The Corpse at the End of the Chapter

by Karen Hayes

  “I guess you could say that,” Harve told him. “She’s dead.”

  THIRTEEN

  COPPER WAS ASTOUNDED AT HARVE’S REVELATIONS. That Agatha Lafferty not only knew about her son’s indiscretion with Ruby, but actually visited Ruby in prison, was by her side at the birth of her babies and paid for her medical bills and her tuition for the bartending school was pretty unbelievable.

  “I’m sure she read about the legal mishmash in the Portland papers,” she told the sheriff, “but I never would have expected Agatha of befriending Ruby in that way—and not telling anyone about it. I mean, it’s a good three hour drive to Salem from Misty Valley, even if you bypass Portland. I wonder if it was because of Agatha that Ruby knew about Cindy.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,” Harve said. “Anyway, I also checked the birth records, and adoption records, and it is true–Cindy Doyle and Ron Parker were the twins Ruby had. I found out a lot of stuff in the city today. I just don’t know what it all has to do with why Agatha and Ruby were killed or who killed them.”

  “I really need to talk to Louise,” Copper said. “But Agatha’s funeral is tomorrow, so I guess I’ll need to wait until Friday.”

  “It’s just a graveside service and I doubt there’ll be many people there,” the sheriff said. “Agatha didn’t have all that many friends. I don’t think there’s anything Louise’ll be doing to prepare. You could probably talk to her tonight.”

  “Oh, no, she’s having a small luncheon at their home afterwards. I’m sure she will be getting ready for that tonight.”

  “Copper, I have it on good authority that tomorrow’s little do at the Lafferty home is being catered by Celine Webb’s boy, Paul.”

  “Oh, my, I’ve heard nothing but raves about the food at Paul’s new restaurant. I’m glad I’m invited.”

  “Me, too. Not that I’m really into that fancy Frenchy stuff. But it’s food.” He patted his stomach as he reminded himself he had come straight to the Book Nook from Portland, and hadn’t eaten since the small chicken salad sandwich he’d had at Don Sargent’s. “Do you suppose he’s going to serve snails?”

  “I don’t know,” Copper said, as she laughed. “I think you just turned green, Harve. I have never tasted snails, or escargot, as they are more properly called, but I understand they are delicious, especially if they’re cooked in garlic butter.”

  “I suppose, if no one tells me what they are, that I will try them.”

  “Well, there’s no telling what Paul will serve. But how did you know Paul was catering this?”

  “He was driving by just as I got out of my car when I got here. He stopped and asked me if I would be there, said he’d be doing the food.”

  “All this talk about food is making me hungry. Harve, have you had dinner?”

  “No, but...”

  “It’s time to close up shop, anyway. Come with me to the Rainy Day. I’ve never eaten there, and don’t think I would be comfort-able going there by myself, but I understand the food is not too bad. I understand Suds makes a pretty ecent burger.”

  “The onion rings are to die for,” Harve told her, suddenly remembering that he had forgotten the take-out order he had planned on getting the night before.

  “I just thought I might ask Suds if I could help him in planning Ruby’s funeral.”

  “That’s nice of you, Copper. Suds is taking Ruby’s death pretty hard. I’m sure he’ll welcome your help.”

  Harve waited while Copper ran upstairs to grab her coat and purse. She locked the door behind her and followed Harve to his car.

  “I’m not really a bar person, so I’m glad you’re going with me, Harve,” Copper said.

  “No problem, Copper. I eat there nearly as much as I eat at Marcia’s. As sheriff, I figure I shouldn’t play favorites, you know.”

  Copper turned a few heads when she walked into the Rainy Day. Everyone knew her, but no one had ever seen her there before. To dispel any rumors that might link her with the sheriff, her junior by ten years, Copper went right up to Suds and, very audibly, told him why she was there.

  “I’d be happy for your help,” Suds said through his tears. “I weren’t quite sure what I should do. I buried a wife and a daughter in years past, but this is different. Ruby...well, she weren’t related, but it were like she was. Know what I mean?”

  “I think so,” Copper said with sympathy. “Do you know when you want to have it?”

  “I were thinkin’ ’bout Friday, but that would be two funerals in a row, so maybe Monday?”

  “Monday would be better, yes. Has the medical examiner released her body?”

  Suds nodded. “Tomorrow. Then it’ll be at the Peace Mortuary. But I need to select a coffin and pick out flowers—all that stuff.”

  “Tell you what, Suds. Right after Agatha’s funeral tomorrow, let’s the two of us talk with one of the Peace brothers and get everything worked out. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Suds nodded his gratitude as he wiped away more tears.

  “Well, I think I want something to eat. I’ve heard you have good food, Suds. What do you recommend?”

  Over their burgers, fries, and extra-large orders of onion rings, which Copper admitted were incomparable, Harve and Copper continued their discussion of the enigmatic murders they were trying to solve. Copper didn’t want to think that Ron Parker was the killer, but Harve said the boy was at the very least a person of interest.

  “He lied to me, Copper. He said he’d seen Ruby a time or two here, but didn’t really know her. But he knew she was his mother and he neglected to tell me that.”

  “What I want to know is, does he know Cindy Doyle is his twin sister?”

  “My guess is yes,” the sheriff said. “I think that tomorrow, right after the funeral, I’ll pay a little visit to Ms. Doyle.”

  “Harve, do you think that’s wise? I mean, what if she doesn’t know?”

  “Then she will find out. Could be she and Ron collaborated in these murders.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. But, I will keep an open mind. And while you’re talking to Cindy, I’ll help Suds get Ruby’s funeral all arranged. Then on the way back here you can tell me what you learned from Cindy.” She looked at her watch. “Now, if I’m to talk to Louise tonight, I need to get over there. But I’d better check with her first.” She pulled out her phone and dialed the Lafferty’s number. Louise said Brandon was at a meeting at the hospital in Pleasant View and she would welcome Copper’s company.

  “If you’ll drop me there, I’m sure Louise will take me home,” Copper said to the sheriff.

  * * *

  “I told Brandon about Ron and he almost went into shock,” Louise said as she poured coffee for her and Copper. She also had some of Eve’s pastries, but Copper declined those, saying she’d eaten too much at the Rainy Day. Louise raised her eyebrows at the mention of the local bar, but said nothing. After all, Ruby had worked at the rainy Day. Perhaps Copper had just been working on the case.

  “Well, let’s just hope Ron doesn’t turn out to be our killer,” Copper said.

  “We don’t have many answers in this case, do we?”

  “Actually, I think we have a lot of answers,” Copper told her. “We just don’t know what questions they go with.” She took a sip of her coffee, fragrant with the aroma of roasted hazelnuts. “I wanted to tell you what Sheriff Blodgett learned in Salem and Portland today,” Copper said. “I never would have suspected some of this.”

  “I’m listening,” Louise said.

  “He discovered how your mother-in-law knew about Cindy and Ron.” Copper paused for what she hoped was dramatic emphasis and when Louise ideated she was eager to hear what Copper had to tell her, she repeated for Louise what she had learned from Harve about all that Agatha had done for Ruby.

  Louise started to cry. “It seems she was a better woman than most of us thought. I guess she knew about Ruby’s hopeless crush on Brandon and realized Brandon must have taken advantage of her that summer. I me
an, let’s face it, I found Brandon rather irresistible myself. He had no trouble at all seducing me. And I was no naive 18-year-old.”

  “It doesn’t bring us any closer to solving the murders, though. But it has to have some bearing on the fact that Ruby thought she just had a daughter, whereas Agatha knew she had twins. She’d discovered what happened to the daughter and told Ruby, so Ruby was able to shadow her and take pictures.”

  Louise reached for a pastry and indicated the plate to Copper. “Please don’t let me eat all of these,” she told Copper.

  Copper described for her the onion rings at the Rainy Day. How you could not eat just one...or two...or even three, for that matter. They were so good you just had to keep eating until they were all gone. Then, if you were Sheriff Harve Blodgett, you ordered more–to share. When you add a bacon cheeseburger and fries on top of that, well, there was barely room for the coffee to trickle between the cracks.

  “I see what you mean,” Louise said, as she took the plate of pastries back into the kitchen to get ‘temptation’ out of sight. “I don’t really need these, either.”

  “I think,” Copper said, when Louise came back, “that we need to look more closely at Minnie’s history.”

  “We’ve already determined that it kind of parallels Ruby’s. It’s obvious Agatha wanted to tell Ruby’s story.”

  “Yes, but it may parallel it even more closely than we were thinking. Minnie had twins—a boy and girl. So did Ruby.”

  “But Ruby thought she only had one.”

  “Louise, you wrote the book. Minnie also thought she just had one child.”

  “Yes, until the son showed up and introduced himself.”

  Copper grinned. “Exactly.”

  “I see,” Louise said thoughtfully. “So Ron came here, found out Ruby was his mother, and confronted her, just like Luke did with Minnie.”

  “Maybe. And Ruby got upset with Agatha, because she hadn’t told her there were two babies. Just like Minnie got upset with her Aunt Sarah.”

  “So Agatha was really keeping this real. Except Minnie killed her one-time lover. Ruby didn’t kill Brandon.”

  “Well, Blue Butterfly was a mystery. You had to kill off someone.” Copper laughed, then sobered. “And I doubt Agatha wanted her son killed or thought she would be murdered—or Ruby, for that matter.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Louise, do you suppose the murders had something to do with the book itself, not the real-life situation it was based on.”

  “Oh, copper, I don’t think so. The book isn’t even out yet.”

  “Except to people who received advance copies,” Copper reminded her.

  “But nobody knows the identity of Aaron Anderson.”

  “You’re sure about that.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. The murders have nothing to do with the book and everything to do with Ruby and her twins. Now, let’s make notes and see if we can figure this thing out.” She rummaged around in the drawers of a desk that sat off in a corner of the room. In one drawer she found a couple of ball point pens that didn’t work and a stubby pencil that did, in another an old notebook that had some empty pages. “I usually do everything on my laptop,” she said. “But this calls for the old fashioned method. Now, where shall we start?” She plopped herself down on the couch next to Copper and opened the notebook to a clean page, licking the pencil tip just like Dinty Moore always did.

  “Well, if the reason has something to do with Ruby’s children, we need to look at them. We know Ron knew Ruby was his mother. Did Cindy? How long has Cindy been in Pleasant View, anyway?”

  “Hmmm, about four years, I think.”

  “Okay, write that down. Cindy has been here four years, Ron has been here two. And Ron and Cindy are friends. Be sure to put that down.”

  Louise wrote.

  “So, at least Ron and maybe Cindy knew who their birth mother was. But did they know who their birth father was?”

  “Ali told me the birth record just said ‘father unknown.’ So I doubt it.”

  “But think for a minute, Louise. Cindy looks so much like Brandon. We didn’t notice that because we weren’t looking for it. And Ron is Cindy’s twin. You know, when Ron first came through here that summer with his friends, George and I met him when we were doing a little hike ourselves. I thought he looked a bit fam-iliar, but I couldn’t quite place him. I decided he just had one of those familiar-looking faces Ron was clean-shaven then. He didn’t start growing his beard until he’d been here awhile.”

  “So you think Ron noticed that he resembled Brandon and put two and two together?” Louise asked.

  Copper nodded. “And grew the facial hair so nobody else would notice. Brandon has never grown even a moustache.”

  “If he’s that observant, he knows Cindy is his sister and has perhaps told her.”

  Copper leaned her elbow on the arm of the sofa, rested her head in her hand, and made a face. “But I just can’t see either one of them as murderers.”

  “I can’t either. But, the way it looks right now, the only other possibility is Brandon, and I definitely don’t think my husband would kill his own mother.”

  “No, no, Louise, it couldn’t be Brandon. He was up at the Pond. There has to be someone else. Someone we aren’t even thinking about at this time. Someone else that has a motive we don’t even know about.”

  “So you’re saying the deaths had nothing to do with Cindy and Ron.”

  “No, I think they do. I think Agatha was killed because of what she knew—I just don’t know why. And I’m not quite sure why Ruby was killed, but think that Ron and Cindy might even be in danger.”

  “Why would they be in danger?”

  “Because they know, too. And maybe they know some things we don’t.”

  “Like?”

  “If I knew, then they wouldn’t be things we didn’t know. Now, I’m going to Agatha’s funeral tomorrow with Harve. He is going to talk to Cindy after the funeral, while I help Suds arrange for Ruby’s funeral. While we’re driving back here for your luncheon, he’ll tell me what he’s learned. And I think we’ll need to talk to Ron, too. Have Ron and Cindy been invited to your luncheon?”

  “Well, no. I...”

  “I think they should be. After all, Agatha was their grand-mother.”

  “But even if they know that—and, remember, we aren’t sure they do—they don’t know I know.”

  “Doesn’t matter. If they don’t now, they’ll find out sooner or later.”

  “Okay. I’ll call both of them tonight.”

  “And I’ll try to come up with some good questions for both of them.”

  “We will get to the bottom of this, won’t we, Copper?”

  “Of course we will, Louise. The murderer will not remain hidden for long.”

  FOURTEEN

  THE SKIES WEPT A LITTLE FOR AGATHA LAFFERTY’S funeral, but not enough to keep the assembled mourners away. And it wasn’t too wet for the portable carillon, which Miles brought into the parking lot on a flatbed truck. A few of the mourners carried umbrellas, but most remained bareheaded. Suds Grogan, probably the only person in Misty Valley other than Carol Roberts who considered Agatha a friend, was there, wearing an ill-fitting suit that had probably not seen any use since his wife had passed away a few years earlier. Ryan and Wendy were there, their eyes glowing every time they looked at each other, in spite of the somber circumstance. Ron and Cindy were there, too, quietly holding hands, Cindy looking slightly teary-eyed, Copper thought. The girl who had worked with Agatha at the library was there, her nose a little red from sniffling. Doctors from the hospital came with their spouses, Brandon’s friend Connie Affleck was there with his wife, Copper’s friend Celine Webb was there with a new male friend Copper had never met before, but whom the sheriff recognized immediately.

  Harve turned to Copper and whispered, “Do know who that man is with Mrs. Webb?”

  “No, but I’ve seen him before. I think she’s been dating him for a while.”

  “His
name’s Don Sargent,” Harve told her. “He was the warden at the women’s section of the state prison when Ruby was there.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yep.”

  “Harve, he came into the Book Nook last Friday with Celine.”

  Harve looked at Copper sharply. “Copper, you never mentioned that before.”

  “I didn’t even think of it. I was trying so hard to remember everyone who came in that I totally forgot about Celine and her friend.”

  “What time were they there?”

  Copper shrugged. “I don’t know, Harve. I just barely remember them being there. I don’t think Celine even said hello. One minute they were there, the next they were gone. She didn’t even intro-duce me to him. Harve, do you think he might be a suspect?”

  “I doubt it, Copper. I mean, he’s a lawman, after all. And no motive.”

  The funeral home staff came up then with the coffin, and placed it in position over the grave, the spray of purple and white daisies on top drinking in the few raindrops that fell on it. Brandon got up and gave a eulogy, briefly telling his mother’s life story. Brandon was not an emotional person, but either he shed a few tears during his brief address or several raindrops found his face beneath his umbrella. While he spoke, the bells of the carillon pealed out with Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze and Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D. Since the carillon was in the parking lot, it as far enough from the gravesite that it was not overly loud and did not drown out Brandon’s speech, but was a pleasant accompaniment. When Bandon was through, Pastor Ashton got up and led the group in a prayer of blessing for the soul of the deceased and for law enforce-ment’s good fortune in finding the person or persons responsible for her death.