But if it was the Rileys, I had a pretty good idea who might have caused their deaths: Muriel Delgado. Had Muriel learned I was still asking questions about her all over Harrison Falls?
Ideally, I should have taken my suspicions to the police. But what would I have said? That Muriel Delgado may have thought they could link her to not one but two hit-and-runs? I had nothing aside from the fact that she and Frank Riley had been at school together. We now had Detective Jack Jones in the mix. He’d seemed to be hot on my trail this morning on Main Street. And he showed a bias against me for sure.
The dogs snuggled up and Walter snuffled in my ear. I think that meant a walk would be good. But it could have meant, Please let me eat that cake or chase those cats. Cobain is always more mellow and a bit sad. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, so he got a scratch on his ears. I wasn’t going anywhere until I figured out what to do next.
I leapt to my feet when my phone rang.
Eddie?
I sure hoped so.
“Bo Peep?”
“Kev, I’m trying to stay off the phone in case Eddie calls back.”
“Okay, but I’m going out of my mind here. Muriel’s been driving us crazy for a day.”
“Has she gone out at all in the past day or so?”
“Are you kidding? The signora and I would be celebrating if she’d even leave us alone for fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. Thanks. Gotta go, Kev. I’ll be in touch. And by the way, have you heard from Cherie?”
“Nothing. Oh no, here comes Muriel. I can’t even use the phone without her appearing out of nowhere. Every time I try, she’s right there. Bye.”
“Wait! You’re sure she hasn’t left Van Alst House?”
“Darn sure. I spent the past day and a half trying to stay out of her way. It ain’t easy, Jordie.”
“So then she couldn’t have killed the Rileys.”
Kev said, “What? You mean those guys who delivered her stuff?”
“I think they’re dead, Kev. I doubt that it was an accident. And if I’m right, that means things are ramping up. Muriel’s getting rid of them because they were weak links. They were stupid and obvious and I was asking questions about them. They could lead back to her so they had to go.”
“But she couldn’t have killed them, Bo Peep. She never left Van Alst House.”
“Fine, like in the other cases, she made it happen. So you know what this means, don’t you, Kev?”
“No. What?”
“That the Rileys were killed and Muriel was in full view of witnesses, making sure that you were all aware of her presence. Same tactic as the other hit-and-run. That means she has someone else working with her.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. And the people most likely to have the truth tricked out of them are now dead.”
“I knew she was trouble.”
“Yes. And now we have to worry about Vera. She is more and more vulnerable.”
“But what does Muriel want from her?”
“I’d say everything she has, wouldn’t you, Kev?”
* * *
OKAY, SO MY intuition told me the dead father and son were the same people implicated with my attack and connected with Muriel. I had an idea how to confirm that.
I did realize that the red wig wouldn’t work, but it wasn’t the only arrow in my disguise quiver. I put on my black turtleneck and jeans. I found a short black bobbed wig and some fake heavy-framed glasses. Poof, I was a beatnik and a good one too. A quick trip down the back alley to the Kelly car storage area yielded a battered Ford Focus with Alabama plates. We dare defend our rights. Well, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
I had to leave the dogs behind as too many people would recognize them and put two and two together. Ditto my deep orange purse.
It wasn’t long before I pulled into the parking lot at Sullivan’s. It was late afternoon and I was surprised by the number of cars in the lot.
I stepped inside the seedy bar and looked around. I thought I had my answer. People were talking in low voices, looking somber. At one table, a couple of dark-haired women were crying.
I stopped the waitress on her way to the bar. I recognized her from our earlier visit. She hadn’t smiled then and she didn’t now. She hadn’t been too impressed with Cherie, but she’d never noticed me. Good. I fished out my best southern accent courtesy of my years of friendship with Tiff. “Sorry, but Ah’m from out of town and Ah’m looking for the Hudson Café. Ah think it’s on Bridge Street?”
“Nowhere near here,” she said. “You gonna order anything?”
“Ah should be going.”
“Fine. Step outside and I’ll point the way.” As we stepped through the door she said, “You don’t have a GPS?”
“Giving me real strange instructions. I almost found mahself in the river.”
“Yeah, that happens. Stay out of the river. It’s—” She bit her lip.
“Something wrong, honey?” I said. “Inside everyone looked like someone died.”
She nodded. “Someone did die. Two someones.”
“Really? Two?”
“Father and son. Frank and Junior Riley. Their truck went into the river today. They drowned.”
The Rileys were pretty vile, but that was a terrible way to go. “You must be so upset.”
She shrugged. “A lot of customers are getting emotional.”
“Were they your friends?”
“No, they were not my friends. They were a pair of useless jackasses with wandering hands, but I wouldn’t wish that end on anyone.”
“Ah’m sorry to hear this.”
“Not your fault.”
I smiled and pressed ten dollars into her hand. A nice tip and one that would get me her attention if I needed to come back again.
“Thank you kindly,” she said. “And no offense, but I spent ten years in the south and you should work on that accent until you get it right. Your clothes are all wrong too.”
“Point taken.” I added another ten. “I was never here.”
“I never laid eyes on you even if you were.” She turned and strode back in.
So now I knew. The Rileys were dead. Muriel could not have killed them.
So who was her accomplice?
* * *
OKAY, WHAT HAPPENED next was wrong. I was desperate. The entire situation with Muriel and Vera was out of control. I needed to talk with Uncle Kev. As I was persona non grata, that meant I had to do something—maybe a bit underhanded.
I was still determined to be the only person in my family to go straight, um, ish. Of course, I’d be happy if any of my relatives decided to join me in the world of solid citizens. But I wasn’t planning thievery. Just a little light break-and-enter. The law might not see it my way, but I believed it was necessary and for a good cause.
I located my lock picks. They’d been a Sweet Sixteen gift from Uncle Mick and Uncle Lucky. I keep them with me.
I already had on the all-black outfit, including black wig. The watch cap and even my old black hiking boots would be nicely invisible. The temperature had been dropping in that end-of-November way, so I decided on thermal underwear first. Mine were black, naturally, and I added alpaca socks that were also black but worth their weight in gold. It wasn’t much good to be invisible if I got hypothermia. I wasn’t sure if I should worry about my white Irish face, but I chose not to put any shoe polish on it. A balaclava would have been perfect. Of all the houses in the world, you’d think this one would have a closet full of balaclavas. But I couldn’t find one.
A girl’s got to think about her complexion. Instead, I dodged the cats and found a long black scarf in Uncle Lucky’s closet. I stuck it in my backpack and would wrap it around my face when the time was right. I’d look like a demented ninja, when I got where I was going, but so what.
I felt uneasy, especially as the last time I staged a break-in, I’d come face to face with a police uniform. Not a happy moment for either of us.
However, I didn’t think this outing would end that way. I called Uncle Kev to let him know to expect me and to keep an eye out. I left a note for Uncle Mick (wherever he was) to say that I was taking the Civic. The Civic was unremarkable and looked just like hundreds of other cars. I didn’t want to take the Ford Focus or the Accord in case someone recognized them after all my snooping. Needless to say, the Civic’s license plate was somewhat obscured by a selective layer of “dust.”
I put on a brilliant yellow jacket with a hood to go to the garage and for my drive. I was extremely noticeable and that was the plan. A few miles out of town, I turned down a bumpy road on the property that bordered Vera’s. The road led to an old farmhouse I knew was unoccupied. I angled the Civic into the bushes, ditched the bright yellow jacket in the passenger seat and began the trudge across the farmer’s field. I was glad I’d worn the hiking boots as the furrows and ruts in the earth were frozen. My ankles thanked me, at least until I twisted my left one on a particularly vicious rut. I limped the rest of the way most inelegantly.
It was an eerie walk and the hulking presence of a thresher parked nearby didn’t help much. I felt like I was being observed by a giant insect.
The moon was in its third phase, not as helpful as a full moon would have been, but enough to see by. Of course, seeing clearly is overrated. If you can see, you can be seen. Even so, I was grateful for the lack of cloud cover.
It took about twenty minutes to walk and I congratulated myself on choosing that long underwear and the alpaca socks. I approached Van Alst House from the rear, keeping to the shadows of the evergreen trees on the edge of the property.
Kev knew I was coming and once I reached the house, I did my excellent imitation of an owl hooting to let him know I’d arrived. I only hoped that he wasn’t yakking and drowning out the sound.
The lights were on in the dining room. It was eight o’clock, when everyone must be at the table. I felt a pang for the days of “We dine at eight, Miss Bingham.” If Vera and Muriel were at the table and the signora was pivoting around with one of her platters, then no one was going to see what I did. Kev would be stuffing his face too. It would give him an alibi if one was needed.
The doors were locked, the alarm blinking. Vera might have changed the locks, but I had my picks and Kev had given me his code.
Sure enough, “HANDYMAN” worked like a charm. I let myself in, closed the door behind me and reset the alarm. I hugged the wall of the endless corridor, being careful not to dislodge any portraits of Vera’s constipated ancestors.
It seemed like a year before I reached the library. It had a code too. Again, my luck held. This code had not been changed. I let myself in and locked the door, keying in the code again, in case someone came by and tried the door.
I sniffed the air. I loved everything about Vera’s library, especially the aroma of the old volumes, leather covers and armchairs, real rosewood shelves and beeswax furniture polish. I loved the feel of the Aubusson carpet. I loved the wrought-iron banister of the circular staircase to the mezzanine. I paused to soak it all in, realizing this might be my last visit.
“I’ll be back,” I said out loud to the room. It would have been nice to curl up in the worn leather club chair and leaf through one of Vera’s treasures. But I had a job to do.
A light was out of the question, but I had a flashlight that was barely enough to keep me from crashing into the furniture or tumbling off the circular staircase.
I crept up the stairs without a sound. We were a decent distance from the dining room, down two endless corridors. The attack cats were away, but you never know. On the mezzanine, I looked around, flashing the light. There were, as I feared, gaps in the books on the shelves. Were these the ones that Muriel had told Kev to sell? I scratched my head and stared at where the Nero Wolfe collection used to be. Not a single book remained.
That witch. It must have been pure spite.
Vera’s father’s battered Nero Wolfe books didn’t reside in the library. Vera moved them between her bedroom and the study, reading and rereading the old paperbacks. But Vera’s library collection was relatively recent and, except for the new Fer-de-Lance, consisted mostly of attractive mass-market paperbacks in excellent condition. This was the kind of collection that an obsessive collector like Vera might cherish, but it was in no way that valuable. There were many volumes in the library that would fetch thousands of dollars if Vera decided to sell them, but these were not among them. This collection had sentimental value to Vera because Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books had been a hobby she’d shared with her father. We had worked to upgrade it, but it was far from first-rate.
What reason would anyone have for taking any of them? Even as I asked myself that, I had to admit that there could be reasons unrelated to the value of the book, as I had learned the hard way in a couple of tough spots since I came to work for Vera. I was chewing my lower lip and puzzling over the missing books when I heard a scraping at the door.
What was that? Someone was fumbling with the keypad, from the sound of it. Vera? But what was she doing here? This was the appointed dinner hour and nothing except illness on Vera’s part interfered with that. On the other hand, who else but Vera would be using the library?
I extinguished the flashlight and felt my way to the end of the mezzanine. There’s a leather club chair up there too, not that Vera could venture up the stairs. She had people to carry her precious collection up and down the circular staircase for her. I missed being one of those people.
So I wasn’t really worried about Vera thumping up to the mezzanine and discovering me, but she might easily be able to spot me from the main level. I reached the chair, tucked myself behind it and hunkered down.
Voices wafted up to the second level. I was certain one of them was Muriel. Of course, she would have managed to get the security code, but who was the other person? Vera’s gravelly voice was unmistakable. I’d spent months listening to her. That voice wasn’t Vera’s.
Muriel was speaking in low tones. I strained to hear what she was saying, but without moving from my hiding place, it wasn’t possible. I caught the odd word and phrase. I couldn’t catch what her companion was saying or even if it was a man or a woman. For sure it wasn’t Uncle Kev, because low tones are not his best thing. Even more ridiculous to think it might be the signora. She’d never be able to resist shouting demonio!
What were they saying?
“Yes, she loves those stupid Wolfe books. I’m having fun taking them from her. One by one. Turning the knife. She hates it.”
The malevolent glee in her voice when she mentioned taking the books from Vera made me feel sick. The black widow had turned into the Wolfe widow. Of course, that didn’t make sense. I shook my head and listened.
“What? No, that’s all taken care of . . .”
“Not long now . . .”
“Before she . . .”
“Interfering . . .”
“Nosy bitch . . .”
“Yes, we’ll get rid of them next.”
Well. Something told me that I was the nosy bitch. The rest of it sounded ominous. Who would they get rid of next?
Me? Kev? The signora?
Who was Muriel talking to?
A thunderous knock on the door caused me to gasp. Luckily the thundering was from Kev, so my gasp was drowned out.
Kev said, “The lawyer’s here.”
“He’s early,” Muriel barked.
Kev said, “You want me to tell him to come back at the right time?”
Muriel said, “Don’t be stupid. Tell him I’ll be right there. We don’t need to be tripping over you, Kelly. Go to the kitchen with old Mrs. What’s-her-name and keep out of our way. Do you understand me?”
“Sure thi
ng, ma’am,” Kev said in an unusually servile tone. If I were Muriel, I wouldn’t have fallen for that.
I heard the door close, presumably behind Kev.
Muriel said, “He’s another snoopy type, that guy, but he’s got his tail between his legs. He’ll hide out in the kitchen as he was told, so he won’t see you or your people on your way out once we’re done with the lawyer. We won’t have to worry about Kelly or the old lady for much longer. You slip out the back. It’s too bad I couldn’t show you this room. It’s really fancy. I’m going to enjoy it when . . .”
The response was a low murmur. The door squeaked open and then closed again. Silence descended. After a while, I did too.
I waited five minutes to give the mystery guest time to get along the endless corridor before I headed that way myself. Muriel was still around and that was bad, even though I figured she was probably with the lawyer.
As I tiptoed along approaching the back exit, the kitchen door opened and I found myself caught by strong arms. I yelped and a hand clapped across my mouth. I managed to stifle a scream as I was pulled through the door.
I didn’t stifle my furious whisper. I swatted at my uncle. “Kev, are you nuts? Do you want Muriel to hear?”
“We need to speak to you!” Kev was white and shaking. The signora danced a little dance of distress.
From the hallway, we heard Muriel bellow, “What is going on there?”
The signora’s eyes bugged out. Kev swayed. The signora shrieked, “Eees big rat! In kitchen! Aieeee!”
As I dived under the large kitchen table, Kev took up the challenge. “I’ll kill it, Fiammetta! Muriel, do you want to help?”
“No, I certainly don’t want to help. Get the exterminators in here tomorrow. I’m not having rats on my property. And stop shrieking. I have a business meeting and I don’t want people to think this is an insane asylum.”
Kev stuck his head out the door. The signora let out one more whoop. Kev said, “Don’t you worry, Ms. Delgado. We’ll get rid of the rats.”
The Wolfe Widow (A Book Collector Mystery) Page 21