18 Deader Homes and Gardens

by Joan Hess

  Moses had been there as well. He was no longer available for questioning, however futile it might have been. The medical examiner would consult with Moses’s doctor and declare the death a result of natural causes. Unlike Winston, he would merit a funeral, and presumably a spot in the family plot. The phrase disturbed me, although I wasn’t sure why. I nibbled on my lip, which was getting sore, as I turned around and sat down on a stool by the island.

  “Did Jordan mention a family plot?” I asked Inez.

  She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “You mean where they bury people? Yes, it’s on the other side of the river, near the bridge and the back road. She said that the headstones are mossy and there are weeds all over the place. She found out that she had a great-great-aunt named Ethiopia. Isn’t that wild?”

  “It’s dumb,” Caron said. “Was her husband’s name Cameroon?”

  “Lloyd, I think.”

  “I want the two of you to go find the family plot and see if Jordan’s there,” I said. “I can’t leave Felicia alone.”

  Caron winced. “You want us to swim across a river and hike through the woods just because Jordan might be hugging a headstone? I forgot to bring my bathing suit, boots, compass, and camouflage T-shirt. What if we get shot by deer hunters?”

  “Bullets can travel more than two miles,” Inez contributed helpfully.

  “It’s not deer season,” I said, hoping it wasn’t. “You can get across the stream on a fallen tree trunk, or go farther downstream to a shallow place. Worry about poison ivy, not lions and tigers. Call me on my cell when you get there.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Caron asked, one eyebrow raised. It was a skill I’d yet to master, making it all the more annoying. “Do you even know how to answer it?”

  “If I don’t hear from you in thirty minutes, I’ll call the police and report you as runaways. That’s a status offense. I’d hate for you to spend your senior year in a juvenile detention facility.”

  “You are So Not Funny,” Caron said as she and Inez got up. They went out the French doors, leaving a redolence of indignation behind them. I reminded myself how endearing she’d been as a toddler.

  I found my cell in the bottom of my purse. Terry’s lawyer, Ms. Cranberry, had left a message asking me to contact her. Her office had closed two hours ago, so there was no reason to call back. I made a pot of coffee, looked in on Felicia, and returned to the kitchen for a peanut butter cracker. Sleuthing plays havoc with normal meals. A drop of Scotch sounded divine, but I wasn’t about to drink anything in the liquor cabinet that had not been put through a rigorous round of tests. Jorgeson had told me that the poison was not among the usual suspects. In mystery novels, the antagonist has access to African tree frog sweat or bamboo curare, purchased in a quaint corner chemist’s shoppe next to a tearoom. The rest of us are obliged to buy weed killer at a discount store. I’d never tasted the stuff, but it had a pungent odor that vodka and lemonade would not mask.

  Anyone who knew the location of the house could have planted the bottle. I doubted that preference for vodka and tonic was a secret. He’d upset Felicia when he offered her one at Terry’s party. Had Charles not been there, she might have snatched the glass from his hand and drained it. She was a gifted actress. She’d fooled me, and all the family members, too. I nearly choked on the cracker in my mouth. Unless her husband preferred to tolerate her weakness, as Ethan did with Pandora Butterfly. His church was inflexible and willing to blame the innocent along with the guilty. Charles would no longer be the Grand Pooh-Bah of the congregation. The only way to test my theory was to send her home, but I wasn’t that confident.

  I wasn’t that confident about anything, I thought morosely. Although anyone could have planted the bottle, he or she couldn’t have known that Terry had come back to Hollow Valley. If the tainted vodka bottle had been in the cabinet for three months, Moses would have drained it and died in the kitchen instead of his own bed. The medical examiner wouldn’t have been quite so eager to declare the death due to natural causes. Nattie and Felicia had looked appropriately sad when Moses’s body had been wheeled out on a gurney. When Terry’s body had been dealt with the same way, the family members had looked stunned. If I recalled accurately (and I always do), I’d been accused of not telling them that Terry had returned. They’d been downright testy about it, as if I had an obligation to knock on their respective doors and enlighten them.

  The coffeepot stopped gurgling. I went into the master bedroom to find out if Felicia had recovered enough to drink lots of black coffee. She’d had a couple of hours of sleep. The alcohol was still in her bloodstream, but if she could be induced to move around and take her caffeine like an adult, I might be able to mask the worst of her symptoms. It was time to confront the shower.

  I took off her clothes, wrestled her into the shower stall, and turned on four showerheads to blast her with cold water. She did not enjoy the experience. I helped her dress, clutched her arm, and maneuvered her into the kitchen. Under my stern supervision, she drank three cups of coffee.

  Felicia waggled her finger at me in reproach. “You didn’t have to do that. I wasn’t inebriated; I was tipsy. There was something about Esther, wasn’t there?”

  I repeated what I said and promised to contact Esther the next day. “You’re going to have to deal with Charles,” I continued. “You’re miserable being married to him. You can’t pretend that you’re staying together for the sake of your child. She’s long gone, and happier for it.”

  “Divorce Charles?” she asked, shocked. “I could never do that. He wouldn’t survive without his position at the nursery. That and the church are the only two things he really cares about. The church does not condone divorce. It’s considered blasphemy because marriage vows are sacred. Wives are not permitted to complain about their husbands, even if the bastards are having affairs on the side.”

  “Like Charles?” I held my breath.

  “Hardly,” she said with a snigger. “No one would put up with him. If I’d believed in premarital sex, I would have dropped him like a molten rock and married the next man I met at the grocery store. He has his secrets, though.” She slid off the stool and grabbed the edge of the island until she regained her balance. “I need to go home. Will you please let me know what Esther says? Whatever she wants. We can meet at a café or a park. Five minutes is better than never.”

  I stood on the terrace and watched her until she wobbled into the orchard. I’d made an unsuccessful stab at playing marriage counselor. She would return to her abuser again and again, like so many battered women, before she accepted the simple fact that he would never change. I wished her well, then went inside to check the time. Caron and Inez had been gone more than thirty minutes. I carried my cell while I searched the house for nooks and crannies large enough to conceal a teenager. I forced myself to go down to the basement. The wine racks had numerous empty slots, courtesy of Moses. Beyond that was a large, unfinished room. I mentally equipped it with a wet bar, comfortable seating, and a billiard table beneath a rectangular stained-glass light fixture. Now all I needed was a conservatory, a lounge, and a ballroom.

  My cell phone chirped. I opened it and said, “I was getting worried about you. Did you find Jordan?”

  “Who’s Jordan?” said Deputy Chief Peter Rosen.

  “Hello, my love. How are you?”

  “Who’s Jordan?”

  I needed to get him off the line, which required a certain amount of evasion. “One of Caron’s friends. You haven’t met her. When are you coming home?”

  “Tomorrow night. We’re getting nowhere. The state police are still looking for witnesses, but it’s an impossible task. The feds insist on endless meetings in which everybody says the same things over and over. The governor’s up for reelection, so he calls a press conference three times a day. The big guns from North Carolina left this morning.”

  “Quite a dither over a hijacking,” I said. “I’m in the middle of something, so why don’t I call y
ou back later?”

  “In the middle of what?”

  I was getting tired of his rash assumptions that I was meddling in official police business. “Stir-fry,” I said. “It’s very healthy. Oops, the broccoli is smoking. I’ll talk to you later.” I’d never actually made a stir-fry dish, but I’d glanced at a recipe that had an extensive list of vegetables to be sliced and diced and set aside in separate piles. It was an apt description of my muddle. I had three murders, numerous motives, and an unknown number of suspects. If only I could toss all of it in a wok, stir and fry, and end up with one simple dish. It would not be humble pie.

  It had now been forty-five minutes since Caron and Inez headed out on their mission. I resigned myself to wet shoes, chiggers, and whatever lay in wait for me across the river. There was no reason to lock the house. I was halfway out the door when my cell phone chirped. I crossed my fingers and answered it.

  “Sorry it took so long,” Caron said. “We were being careful not to be seen by the reporters on the road. Anyway, Jordan is not in the graveyard. We found Ethiopia’s headstone. She was born in eighteen ninety-three and died when she was a hundred years old. Lloyd died almost forty years before she did.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “I’m sick and tired of tromping around in the woods, which happen to cover miles and miles of rocks, stumps, and bugs. I nearly stepped on a snake. I’m spending the night at Inez’s house. See you tomorrow.”

  She switched off her phone before I could respond. I considered calling her back, but I didn’t want to hear any more whining. I had no inclination to step on a snake. If Jordan didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be. I had never hiked farther than Luanne’s shop on Thurber Street.

  I cleaned up the kitchen and straightened the bedspread in the master bedroom. I had no reason to stay in Hollow Valley any longer. My time would be better spent in battle with the boxes in every room of the duplex. I made sure I had my cell phone and then went out the front door. As I peered into the back of my car to make sure I wouldn’t have an extra passenger, Nattie came across the grass.

  “Claire, I’m so glad you’re still here. I want to apologize for my behavior at the Old Tavern. Margaret Louise called Sheldon and Joanne last night. When they heard about Terry and Angela, they had a fit. They wanted Jordan on the next flight to Philadelphia. Then they remembered that they were leaving in less than a week for a vacation in Aruba and backed off. Margaret Louise promised to watch Jordan like a sharp-shinned hawk until they get back. She was angry at me for telling you that Jordan could spend the night at your house. I assured her that you would take very good care of her ward, but I couldn’t persuade her to change her mind. Poor Jordan was infuriated. Please forgive me.”

  “I was miffed, but I accept your apology. I am sorry about Moses. He was entertaining, in his way. I couldn’t decide when he was telling the truth and when he was spewing nonsense. The Light Brigade will miss him, too.”

  Nattie laughed. “All six hundred of them. Moses had dementia, and his medication made it worse. Last year he claimed that the valley had been infiltrated by Nazis. For at least a month he sat in a tree, binoculars around his neck, prepared to sound the call to arms. When he was hungry, he hollered for me to bring him rations. He dangled a cord so I could tie the bag to it, and then he’d hoist it up. At least I knew where to find him.”

  “Caron did that for a day when she was seven. She was on the lookout for Captain Hook and his pirates, although Farberville’s five hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t believe anything Moses said.” She glanced around the yard. “Have you seen Jordan?”

  I shook my head. “Not since I was in the kitchen at the Old Tavern.”

  “Margaret Louise will throw a fit if Jordan doesn’t show up before dark, especially after talking to her parents last night. There have been times when she frightened me.” She gave me an appraising look. “You wouldn’t lie about this, would you? I know you feel sorry for her.”

  I met her gaze. “I have no idea where Jordan is right now. I have not seen her since I was at the Old Tavern several hours ago. If I knew where she was, I’d tell you. I’m worried about her, too.”

  “Okay,” Nattie said. “I’ll call you when she drags home.”

  “Thanks.” I got in my car and drove down the driveway. The reporters, the TV vans, and the gawkers were gone. The police officers waved me through the gate, not having received the memo to search my car. I appreciated the silence when I arrived home. The boxes had bred in my absence; there were twice as many shoe boxes in stacks in the hall. I went out to the balcony. The afternoon had not been profitable in terms of piecing together any of the fragments that were banging around in my mind. It had been interesting, though. Felicia was not as timorous as she pretended to be. She’d said that she and Winston drank wine on occasion. I wondered if she had found her way to the wine cellar after his death. After Terry arrived on the scene, with rumors that he might sell the house, the access would cease. It wasn’t much of a motive for murder.

  She had confirmed that Danny Delmond had been to her house, admittedly in a vague manner. In a very vague and oblique manner, I corrected myself. She had said that Charles’s life was his church and the nursery, and he would be devastated to lose either one. Although I’d yet to see it, Danny might be able to transform himself into an affable, charismatic businessman whose one goal in life was to house homeless souls. Ethan and Nattie had told me that they knew nothing about a development at Hollow Valley. That made sense, since Danny would start with the alpha dog. Pandora Butterfly was the omega dog, and Felicia was a chi or psi dog at best. If Charles was even considering Danny’s offer, he would have to convince Margaret Louise and Ethan. Moses would surely have named the family corporation as his heir. Terry wouldn’t have agreed to anything that would benefit the Hollows. Winston might not have, either. The first step would have been to kill him. When the deed with right of survivorship popped up, the second step was to kill Terry—and it had to be done before he sold the property to the wife of the deputy chief of the Farberville Police Department. Angela had been in the way, requiring yet another step.

  I wanted to call Jorgeson and shout, “It’s Danny Delmond! He did it! Lock him up and bury the key in your rose garden.” It was not probable that he would oblige. He was methodical and overly attentive to procedure. Lacking imagination, he might ask for proof. Which was a problem. Breaking into Danny’s office was not a possibility, even with Caron and Inez’s devious assistance. Inez’s little brother could build an incendiary device to shatter the door, but I would have only a minute or two inside before I was arrested. Peter would not react well if his wife was accused of terrorism, no matter how minor the offense.

  I had given up for the moment and was watching the sunset when I heard someone whistling “Three Little Maids from School Are We,” a song from Mikado. I leaned forward and saw Billy Bobstay ambling by with an ornate walking stick.

  “Hey, Yum-Yum,” I called.

  He stopped and squinted up at me. “I beg your pardon. My name is Pitti-Sing.”

  “Would you like to come up for a drink, Pitti-Sing?”

  “At your service, Peep-Bo. Perhaps we can harmonize as the sun drifts below the horizon and night falls on the palace in Titipu. How should I scale the wall?”

  “Try the front door and the stairs,” I said, smiling. I was delighted to have a distraction. I went inside and opened my door. He was panting when he reached the final step, and his ears were pink.

  “Thank goodness I didn’t have to climb the ivy. It gives me a rash.”

  I fixed him a drink, and we went out to the balcony. “How was your jaunt to Missouri? The food must have been scrumptious,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, Loretta told me you were at her house yesterday. The trip was tedious, I must say. Samuel has taken up the accordion. He found it in his grandfather’s attic. He swears that when he picked it up, he had a spiritual revelation th
at he’d been chosen to keep up the tradition. I dislike the accordion, but I absolutely loathe it in the hands of an amateur. We forced him to do all the driving, but we did stop for lunch. Cars driving by honked in protest. The cows in the pasture fled for the barn. Their milk will be curdled for days.”

  “I trust the mission was accomplished without any fatalities.”

  “As always,” he said with a melodramatic sigh. “We do this every few months so that Samuel can buy cheap cigarettes. He simply refuses to admit that the cost of gasoline negates any savings. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Cigarettes are cheaper in Missouri?” I asked. “Why is that?”

  “State tax. Nasty things, cigarettes. I much prefer healthy vices.” He grinned at me. “What are your vices, Peep-Bo? Singing in the shower? Chocolate? I see from the slight blush on your cheeks that you’re thinking of something naughty.”

  “I was thinking of Yum-Yum,” I said, ducking my head. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  He held out his empty glass. “I will ponder it, and when you return I shall have come to a conclusion. Students have been asking me questions all day. My assistant asked if he could take his vacation in July, of all things. That’s when we do our summer production. I told him if he went on a cruise with his pretty boy, he might as well buy a cabana in Cancún or some ridiculous place like that.” I tried to grab his glass, but he was waving his arm to emphasize the implications of such treachery. “July, mind you. We’re doing The Boys in the Band this year. I would be honored if you choose to attend.”

  I finally snagged his glass and went into the kitchen. Billy had found a captive audience on my balcony and might stay until midnight. All I could do was persevere in hopes I could steer him in a more useful direction. I handed him his drink and sat down, but before he could continue discussing his next production, I said, “Did Loretta tell you what we talked about?”

  “Are the two of you up to no good? I should warn you that despite her penchant for rebellion, at heart she’s conservative. She likes men. I like men as well, but of a different sort.”