”

  “No, thank you.” Madeline Bell grabbed a hand trowel and eased to her knees in the soil, then pulled her apron down over her thighs. “I have half a mind to sit out here all night if that’s what it takes. A backside full of buckshot, that is what they need.”

  I followed the line of footprints in the soft earth nearest the garden. “I only see one set of prints, and they appear to go into the woods there.” I pointed.

  A scowl was my thanks. “That’s where they go to drink and smoke their pot. They’ve got a hangout.”

  A hideout where they gathered to eat kale, get drunk, and smoke grass? Hard to imagine. “Are you sure?”

  “What brings you here, Ms. Simms?”

  “Call me Amy, please.” I wasn’t invited t
o do the same for her.

  Madeline Bell nodded as she salvaged some baby carrots scattered in the path and replanted them. “Who knows if these will grow anymore.”

  “I’m sure they’ll do fine, Mrs. Bell.”

  She grunted. “You did not answer my question. What are you doing here?”

  “I heard Yvonne’s brother had come to town. I came to pay my condolences.”

  Madeline extended her hand, and I helped her climb to her feet. “Lani.” She wiped her face with the edge of her apron, leaving lines of dirt in the creases of her forehead. “He’s as bad as she was.”

  “Yvonne? I thought you were friends?”

  “We were neighbors. That does not make us friends.” She waved her hand truculently. “You think just because I’ve lived surrounded by these folks all these years that we all sit around chumming it up?”

  I cleared my throat, unsure what to answer. “Why did you come to the housewarming?”

  “I was invited,” Madeline Bell said as if no other answer was possible.

  “Tell me,” I said, following her to the side of the cabin, where she drew water from a barrel attached to the drainpipe extending from her roof, “did you hear anything unusual that night?”

  Her fingers twisted the tap shut. She hefted the steel watering can. “All that spirit mumbo jumbo. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Neither do I,” I was quick to agree. “I meant afterward.”

  Mrs. Bell twisted her face my way as she watered a clump of half-dead flowers beneath her kitchen window. “You mean did I hear any arguments or gunfire?” She shook her head in the negative. “I heard nothing.” She set the can between her feet. “I saw nothing. And that’s what I told the police.” She sneered. “I don’t think that Chief Kennedy knows his butt from a bullet. And you can tell him I said so.”

  That was one thing Madeline Bell and I could agree on. It might have been catty of me, but I couldn’t wait to tell Jerry what she thought of him.

  “You didn’t notice any strangers around? Any strange cars in the neighborhood? Maybe you—”

  Madeline Bell tapped my shoulder with a firm finger. “If a person wants to stay alive, it’s best if they keep themselves to themselves, Ms. Simms.”

  “As for Lani Rice, he’s loud and obnoxious. I hope he clears out soon.” She angled her eyes in the direction of Yvonne’s place, though it was invisible from here because of a dense wood between the two cabins. “This is no place for outsiders.”

  I wondered if she was talking about me, Yvonne, or maybe both of us. “Yvonne was shot sometime shortly after we left.” I explained how I had returned to her cabin to get my camera and purse. “What time did you get home that night?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Ask Murray, if you really must know. He was the one driving.” She picked up her watering can and placed it beside the rain barrel.

  “Murray said that he drove you all to his cabin. You all stayed for a nightcap, except for Ross, who declined and went straight home.”

  “There you have it. I have nothing to add.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Why are you bothering me?”

  “I’m sorry. I only want to find out who killed Yvonne.”

  “Sometimes killers can’t be found,” Madeline Bell said. “Sometimes maybe they shouldn’t be found.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “If you don’t mind, I have some baking to do.” She hurried to the back porch, kicked her toes against the step, and climbed. She opened the door and closed it behind her without so much as a goodbye.

  I was about to head back to the van and continue on my way when I noticed a man in a wheelchair seated out on a narrow dock at the cabin farther along the pond. He appeared to be waving to me, although I could not imagine why.

  I stopped and pointed to my chest. He waved again.

  Leaving the van near the road, I walked across the field to him.

  “Good morning,” I called when I was within thirty feet or so. He was an elderly man with a tanned, unshaved face. His wheelchair was ancient. He wore a torn black parka. A tweed cap sat atop his head. A twisted pipe jutted from between his lips.

  Several of the cabins had docks. Whether they belonged to the owners of the cabins individually or were communally owned, I didn’t know. There was a small pale green skiff tied to the piling of the one across the water.

  This particular dock was bare but for a slender fishing rod and a pail of bait containing chopped fish. What kind of fish I didn’t know, and I didn’t care to look close enough to figure that out.

  Several crows hung near the edge of the dock, no doubt hoping for a chance at the bait. They moved aside as I stepped onto the dock.

  “Hello, young lady.” His voice was scratchy with age.

  I liked him already.

  “Hello.” I studied him carefully. Rheumy brown eyes looked right back at me. I was pretty sure I had never seen him before. Silvery, shaggy hair jutted over the tops of his ears. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” There was a vague sadness to his face.

  “Gar Samuelson. Call me Gar. Everybody else does. If they’re not calling me something worse.” He chuckled as he removed the pipe from his lips. He studied it for a moment before placing it back in the corner of his mouth, then taking it back out again and pointing it at me. “You, young lady, are Amy Simms.”

  My brow rose.

  “Am I right? I am right, aren’t I?”

  I smiled. “Yes, you are. How did you know? Are you sure we haven’t met?”

  “Nope. Never. I don’t travel much or far in this.” He bounced his elbows against the armrests of his wheelchair. “I don’t get into town much neither.” The pipe went back into his mouth, and he puffed merrily, like a steam locomotive out for an afternoon jaunt. “But I have heard of you.” He leaned over the side of his wheelchair toward me. “You’ve got a reputation.”

  “Excuse me?” I felt my cheeks glow.

  “You have got your finger on the pulse of what is going on in this town.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean murder.”

  I shivered as a cold breeze rolled across the dock.

  Gar whistled sharply. An Irish setter appeared out of nowhere. The dog brushed between my legs and hurried to his master’s side, where he was greeted with a vigorous scratching of his chin. Tail wagging, the dog followed his nose to the bait bucket. At a word from Gar, the dog retreated obediently and settled for chasing the crows around the edge of the water.

  “Pep’s a good boy.” Gar followed his energetic dog with love in his eyes. “Keeps me good company. All the company I need anyway.”

  I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my coat to take the chill off. “Why weren’t you at Yvonne Rice’s housewarming party?”

  “Oh, I was invited.” Using his left hand, he extracted a black, leather-covered flask from his inner pocket. He unscrewed the lid and pushed it my way. “A drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Irish whiskey.” He put the flask to his lips and tipped back his head. “Ah. Just what the doctor ordered.”

  “I’d like the name of your doctor,” I said with a laugh. “Mine tells me that drinking, smoking, eating too much sugar, pretty much having any fun at all is going to kill me.”

  “Don’t listen to him then, Amy. Can I call you Amy?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re young and healthy. You enjoy yourself. I may be stuck in this contraption, but I am not dead. I’m going to live forever. Just like my pappy.”

  He took another sip of whiskey as if to prove his point. He stuffed the flask back into his pocket. “I sit here and the world comes to me. I see things and I hear things.”

  Gar pointed to his eyes and ears. “Write it all down, I do. If it’s important. Hand me that pole, would you?”
/>   I picked up the slender fishing rod and handed it to him. “Would you like me to bait the hook for you?”

  “Nah. That won’t be necessary.”

  That was a relief. He rolled over to the bait bucket and placed a chunk of raw pink flesh on the end of a hook. With a smooth and efficient move of the arm, Gar flung the line out into the center of the pond. From the edge of the pond, Pep barked as if applauding the cast.

  “You mentioned murder,” I said.

  “That I did,” Gar said crisply. He folded his hands in his lap with the end of the fishing rod firmly between his legs. His eyes fixed on the point where the line had disappeared into the water.

  “So you heard about the shooting?”

  “Of course. Who hasn’t? The police came by twice to question me and all the rest of us out here. For all I know, they’ve questioned everyone in the county.”

  “Chief Kennedy thinks an escaped convict named Alan Spenner is responsible.”

  “That could be so,” Gar replied. “Someone has killed Yvonne. Someone should take the blame. That’s the way it is supposed to work, isn’t it?”

  I agreed. How could I not? “Did you know Yvonne?”

  “She came along to introduce herself. Invited me to her housewarming party about ten days or so later. I thanked her for the invitation.”

  “But you declined.”

  “That’s right. Like I said, I don’t socialize much.”

  “What about the others?”

  “You mean my neighbors?”

  I nodded.

  “What about them?”

  “Do you know them well? Even if you don’t like to socialize much, as you say, you must be well acquainted with them.”

  “I’ve been neighbors with most of them for twenty years or more. Barnswallow over there,” he pointed across the pond, “is the newest, and he’s been here a decade or so himself. He’s always on the warpath about one thing or another. Always banging on my door trying to get me to sign one of his petitions.

  “The next cabin along after mine belongs to Kay Calhoun.” He shifted his position. “That’s Murray Arnold’s place with the big yellow station wagon parked alongside it. And, of course, you visited with Madeline Bell already.”