“I don’t know how you keep them all straight,” I said. “I guess with so many of them running around, no one would be able to know what they were all up to.” I hoped Myra recognized a gauntlet when it was lying on the ground right in front of her.
“If remaining close to family is important enough to you, it’s easy.” Myra gave me a look that I’m sure was meant to make me feel chastised about what had happened at the police station the other day.
“Communication helps keep everyone tightly knit, don’t you think? Look at this situation with the Bett fertilizer business. Who would have ever thought you wouldn’t be in the loop for a thing like that?”
“I’ll look into it and let you know what I find out.” Myra plucked three grease-stained paper sacks from Piper’s outstretched hands and trotted out the door. As I watched her go, I asked myself if the person who murdered Alanza had just offered to help me get to the bottom of the crime. She had an alibi for the night of the poisoning, but she also had the best access to the grange hall. After all, who would think anything of the head of the Sap Bucket Brigade touching the syrup jugs? Who would be suspicious if she got to the grange earlier than everyone else and was there alone in the morning? It would be more suspicious if she hadn’t been there first than if she had. And Myra’s reasons for getting rid of Alanza were strong. Myra’s pride in being a Bett knew no bounds. Saving Bett’s Knob from being defiled by an interloper was something she would consider a privilege as well as a duty. I might be able to get the information I wanted from her, but it felt like I might be making a deal with the devil.
• • •
Graham’s state-issued truck was pulled into the lay-by the chamber of commerce had built to view Bett’s Knob. As I approached, I saw Graham holding a net and moving closer to the viewing machine. I pulled over for a closer look. Knowlton was there, too, and the opportunity to get some things straight and to ask about Hanley was too good to miss. As I got out of the car, I got a better look at what Graham was trying to capture.
A small black monkey sat atop the viewing machine, chattering and holding an empty soda bottle in its paws. Graham was within swooping range with his net when the monkey turned its attention to him and flitted effortlessly away. Graham ran after him, reaching with his net and leaping like a lord in the Christmas carol. Knowlton ran around the other way, trying to drive the monkey toward Graham. Knowlton caught sight of me and dropped his hand to his head and smoothed his hair. He plastered a goofy grin on his face and made a beeline for me, leaving Graham to carry on with his leaping and his net. The little monkey didn’t seem ready to let Knowlton out of the game, though. It changed course and ran straight after Knowlton. It swarmed up his pant leg, sprinted up his torso, and paused long enough on his head for Graham to swoop his net at it. His net crashed down over Knowlton’s face just a second after the monkey leapt from his head and into my arms.
The monkey tilted its wrinkly little face up at me and I felt an odd tug like maybe my family wasn’t so wrong in trying to convince me to marry and start a family of my own. The monkey snuggled in close, and I felt my heart melt a little more as its small paws gripped my jacket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Graham yank the net off Knowlton’s head then stealthily creep toward me. A call went up and the little monkey sprang from my side and disappeared into the trees. Monkey chattering faded away like so many birdcalls in the wind. I felt a little sense of loss and then asked myself if the monkey could have given me fleas.
“I’ve been chasing those monkeys since the crack of dawn.” Graham stood his net on end and heaved a deep sigh as if all his hopes for the future had been pinned on capturing the little creature.
“And I’ve been here, too, helping out,” Knowlton said.
“That’s right. He’s been here the entire time.” Graham had his back turned to Knowlton so there was no way he was offending him when he rolled his eyes so far up into his head I worried they’d get stuck up there.
“It’s nice the two of you have gotten the chance to renew your acquaintance.”
“What do you mean?” Knowlton asked.
“Graham told me the two of you had met before he arrived here for this visit.”
“He did?” I saw Knowlton’s Adam’s apple give a little bob like a float on a fish line.
“He mentioned you’re engaged to be married and that everyone at some sort of carcass exchange is impressed with your bride-to-be.”
“He told you all that?”
“All that and more. Apparently, she’s so flexible she’s practically a circus freak.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Why would I be jealous of being insulted like that?”
“I can’t see why any woman would be insulted by my compliments.”
“Are you sure? I know I’d die of embarrassment if my fiancé blabbed to anyone who would listen that I liked to get naked and twist myself into a knot capable of lashing a cruise ship to a dock.” Knowlton’s apple bobbed like he had hooked a blue whale.
“When you put it that way, it does sound a little embarrassing.”
“Does this girl know you talk about her like that? You might want to be careful or she might back out of the marriage.”
“I see what you mean.”
“When’s the wedding? I haven’t heard Tansey saying anything, and knowing your mother, she should be all a-dither planning and shouting the news from rooftops all over town.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw the net Graham was holding beginning to flutter like it was jiggling from some giggling. Silent and manly giggling, but giggling nonetheless.
“I haven’t told her about it yet.” Knowlton was having trouble lifting his gaze above my kneecaps. Which was a new experience. Usually I can’t get him to lift his eyes above my nonexistent bustline.
“To hear Tansey tell it, the two of you are still as close as the days you were taking up space on her insides. How could you deny her the pleasure of this news? Especially with such a special girl.” Graham must have decided to take pity on him.
“His descriptions of his fiancée wouldn’t necessarily make a good impression on a mother-in-law. A father-in-law maybe, but certainly not a mother.”
“That’s it exactly. I wanted them to be able to be close.”
“How is it that after all these years I had to hear about the love of your life from Graham? When Graham first told me you were engaged to such an extraordinary woman, I thought for sure he was lying to me. But since you aren’t denying any of it, I’ll have to go home and tell Celadon that you’re off the market and we’ll need to set our sights elsewhere.” Knowlton held out hope that if I wouldn’t marry him Celadon would even though she’d been married to her husband for years.
Knowlton shuffled his feet along the dirt for a moment before speaking again. “Uh, Dani, could we talk in private for a moment?”
“It doesn’t seem appropriate for me to be chatting tête-à-tête with a man whose heart belongs to another,” I said. He looked so miserable I was rapidly losing my anger at him. We all want to show off for our peers sometimes, to be the source of envy. The only thing I was still sore at him for was using my real name and besmirching it all over the state.
“I think I see one of those monkeys up in that tree way over there.” Graham gestured with his net and stepped quickly out of earshot. It was a small kindness to be sure, but a telling one, and it raised him in my estimation more than anything else I had seen him do so far. A look of relief flitted across Knowlton’s face as if a cop with the blue lights on had just barreled past him and had stopped a car a few ahead of his own.
“I lied, Dani. You know you and Celadon are the only girls for me. There isn’t anyone else. Please don’t tell your sister I have a fiancée. She’ll never give me another glance.” The only glancing around for Knowlton that Celadon had ever done was to be sure he wasn’t hanging around before she ventured to leave the house, but it wasn’t going to do anyone a bit of good to share that with him.
; “Is that right? I hope you knew enough not to use some real girl’s name when you went around making stuff up. If what Graham told me was even half as colorful as what you’d been saying, I’d hate to be the girl anyone thought was involved in those stories.” I kept my eyes fixed right on his face as it turned the color of a male cardinal. He opened and shut his mouth several times but nothing came out. I think Graham had positioned himself downwind and was still able to hear a lot more than it seemed like he could, given the distance, because he picked that precise moment to show up and rescue Knowlton from having to come up with a response.
“So did you just stop in to help us lose a monkey or did you want to talk to me about more imaginary animal sightings?” That dropped his points back down to zero and gave Knowlton a terrific topic change.
“I heard about that from Mother. She said Myra was spreading it all over town. What was it you hallucinated again? A Sasquatch?” This is why it was impossible to like Knowlton. As soon as you started to feel the least bit softened toward him, he said or did something that crusted you all over once more.
“It was a mountain lion and I did not hallucinate it. I saw it being walked on a short lead by your fiancée.” That snapped his jaws shut like a leghold trap on a fox. “And yes, I did have business to discuss with Knowlton that didn’t involve his athletic sex life.”
“Okay, what was it?”
“Are you sure you didn’t see either Jill or Hanley on Friday night?”
“I’m sure. Neither of them was up at the camp. It’s black as the inside of a bull moose out there when there’s no moon and it’s overcast. Even with the distance between camps, you can see lights winking away and the noise travels, too. There weren’t none of either one on Friday.” But if he didn’t see anyone, then no one could say they saw him either.
Seventeen
I caught up with Felicia at the library, where she volunteers at the GED program during off-hours. I waited around a corner listening until I was sure I wasn’t interrupting someone then let myself into the quiet space.
“The library’s closed,” Felicia called over her shoulder automatically, her attention focused on packing a tote bag with books and papers.
“I came to see you,” I said, feeling strange at how loud my voice sounded.
“Dani, I would have thought you’d be out at the Black Friday sales getting some Christmas shopping done.” She smoothed a stack of papers with a small hand and gave her attention to me. I caught myself wondering if that same hand had twisted the top of one of my syrup bottles and slipped in poison. It made me sick to my stomach to wonder such a thing about a woman so long a friend of the family. But wonder it I did. When you watch the news or read the newspaper and become aware of a crime, you don’t really give much thought to the ways it impacts a community. Sure, you think of the victim and their immediate family. If they left young children behind, it is easy to consider how lives are changed. If the murderer is revealed to be someone close to the family, everyone understands the sense of betrayal.
But what you don’t know, until it happens in your own town, is how small things shift and feel tainted. How the offhand comments of long-term acquaintances take on shades of meaning you would never before have assigned them. How quirks and habits suddenly look like something potentially fraught with malice. Before Alanza took a plunge into her pancakes, I never would have wondered if a mild-mannered innkeeper who helped increase her fellow community members’ chances of job success would bop someone off.
Standing there with Felicia, I felt angry that someone would do something in my town so terrible I would change the way I looked at my friends and neighbors. So far, I had been looking for ways to slide my questions into conversations as nonconfrontationally as possible. The anger I was feeling prompted me to plunge ahead with my queries without apology.
“With everything going on with Greener Pastures, I didn’t feel much like shopping, no matter how good the deals.”
“I’d be upset, too. What brings you by the library?”
“I wanted to ask you about last Friday night.”
“What about it?”
“You said you were at the quilting group but you weren’t. Tansey said so at Thanksgiving dinner.” It was hard to do but I kept my eyes locked on hers instead of staring at my shoes, which would be my usual inclination when embarrassing someone. Felicia remained quiet for a moment, her hand frozen in mid smooth across the stack of papers. Then her eyes dropped and her shoulders sagged. She sank into the seat beside her.
“You caught me. I didn’t want anyone to know.” My hearted bounced around in my chest. I tried to remember where all the exits were in case she decided to bolt, or worse, if I needed a quick escape route of my own.
“So where were you really?”
“Out at the Loon Lodge with Jim Parnell.” A tear rolled down her pink cheek. Her sagging shoulders started shaking. I looked over at the librarian’s cluttered desk and spotted a box of tissues. I grabbed them and handed the box to her. I could understand why she would be upset. Maybe she wasn’t going to confess to murder after all.
“So Roland doesn’t know about it?” Loon Lodge was a grubby motel and coffee shop on the far side of town. To be there with someone other than your husband spoke volumes about the state of your marriage.
“Of course he doesn’t. He was off practicing his music with Dean and the other guys like he does every Friday night.” I tried to imagine Roland’s blood pressure readings if he had been privy to his wife’s goings-on. Felicia started sobbing even harder. I wondered how best to comfort her but, given my limited experience, didn’t feel competent to advise her on things marital or extramarital. And really, I was here to find out if she had killed Alanza, not to hear a confession about anything else. Her choice of bedmates had no bearing on my syrup-making business. Time to get back on track.
“So was this brought on by the stress of Alanza raising a ruckus next door to your place?” Felicia honked her nose delicately.
“What else would it be about?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been in your situation.” I thought briefly about my mother and Lowell. What they were doing felt like they were betraying my father and he wasn’t even part of the picture anymore. How could anyone do something like that to someone who was still around to be hurt by it?
“It was all Alanza’s fault. For weeks all Roland could talk about was how everything we had worked for was being destroyed.”
“He did seem bitter about it all.”
“You don’t know the half of it. It was the first thing he said every morning, the last thing he said each night, and the only topic of conversation in the hours in between.”
“I can understand how you would be tempted to do something rash.”
“Yes, it was very unpleasant but mostly I was worried about Roland and his heart condition. I spent all my time monitoring him for signs of a stroke. It felt like living with a time bomb.” Now I was confused. It sounded like she could easily have had reason to do away with Alanza, but how did a secret rendezvous with another man help keep her husband from popping something in his brain? It sounded like she was trying to do away with him, too.
“Having an affair with Jim seems like a weird way to keep Roland from keeling over.” If I was butting my nose in, I might as well go all the way.
“An affair? With Jim?” Felicia’s tears turned off like the city was repairing the water main, and her shoulders began shaking even harder, but this time she was laughing.
“You did say you met with him at Loon Lodge and Roland didn’t know.” I felt my cheeks flushing. It wasn’t as if I wanted to discuss Felicia’s sex life. Or anyone else’s for that matter.
“I met him in the coffee shop to talk about putting our place on the market.” That explained it. Jim owned the most respected real estate brokerage in town and specialized in antique and choice properties.
“Without talking to Roland?”
“I wanted to run it past J
im first. If there wasn’t enough value left in our property, then I wasn’t going to mention the idea to him. If there was enough to sell up and put a hefty deposit down on another place, I was going to risk telling him.”
“It doesn’t seem like you told him since when I was here getting the pickles, he still seemed to think you had been at the quilting group.”
“Jim said with the real estate market the way it is and the destruction Alanza was planning on Bett’s Knob, we would be lucky to recoup our initial investment. There wouldn’t have been enough money to start over. We would be lucky to pay off the remaining mortgage once Jim took his commission.”
“So I guess it was lucky for you that Alanza died when she did.”
“It certainly was. I couldn’t believe our good fortune.” She made it sound so unconnected with her own actions. But was it really? And did Roland really not know where she had been, or was he just playing a part that provided both of them with alibis? And even if she were telling the truth, there would still have been time for her to slip into the grange hall and poison the syrup. She’d have even more reason than ever to do so.
“Roland looks better, too.”
“Oh, he is. Now he’s talking about new ways to plant the garden to distract people from the view of the storage facility and even adding some things like package deals for sugar-making weekends, etc. . . . He wanted to talk with you about it if you can ever reopen with all that’s been going on.” Felicia gave me a warm smile. It seemed that unburdening herself agreed with her. With so much new information heaped on my shoulders, why did I feel like I knew even less for sure than when I first started questioning her? Maybe talking with her husband about his own lies would be more enlightening.
• • •
Roland stood in the drizzle poking at a smoldering pile of brush with a long green stick. The smoky wood smell rose up and hovered in the air, an autumnal country smell if ever there was one. My stomach clenched at the idea of confronting Roland about his lie, but there was no way I was losing my business because I had been taught to respect my elders at all costs. I was sure Grandma would understand.
Drizzled with Death (A Sugar Grove Mystery) Page 18