by Vicki Delany
“Over the past year I’ve made a few contacts in the slightly shadier parts of New York City. I was planning to take the necklace back to the city, but as we’ve been told we can’t leave, I needed to get rid of it. So I asked my friend if he knew anyone in Rudolph.” As she talked, Muriel stopped crying. She blew her nose with vigor and wiped her eyes with a tissue.
The mother story may or may not have been true, and the necklace wasn’t worth all that much. And, I have to confess, I didn’t much care if spoiled Erica got her property back or not. But I was getting the feeling that timid, mild-mannered Muriel was starting to get a little too comfortable in the shady world of fencing goods, and no doubt also enjoying the sensation of putting something over on her hated boss. If this didn’t end now, it would not end well.
I handed her the bag. “I don’t care what story you come up with, but see that Erica gets this back.”
She looked at me through puffy red eyes. “You’re not going to call the police?”
“Not if you return it. Take my advice, Muriel. Give this up. You will get caught, sooner or later, and next time it might not be by someone willing to give you a break. How’s your mom going to manage if you’re in prison. Have you thought about that?”
She had the grace to lower her head. “You’re right, Merry,” she mumbled into her tissue. “I’ve had enough of this petty thieving.”
The sun was fully up now, and the day was getting warm. As we talked, a fishing boat pulled up to the dock. A man leapt out and ran for his car. He backed the car slowly down the ramp and into the shallow water, while his friend guided the boat into position. They paid no attention to the two women sitting on the bench or the big dog watching.
I stood up. “I’m going home, and then into work. I expect to hear that the lost item has been found before noon.”
“Thank you. You’re nicer than I expected you to be.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No, I mean it. You were engaged to Max, so I thought you’d be as mean as Erica is. As mean as he was. I’m not sorry he’s dead, you know. He was starting to ask questions about all the things Erica kept losing.”
Chapter 11
I stared after the Lexus as it turned onto the street and headed back toward Rudolph.
Muriel had just handed me a motive for the killing of Max.
If Max was beginning to suspect Muriel was stealing from Erica, he wouldn’t let it be. He’d set out to prove it. I had no doubt, and I’m sure Muriel didn’t, either, that if he did, he’d report her to the police. Even in the best-case scenario, Muriel would be out of a job and probably unemployable once word got around that she was a thief.
Muriel was Erica’s alibi for the death of Max. I’d dismissed that on the grounds that Muriel would say anything Erica told her to. That meant, of course, that Erica was Muriel’s alibi.
Erica would have no reason, that I could see, to lie for Muriel. But they might have agreed, perhaps even without saying the words, to avoid pesky police questions by saying they’d been together at the time Max died.
I untied Mattie and we headed home.
If Muriel had murdered Max—and it was a heck of a big if—because he knew she was stealing, then might she now think she had to get rid of me for the same reason? What if she didn’t trust me not to tell what I’d learned? I eyed the big dog trotting happily beside me. I was glad he was there.
With all I’d just found out about Muriel and the necklace, I’d almost forgotten about Jackie. Kyle wasn’t the brightest bulb on our town Christmas tree, but he wasn’t a total idiot. I tried to remember what he’d said. Jackie was waiting for me to do something. What on earth could that possibly mean? Did Kyle know that for a fact, or had he decided it was probably the case? Was he communicating with Jackie? I should have pressed him harder, but I couldn’t handle both Kyle and Muriel at the same time and talk about two different topics. Now that I knew, or suspected, Kyle was aware of Jackie’s whereabouts, or at least that he was in touch with her, I should tell Detective Simmonds. But then I’d feel like a snitch. Surely Simmonds had asked him. She might even be keeping him under observation. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk so suddenly, Mattie jerked on the leash. He glanced back at me with a questioning look.
Was Kyle under observation? I hadn’t seen any sign of police activity at the boat launch, but that was sorta the point of surveillance, wasn’t it, to keep out of sight. Had the police filmed me handling stolen goods? I tried to remember what had happened. I had the necklace in my hands. I took it out of the bag, saw what it was, and then gave it back to Muriel. Even if they weren’t able to get close enough to see or hear what had happened, had they seen me going to the boat launch, shortly after Kyle and only moments prior to Muriel arriving?
The day was hot, but despite the fact that I was lightly dressed, a trickle of sweat ran down my back. Were the police even now sitting around a table in a room lit by only a single bare lightbulb, swigging lukewarm coffee, munching on doughnuts, and deciding whether or not to bring me in?
I looked up and down the street. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to me.
I gave my head a mental shake and continued walking. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and if Simmonds asked me about it, I’d simply tell her what happened and what I’d been told. I was letting my imagination run away with itself.
As for whether or not I should phone her and tell her about Kyle and Jackie, I decided not to. Not right now anyway. It was all nothing but speculation. Kyle might be as much in the dark as me or anyone else.
Murder, theft, kidnapping, betrayal. Everything stops for garbage. Monday is garbage pickup for our street. When we got home, I took the leash off Mattie and left him to play in the yard while I went upstairs for my trash. I bagged it, tossed it into the bin I share with Steve and Wendy, and dragged it around to the front. On the way back, Mrs. D’Angelo waylaid me, demanding to know how the police investigation was going. Why she thought I would know (and tell her if I did) I didn’t know. Until now, no one in Rudolph had ever had a bad word to say about Jackie O’Reilly. Suddenly it seemed as though everyone in town, Mrs. D’Angelo’s vast network of gossips anyway, had always known there was “something bad about that girl.” She had been spotted, I was informed, heading for the Canadian border. I should know better, but I forgot, and I pointed out that that would not be wise. First, there were guards at the border, and second, we had an extradition treaty with that country. Jackie would be arrested and returned to face American justice.
“Sources also tell me she caught a flight to Brazil,” Mrs. D’Angelo said smugly. “It’s much harder to bring a fugitive back from Brazil. Don’t you read the newspapers, Merry?”
“Obviously not enough,” I said, admitting defeat. I left her making a call and breathlessly saying to someone, “Merry Wilkinson told me . . .”
As soon as I walked into our fenced backyard, I could tell something was wrong with Mattie. He limped (did not run or jump) toward me. His expressive liquid brown eyes were full of pain, and he let out a plaintive whimper.
I dropped to the grass and let him crawl onto my lap. The part of him that would fit, anyway. He’d been holding his right front paw off the ground. I checked it, and found several thorns embedded in the soft flesh of the pad. “You poor thing. Wait right here.” I got to my feet. “Stay!”
I ran upstairs for tweezers. When I returned, he was chewing at the paw. Very carefully, hoping not to break them, I pulled the thorns out. They came easily, releasing no more than a few drops of blood. I prodded gently, searching for any that might be imbedded too deeply for me to see, but I felt nothing. I left Mattie cleaning his wounds and went to look for the source of the thorns. It was not hard to find. The yard was getting so badly overgrown that in the far corner a batch of bramble, including blackberry bushes, was running away from the fence to crawl across the ground. I’d cut the worst of them bac
k now and take care of cleaning up the rest of the yard after work. I went to the shed for the garden shears.
For a minute I wondered why Steve and Wendy, my neighbors, had dumped their camping gear in the garden shed. Then I remembered. They were camping. They’d gone to a reunion at Steve’s grandparents’ cottage on Lake Muskoka in Ontario. They told me the historic old building was no longer big enough for the rapidly growing family, so Steve and the male cousins would camp on the property, while Wendy and little Tina shared the bedrooms with the old folks and the young mothers and their children.
This wasn’t their stuff.
All the clutter of our garden shed had been pushed to one side. A sleeping bag and pillow were neatly laid out on a thin camping mattress. A single set of plastic picnic dishes sat on an overturned box, along with cutlery, a can opener, a large unopened bag of salt-and-vinegar chips, a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter, a couple of cans of soup and one of Chef Boyardee ravioli. A romance novel with a lurid purple cover featuring a bare-chested pirate and an almost-bare-chested woman fainting into his manly arms rested on top of the sleeping bag.
Someone had taken up residence in my garden shed. As it was unlikely to be a passing hobo, it could be only one person.
Jackie.
No doubt aided and abetted by Kyle, who kept her supplied with reading material and food. Foot forgotten, Mattie had wandered over to sniff around in the shed. “That’s what you’ve been so interested in,” I said to him. “Next time, I’ll pay more attention to you. Not that there’s going to be a next time.”
Jackie’s stuff was here, but Jackie was not. It did look, however, as though she was planning to return. She probably snuck off in the mornings when I’d be up and about with Mattie, getting ready for work, and returned when I’d gone.
This morning, work would have to wait. I glanced around the yard, looking for something to put in front of the door to tell me when she was once again in residence. A ball would do it. The door opened outward and would push the ball out of the way.
I backed out, calling Mattie to follow, and found one of his balls. After the tenth attempt to get him to leave the ball in place, I had to take him into the house first. Obviously more training was required.
Finally, the trap was set to my satisfaction, and I went inside. I spread antibiotic ointment on Mattie’s paw, and then I distracted him from licking it off before it soaked into the skin by serving his breakfast. I made coffee and prepared a meal of muesli and yogurt with fresh raspberries for myself. My bedroom overlooks the backyard, and the walls are thick in this old house. A comfortable window seat is set into a cheerful alcove, painted fresh white and piled with yellow and sage green pillows. Over the winter, I love to curl up there to read and watch the falling snow. Now, feeling like Sherlock Holmes in “The Adventure of the Empty House,” I set up surveillance. If Jackie was hidden someplace, watching for me to leave, then my plan was doomed. I thought that unlikely. This was a neighborhood of comfortable homes and well-maintained gardens on a street that led directly to the main stretch of our busy town. It would be hard for her to watch my house while keeping herself concealed. The store opened at ten. Jackie would know that I’d leave by nine forty-five at the latest, as she wasn’t there to open up for me. Therefore, I expected Jackie to return to her lair around ten. I’d brought a book with me and settled down to pass the time. Mattie curled up in his dog bed for a nap.
Jackie must have moved quietly, because when I next glanced out the window, the ball had rolled to the other side of the lawn. “Showtime,” I said to Mattie.
We went downstairs and across the yard. I didn’t want to give her a fright, so I made a lot of noise. Mattie ran on ahead of me, tail wagging. He woofed a greeting and scratched at the door of the shed. Someone was in there, all right.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” I rapped on the door. “Jackie, I know you’re in there.”
The door opened a crack. One eye peeked out. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
The eye moved away, and I pulled the door fully open and walked in. She was still in the clothes she’d been wearing on Saturday. She needed a bath and her hair could use a wash.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“Jackie, the police are looking for you. Heavens, the whole town’s looking for you. Your picture has been in the Gazette.”
“I saw it. I saw the Chronicle, too. When I get my hands on Madison Morrison, I’ll kill her.”
“Who the heck is Madison Morrison?”
“A friend.” Jackie made quotes in the air. “From high school. She must have given them that picture. I recognize her basement. She used to have the best parties, ’cause her parents went away a lot and trusted her to behave. Bad idea.”
“Jackie! I couldn’t care less about your high school parties or the picture. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Where? To the police, of course. You were witness to a murder.” I was suddenly aware that I was alone in a backyard shed with a suspected killer. We were surrounded by garden implements, sharp secateurs, long-bladed shears, even a small saw. As no one was paying him his due attention, Mattie had wandered off. “That is all you are, right? A witness.”
Jackie hung her head. For heaven’s sake, what was I thinking? This was my shop assistant, not a cold-blooded killer. “Jackie, why are you hiding here?”
“Because I couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. Steve and Wendy are away, and I know you’re not exactly into gardening.”
“Weren’t you afraid of Mrs. D’Angelo spotting you? She’s always standing at the window.”
“There’s a loose board in the fence, so I can come in through the yard next door. They’re on vacation.”
“How do you know there’s a loose board in my fence when I don’t even know it?”
“Kyle said.”
How Kyle knew about modes of illicit ingress into my yard was something I’d worry about later.
“Kyle’s been great, Merry. He’s been bringing me supplies and food and everything.”
“You can’t stay here, Jackie. I’ll take you to the police station. You have to tell them what you saw.”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t see anything? What’s all this hiding about then?”
“I’d just about kill for a cup of coffee. I wanted Kyle to bring me a kettle, but you don’t have any electricity in this shed, Merry, and I was afraid if I built a fire you’d see it.”
I didn’t know which was worse, that Jackie was reprimanding me for not having electricity run into the garden shed, or that she even considered building a bonfire. I pushed aside dual images of my backyard in flames and the police raiding it as a suspected cannabis-growing operation.
“Come inside and I’ll make coffee,” I said. “While I’m doing that, you can tell me what’s going on, and then I’ll take you to the police station. If you don’t come with me, Jackie, I have to tell them I found you. You can’t hide forever.”
“Okay. I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account, Merry.”
She sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter while I made coffee. Aside from the dirty clothes and unkempt appearance, she looked totally dejected. “I really like working for you, Merry. The store’s a fun place and you’re a good boss. Well, you’re better than other bosses I’ve had.”
“Thanks. I guess. But I don’t see what your employment has to do with anything.” I put the sugar bowl on the counter and dug in the fridge for the cream.
She took a breath. Water hissed and the coffeepot began to fill. “I didn’t see anything when that guy died because I wasn’t there.”
“You weren’t in the office?”
“I wasn’t in the store.”
“Did you
run for help?” I poured a cup before it finished brewing and slid it across the counter to her. She added a slug of cream and two heaped spoons of sugar. “Not exactly. You were helping your dad, and I knew you’d be down at the park for a couple of hours. I left.”
“What!”
“I’m sorry, Merry. But everyone was at the park having fun. Kyle was wearing his cute ice cream seller outfit, and my friend Kate had a stall to sell her mom’s stained glass ornaments. I wanted to see them. I thought I’d be back before you and you’d never know. It’s not as though we were going to have any customers anyway.” She pouted.
“That’s hardly the point. Why didn’t you lock the door? Anyone could have walked in off the street. Come to think of it, anyone did!”
“I forgot my key at home. You were at the shop before me, remember.”
“We’ll talk about that later. If you weren’t there when Max was killed, why have you been hiding?”
She twisted the mug in her hands and stared into its depths. “When I got back, police cars were everywhere, cops going into your store. Candy Campbell was standing outside not letting anyone in. I thought there’d been a theft. I’d left the door unlocked, so someone had come in and cleaned the place out. I couldn’t walk in and tell you I’d been there all the time, could I? I thought, well, I guess I thought if I hid for a while, you’d get over being mad.”
I was speechless. She had left my shop unattended, the door unlocked, and gone to the park like some grounded preteen kid climbing out the bedroom window to get to the party.
“When I heard someone had been killed in the store, I was afraid the cops would think I’d done it. And they did, didn’t they? That’s what the Chronicle said.”
“I don’t know what the police are thinking, but they’re looking at many possible suspects.”
“Kyle said I should lay low for a while and let you figure out what happened. Then I’d be in the clear, and you’d have gotten over being mad.”