It's Marple, Dear

by L Mad Hildebrandt

  I couldn’t think of a motive. “Perhaps, just to get back at the doctor for getting it on with his wife?”

  Mother looked at me, and paused in getting ready for bed. “That’s not outside the realm of possibility.” The fact that she changed her clothes with me in the room told me that, somewhere in there, she realized that I was not really Raymond, but her daughter. The problem was that, for me, the longer things went on, the more I came to like being Raymond.

  I did not like thinking about Frank Daniels. I would rather not think about that man again. But, Mother made forgetting about him impossible.

  “I think,” she said, as she climbed under the covers, “that you will find the accounts journal in Patsy Daniels house.”

  “You think?” I sighed, as I straightened the blankets around her, and fluffed her pillows.

  “Yes, I do. You should go. The sooner, the better.”

  I would have to think how best to accomplish that request. That’s something Lonnie would not be on board with. And, he wouldn’t go looking on so little evidence. So, telling him, and leaving it up to him, was out of the question.

  I left my mother sleeping soundly in her room and headed for my own. I picked up Football and brought him along. He’d taken to curling up at the foot of my bed, and as long as I kept the door open, he didn’t argue. I’m sure he came and went all night, but when I awoke each morning he was at my feet. I plopped him on the bed and scratched him behind the ear. “So, Football, what’s your real name?” Mother seemed to think he’d arrived with me, I needed to ask the girls when I got the chance. I went over to the dresser to take out my stud earrings and slathered on my nighttime lotions. In the middle of the bureau top, completely forgotten, lay the photo that had come in Mother’s first package.

  I gazed again at the unfamiliar faces. Except for Earl. If I looked close, I could almost recognize some others, but couldn’t be sure. Lonnie? Was that tall, skinny teenager him? My heart jolted, and then I felt sick. It hurt to think about him. And after the last fiasco, I could hardly ask him. I needed to talk to Earl, find out what it was a picture of. I suspected it was a photo of the fateful keg party. But again, my answer would come from Earl. I decided that my first assignment for Wednesday morning would be to see my brother.

  Chapter Thirty

  Next morning, I sat at the table with Mother, awaiting my chance to bug out. I set out the toast and jam and took the kettle off the stove when it whistled. She chose an orange tea packet, and I chose an herbal. As long as I was heading for the plaza, I planned on getting a coffee.

  “Where do we stand,” Mother said, “so I can tell the ladies when they get here?”

  I thought for a moment. “Doctor Wilson is at the top of the suspect list,” I said, purposely leaving off my Emma suspicions. “He certainly had the opportunity, and his motive could be his love affairs, especially if he wanted out of his marriage but didn’t want to share his money.”

  Mother agreed, and didn’t have anything to add. “Second?”

  “That would be Patsy Wilson, of course. She had the frog statue in her office, and she would be in the best position to be cooking the books at the school.”

  “Does she have a motive for the embezzlement?” Mother slathered a huge pile of marmalade on a half slice of toast.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because her husband has cancer?”

  “Perhaps,” Mother said. “We’ll need to dig for the answer to that question… If there is an answer.”

  “You mean, if she isn’t the one embezzling?”

  “Yes. If she isn’t, then there is someone else whom we haven’t as yet identified.”

  “Right.” Did that mean Emma? She still hadn’t told me who she was talking to over at the river. No one had been fished out of the river, and nobody was recently missing from town. Unless the woman was from out of town and had floated on down the river, then she was still alive. And that could easily be Emma. I couldn’t forget that voice echoing Emma’s own words on the plaza. She had loved Tonya.

  Shortly after, I washed up the dishes and took my leave. Maria had already walked across the street, and as I left, Dee waved as she exited her house. Slowly, my mother’s friends began to congregate at our place.

  I walked the short distance to the plaza and picked up a coffee, then continued on to the western wear store. Emma waved and continued stocking goods. I went up to the counter, and Earl offered me his stool while he counted the morning drawer.

  “How’s Mother?” He paused between denominations.

  “Perfectly fine,” I said.

  “Then it’s going well?”

  “As well as can be expected, Earl. You know that.” I didn’t mean to let my exasperation show, but my siblings could irritate me with their selfishness.

  Earl held up his hand while he finished counting. When he was done, he slid the drawer into the cash register. “Ready for the day,” he smiled. I tried to smile back, but I glanced to the other end of the store, where Emma hung farmer caps on a rack.

  “Hey, Em!” Earl called to the back of the store, and Emma paused in her work. “Raymond and I are going outside for a spell.”

  She waved okay, and we headed out. He led the way to the gazebo, and I climbed up the steps behind him, same as I had several days before with my sister. He propped his forearms on the rail, and leaned way over, facing away from his store. I stood next to him.

  “So, what’s up?” He glanced up at me, and I leaned against the rail, mimicking him.

  Reaching back, I slipped my fingers into the back pocket of my jeans, and pulled out the old photo. “Take a look at this,” I said.

  He took it from me, and gave a soft laugh. “What a group,” he said. “Those were really the days. Back when I had nothing to worry about. Man, everything was fine.”

  “Sure,” I said. “tell me about this photo.”

  “Something special about it?”

  “You tell me. Mother got it special delivery. Somebody seems to believe it’s important. I think it’s the keg party. The night that Tonya Romero was killed.”

  “Wow, really?” Earl took a second, longer look. “Maybe, so. But, you know, there were a lot of parties up there.”

  “Look at the photo, Earl. What makes this one important?”

  “Well,” he said. “It’s at Lovers’ Lane. I can tell by this tree right here.” He pointed at a gnarled thing in the background. “It’s still up there, but bigger.”

  “All right. What else do you see?

  “The kids. This would be, oh, way back when. I think I was a freshman?” He peered closer at the faces. “This is me,” he said. “Here’s Lonnie.” He pointed out several more faces. “Wow,” he said. “This is Emma. I didn’t know she was at that party. And right next to her are Tammy Lynn, Patsy, and Tonya. Back behind everyone. See?”

  He paused a long time. “Crap,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  “Look at Joe.” He pointed at a figure standing way over by the tree.

  “Uh huh?”

  He pointed again. “This is after the crash. Joe had a head injury. Look at the blood on his face and shirt.”

  I studied the picture. “You sure this isn’t after Tonya cut him with the bottle?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She got him on the arm. This is his face.”

  “We’re going to have to talk to Emma.”

  ❃ ❃ ❃

  Earl locked the door and flipped the sign over to closed.

  “What’s going on?” Emma smiled as she came up to the counter for another handful of items to stock. She grabbed a plastic bag of little boys’ cowboy underpants and slit the pack open. She started back to the children’s section.

  “Wait,” Earl said. “We need to talk to you.”

  She set the clothes down, and a serious expression washed over her face. “Is Mother all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, hoping to set her mind at ease. In a moment, I was sure that we would destroy this fleeting momen
t of comfort we allowed her.

  “Emma, do you remember that party up at Lovers’ Lane years ago? The one when Tonya Romero got killed?”

  “Yeah, sure. Everyone knows about that.” She shrugged her shoulders, and shook her head, tossing her hair. “Why?” I couldn’t help but compare her current behavior to that of several days previous.

  “What do you remember about that party?”

  “I don’t. You know I wasn’t there.” She smiled, an air of innocent youth about her.

  “You told me you were there,” I said.

  “Did I? You must have heard wrong.” Her giggle sounded hollow.

  Earl set the photo on the counter. She glanced at it, but didn’t react. She probably didn’t recognize it. I picked up my coffee, forgotten since I entered the shop some time ago. I took a sip and grimaced. Lukewarm. I put it back on the counter, next to the photo.

  “You were there, Em,” Earl said, and pushed the picture toward her.

  A wary look came over her, worse, a touch of fear in her eyes. She picked up the picture, and studied it. Then, she thrust it away from her in a single motion. She began to shake. “Where did you get this?” She whispered.

  “Mother,” I said. “It was given to her.” I didn’t elaborate.

  “No,” she said. “This is some other party.”

  “Look at Joe,” Earl said. She did. “Now, look for you.” And again, she searched the photo.

  “This can’t be real,” she whispered. “I wasn’t there.”

  “You were,” I said. “And so were Patsy, Tammy Lynn, and Tonya. After the crash.”

  She sank onto the stool, and lay her head on her crossed arms, where they rested on the counter.

  “All right,” she sat upright, tears in her eyes. “Tonya came back up to the party. Right behind Joe. But, she came up the trail, not the road.” She turned to Earl. “You know the one?”

  Earl nodded.

  “She was shaken, but not hurt. Not like Joe.” Emma snagged my coffee from the counter and took a big swig, but she didn’t grimace as I had. She seemed too distraught to notice anything but the picture.

  “But what happened? How did she end up in the river?” I picked up the photo, then looked into her eyes searching for something… I didn’t know what.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “I was drinking.”

  Earl harrumphed.

  “Well, so were you,” she said, and stamped her foot. It was childish behavior.

  “Stop arguing,” I said. “Think. What happened next? After this picture was taken.”

  Her eyes glazed over and she looked up at the ceiling. “I really don’t know,” she said. “The last thing I remember was being with the girls. I remember Patsy saying you showed up, Earl. And I wanted to go home. That’s all I remember. Really. Then, the next day, Tonya was dead, and people were saying that Joe and Anthony did it. I believed that. For the longest time. But, I don’t really know.” She dropped her voice. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you leave with the girls?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “In Tammy Lynn’s car?”

  “Yeah.”

  That squared with what Patsy had told me. Almost. Except that according to her, she’d stayed at the party. Only Emma and Tammy Lynn had gone home. I wondered what had happened on that ride. And did it have anything to do with Tammy Lynn’s murder?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Maybe I should have asked my sister about her alibi for the night Tammy Lynn was murdered. I still couldn’t bring myself to ask. I didn’t want to prove her guilty of either crime. I didn’t get to have my siblings in my life growing up. We had been raised more like half- or step-sibs. Regardless, they were mine, and I loved them.

  What if Emma came ‘out?’ I looked out the front window of my early childhood home. Puffs of white cloud floated lazily across the blue sky, some smaller, some larger than the others. Eventually, they would either dwindle away or join with the others. Family is kind of like that. We float out there, going our own way, but eventually, we have to join together… or fade away. We had been apart, and like the largest of the clouds, we had come back together. I decided I didn’t care. Whatever Emma had to say, she was my sister, and I loved her.

  I would help her get through.

  Mother shuffled into the room, her slippers slip-slapping against the painted hardwood floor. “There is a racket out there today,” she said. She came up beside me, and peered out the window.

  I gazed again at the clouds. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Not up here,” she said. “Back there.” She pointed toward the old workshop. “It’s the church, I think. Perhaps the Vicar is renovating.”

  “Really?” I looked toward the back of the house, then bolted. “Be right back,” I called over my shoulder. I slammed through the house and into the workshop. I stopped short. Lights? Since when were there electric lights in the workshop? I took the couple steps down and slowly walked the length of the long room. The floor had been painted white, serving to highlight the tin strips the long-ago carpenter had tacked over the seams between each board. Bags of stucco were piled neatly against one wall. And the haphazard collection of tools and junk was no longer haphazard. Instead, they were stowed in plastic bins along the other wall, and the various workbenches were clean and dust free. Holy moly. How had I missed the handyman when he’d done all this?

  Of course, I’d been distracted by my mother’s investigation thing. But, the lights were on, so I knew he’d recently been working. Maybe still was. I strolled to the back door, and popped it open, leaning into the garage. It was beautifully neat and tidy. More so than before. I wondered how much my mother was paying the guy. But, he wasn’t in there either. I’d missed him again.

  Mother had taken her usual seat in her green chair by the time I got back into the living room. I stopped in front of her. “Who’s the handyman? I haven’t seen him yet.”

  “No,” she said as she shook her head slowly from side to side. She pursed her lips in thought. “There is no handyman. But there is a maid. Gladys Martin.”

  I recognized that name, and it certainly wasn’t Mother’s maid. She was a character in the movie Mother had been watching yesterday. I thought for a minute. Oh, A Pocketful of Rye.

  “Hmm.” I picked up the coffee I’d brought back from the western wear store and took it into the kitchen. But I didn’t throw it out. I love the flavor of coffee over ice. Hey, have not want not. A paper cup works both ways. Hot, or cold. Since my coffee had gone lukewarm while I talked with the twins, I figured I would enjoy it with ice, instead. I dug a handful of cubes out of the freezer and dropped them into my cup.

  Mother followed me into the kitchen and plopped a manila envelope on the table. I set my cup next to it. “A new one?”

  “Yes,” she said. She pushed it toward me. “You may have the honors.”

  “Thanks,” I murmured. What did she expect? A rattlesnake to fall out of it? On second thought, that’s exactly what had fallen out of the last one. A photo, which had opened the veritable viper’s den.

  I peeled away the sticky flap. Nothing came out when I tipped it over, and I widened the opening so I could take a look inside. One small sheet of paper, typewritten, or computer printed more likely, clung to the side of the goldenrod color envelope. I reached in. As I pulled it out, I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out with an ‘almost’ giggle.

  “What do we have here,” Mother said. She reached for it, but I placed it on the table between us, leaving my hand resting on it so we could read it together.

  “Away, away to the school,” it read.

  What the heck? Someone waxing poetic? Or so they thought, but that was the lamest line I’d ever read. Next to my ex-husband’s proposal, that is. He’d written: Roses are red, your eyes are blue, so I want to marry you. What a romantic.

  I touched my neck, and my fingers slipped behind the thin leather band of Lonnie’s arrowhead necklace. I felt alon
g the strip, almost without realizing it, and pulled the arrowhead out from my collar. I knew I’d go back to the school. And, I knew exactly what Lonnie would say.

  Mother rode along. She wasn’t about to let me go alone this time. I reminded her that Donna had accompanied me before. She snapped her finger and said, “Oh, that girl. Useless in a pinch.”

  Actually, I thought she’d been pretty good in that pinch. All the problems had been mine.

  The Jeep made quick time of the trip to the school. We parked close to the front this time, in a spot marked ‘disabled.’ Mother pulled a placard out of her purse and laid it on the dash. I hopped out, picked up a big rock, and set it on top of the placard. The Jeep didn’t have side windows. As much as a slight breeze would blow her disabled tag away. And, being such a precious commodity, I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  I glanced around, not sure what our invisible friend had sent us to do. Mother began the short walk to the front door, and I scurried after. “Look!” I pointed out a patch of goldenrod in the garden, and it wasn’t flowers. The garden was rock, and the goldenrod was another envelope tucked in between cactus.

  Scavenger hunt? I laughed aloud, and Mother, holding her purse stiffly in front of her, gazed disapprovingly. “What do you find so amusing?”

  “Do you remember Dad’s scavenger hunts? The ones at Christmas, and birthdays?” She didn’t crack a smile. My own withered. “He quit,” I said, nearly under my breath. “After we left.”

  He’d been an unhappy man after that. But, he was a good father. When I’d grown up and gone out on my own, he started looking for happiness. Happiness, he thought, could be found in a skirt. The skirt, however, changed with the seasons. He never found what he wanted, and I suspected that what he wanted stood in front of me.

  I opened the envelope carefully, this time, in case something untoward actually did fall out of it. Like a scorpion.

  It was empty, except for another slip of paper. “See to the guardian.”

  Obvious, that.

  Rather than entering the building, we walked around it. On my first, investigative, foray I’d noticed a security station off the gymnasium. We were lucky. The guard was relaxing in a chair, behind an empty console. Six glaringly empty slots were littered with crumpled paper instead of TVs. Someone had once prepared for closed circuit television. The guard had his hand up, basketball fashion, as we entered. He tossed a crumpled piece of paper across the room. He missed. I smirked. Playing ‘trashcan’ basketball, huh? I wondered if he might recognize me from my, and Donna’s escapade.