I shivered.
Somewhere, someone had been cooking cabbage, and most people hadn’t picked up their garbage. A feeling of hopelessness hung in the air, as palpable as the odor of bad food. Whatever else I knew about Carmen and Muriel Delgado, their life couldn’t have been easy in the early days.
I knocked on every door, but although I could clearly hear television sets booming behind those doors, no one answered.
I tried not to be too discouraged. I figured I might find some answers on Maple Street. The wind picked up, pierced through the weave of my coat and reawakened that shiver, or maybe it was my Spidey Sense telling me to be wary. I scurried quickly to the Accord and drove back to see the Snows.
Here I got a bit lucky. The Snows, as Audra had mentioned, were indeed home. I parked midway between the two houses thinking I might like to say hello to Audra first and thank her for her call. I knocked on the door but got no answer. The stroller was gone so I figured she was off for a little ramble with the children. I headed for the house three doors down, getting into my legal assistant mode. Shortly after, Clarissa Montaine of Lawson and Loblaw walked up their immaculate front path and glanced with approval at the flags flapping in the breeze, the freshly painted yellow front door and shutters and the artfully displayed pumpkins with the cute wooden turkey (cuter than the real ones for sure) and the lovely sheaf of dried corn on the wall behind the display. I also admired the attractive wreath with fall leaves that decorated the yellow door. A tantalizing aroma was drifting from the slightly opened window to the left.
A row of burlap leaf bags sat in a precise row by the side of the road. The lawn was leaf-free. This did not come as a surprise.
When the door swung open, I held out my hand and introduced myself. Turned out their names were Tom and Mindy and please don’t call them Mr. and Mrs. Snow, and don’t blame this weather on them either. They were both round, white-haired and pink-cheeked. Behind their bifocals, their eyes twinkled. Hers were sharp and blue, his were warm brown. They had finished unpacking their groceries and were sitting down to a cup of hot tea and some cinnamon buns. The cinnamon buns must have been the source of the tantalizing aroma. Up close, I upgraded the scent of the fresh baking from tantalizing to intoxicating. I had already mentioned the law firm of Lawson and Loblaw, but I got the feeling that they would have been glad to see me no matter who I was.
“Mindy made these buns herself,” the husband told me, ignoring the talk of law firms. “They can’t be beat. Come in and have one with us. If we eat them all, we might put on some weight.” He patted his belly, indicating that he’d consumed a few cinnamon buns in his time.
No one needed to ask me twice. I wasn’t afraid to take sticky buns from strangers.
“Sure thing.”
I joined them in the small, cozy kitchen and squeezed into the corner bench at the compact pine table. A border of candy-colored hearts topped the walls and ran above the yellow painted cupboards. I found myself grinning. These people were so cute. I never knew my grandparents on either the Kelly or the Bingham side, but “Call me Tom” and “Call me Mindy” were like the perfect fantasy grandparents. With my luck, though, maybe they’d turn out to be featured on American Justice: “when octogenarians attack.” Never mind, I’d take my chances for another cinnamon bun.
Those cinnamon buns will live on in my memory forever. They were close to the most delicious thing I had ever tasted, from the fresh dough to the brown sugar, cinnamon and butter mingling inside the swirls, and the melting sugary glaze. Oh boy. Clarissa Montaine had pretty well died and gone to heaven.
As soon as one bun was finished, another one took its place on my plate.
“It’s a practice batch,” Mindy said, modestly. “I don’t bake quite so much anymore, but with Thanksgiving almost here, I have to get back at it.”
“Practice?” I laughed. “They’re perfect.”
After that we were friends for life. Still, remembering my reception from the couple on Lilac Lane, I finished my second cinnamon bun before I brought up the topic of Carmen and Muriel Delgado.
When I did, they both smiled. “Audra told us you were asking. A legacy for them? That’s something, isn’t it?”
I wondered what that meant.
“Yes. Assuming that I have the right person.”
“I wonder who the legacy is from?”
I shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know. I’m only a lowly assistant new to the firm. I’ve been sent out to try to find them. I don’t mind, though. It beats being in the office and I’ve met some very nice people, especially you two and Audra.” I beamed at my new fantasy grandparents.
Her sharp blue eyes grew slightly guarded. “You never know who you’re going to meet in these circumstances.”
“So you knew Carmen Delgado?”
They nodded together. “We did.”
“And Muriel?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been told that Carmen has, um, passed away.”
A shadow crossed Tom’s face. “She did, poor girl. Never was that strong.”
“Was Muriel the daughter? I didn’t get a good reception in their previous neighborhood and I wasn’t quite sure.”
“Yes, the daughter. So I suppose she’d get the legacy, would she?” Tom asked, his brown eyes bright with interest.
“I think she may be the one to get it. Mr. Lawson will know all about that. I’ve been tasked to bring back the information. It hasn’t been easy finding Carmen Delgado. I had to check the city directories here.” There was something to be said for old-school sleuthing.
“So Muriel lived on this street with her mother?”
“Not for that long, really,” Mindy said. “Does that matter?”
“And it was just the two of them?”
Tom said, “Muriel stayed on after she finished school. She was here until her mother died. We thought she’d leave when Carmie married. She was so hostile to Carmie’s new husband.”
I blinked. “Oh. She married again?”
They didn’t quite stop themselves in time. I caught the glances. So there was something there. Something about marrying again. But what?
“She married a nice man. He’d carried a torch for Carmie for a long time,” Mindy said.
“He did. Carmie was a beautiful woman,” Tom said. “Very beautiful.”
“Was she?” This was the second mention of Carmen’s attractiveness. I found it hard to picture her, especially after seeing Muriel. She was imposing. Grand. Mount Rushmore–like, yes. Beautiful, no.
“Oh yes,” Mindy said. “She was lovely to look at.” Ah, a bit of subtext there, I thought. Maybe not so lovely in other ways.
“And a good neighbor?” I said.
“Well . . .” Mindy said, turning away slightly.
“Poor thing was not a well woman, ever,” Tom said, in the late Carmen’s defense. “She had a lot of problems, you know, health. She wasn’t strong. In any way.”
I wasn’t sure what the subtext was to “in any way.” But there was something worth finding out.
“More of a taker than a giver,” Mindy said, a bit waspishly. Tom glowered. I figured he’d liked “Carmie” a lot more than she had.
“Life didn’t treat her that well,” he said.
I had nothing better to do than nudge them for more.
“I guess she didn’t have an easy life.”
Had I imagined that Mindy snorted? The temperature in the room had certainly dropped a degree or two.
I blundered on. No way to find out without digging a bit harder. “Did her first husband die? And leave her with the child? That would have been so hard for her back then.”
Tom shot Mindy another look. There was no missing the warning in it. This time Mindy stared up at the ceiling fan as if she’d noticed a long-lost treasure up there.
“Well,” I said
. “Not my business really. I didn’t mean to pry into her personal history. I’m curious and sometimes these little inklings are what help wrap it all up.”
“Well,” Mindy said. “You young people look at these things differently, I suppose.”
What things? I wondered.
Tom added, “Something to be said for that.”
So what was it with the first Mr. Delgado? Did he desert them? Was he abusive? A criminal? There was something, and I knew that I wasn’t going to get the answers here.
“Well, I’m glad things ended up better for her. Was the new marriage happy?”
“As happy as it could be, considering,” Mindy said, shifting her eyes to the cuckoo clock.
Tom couldn’t resist adding, “Muriel wasn’t happy about it. I think that broke Carmie’s heart. Wasn’t the first time she’d had it broken.”
I could have sworn that Mindy smothered a snort of laughter. What do the Germans call that again? Oh right, Schadenfreude, shameful joy. And it’s not that difficult to elicit negative information from someone experiencing it, so I pressed on.
“And then?” I said.
“After Carmie died, Muriel moved away. That was it.”
“Hm. I wonder where she went,” I said, trying not to sound too desperate for an answer.
“Here and there. She was always restless.”
“Oh, so you don’t know where?”
“No idea,” they said in unison.
“But for a while, Carmen and her new husband and Muriel stayed here?”
Tom said, “It’s a sad story. Carmie got sick not long after they married.”
This time, Mindy flashed him a warning glance.
So far, things weren’t perfect with my fantasy grandparents. Tom had a bit of wishful thinking toward his former neighbor Carmen Delgado, and Mindy had been well aware of that. There was something else at work, though. I figured that Mindy was strong and practical. I didn’t see anything vindictive in her. She hadn’t approved of Carmen for more than one reason, if my Spidey Sense were to be believed. What were those reasons?
“Oh dear,” I said. “I need to locate her heirs. Mr. Lawson will need to know that.”
“Of course,” they said in unison.
“Could be the daughter. Muriel.” I gazed at them, waiting. “But I’ll probably need to check with the husband.”
Mindy said, “Rest his soul. He’s dead now too.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t even catch his name.”
“Pete. Peter Delaney. He was a lovely man,” Mindy said with yet another glance at Tom. “A saint, really. Too good to live.”
This time, Tom shot her the warning glance.
So Pete Delaney. That didn’t fit with Smith as the owner. Perhaps Pete had sold?
Tom nodded in agreement. “Pete loved Carmie, no matter what, and he took good care of her.”
Hmm. No matter what. I wondered what that was.
“Did he die before she did?”
Tom said, “Yes. But not long before. She was having treatments in Grandville General when poor Pete was killed in a hit-and-run back in, let’s see, must have been 1974. That right, Mindy?”
Mindy nodded and Tom continued. “It happened as he got out of his car near the hospital on his way to visit her. He died instantly, I believe. It was a great shock to all of us. We all liked Pete. Carmie was devastated. She only lived a few months after that.”
I thought Mindy suppressed a sigh.
Tom seemed not to notice. He said, “So he wouldn’t have inherited anything from her.”
Mindy said with a bit of asperity, “She didn’t have anything. She never had anything to leave. She would have inherited whatever Pete left to her. He was practical and sensible in most things.” I took that to mean aside from his feelings for Carmie.
“But the house must have been hers. Did she own it or did he?”
Again with the glances. “We don’t know anything about that,” Mindy said.
“Nothing at all,” Tom added quickly.
Okay.
“Fair enough. So the daughter, Muriel, would have been the heir, most likely. We’ll have to follow up and see if there was a will. Mr. Lawson could do that. I hope she didn’t die intestate. I suppose there’s no way to know who their lawyer would have been.”
Tom said, “Well, it must have been—”
Mindy cleared her throat.
She was tough, that Mindy, even if she did seem like the perfect fantasy grandmother.
This time Tom stood his ground. “What harm could it do? They need to find out what Carmie’s wishes were. She probably had a will. Pete was good about things like that. She might have left things to Muriel. Muriel was her daughter. No matter what.”
Mindy pondered that and nodded. She reached over and squeezed Tom’s hand. “You’re right. That’s not a secret we need to keep.”
I wondered what secret they did need to keep and exactly what “no matter what” referred to.
“Lovely,” I said. “You have been so helpful. I hate to go back empty-handed. I try to do a good job, but sometimes circumstances make it difficult.”
Mindy said sadly, “Yes. Sometimes circumstances do make it difficult.”
“Dwight Jenkins was her lawyer. I know that because he was ours and we passed his name to Carmie and Pete when they got married. Pete wanted to make sure that Carmie was taken care of. I assumed that meant a will,” Tom said.
Mindy muttered, “Well, you couldn’t count on Carmie to get things done.”
If Tom heard her, he chose to ignore the comments. “Dwight’s in his seventies but he still has a law office in his home, right in downtown Harrison Falls.”
Mindy said, “In fact, we updated our wills not long ago and the previous ones were still there on file. Dwight’s taken care of us. Carmie’s papers will still be there and anyway, doesn’t a will have to be filed?”
“I can’t thank you enough,” I said, getting up to leave before there were any legal queries that “Clarissa” should know but I wouldn’t. I felt sure that Mindy didn’t want any secrets to leave with me. But maybe I’d be back.
Even if there were no secrets, Mindy made sure I left with a plate holding enough cinnamon buns to feed my private army, if I had one. “I’ll think of you with every bite,” I said, meaning my words on several levels. “I hope I’ll see you both again sometime. I’ll let you know how things turn out. I appreciate your help.”
In fact, I looked forward to seeing if I could catch Tom on his own. I figured there would be answers there and he seemed keen to share. I needed answers about secrets and about Carmen Delgado. To make sure that happened, I let my silky Pucci scarf slip onto the floor underneath my chair. Naturally, I would have to come back for that.
“I’ll leave you my telephone number,” I said, writing down the number of my burner phone on a page from my notebook. “I wonder if you’d mind giving me yours.”
Tom didn’t mind. Mindy seemed less than sure. But at least I knew I’d get another chance to see them and maybe get something more out of them about the Delgados.
I waved as I reached the edge of their neat walkway. Tom waved quickly and disappeared out of view in the house. I headed for the Accord, which was parked halfway between the Snows’ house and Audra’s. I hauled out my iPhone and checked for an address for Dwight Jenkins in Harrison Falls. I was smiling as I walked around to the driver’s side of the Accord. I turned back to gaze at the Snows’ perfect little home. I didn’t pay much attention to the roar of an engine.
I didn’t feel a thing until the shock of the collision.
I never saw what hit me.
CHAPTER FIVE
I DID HEAR PEOPLE screaming, sirens, ambulances screeching to a halt. I could still smell the baked treats, which gave me comfort and something to focus
on. As the pain set in, all I remember thinking was, Not the cinnamon buns!
But once off the asphalt and without my magical cinnamon smelling salts, I lost consciousness before my arrival at Emergency at Grandville General Hospital. I guess I missed a lot of the exciting stuff.
Kev’s face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I didn’t mean to scream, but he can have that effect on people.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“You’re lucky! Talk about a horseshoe up your—”
Uncle Mick shouldered him out of the way. “What happened, Jordan?”
Kev bleated, “She was smacked by a truck and thrown ten feet. Right through the air.”
Mick was pale as milk and his gingery freckles stood out in sharp relief against his skin. I stared at the freckles, fascinated. They must have given me something for pain or nausea, because the deep orange spots began arranging themselves into patterns and shapes.
He tried again, “Do you know what happened, my girl?”
I blinked. I really was hoping someone else would be able to tell me what happened. What Kev had said couldn’t be right. I tried to shake my head “no” but that didn’t work out all that well. Suddenly everyone had four heads.
“Where am I?”
“Emergency. Grandville General Hospital.”
I blinked again and regretted it instantly. It hurt when I blinked. Everything hurt. I’ve read somewhere that swearing can reduce pain. I was ready to blurt out a doozy.
“Why?”
Kev’s disembodied voice said, “Apparently you got hit by a truck.”
“Hit by a—? Really?”
Kev stuck his head around Uncle Mick and said, “Yeah. You were doing something on Maple Street and someone slammed into you and took off.” Was he eating something? For the first time in ages, I was not tempted by the idea of eating.
“I don’t remember anything. Except somebody screaming. Maybe that was me.”
The Wolfe Widow (A Book Collector Mystery) Page 7