by Maia Chance
“Me?”
Effie nodded. “For backup.”
* * *
We headed back to the inn to while away another thirty minutes before trying to visit Megan Lawrence again. No sooner had Effie and I dumped our shopping bags in the kitchen—Chester had gone off to sulk and/or work on the wiring—than someone rattled the kitchen’s screen door. “Hello?” a man’s voice called.
Effie and I locked eyes. “Albright,” I whispered. What did he want? Were we really going to tell him about trespassing on Jentry’s farm and about Jentry clobbering us with a bucket? Would Jentry really follow through with his trespassing charges threat? There was no time for discussion.
“Come in, Detective,” Effie called. “How was your bowling tournament in Lucerne?”
Albright stepped into the kitchen. “Why, thanks for asking, Mrs. Winters. I did really well, as a matter of fact. My team is progressing to the semifinals.”
“Oh, well done,” Effie said. “Please, sit. Would you like some coffee? A scone, perhaps? They’re from the bakery on Main Street.”
“Flour Girl Bakery?”
“That’s the one.”
“Then I don’t mind if I do.” Albright sat and looked around. “Mrs. Winters, you aren’t living here in this condemned building, are you? Because you could be arrested for—”
“Living here?” Effie touched her throat. “God, no. I told you, I’ve been sleeping in my car. The first night, it was at the city park, but that felt so tacky, so . . .”
“You’re sleeping in your car here on the property?”
“The driveway isn’t condemned, darling.”
“That’s true.” Albright took a couple bites of scone. “Well, I guess you know why I’m here.”
“Nope,” I said.
“Police Chief Gwozdek told me you two came to the station last night under mysterious circumstances and then fled?” Albright pulled out a notebook and flicked through the pages. It was jam-packed with handwritten notes, and I couldn’t help thinking what an eye-opener it would be to have a peek. Effie caught me looking at the notebook. Her eyebrow lifted. We were thinking the same thing. Never mind tattling to the police; this was a golden opportunity.
“We—I—just wanted to say hi,” I blurted. “To you.”
Albright’s round brown cheeks glowed. “Me?”
“Um, yeah.”
“You ought to try bowling, Agnes,” Albright said. “Lots of nice guys at the alley. Single nice guys.”
Effie said, “Not to change the subject, but I did want to ask you your expert opinion, Detective Albright, about installing a bowling alley right here at the inn.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I was thinking we just might be able to fit a lane or two in the dining room—it’s quite a long room. Would you have a look and tell me what you think?”
“Sure, I guess I could spare a couple minutes.”
“It’s just through here. Oh, and have another scone”—Effie pressed a scone into Albright’s hand—“or two.”
Albright eagerly followed Effie out of the kitchen, a scone in each hand. And—score!—he’d abandoned his notebook on the table.
As soon as they were a safe distance away, I grabbed the notebook.
Crapola. Albright’s handwriting was epileptic chicken scrawl. I flipped through but couldn’t decipher much. However, I did make out a page of notes about Dorrie Tucker. Albright had been having a good handwriting moment while interviewing her, I guess. I picked out widow, kindergarten, distraught, best friend, avid gardener, and asked if police aware of a Rolodex belonging to Kathleen.
A Rolodex? Who used Rolodexes anymore?
Footsteps out in the hall. I dropped the notebook on the table like it was hot.
“Geewillikins, I forgot my notebook,” Albright said, trundling in. He was down to one scone. He grabbed the notebook. “I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that you look really . . . nice in that dress, Ms. Blythe.”
“Umm . . . this old thing?” I said.
“Don’t forget what I said about bowling.”
“Oh, she won’t,” Effie said from the doorway.
We waved Albright off. When he was gone, Effie turned to me. “Did you see anything in the notebook?”
“Yes. Not a lot—his handwriting is awful—but he’d written something about Dorrie Tucker asking him if the police knew about a Rolodex belonging to Kathleen.”
“A Rolodex? How quaint.”
“We should ask Dorrie about it.”
Chapter 15
It looked like Megan had returned from the nail salon when Effie and I parked once more outside her house, because a lacquer-black Range Rover hulked in the driveway.
Effie refreshed her lipstick in the rearview mirror, and we went to the front door and rang the bell.
“Are we still going to say we want to compare notes about house break-ins?” I whispered.
“I can’t think of anything better.”
A woman I took to be Megan answered the door. “Yes?” she said. She was a younger, smaller version of Kathleen Todd, with the same ash-blonde hair and WASPy good looks. She wore costly looking black yoga pants and a fitted black hoodie.
“Hello, Mrs. Lawrence,” Effie said. “I am Mrs. Winters, and this is Mayor Blythe’s daughter, Agnes.”
“How dare you come here?” Megan swung the door toward us.
“Wait,” I said, stopping the door with my sneaker. Ow. “We’re here, neighbor to neighbor, because we heard your house was broken into a few nights ago.”
Megan’s mascara-crisped eyes narrowed. “Yes, it was.”
“Well, my inn was broken into as well,” Effie said.
“You mean that rotting heap of code violations where you murdered my mom?”
“I did not murder your mother, Mrs. Lawrence,” Effie said. “Surely you don’t believe that.”
“Well, neither of you look like you have enough strength,” Megan said, “and Mom did an hour on the elliptical every single day. I just wish Mom had been able to buy that inn when she’d wanted to. Then none of this would have happened.”
“She wanted to buy the Stagecoach Inn?” I said.
“Yes. But that old guy who owned it flat-out refused.”
Good going, Uncle Herman. “Why would your mom want to own the inn?”
“To tear it down, obviously. I don’t know how she managed to make that code-compliance officer finally see reason.”
“We wanted to compare notes with you about the break-in,” I said. “We were thinking of starting a neighborhood watch type of thing. We even got the mayor on board.” I cringed inwardly. I’d never been one to throw Dad’s job title around. “Could we come in?”
“Oh, all right,” Megan said. She opened the door and let us in. We followed her through an entry hall and dining room straight out of a Crate and Barrel catalog. Her feet were bare, her toenails tropical-punch pink. Girlish, citrusy perfume swirled in her wake.
We emerged into a huge kitchen with white custom cabinets and jumbo stainless steel appliances. French doors looked out onto the backyard, where the housekeeper was watering potted plants. The Maltipoo frolicked with a pink ball on the grass.
Megan circled around a huge, marble-topped island and perched on a stool. She didn’t invite us to sit, so Effie and I hovered.
“First of all,” I said, “could I get your phone number?”
“What for?”
Effie said, “For the neighborhood telephone tree.”
“Oh.” Megan rattled off her number, and I punched it into my contacts on my own phone.
“Why didn’t you go to the police about your break-in?” Megan asked. She folded her hands, which sported a fresh French manicure and flashing diamond rings.
“Oh, we did,” Effie lied. “But I think it’s ever so important to create a community network about these things. We can’t have the riffraff taking over, can we? Naneda simply isn’t that kind of town. Now tell me, what happened?”
“Dr. Lawrence—my husband—is in Cleveland at a conference about some new antidepressant drug,” Megan said. “I armed the security system. I always do. But the intruder somehow got past it and went through a bunch of our stuff—the desk in Dr. Lawrence’s home office, the antique roll top in the living room, and some of the drawers in the kitchen.”
Of course Megan called her hubby Dr. Lawrence. Blegh.
“How terrifying,” Effie murmured. “Especially so soon after losing your mother.”
“You know what hurts the most?” Megan said. “The Madame Alexander doll collection Mom started for me when I was born is never going to be complete now. She gave me a new doll every birthday. I have them in display cases upstairs.”
Honestly, that may have been the creepiest thing I’d heard all day.
“Oh, Mom! I’ll miss you!” Megan fanned her teary eyes in the manner of overcome beauty pageant contestants.
“That is a lovely manicure,” Effie said to her. “I do think it’s important to pamper yourself when the going gets tough. Will your husband return for the funeral?”
“He said he couldn’t get away from the conference.”
Sounded like a real charmer.
“You must have other family here to help,” I said. “Your sister lives nearby, right?”
Megan looked like she wanted to scowl, but her Botoxed forehead wasn’t going to let that happen, so crinkles appeared on the sides of her nose instead. “My sister? Let’s just hope she and her scuzzy boyfriend skip the funeral.”
“What about your mother’s family?” Effie asked.
The tiniest wince flickered at the corners of Megan’s eyes. She was hiding something. Something about her mother’s family. “Mom was an orphan. We don’t know any of her family. She grew up in an orphanage in Western Massachusetts. She never talked about it. It was like her life really began when she met Daddy.”
“And where did she meet your father, dear?” Effie asked.
“She was a secretary at the insurance company’s main headquarters in Rochester—Daddy was an executive for an insurance company. It was love at first sight.”
“What insurance company did he work for?” I asked.
“Sentinel Insurance.”
“Do you know Bud Budzinski?” Effie said out of the blue.
I stared at her. What the heck?
Megan’s glossed upper lip curled. “What? No, I do not know Bud Budzinski. And you know what? I think it’s time for you two to leave.”
Effie and I made a beeline toward the front door.
“I think you’re here to snoop!” Megan yelled after us. “And I’m going to call the mayor’s office and tell them you’ve been telling lies about starting a neighborhood watch!”
Well crud.
* * *
“Why did you bring up Budzinski out of the blue like that?” I asked Effie in a sour tone, buckling myself into the Cadillac. “She was just starting to warm up to us, but now she’s going to call Dad’s office! All that stuff about Kathleen being an orphan and stuff—that could’ve been important!”
“I’ll tell you why.” Effie affixed her sunglasses to her face and started the engine. “Did you smell Megan’s perfume?”
“How could I not? It was like a napalm cloud.”
“Didn’t it smell familiar?”
“It smelled like a migraine.”
“It was Burberry Brit. The same perfume we noticed in Bud’s office at Club Xenon.”
“So?”
Effie shrugged. “Perhaps it’s nothing. Or perhaps Megan and Bud are having an affair.”
“What? Gross.” I rubbed my temples. I wasn’t sure whether or not a Megan-Bud affair imploded my theory about Bud and Jentry killing Kathleen over the pot deals. It definitely stirred up a new theory, which was that Bud killed Kathleen for his lover, Megan. About the will.
Why was this all so freaking complicated? It was like a Rubik’s Cube—one with nonremovable stickers.
I said, “Let’s go ask Dorrie Tucker about that Rolodex, okay?”
“Fine.”
At the first stop sign, I saw the white pickup truck in my side mirror.
“Don’t look now, but Jentry’s back,” I said. Suddenly, I felt like puking.
Effie gassed it through the intersection.
“Don’t try to get away from him,” I said. “I’m sick of this! Turn around and chase him. We can get him to stop and demand—”
“He’s violent! Who knows how many shotguns and plastic buckets he has crammed in that pickup truck!” Despite her protests, Effie did a U-turn in the middle of a four-way stop—a sedan and a pickup truck blasted their horns—and then we were zooming straight at the pickup. But Jentry cranked out his own U-turn and vroomed away. He was hunched down behind the wheel with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. He hadn’t wanted us to see him.
“Diddle daddle.” Effie stepped on the gas and U-turned again. My stomach churned. We sped down a residential street lined with parked cars. We were gaining on Jentry—the Caddy’s engine was a beast—but suddenly, he did a two-wheel turn and vanished into an alleyway.
“Don’t let him get away,” I shouted.
Effie screeched into the alleyway. Garbage and recycling bins cluttered the edges. The pickup rolled neatly through, but Effie smashed and bumped into the bins.
I twisted around to see out the back. “Come on. This isn’t the demolition derby!” Rolling bins and refuse scattered in our wake. Dogs woofed behind fences.
“Do you want me to catch up to Jentry, or do you want me to win the good citizen award?”
“Both!”
“You’re too demanding, Agnes. If you’d only lower your expectations, you’d feel so much better.”
The pickup reached the end of the alleyway and turned left.
We followed.
The pickup raced to another four-way stop, but even though there was already another car in the intersection, it roared straight through. Brakes screeched, and a horn beeped.
“No,” I said, grinding my foot instinctively into the floor mat.
“Yes,” Effie said. She gunned it.
I screamed and squeezed my eyes shut. The adrenaline floodgates burst. The Cadillac swayed in an S-curve through the intersection. More beeps, brake screeches, a man bellowing obscenities.
By the time we were across the intersection, Jentry had disappeared, and sirens wailed in the middle distance.
Effie slowed to a crawl. “Dorrie Tucker’s house?” she said, smoothing her hair.
“Sure.” I pried my fingernails from the seat’s upholstery.
Effie drove at a tortoise’s pace. We passed by a police car, lights flashing, headed the other way.
“So here’s a question,” I said once my adrenaline buzz started to taper off. “Why was Jentry trying to get away from us? Why didn’t he want to be seen? You saw his baseball cap, right?”
“All men are secretly frightened of women, Agnes.”
“He didn’t seem frightened when he was blasting his shotgun at us or when he was whacking us with that bucket. Trying to get away from us, that makes it seem like he’s sort of keeping tabs on us, you know?”
“But why?”
“I guess he’s afraid we’re going to blab about the pot farm.”
“If that were the case, he’d be sticking to outright intimidation, wouldn’t he?”
“Well, if he wants to keep tabs on us, then he doesn’t want us dead, right?”
One thing had become crystal clear: I needed to buy my own car. Like, yesterday. I told this to Effie.
“What’s wrong with this car?” she asked, rolling through a stop.
“Other than the duct-taped bullet hole in the windshield, nothing is wrong with the car. It’s the driver that’s the problem.”
“You could go to Otis’s shop—he sells used cars at the auto body shop, doesn’t he? I’m certain he’d give you the bargain of the century. You’ll probably need to change out of that dress for t
he best deal, though. Maybe back into those sweat pants—”
“Let’s leave the sweat pants out of it.”
* * *
When Dorrie Tucker opened her front door, she was wearing an apron with little pink kittens printed all over. The scent of warm sugar and vanilla swirled out.
“Hi, Mrs. Tucker,” I said. “How are you?”
“Fiiiiine . . . ?” Dorrie said in a questioning tone.
“Smells great,” I said. “Cookies?”
“Oatmeal raisin.”
“For Kathleen’s wake?” I asked.
Dorrie’s eyes glistened, and she dabbed them with a corner of her apron. “No. For the historical society meeting.”
“There’s going to be a meeting right after the chairman was killed?” I asked.
“Chairlady,” Dorrie said coldly. “And yes. In fact, because I was the society secretary, I have been appointed as interim chairlady. There is too much business to simply stop our weekly meetings, you know.”
“What sort of business?” Effie asked.
“If you give people an inch, they’ll take a mile,” Dorrie said. “Just this morning, I visited that awful Budzinski fellow at Club Xenon to give him his final warning to remove his garish neon sign.”
“Is he going to remove it?” I asked.
Dorrie closed the door a few inches. “What was it you wanted?”
“I just had a quick question for you,” I said. “When I called Kathleen to apologize for being so rude to her at the library that day—”
“You apologized?”
“Well, sure.”
“Agnes is a little lady,” Effie said.
“Anyway,” I said, “when I called, Kathleen mentioned that she was too busy to meet in person because she was looking for a misplaced Rolodex.” Possibly my lamest lie to date.
Dorrie’s cheeks trembled. “I’m sure I don’t know anything about a Rolodex, Miss Blythe. And why do you ask?”
“Oh. Um, the police asked me about the Rolodex, actually, and I thought you might know about it since you and Kathleen were best friends.”
“But why are you two asking questions? Our boys in blue are working on the case, and doing a fine job too. Last thing I knew, you two were their prime suspects—was it you who broke into my house last night?”