by Maia Chance
“Cranked?” Effie suggested.
“Yes, her scarf has been cranked up. Someone else cranked it up.” I couldn’t look away. I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing anymore.
The washing machine was comprised of two round steel tubs sitting on sturdy wooden legs, and in between the tubs was a double-roller crank on a wooden frame. I assumed you’d feed your wet clothes through, cranking all the while, to get out the extra moisture. I couldn’t help thinking it was exactly like one of those handmade pasta makers . . . uh-oh. I was so close to being sick.
“We’ve got to call the police!” I fumbled in my backpack, but then I remembered my phone was out of power. “Do you have a phone?”
“Of course I have a phone.” Effie pushed past me, through the back door and out into a scraggly backyard. She fumbled in her handbag and pulled out a pack of Benson & Hedges and her lighter. Her hands shook so it took a few tries to light up.
“Where’s your phone?” I shouted.
She dug into her handbag again and tossed me a sleek white phone.
I dialed 9-1-1. I calmly told the lady on the line that I’d just tripped over the corpse of Kathleen Todd at the Stagecoach Inn. Then I ran behind the ramshackle garage and threw up muffins.
* * *
Almost immediately, sirens wailed up in the distance. Effie went back inside, and I went around to the front porch to wait. I heard Effie clunking around inside, and a little bit later, I heard a car trunk slamming. Then she joined me on the porch.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
An ambulance blared down the driveway first, followed by two police cars and, for some reason, a huge fire engine. I guess everyone wanted in on the action. The next part was a blur. Walkie-talkies blipping on and off, polyester uniforms rushing around, the flashing lights just about sending me into an epileptic seizure. And the weird thing was, despite hurling muffins, I would’ve given anything for more muffins. Effie stood on the porch the whole time, sunglasses on, chain-smoking.
Then a police officer told Effie and me that we needed to ride with him to the police station for questioning.
* * *
At the police station, Effie and I waited for more than an hour in a room with a water cooler, folding chairs, bedraggled issues of People, and a noisy clock. Effie started fidgeting. Nicotine fit, I guessed. I kept my nose buried in People. Finally, a squat lady with a bona fide beehive asked Effie to come with her.
I waited for another hour all alone, drinking too-cold water from a Styrofoam cup. I didn’t even think Styrofoam existed anymore. I thought about calling Dad for help but decided against it. Sunday was his day to play golf at the course in Lucerne with his buddies. Of course, it was likely that he’d already heard the news about Kathleen and about Effie and me being taken in for questioning. He could be calling my out-of-power cell phone frantically, for all I knew. I could just hear his weary, caring sigh, and it bogged me down with guilt.
Then I was called in for questioning. Two men waited for me in a small, windowless room. I’d seen both of them earlier at the inn. One had a police uniform on, and one wore a baggy brown suit and—I noticed under the folding table—brand-new white sneakers that were maybe size thirteen.
“Ms. Blythe,” the baggy-suited man said. He was in his midthirties, small, brown-skinned, and with his thick glasses, he looked like a cartoon goldfish. He reached over the table to shake my hand. “I’m Detective Sam Albright of the Naneda Police, and this here’s Sergeant Hooks.”
Sergeant Hooks took a huge bite of a maple bar.
Seriously? A donut?
“Have a seat, Ms. Blythe,” Albright said.
I sank onto a chair across from them. The waist of my jeans pinched into my midriff, and I winced. Albright looked at me as though my wince was one of guilt.
“It’s my jeans,” I said. I’d fastened them with a hair tie since I’m several pounds thicker than I was in high school. “They’re too tight.”
“What?” Albright said. “Never mind. Tell me about finding Kathleen Todd’s body. From the beginning.”
I felt like puking again. Could the cops already know about my run-in with Kathleen at the library yesterday? No. Impossible.
I explained how I’d met Kathleen for the first time at the library yesterday but omitted how we’d butted heads.
“Uh-huh,” Albright said, shoving his glasses up his shiny nose. “The thing is, Kathleen Todd was murdered—”
“Murdered?” I shook my head. “Things like that don’t happen in Naneda.”
“Tell me about it,” Albright said. “I took the job up here as a sort of early retirement. After ten-plus years in Gotham, I’ve seen enough dead bodies.”
Gotham? I looked at Albright more closely. Yeah. He did bear traces of being a comic book collector.
Albright’s eyes bored right back at me through his thick glasses. Two nerds sizing each other up. He said, “Mrs. Todd was murdered—the washing machine had been cranked up after her scarf was caught between the rollers—and I think you may have had something to do with it.”
“Me? What do you mean? Like I—like I killed her? I only met her for the first time yesterday, and we weren’t even properly introduced. She treated me like something nasty she’d accidentally slipped on.” Crapola. I shouldn’t have said that.
“Which is why you said you were going to wring her neck.”
My mouth flopped open. “Who told you that? Did she report me to the police for bumping into that stupid box of Pyrex bowls? She said she was going to but—”
“No,” Albright said. “The head librarian, Chris McCavity, told me that you said you’d like to”—he glanced down at his notebook—“wring Mrs. Todd’s neck with her paisley scarf.”
The Slug. “Well that was fast,” I said.
“Word travels fast here in Naneda. Seems like Mr. McCavity thought it was his civic duty to inform me of your threats when he learned Mrs. Todd had been killed. What is more, your former domestic partner, Dr. Roger Hollins—I spoke to him just a few minutes ago—”
“Wow, you’re really on the ball.”
“—Dr. Hollins described you as a woman who is going through a life change at the moment and that your actions have been, lately—what did he say, Sarge?”
Sarge set down his maple bar and flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “Erratic.”
“Erratic?” I said. Erratic is how Dad had described Great-Aunt Effie. “Roger said I’m going through a life change? We just broke up yesterday, and anyway, he’s the one who has taken up with the town floozy.”
“And who is that?”
“The Pilates teacher from that studio on Oak Street.”
“Shelby Adams?” Albright said. “I take a core-toning class with Shelby every Saturday. She’s a delight.”
I stole a look at Albright’s core. It was about as toned as a deflated beach ball.
He caught me looking. “I’m working on it,” he said stiffly.
“Okay, so what’s your hypothesis, Detective?” I said. “That Kathleen Todd ticked me off, so I strangled her? That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it, now?” Albright’s glasses gleamed softly. “I’m not going to say it was premeditated, exactly. But there was a confrontation last night—”
“She died last night?”
“Around midnight. And there was a confrontation. Maybe Mrs. Todd’s scarf accidentally caught on that wringer contraption, and then maybe she wouldn’t shut up, so you and your great-aunt made her shut up. Mrs. Todd could be pretty provocative, is what I hear.”
“Me and my great-aunt?” Oh. My. Gosh. Was this a nightmare? I knew it wasn’t healthful watching that Alfred Hitchcock marathon.
Albright went on, “Mrs. Todd told your great-aunt that she would never allow the inn to receive a new certificate of occupancy. There were witnesses to an altercation between your great-aunt and Mrs. Todd at the Green Apple Supermarket yesterday evening. Tell me, Miss Blythe,
where were you last night at midnight?”
“At my dad’s house. Asleep.”
“Can that be corroborated?”
“Sure. Call my dad.” I swallowed thickly. “Mayor Blythe.” It always sounded like I was doing that Do you even know who I AM? routine when I said my dad was the mayor.
But Albright didn’t so much as elevate an eyebrow. “Mrs. Winters is a person of interest in the case, and so are you, Ms. Blythe. Do not leave town. I will contact you when you are wanted for further questioning. I understand you’re no longer living with Dr. Hollins?”
“Yeah.” I was sinking in my chair.
“How could he break up with a bright and attractive young lady like you?”
Um, can you say inappropriate?
“You’ll continue to stay with your father?” Albright asked.
“Yes.” I rattled off Dad’s address and home phone number, and Sergeant Hooks scribbled them down.
Albright was studying my Naneda High Band Camp T-shirt. “What instrument?”
“Clarinet.”
“I play the tuba.”
Naturally. I folded my arms since Albright was still studying the boob sector of my T-shirt with that spaced-out look guys get when they’re studying boobage.
To my great relief, he let me go.
* * *
I went to the bathroom and then made my way toward the police station exit. As I passed the reception desk, the squat lady with the beehive hairdo watched me furtively from behind her computer.
I stopped in front of her desk. “What?” I said.
Beehive sipped a green smoothie through a straw. “Nothing.” She clicked at her computer keyboard, looking busy.
“Yes, I’m Mayor Blythe’s daughter,” I said, “and yes, I had the misfortune of tripping on a dead body this morning. But I didn’t do anything.”
Beehive kept up with the keyboard clicking, saying in a prim voice, “That’s not what I heard.”
I blinked. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“I’m really very busy, Ms. Blythe.” Clickety-click-click went her keyboard. Her crayoned eyebrows arched in permanent surprise.
I could tell she wanted to blab, though. She had that bottled-up look gossips get when they’ve got something juicy. So I waited. The clock ticked five seconds.
Beehive heaved a sigh and looked up. “Just like your dad, aren’t you? So darned persistent. All that happened was, when I went to the farmer’s market just now to get my green smoothie at the smoothie stand—did you know you can live only on kale indefinitely?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “If nothing else, that would take an emotional toll.”
Beehive took an aggressive sip of smoothie. “Rosalie at the smoothie stand told me that someone told her that you and your great-auntie were there at the old inn all last night, doing golly gosh and gee knows what, listening to weird music with crashing waves and sea gulls, and that they heard you arguing loudly with Kathleen Todd in there.”
“Well, that’s a lot of baloney,” I said.
Beehive shrugged and went back to her typing.
I stomped out of the police station.
Outside, I squinted in the burnished Indian summer sunlight. A horn beeped. A pearl-white Cadillac idled in the parking lot, and I glimpsed two black circles behind the windshield. Great-Aunt Effie’s sunglasses.
When I went closer, I saw the Florida license plate. Effie zipped down the window. Smoke billowed out. “Need a lift?” she asked.
“I guess.” I wasn’t sure where I was going, actually, but I circled around and got in. The seats were buttery-white leather. The dashboard looked like real wood. It felt like a luxury plane, or so I imagined; I’ve never been on a luxury plane. I’ve done my share of traveling, but I always buy the budget tickets that stuff you back by the bathrooms. Talk about the study of human culture.
I turned to Effie. “So we’re both persons of interest,” I said.
“Don’t sound so accusing, darling. I had nothing to do with that woman’s death.”
“They said you had a fight with her at the supermarket.”
“They said you had a fight with her at the library.”
We scowled at each other.
I slouched against the seat. “Did that receptionist in there with the beehive and the green smoothie tell you the rumor about us?”
“No.”
I told Effie what Beehive had said. “What is she talking about, weird music with crashing waves and sea gulls?” I asked. “She made it sound like we were holding a witch’s Sabbath in there.”
“That must have been my sound machine,” Effie said.
“Go on.”
“I can’t sleep without it. It plays white noise and soothing nature sounds.”
“You slept at the inn last night?” Effie seemed like the type who only stayed at five-star hotels and only if they had a spa. “Why?”
“The inn is my new home.”
“Well sure, but—is there even running water?”
“I’m not sure. To be safe, I bought out the gallon jugs of spring water at the supermarket and three LED lanterns and an enormous ice chest at the sporting goods store. Oh, and luckily, my sound machine can run on batteries.”
I decided not to ask about the potty situation. “So you’re camping in that dump?” Something was . . . off. Effie was supposed to be loaded, seriously loaded, so why wasn’t she staying at another hotel or renting a house until the inn was habitable? Dad was right. She was erratic.
“Agnes, at my time of life, you simply do whatever the hell you feel like doing,” Effie said. “One day you wake up not caring what other people think.”
“Okay, fine. You’re living at the inn.” Presumably with a battery-operated straightening iron, unless that was a wig. “But you care what the police think, right?”
“Well I don’t want to go to jail. Especially not this week.”
“What’s so special about this week? You can’t possibly care about the county fair coming up.”
“The county fair? These slacks will no longer fit if I even look at a fried Twinkie. No. Didn’t the detective tell you? It seems that Kathleen Todd managed to get a date set for the city to raze the inn on September seventeenth.”
“Are you serious?”
“Mmm. Kathleen’s last hurrah. Although the inn was condemned, no plans had been made yet to demolish it. But it seems that after we had words at the supermarket last night, Kathleen got on the phone with someone at City Hall and set the big day.”
“Why did she care so much whether the inn was demolished or not?” I asked.
“Perhaps she felt that the inn brings down the quality of the neighborhood. She lived right next door, you know. That big brick lakefront place hidden behind the hedges?”
It was looking like Aunt Effie really did have a good motive for murder. Great.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Wait a goldarn minute. The rumor! According to Beehive’s rumor, your sound machine was playing during this supposed argument we had with Kathleen, right?”
“Right.”
“Detective Albright said Kathleen was killed around midnight. Didn’t you hear anything?”
“No. I took a sleeping pill, and the room I chose to sleep in is rather distant from the kitchen porch where she died.”
“And did you turn off your sound machine before the police came?”
“Yes, when I woke up.”
“Don’t you get it?” I said. “Whoever started that rumor was at the inn last night when Kathleen was killed—they had to be, if they heard your sound machine. Which means . . .” I couldn’t say it out loud.
Effie said it for me. “The murderer started the rumor.”
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered. I shoved open the car door. “I’m going to go tell Detective Albright. Back in a minute.”
“Wait!” Effie cried.
I ignored her and trotted back into the police sta
tion. Beehive seemed to enjoy telling me that Detective Albright and Sergeant Hooks had gone out.
“I didn’t see them leave,” I said, looking past her to the station’s inner sanctum.
Beehive shrugged. “They took the back way.” She unpeeled a pink sticky note and jotted down a number. “Here is Detective Albright’s cell number.”
I returned to the Cadillac and got in. “They’re gone.”
“Oh, thank God,” Effie said on a smoky exhale.
“What do you mean, ‘oh, thank God’? This sound machine thing is a major clue! Pass me your phone—I have Albright’s number.”
Effie didn’t pass me her phone. “There’s a bit of a . . . snag.”
“Uh-huuuh . . . ?”
“It’s, well—” Effie shifted in her seat. “The snag is that if the police learn that I was sleeping at the inn last night, they will arrest me for trespassing.”
“What? Trespassing on your own property?”
“That’s what can happen with condemned buildings, apparently. If they’ve been deemed unfit for habitation, it’s illegal to inhabit them. Detective Not-bright told me as much. So you can’t tell the police about the sound machine because that would necessarily entail explaining that I was sleeping there, at which point they would merrily slap on the handcuffs and book me.”
“Okaaaay,” I said. “Then you lied to the police about sleeping at the inn last night.”
Silence.
“You did! I’m sure they’ve found your sound machine and whatever it was you slept on at the inn by now.”
“I packed everything up and put it in the trunk of the car this morning, actually. They’ll never know.”
So that’s what she’d been doing while we were waiting for the police to arrive at the inn.
“I told them I slept in the back seat of my car at the city park,” she said. “No witnesses, alas.”
“Aunt Effie! Lying to the police is a crime. It’s called—” I mentally skimmed my meager knowledge of criminal law.
“Obstruction of justice.”
“That’s it. I think you can get fined or something.”
“Not only fined. I already looked it up on my phone. In New York, it’s a Class-A misdemeanor. I could get thrown into the slammer for a year.”