“I didn’t mean for you to find it,” Pamela said weakly.
“It was in the closet with the laundry soap.” Penny gazed at Pamela, hands folded on the table in front of her. “I remember what Amy looked like.” The pose and the expression on Penny’s face reminded Pamela of the few times in her life she’d been called to account by an authority figure. “Whoever this person is, it’s a dangerous person. And I’d like to have one parent at least who’s still alive.”
Pamela’s throat tightened. She felt a prickling of tears and closed her eyes. She was about to say she’d be careful. But what came out was, “Okay. I’ll stop.”
“By the way . . . I figured out where the cat has been hiding.” A tiny hint of smile softened the stern line Penny’s lips had assumed. “Under the washing machine. She was a little startled when it came on.”
“She’s under the sofa now,” Pamela said. “We’ll put out some food before we leave for the feast.”
Chapter Nineteen
The Nordlings had a stream in their front yard. It trickled down from the forested hill behind their house and through a landscape thickly planted with azaleas and rhododendrons. The slate path to the front door was interrupted by a small bridge that crossed the stream. The house itself was a rambling structure built of stone and topped with a sharply peaked roof.
Pamela carried the pie, carefully wrapped in foil, and Penny followed with the ice cream in one of Pamela’s canvas grocery bags. The front door opened just as they were stepping onto the porch. “Hello, hello, hello!” Jud Nordling sang out. “Happy Thanksgiving! I heard your car drive up.”
He was a jovial man whose pink cheeks and less than svelte figure signaled his love of food and drink. He wore a “King of the Kitchen” apron over an outfit of khakis, starched shirt, and V-necked sweater. His wife Beth, as slender as he was portly, joined him and reached for the pie as Pamela approached the door. “Thank you,” she said. “Jud has been talking about your pecan pies all week.”
“We’ve got ice cream too.” Pamela took the canvas bag from Penny.
“I’ll pop the goodies in the kitchen,” Beth said. “Jud—help them with their coats.” The house was warm and smelled of roasting turkey.
Pamela slipped out of her good coat, seldom worn and a decade old. Under the coat, she wore the only dress in her closet, a pale green sheath bought long ago for a wedding. Penny had rushed upstairs to get dressed at the last minute, and she had rushed back down and pulled on her coat while Pamela was in the kitchen getting the pie ready to travel. Pamela gave a tiny gasp now as Penny handed her coat to Jud Nordling. She’d retrieved from her closet the deep red dress Pamela had bought her for a Christmas party the previous year. But her dark hair was up in a twist and her feet sported what Pamela recognized as her own high heels, long neglected in her own closet. The dress had been transformed from the garment of a flirty teenager into that of an elegant young woman. How many years would it be, Pamela wondered, until she was truly all by herself in her big house?
“I see college agrees with you,” Beth said, stepping in from the kitchen. “I want to hear all about it.”
“Do you drink wine now?” Jud asked Penny. Without waiting for an answer, he added, “The bar is in here.” Penny followed him toward the dining room, and Pamela started after them, but Beth touched her arm.
“Are you okay?” she said, her eyes looking as concerned as her voice sounded. “We were so shocked to hear about Amy’s murder. Jud knew her, of course, and to think that it happened in your yard . . . and now this other thing. I could hardly believe it when I opened the Register this morning.”
Pamela shrugged. “I’m trying not to think about it, for today at least. It’s great to have Penny home, and it’s great to be here with you and Jud.”
In the dining room, wineglasses and an open bottle of red wine in a silver wine caddy were waiting on the sideboard. The table had been spread with an antique lace tablecloth and decorated with a collection of gourds, nuts, and corn husks. Beth’s English bone china was arrayed in all its glory amid the gourds and nuts, but only four places were set.
Jud filled four glasses and proposed a toast: “To family, absent and present.”
“We have to share Frankie and Sara with their in-laws,” Beth explained. “We get Christmas this year.”
“It’s back to work for me,” Jud said. He took a swallow of his wine, pronounced it perfect, and headed for the kitchen, wineglass in hand.
“Shall we?” Beth led the way to the living room, where a low fire burned in the grand stone fireplace. Twin sofas upholstered in flowered chintz flanked the coffee table. They chatted about Penny’s college adventures and mutual friends as they sipped their wine.
“And speaking of mutual friends,” Beth said, “I know Arborville isn’t terribly large. I wonder whether you’ve met Richard Larkin yet?”
“Yes, we have.” Penny spoke up before Pamela could answer. “He lives right next door and he seems very nice.”
“He’s had an unusual career,” Beth said.
Penny glanced at Pamela and leaned forward as if waiting for a storyteller to go on with a promising tale. But Pamela was just as glad when Jud appeared in the doorway and announced that dinner was served. Beth wasn’t the matchmaker type—at least Pamela didn’t think so. But you never knew what people would get up to. The impulse to match things up could be impossible to resist. Pamela herself often pitied the sad remnants of once-complete sets of glassware or dishes she encountered at tag sales.
Jud was in his element. He brought out dish after dish: scalloped oysters, baked onions, brussels sprouts glazed with brown sugar, a yam soufflé flavored with a touch of orange juice, rolls baked from scratch—and, of course turkey, a free-range turkey. He’d driven nearly to the Delaware Water Gap to select it from among its gobbling confreres, then waited while it was slaughtered and cleaned.
After dinner, they adjourned to the living room to stare at one another in amiable somnolence, then returned to the table for the pecan pie. Jud arranged generous slices on the dessert plates that matched Beth’s bone china and topped them with scoops of French vanilla ice cream. The heady smell of freshly ground coffee drifted in from the kitchen.
“You’ve outdone yourself, sweetheart,” Beth said as Jud finished serving coffee and settled back into his place at the head of the table.
“You certainly have,” Pamela added, and Penny smiled and nodded.
“My turn to catch up with our guests,” Jud said. He turned to Pamela. “Last week I ran into a guy my firm collaborates with sometimes. Richard Larkin. He said he’s moved to Arborville.”
“We covered that already,” Beth said, “while you were slaving in the kitchen. He actually lives right next door to them.”
Penny spoke up. “You said he’d had an unusual career.”
Jud laughed and looked across the table at Beth. “You told them about the tree house?”
Beth shook her head. “I didn’t know a tree house was part of it.”
Penny was leaning forward again, waiting for the rest of the story. “What about the tree house?” she asked Jud. “He said he had a thing in Maine. Is that the tree house?”
“We barely know him,” Pamela said, trying to catch Penny’s eye. “If he wants us to know about the tree house, I’m sure he’ll tell us at some point.”
“He probably won’t talk about it,” Jud said. “He’s a very modest guy.”
“Now you’ve got me curious too.” Beth leaned into the candlelight. It had grown dark since they sat down to eat. Through the huge window that looked out on the forested hill behind the house, the bare trees were visible only as darker sketches against a shadowy ground.
“It was how the whole thing started,” Jud said. He turned to Pamela. “You’ve been up to Maine, haven’t you? Those towns where houses are half trailer and half shack?” Pamela nodded. “Rick dropped out of architecture school one summer and moved up to Maine to think about things. He built himsel
f a tree house out of materials he scavenged from construction sites. He just did it for fun. But then he started noticing how people around there were living, and things took off. He set up a program where contractors unload stuff from buildings being demolished and volunteer architects and contractors help people repair and upgrade their houses with all this free material.”
“That sounds very noble,” Pamela said. Penny had arranged her face in what Pamela supposed was meant to be a meaningful look. But she wasn’t sure what meaning was intended.
In the car on the way home they didn’t talk about Richard Larkin. Instead Penny insisted that Pamela swear she would henceforth leave everything having to do with the two Arborville murders to the police. “No more detecting, Mom,” she said firmly.
When they got home, Penny crept into the dark living room and stooped to peer under the sofa. “Catrina’s not here,” she reported in a whisper.
“Probably back under the washer,” Pamela said. “We’ll leave some food out and see if it disappears.”
Chapter Twenty
Bettina had exciting news to communicate the next morning, but she didn’t arrive in bathrobe and slippers. When Pamela opened the door to admit her, she was her usual well-groomed self. Her bright red bangs peeked out from under a brown felt beret adjusted to a jaunty angle, her hazel eyes had been enhanced with a touch of green shadow, and her carefully applied lipstick exactly matched the deep rust scarf she’d snuggled up to her chin.
“I’ve just come from talking to Clayborn,” she said before even taking off her coat, “and if you have any coffee left I’d love a cup.”
Pamela raised a finger to her lips and whispered, “Shh.” She pointed toward Penny, who was lounging on the sofa communing with her smartphone. In her pajamas and with her hair still tousled from sleep, she had transformed from the sophisticated woman of the previous night back into her eighteen-year-old self.
Bettina draped her coat on the chair in the entry and followed Pamela to the kitchen. “What’s up with Penny?” she asked.
“I’ll explain,” Pamela said, “but meanwhile, here’s coffee.” She poured a cup as Bettina settled at the table. “And how about some pancakes? I made a special breakfast in honor of Penny’s visit, and there’s plenty of that maple syrup you brought me from Vermont.”
“I will never eat again.” To emphasize the point, Bettina pushed the sugar bowl across the table. “The children outdid themselves—I’ve never seen so much food. And of course Wilfred would have been crushed if we hadn’t done justice to his chili.”
Pamela topped off her own coffee and sat down. She leaned toward Bettina and, as if anticipating a confidence, Bettina leaned toward Pamela. “Penny is afraid something will happen to me,” she whispered. “She found the slashed painting, and it scared her, even more than hearing you and me talk about our detecting yesterday. She made me promise I’d leave it to the police to figure out who killed Amy and Phyllis Hagstrom.”
“Well, I didn’t promise,” Bettina whispered back, “and you can at least listen, can’t you? You have to hear what I found out from Clayborn.”
“Maybe nothing I don’t already know,” Pamela said. “I talked to Mr. Gilly yesterday.” At Bettina’s chiding look, she hastily added, “Before Penny found the painting. Anyway, we already knew Phyllis Hagstrom lived in Amy’s building. What I found out was that she moved in recently.”
“Not into the apartment Amy had just vacated, I hope.” Bettina shuddered. “That would be gruesome. I wonder how long they’ll wait until they rent Amy’s apartment out again—or Phyllis Hagstrom’s, for that matter.”
Pamela went on. “She actually knew Amy’s parents, but when she moved into that building she had no idea it was the same building where Amy had lived. Our guess about why I thought she looked familiar was right—she was one of those elegant women milling around with champagne glasses in their hands at the reception.”
Bettina leaned closer. “But here’s something you don’t already know—and it could be very important. Phyllis Hagstrom lived right there in Maple Branch—until she moved to Arborville just last week. She’s recently widowed and wanted to be closer to New York City and her children and grandchildren, who live in the city.”
“Someone has it in for people from Maple Branch?” Pamela said.
Bettina nodded. “That could be the common thread.” She picked up her coffee cup, took a sip, and grimaced. “Warm this up a little?” She held up her cup.
“I’ll make more,” Pamela said. “I’d like a refill too.”
A minute later she turned from the counter to discover that Penny had joined them. “Look, Mom,” she said, holding out her smartphone. “He’s really famous.”
“Who’s really famous?”
“Him.” Penny nodded toward the window. “Next door.” She turned to Bettina. “We met him, Wednesday night. He was out looking at the wild turkeys. He’s really nice.”
Pamela reached for the phone.
“Wilfred said something about the turkeys,” Bettina said. “Funny they came around right at Thanksgiving.” The kettle began to hoot, and Bettina jumped up. She busied herself at the counter while Pamela stared at the phone. The image on the screen was small, but recognizable.
“It’s an article about him in a Maine newspaper,” Penny said, sounding impressed. “His program is called the ‘Recycle, Renew Project.’”
It was definitely Richard Larkin, looking even more in need of a trip to the barber’s than he had the other night. The jeans that sheathed his long legs were faded and torn in a way that suggested either hard wear and much washing or a SoHo boutique and a breathtaking price tag. They were topped with a bright green T-shirt either purposely form-fitting or woefully shrunken. It proclaimed, “New lives for old things.” In the background of the picture random doors and windows leaned against a chain-link fence.
Bettina had left the coffee to drip and was standing at her elbow. “He is nice-looking,” she said.
“Mom’s friends, the Nordlings, know all about him,” Penny chimed in. “He started this heroic program up in Maine to help poor people renovate their houses.”
“That settles it.” Bettina raised her hands with a flourish and then clasped them to her breast. “Nice-looking, heroic, and he’s right next door.”
“Don’t be silly,” Pamela said. “He’s much too young for me, and he’s not my type at all. The tight jeans and the shaggy hair and all that. And he doesn’t like yellow kitchens.”
“Those little differences can be worked out,” Bettina said.
* * *
After Bettina left, Pamela conferred with Penny about dinner. They agreed salmon with brown rice and fresh spinach would be a nice contrast with the rich meal they’d eaten the previous night. Penny was going to spend the afternoon with her friend Lorie Hopkins, who was also home for Thanksgiving. They were longing to go to the mall, and Pamela was happy to oblige with the loan of her car. Penny announced she was changing out of her pajamas. When the Penny who descended the stairs ready for her outing was the familiar jeans-and-sweater Penny, Pamela decided time was not hurtling forward quite as fast as she had feared.
A check of the pantry revealed plenty of brown rice on hand. But salmon would have to be fetched, as well as fresh spinach. The day looked so bright and the sky so blue that Pamela would have walked in some direction or other just for the sake of walking. The destination today, however, would be the Co-Op Grocery.
She had no sooner turned the corner at the end of her block than she almost bumped into Bob Randolph. Some impulse made her glance down at his ankles to check if he was wearing the argyle socks that had first put him on her list of suspects. But in deference to the weather, he was wearing hiking boots—though they seemed too elegant for an actual hike—and an expensive-looking down jacket like something from a high-end skiwear catalogue.
He uttered a yelp of surprise and jumped back.
“Excuse me!” Pamela reached out as if to steady him.
He nodded, though it was hard to know whether the nod was curt or friendly. “You take your walks on a predictable schedule,” he said, “but we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“Why were you parked in front of my house the night before last?” Pamela asked.
Confusion disrupted the harmony of his handsome features. His green eyes widened. “Is that where you live?”
“You must know it is,” she said. “The report of Amy’s murder in the newspapers mentioned my name and ran a photo of the house.”
“Business at the church,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other as if eager to be on his way.
“Are you usually free at seven in the evening?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Pamela wondered why she had said them.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not always.”
“How about Tuesday nights?” Amy was killed on a Tuesday.
“As a matter of fact, yes. I am free on Tuesday nights. And since you’re so interested in my schedule, I’m usually not free on Wednesday nights. Last night, however, I was helping prepare food for the Thanksgiving ministry to the homeless. That’s why I had my car there. I usually walk. I like to walk, just like you do.” He took a deep breath. “There. Is there anything else you’d like to know about me?”
Penny wouldn’t have approved, but Penny was en route to the mall. “Have you ever lived in Maple Branch?” Pamela asked.
“What if I have?”
“Someone is killing people who live in this apartment building and are from Maple Branch.”
“What is this?” Bob Randolph burst out laughing. “I know we’ve had two murders on this street, one of them in your yard, and both of the people lived in this building. And, unlike me, Mr. Gilly would just as soon talk as work. But I really don’t think the police need your help.”
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