Murder, She Edited

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  It was obvious she had something on her mind, and it was a good bet, given that she was clutching a slip of paper tightly in one hand, that she’d come up with another item to add to the newsletter. Pam was easier to deal with than Bella, but I wasn’t happy about being cornered. I kept making copies and tried to pretend I didn’t notice her standing there.

  “Tomorrow is the last day of July,” Pam said, her tone accusatory. “Where is the August newsletter?”

  “It will be available online and in print on the first of the month, as always.”

  Feeling just a teensy bit guilty, I made a mental note to send the electronic file to the local print shop, ASAP. They did the job for free and delivered the results to the library and I knew they’d appreciate a bit of lead time. It was my job to upload the pdf to the library website on the first of the month. I hadn’t missed my deadline yet, but I would if I forgot about it again.

  I turned to the next page in the diary, placed the composition book facedown on the glass, and pressed the button to make two copies, using a prepaid card to cover the cost. While the machine hummed and spit them out, I stole a glance at Pam.

  “Problem?” I asked. In spite of my assurances, she looked worried.

  “Is it too late to insert another announcement?”

  “It’s possible to make changes right up until the file goes to the printer, which will be about an hour from now. How much space do you need?”

  “A full page would be nice.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” It’s actually easier to add a whole page than it is to insert a smaller item into an existing page.

  In many respects, it would be nice if life could be as simple as it was when I was young, but in general I can’t complain about the benefits of modern technology. The word processing program on my laptop is vastly superior to any typewriter and I certainly don’t miss having to rely on mimeographing or, even messier, a spirit duplicator, also called a Ditto machine, to produce a newsletter. When I was teaching, I spent many a day with stained fingers after printing multiple copies of worksheets for my students. Copiers, scanners, and printers are all huge advances in technology.

  Pam thrust the paper she’d been carrying in my direction. I didn’t take it. I had my hands full setting up the next page to be copied.

  “Can you send me the details in an e-mail?” I asked. “Then I can cut and paste directly into the newsletter.”

  There’s a little more to the process than that, but e-mails are easier to read than Pam’s handwriting. Once she agreed to my suggestion, I thought she’d go away and allow me to finish and be on my way. Instead, she lingered.

  “It’s quite exciting, really,” she said after a moment. “A mystery author is going to visit the library to give a talk and sign books.”

  “Really?” I didn’t look up from the copier. “Which one?”

  “What?”

  “Who’s the mystery writer?”

  “No, not a mystery writer. A mystery author.”

  There is a distinction. One doesn’t author books. But something in Pam’s tone of voice told me I was still missing the point. “Is that a riddle?”

  “No. It’s a publicity stunt. Don’t worry. The publicist who set it up is legitimate. She works for a major New York publisher.” At my skeptical glance, she made a cross-my-heart gesture. “I verified her credentials, but I don’t know anything about the author in question. That’s the mystery. We won’t know who our featured speaker is until he or she enters the library on the day of the event.”

  I finished copying the pages of the first of Nellie’s diaries and reached for the second. “Doesn’t that strike you as counterproductive? What’s that old saying—don’t buy a pig in a poke? You’re asking people to give up an entire evening on the slight chance that the author in question is someone whose work they want to read. That the books are put out by a major New York publisher doesn’t necessarily mean they’re any good. I’ll admit I haven’t gone to all that many book signings, but when I have, the people attending were readers who were there because they’d already read and liked some of that author’s earlier books.” My lips twisted into a wry smile. “A talk and signing by the editor of some early-twentieth-century diaries, for example, wouldn’t draw much of a crowd.”

  “Sheer curiosity will bring people in. You’ll see. We’ll talk it up to all our patrons. In addition to the announcement in the newsletter, we’ll make posters and put them up all over town. Besides, I’ve been assured that this author’s books are bestsellers.”

  That would hardly matter if Pam couldn’t tell her patrons any of the titles ahead of time, but I kept my opinion to myself, along with a few salient facts I’d learned from my friend Lenora about how little it takes to become a “bestselling” author.

  “I’ll go write that e-mail,” she said.

  “Sounds like a plan.” I went back to my copying.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  After I finished making copies, I sat in my car in the library parking lot with my laptop and took advantage of the WiFi hotspot to check my e-mail for Pam’s message. In minutes, I’d put together the final version of the newsletter. As I fiddled with the font size and the margins, I marveled once again at the librarian’s optimism. She’d be lucky to have a half dozen people show up to meet this “mystery author” and there would only be that many in the audience if all the officers and committee heads from the Friends of the Library felt obligated to attend.

  Already thinking ahead to the next newsletter, I resolved to give a good portion of the space to the library’s used book sale. An annual fall event, it was our best fundraiser, but it required quality donations as well as lots of buyers if it was to be a success.

  There is a part of me that objects to encouraging people to buy secondhand books, for which their authors receive no royalties, but at least this way the proceeds go into a fund to buy new books for the collection. Authors do benefit from those sales.

  With one pdf file of the newsletter winging its way to the online service that distributes it to subscribers and another copy sent to the printer, I uploaded the same material to the library website and set it to publish on the first of the month. When I was done, I felt quite virtuous. I’d finished the job a whole a day ahead of my deadline.

  By then it was close to five o’clock and I knew Luke would worry if he didn’t hear from me soon. If he drove to the farm and couldn’t find me there, he’d probably panic. I retrieved my cell phone and punched in his number.

  “Found them,” I announced when he answered. “I’ll tell you all about it later. I’m going to have supper with Darlene and Frank. Then I’ll head back to Swan’s Crossing for the night.”

  “No fair!” he complained. “I want to know more about the diaries now.”

  “This way you can enjoy the anticipation.”

  He laughed. “I’m coming by tomorrow,” he warned me. “Early.”

  “Calpurnia will be delighted to see you.” I disconnected, pulled out of the library lot, and drove the short distance to Darlene’s house.

  Supper was ready to go on the table by the time I arrived. As I do, they eat early. By unspoken mutual agreement, Darlene and I postponed any discussion of diaries, research, or murder until after the meal. By the time we headed for her second-floor lair, Frank was already settled in front of the television set in the living room to watch the Yankees. As a die-hard Red Sox fan—what else could I be when I’d lived in Maine for over fifty years?—I made a few wisecracks about the “evil empire” before I followed Darlene upstairs.

  She’d used her chairlift, leaving me to make the climb weighed down with two heavy tote bags. I found her sitting in front of a computer monitor and keyboard that took up about a quarter of the surface of a long, narrow table. The remainder of the space is usually littered with scraps of fabric for one of Darlene’s sewing projects, but for once they were nowhere in sight. She’d also shoved aside the containers that held pens, pencils, paperclips, and o
ther office paraphernalia to make room to spread out the file folders from the library, including the one she’d brought to my house the other day. Dozens of sticky notes covered in her neat handwriting adorned every available surface.

  “What did you bring?” she asked.

  I extracted a sheaf of papers from one of my bags. The second copy I’d made of Nellie’s diary was safely locked in the trunk of my car, next to the wooden box containing the original composition books. I’d removed the scrapbook I’d found with them, stuffing it into a second tote bag. I was looking forward to going over the contents with Darlene. So far I hadn’t had time to give them more than a cursory once-over.

  Darlene stared at the pages, a broad grin on her face. “You found the rest of the diaries!”

  “I found the diaries Tessa wanted me to edit.” Handing Darlene the copy, I retrieved a chair of the folding and uncomfortable variety from a closet and set it up next to her ergonomic and well-padded seat. “Funny thing is, they aren’t Estelle’s. These diaries were kept by Nellie Swarthout, Tessa and Estelle’s mother.”

  “Have you read them yet?”

  “I have.” I gave her the capsule version of how and where I’d found the box and what the entries said.

  “So Nellie was suspicious of Rosanna, and then she died. Huh.”

  “If Rosanna was brought in to cook because Nellie couldn’t handle the work anymore, that suggests that Nellie was quite ill already. Back then, even if something like cancer or heart disease had been diagnosed, there were far fewer treatment options than there are today.”

  “Get sick and die,” Darlene agreed. “But maybe Rosanna helped the process along, and not in a good, right-to-die way.”

  “We’ll probably never know. There’s no one left to authorize an exhumation of the body, and after all this time, any trace of poison has probably disappeared anyway.”

  Darlene made a moue of distaste. “Leave it to you to think of something like that!”

  “Would you prefer to think Rosanna put a pillow over Nellie’s face and smothered her?”

  “I’d prefer to think the poor woman died of natural causes.”

  “Whatever happened to her, the upshot is that these have to be the diaries Tessa meant me to find and publish. I stopped at the library on my way here to make copies, one for me to take a red pencil to and the other for you to read at your leisure. I want to write some kind of introduction to go with the text. Right now I don’t have a clue how much I should say about my suspicions.”

  “It’s not like Rosanna’s still around to sue you if you accuse her of murdering Nellie.”

  “That’s true, but she can’t defend herself, either, and it’s possible that Nellie was just paranoid.” I didn’t believe that, but I was trying hard to be impartial. I wanted a second opinion before I rushed into print with wild accusations.

  Darlene sent me a shrewd look. “Is that all that’s bothering you?”

  “Hardly. Do you think it’s possible that one or both of the sisters might have avenged their mother’s death by killing Rosanna?”

  Blurted out like that, the idea sounded preposterous, but Darlene took me seriously. After a moment’s thought, she came up with the same objection I had.

  “If they read the diaries, why didn’t they show them to their father, to stop him from marrying Rosanna? Even if there was no way to prove she’d harmed his wife, surely seeing what Nellie had written would have given him pause.”

  “My current theory is that Tessa and Estelle didn’t read the diaries until much later. Maybe Nellie hid them. Or maybe their grief over her death kept them from going through her things until years afterward.”

  “But you’re talking about decades later? Does that seem likely?”

  “It could have happened that way.” I heard the defensive note in my voice and winced.

  Darlene frowned. “You say the cupboard under the stairs looked like it had been set up as a shrine to Nellie’s memory?”

  “Photograph. Candle. Nellie’s journals, and this.” I opened the second tote bag and removed Nellie’s scrapbook. “I haven’t had time to do more than glance at it. None of the photos are labeled, but the clippings all date from before Nellie’s death. It’s a good bet she’s the one who kept it.”

  Darlene made room on the table to examine my prize, but her face wore a troubled frown.

  “What?”

  “There’s something that doesn’t make sense about your timeline. I can picture two young girls creating a secret shrine in a hidden cupboard, but I have trouble imagining a couple of middle-aged women doing the same thing.”

  “I was bothered by that, too, but there’s no accounting for what people will do when they’re in an emotional state of mind.”

  Darlene opened the scrapbook. “Maybe we’re overthinking this. If they weren’t overly fond of Rosanna, they could have hidden their mother’s things right after their father remarried, but without reading all the way through her diaries first. Didn’t you say most of the entries are pretty humdrum? Maybe they glanced at a few, found them dull, and didn’t finish. Not then, anyway.”

  This logical explanation appealed to me. “If that’s the case, it could have been decades before one of them discovered that damning passage about Rosanna.”

  “Too bad we’ll never know for certain.”

  While we speculated, Darlene had begun to go through the scrapbook. The photographs it contained, many of them faded sepia prints, were for the most part shots of women in long dresses standing next to the farmhouse or men in the same location, posing with the game they’d shot during hunting season. The remaining pictures showed groupings of men, women, and children. One showed a woman in an ankle-length white dress lounging in a fancy hammock strung between two trees.

  “Some of these folks were probably boarders rather than family,” Darlene said, studying a page that featured several photos of groups of people enjoying themselves on the pond, a body of water that was much larger than I’d imagined it would be.

  About halfway through the scrapbook, we came to a snapshot of a couple standing together in front of the porch at the Swarthout farm. “This might be George and Nellie, but it’s hard to be sure.”

  We decided the two girls posing together in another photograph were Tessa and Estelle, but again it was difficult to be certain. The photographer had been an amateur. Details were blurry.

  The clippings interspersed among the pictures weren’t very useful. Nellie had been a sucker for bad poetry. Newspapers back in her day printed verses along with news and gossip. She had clipped and pasted dozens of these into her scrapbook.

  “This is interesting,” Darlene said, stopping to read one longer piece. “It’s an account of the fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration of Tessa’s grandparents, Myron, apparently known as Miles, and Pernolia Swarthout. Pernolia! What a name! Do you suppose that’s a typo? Maybe it’s supposed to be Pamela.”

  “Sadly, no. That same spelling appears in the family Bible.” I glanced at the date and searched my memory. “I think Pernolia died the following year.”

  Ten minutes later, Darlene closed the scrapbook. “Well, that was fascinating, but not of much practical value. It’s a pity no one wrote names below the photographs, but then, why would they? They knew who everyone was.”

  “I was hoping I might be able to use some of the photos to illustrate the diaries, but without identification, I don’t suppose that makes much sense.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. They were taken at the farm and you said most of what Nellie wrote about had to do with running the boardinghouse.”

  “I need more to go on.” I gestured toward the file folders. “Have you found anything more in those? A copy of George Swarthout’s will would be useful.”

  “No such luck. Wills and probate records from 1659 to 1999 are available on the genealogy site I use, but his wasn’t there. Either he died without a will, or his assets at the time of his death were valued below the amount that requires pr
obate. Have you asked Tessa’s lawyer if he knows how the estate was left?”

  “Mr. Featherstone hasn’t exactly been cooperative. I asked. He didn’t answer.”

  “Hmm.”

  I sent her a questioning look.

  “Leland Featherstone, right?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I did come across one interesting coincidence.” She riffled through the file folders until she found the same program she’d already shown me, the one listing Estelle Swarthout as the leading lady in an amateur production of My Sister Eileen.

  “Take a look at the list of names on the stage crew.”

  “Leland Featherstone.” I checked the date. “He was just a kid then.”

  “A teenager,” Darlene corrected me.

  “Funny he didn’t mention that he worked on a show with Estelle.”

  “He was a lowly member of the backstage crew. She was the star and a lot older than he was.” She shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  “If she had the lead in the production, she had to have made an impression on him, even if it was only as a diva to be avoided.” To make sure I had my facts straight, I checked the date on the program. “It was only a few months after this that Rosanna was killed. You’d think he’d remember that.”

  Given his general reluctance to be forthcoming, I couldn’t help but think he’d deliberately lied about how well he’d known Estelle Swarthout. Once again an ugly suspicion raised its head. Just how close had Conrad Featherstone been to the Swarthout family? A loyal son might well be tempted into deceit if that was the only way to protect his father’s reputation.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  A few hours later, back at the farm, I was sound asleep with Calpurnia curled up close to the small of my back. I don’t know how much time passed before something caused me to jerk upright and dislodge her. Just that quickly, I was wide awake and she was on full alert.

  Given that I wear hearing aids and take them out when I go to bed, it’s rare that any nocturnal noise quieter than a violent thunderstorm interferes with my sleep. I fumbled on the nightstand for their case and the one holding my glasses. When I could hear and see at normal levels, I reached across the bed to twitch aside the curtain in front of the open window.