Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery)

by Victoria Hamilton

  “Melvyn Wynter was my brother, you understand, of the Falconry,” Elwood went on. “I’d been a member from early on. But she wasn’t far off about a lot of things. Melvyn was a feisty cuss even then, and he only got worse.”

  “I’ve heard all about him,” I said. I told him all I knew about my great uncle, from his hermit ways to his tendency to drive people off his land with a cocked rifle.

  Elwood hadn’t heard much of this because after he retired he spent most of his time in Florida and traveling. “Bored myself stupid,” he said. “Had to come back home to get some excitement! I’m just not a Florida sort, I guess.”

  “What did you think of my mother?” I asked, returning the topic to my past.

  A gleam of appreciation twinkled in his eyes. “She sure was a looker, almost as pretty as you,” he said, winking one eye.

  Pish smirked and snickered. I gave him a cross-eyed look. I had seen Elwood’s behavior toward the ladies—he was an equal-opportunity flirt—and did not want to encourage him.

  “I was a young buck myself, just on the sad side of forty and divorced. Wouldn’t have minded taking her out for drinks and dancing, but I never did ask. She had you in tow and was headed back to New York City.” He frowned. “Besides, she didn’t seem to set much store by having fun.”

  If he only knew. My mother’s idea of fun was rabble-rousing, and she loved a good picket line. While I appreciated her civic mindedness, it wouldn’t have hurt her to lighten up a little. He then told me about his ride into Rochester with my mother and myself. It was like stepping back thirty-four years.

  I was in the backseat, kneeling and looking out the car window; there were no seat belt laws back then to restrain me. It seems to me that the car radio was playing oldies, like Buddy Holly and Bill Haley. I vividly remember “Rock Around the Clock” because I was bopping along to it and humming. Mom told me to hush. She favored Joan Baez folk over old time rock ’n’ roll.

  “Charmaine asked me what I thought of Melvyn,” Elwood said. “I said he was an okay sort if you didn’t cross him, but stubborn as all get-out if you did. Melvyn and I dealt just fine because we didn’t have much to talk about but Brotherhood issues. She said he was . . . well, she called him something I won’t say in mixed company, and then she shot a look over her shoulder at you, but you were playing some kinda game of your own. You were a dreamy kid, lost in your own world.”

  That was true of me until we moved to Grandma’s apartment. Looking back, I know that losing Daddy meant I’d lost the most fun fellow I have ever known and the love of my life until I met Miguel. I had a kind of epiphany in that moment, that losing two men I’d cared about had made me afraid to love someone too much. I’d think about that later. Maybe. “Did she say why it bugged her that Melvyn asked if she wanted to move here?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Elwood said. “He didn’t so much ask as demand, is my impression.”

  That would have angered my mother, all right. “I know my father spent time here as a kid, but do you know how much? Doc, Melvyn’s old friend, has been kind of closemouthed about anything to do with my dad and grandfather.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. It implied an aura of secrecy, and my guest picked up on that, his saggy bloodhound eyes squinting.

  Elwood twisted up his mouth and nodded. “Lemme think on that,” he said, his gray eyes misty with evasion.

  What the heck was everyone keeping from me? I shifted my butt on the seat. “Please, Elwood, I just want to know more about my family! What’s wrong with that?”

  Pish reached out and covered my hand with his. I felt the warmth of his touch, and it soothed me.

  Elwood nodded. “I know; nothin’ wrong with it at all. Not many as remember the old days. I’m not trying to be a pain in the bee-hind, I just need to think on it. There was a falling out between Mel and Murg, and it had to do with your daddy, but I don’t think I’m remembering all the details. Give an old fellow a little time.”

  “Surely you remember what the falling out was over and can tell me at least briefly,” I said, clutching Pish’s hand, feeling like I was close to understanding or finding out something about the father who was just a shadow figure and the grandfather I’d never known.

  Elwood rose suddenly, stretching out his shoulders and flexing his hands. “Need to move, get the kinks out,” he said. “Show me around? I’d sure like to see the old place again. Haven’t been here since 1983, when we had a Brotherhood dinner and dance at the castle.”

  That was a new one. A dinner and dance at the castle in my great uncle’s time? Okay, if Elwood wanted to walk and talk, then that’s what we would do. Except that he was a master of small talk and even better at avoiding questions, so I learned nothing more of significance. We finished up in the turret room I was working on. Pish hadn’t seen my find from that morning, and he was stunned.

  “Oh, my darling, this is magnificent!” he said in a hushed voice.

  Elwood stared up at the frieze. “It surely is,” he said, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged room.

  “I can’t imagine who would have covered it up,” I said.

  “Melvyn, I’d guess,” Elwood said, his tone dry. “Old Mel was a master at covering things up.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked sharply. There was a subtext there that I did not yet understand.

  The old man glanced down at his watch, and exclaimed, “Well, boy howdy, am I late! I’m s’posed to take a lady out to dinner, but her idea of dinner is the early bird buffet in Batavia, so I’d best get a move on.”

  He headed out of the room and to the stairs while Pish and I trailed him, me stupefied by the continuing string of half stories about my great uncle, grandfather, and father. Elwood clattered down the stairs to the great hall as we followed.

  “Elwood, perhaps you can elaborate for Merry,” Pish said, as the older man took his jacket from a hook on the oak Eastlake hall tree and shrugged it on. “She knows so little.”

  “Maybe. We’ll talk some more. I can tell you: there is a bit about your family history in a book. If you can get ahold of it—”

  “Yes, I think Hannah gave me a book on the Autumn Vale area and the Wynter family practically the day I got here,” I said. “Is that the one you mean? I’ve been so busy, but I think I still have it somewhere.”

  “Read that, and then we’ll get back together sometime and I’ll tell you what I can. I don’t know everything, you know. Just bits and pieces.”

  He was already heading out the door, and I had to be satisfied with that, even though he had left me with more questions than when I’d started. There seemed to be some kind of family mystery to do with Melvyn and my grandfather, Murgatroyd, and I just wanted to know what it was. Once he was gone, I went back up to the turret room with Pish and we lay on the floor, staring at the little section of frieze I had uncovered and the cavorting putti.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I said.

  “It’s going to take time, though, certainly. But the more you do this,” he said, waving his hand at the peeled-back wallpaper, “the more valuable the castle becomes.”

  I turned my head and watched him. He seemed lost in thought. “What have you got up your sleeve?”

  He smiled. “Nothing at all; just trying to figure out a way to give you the time you need to fix this joint up. To change the subject: have you given any more thought to the puzzle in Becket’s collar?”

  I frowned up at the ceiling. “I know I should have been looking into it, but do you think it’s anything more than a paranoid old guy’s fantasy?”

  “Who knows? You were wondering where all his money went.”

  “True. It’s getting kind of cold for a walk in the woods, but I’ll go if you’ll go.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then, if the weather is decent. You and me and Becket, and maybe Shilo and McGill.”

  I lay there and thought for
a long moment. “What do you think of that, Pish? McGill wants to marry her, you know.”

  “I know.” He reached out and took my hand, squeezing it. “I’ve often worried what would happen if she didn’t have you, my darling. And I’ve worried that you are too caught up in taking care of people, especially Shilo, to look after your own needs. Those needs being possibly met by the delicious Sheriff Virgil Grace.”

  “Pish, enough,” I warned. “He has shown no interest at all in me.”

  “Well, now, I wouldn’t exactly say that. And not showing it is different than not being interested. Anyone who knows you just for a short time knows how you still feel about Miguel. Virgil Grace does not strike me as the kind of man to compete with a dead saint.”

  I stood, and so did Pish. “That was hurtful, Pish. Please don’t talk about Miguel that way.”

  He reached out and cradled my face in his warm hands. “Honey, you know how much I loved Miguel Paradiso. He was an extraordinary man, and my friend. I didn’t mean anything, except that you have idealized the man over the last seven . . . no, eight . . . years since he was killed.”

  I took a deep breath and shook it off. “I don’t know how we got from talking about Shilo’s love life to mine, but that is it for me.”

  Pish was silent, but he pulled me to him and wrapped me in his arms. “All right, I won’t press. We’ll concentrate on your late uncle and the mystery he concocted.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder and then pulled away and went to look for the book on Autumn Vale and the Wynter family history. After dinner I read long into the night, and what I learned was fascinating. And illuminating. It gave me a lot to mull over about the Wynter family.

  The next morning was frosty and brilliant, with a sparkling rime on the grass that caught the rising sun. It was like faeries had scattered diamonds over everything. We dressed warmly, and Pish, Shilo, and I were just heading out, with the able accompaniment of Becket the wonder cat, when McGill pulled up and screeched to a halt. He leapt from his car—a more difficult feat than it sounds, given his height and the tininess of his car—and we all headed toward the woods with a written list of the trees and info found on the cat’s collar.

  We had developed a theory that the list of tree names was a path that would lead us to whatever treasure my uncle had hidden. I had no clue what to expect, but it would require time and patience, and I didn’t have much hope of success. However, a treasure hunt was a nice respite from thinking about murder and worrying about the castle. I handed Shilo a book on upstate New York trees I had borrowed from Hannah’s library and took the small shovel from Pish and handed it to McGill. I needed Pish’s brain engaged, not his body. I had the list of trees, copied from Becket’s tag; the cat was our mascot.

  “Tallyho, my intrepid band. Our reward will be split equally, whatever treasure we find.” As we approached the forest, I inhaled deeply. One of my favorite things about walking in the woods is the scents: the heady drift of wood and dampness, the aroma of leaves fallen underfoot as you crunch through them, and the meaty smell of nuts.

  “What is the first tree on the list?” Pish asked, shifting aside the camera he had around his neck. He loves photography, and it was no surprise he had the camera with him. He was not as good a photographer as Lizzie, but he was certainly adequate.

  “Quercus macrocarpa,” I pronounced awkwardly, reading from the list.

  “Sounds like a big fish,” McGill joked.

  I groaned as Shilo giggled. “I get it: macro carpa,” I said. “Ha ha. What does it look like?”

  Pish grabbed the book out of Shilo’s hand, since she was too busy with other things to focus on the work at hand. He flipped through the pages. “Aha! Bur oak with one r, sometimes spelled b-u-r-r oak. If it was planted fifty years ago or so, it will be tall, even though it grows slowly, about a foot a year.” He held out the book, and I saw a cluster of oak leaves with an acorn.

  “I know this tree,” I shouted with glee, poking the photo with one finger. I went directly to where it stood, alone and majestic, ten feet or more beyond the edge of the forest. It was gnarled and still held a lot of its leaves, though they were brown and crispy. Under it was a bed of acorn shells and whole acorns. “So this is our starting point . . . no big surprise,” I said, since we were at the path entrance to the woods. “Next is the Acer pseudoplatanus. What the heck is that?”

  “Uh . . . sycamore maple. Here’s the photo.”

  It had maplelike leaves, which was no help at all now in November, but the bark was scaly, and I saw right away that the tree was one on the other side of the path into the woods. “Okay, so all it does is mark our way into the woods. Next is the Juglans nigra, the flowering black walnut,” I said. I looked up from the list, trying not to notice Shilo and McGill, who were canoodling and kissing behind me.

  “Here is a photo, my dear,” Pish said, holding the book out. “It should have dropped green-husked walnuts on the ground, since that occurs in October. According to the book, we are in a little pocket in New York State where it will grow.”

  The tree apparently grew tall and stately when in a forest but would spread more if it was near the edge of the arboretum forest. I stepped along the path a short ways and came to some green husks, chewed through by some critter, as well as a few walnut shells. “Here!” I said, indicating the black walnut. It was a tall tree stretching up to the sun, the last leaves clinging to it a dull brown, withered and curled. “We’re doing well!”

  My merry—pardon the pun—little band followed the trail of trees deep into the woods, with Becket racing ahead as if he knew where we were going even before we got there. We had to venture off the beaten path, but it seemed to me that there was still a kind of path here, just not one that was used much. The discordant screech of a blue jay cut the quiet, and it chattered as we advanced, scolding us for our intrusion.

  “You ought to invite some of the professors from Cornell out here, you know, to investigate your arboretum,” Pish said, his voice hushed in the deep chilly shade of the woods. “I’ve been to their arboretum—went to a wedding there once—but this is a little wilder, less cultivated. Quite, quite amazing.”

  I felt a chill race down my back as I stopped to look around me. This place . . . it wasn’t just an inheritance, it was a responsibility, and I hadn’t thought of that until now. Melvyn had named me the inheritor rather than donating the estate to the town or whomever because he assumed someone with the name Wynter would care about it more than someone who might just see the commercial value of the castle and the trees. Which was basically how I was viewing it. There was so much I just didn’t know about my paternal family history, and there was nowhere else I could find it out but at Wynter Castle and in Autumn Vale. The book entries I had read the previous night had just been a beginning.

  Wynter Castle was my home more than any other place on earth besides New York City. For the first time I experienced a moment of certainty that I would exhaust every avenue to see if there was any way to keep this place rather than just give up on the notion. Though if Cranston ended up being my cousin, then I might have no choice but to sell to satisfy any claim he might have on the place. I would still go through with my plans to market the place for now, but I was having real doubts as to the wisdom of selling. Maybe I should be fighting tooth and nail to keep it.

  But how? I just couldn’t imagine.

  “Where are Shilo and McGill?” I asked, then realized I was talking to myself. I looked around and spotted them nearby, at one of the faery structures Alcina had constructed by a mossy log. Shilo was sitting, and McGill was kneeling! It was the moment, the one he had told me would happen. Pish was taking photos as McGill drew out a ring box from his jacket pocket. I softly approached, coming up behind Pish as he shot photo after photo. Shilo sat trembling, staring raptly down into McGill’s eyes.

  “Shilo, Hannah says your name means ‘peaceful,’ but
you say you’re not peaceful at all. I disagree. You are more yourself than any person I’ve ever met, and that’s a kind of peace.” He was speaking quickly and gazing up at her with hopeful adoration. “Most folks struggle to be someone—someone else, someone important, someone who matters or makes a difference—but you . . . you just are. And I love you.”

  His voice was trembling, guttural with emotion. “It happened in a moment, that first moment when you asked me directions to Wynter Castle, and it gets deeper every day. If you will do me the honor of marrying me, I will make it my life’s work to give you a home in my heart and in this community so you will never be lonely or afraid again.”

  I choked back tears. They must have talked about Shilo’s desperate fear of being alone, with no one to love. McGill understood, and he had the heart to give her the love and security she needed for the rest of her life. Shilo cried, “Yes!” and threw herself into his arms. They tumbled to the forest floor, laughing and joyous, as Pish clicked away with his camera and I chuckled, viewing it all through a misty veil of tears.

  McGill had to practically hold my dear friend down to push the ring on her finger, and she danced around the faery structure, a little stump hut with a tea party set of Pepto-Bismol-pink Barbie doll furniture outside of it. Pish finally stopped taking photos and stood with McGill as I dashed to my friend and pulled her into a dance. When I was out of breath, I said, “Shilo, will you just show me the ring, already?”

  I had advised McGill to get a ring as unusual as Shilo, and he had done a magnificent job. It was white gold, a circle of flowers with amethyst and emerald stones alternating in the center of each posy.

  “Gems have a language, you know,” Shilo said. “Amethyst means ‘peace,’ like my name, and emerald . . .” She broke off and blushed, giving me that under-the-lashes look she was famous for. “It means ‘love and rebirth’ . . . new life, actually. And fertility.”