A Deadly Snow Fall

by Cynthia Gallant-Simpson

  “Only the odd, I’d say.”

  Wednesday morning found us at Mary Malone’s cozy house sitting in comfy chairs with antimacassars. I had weakened and decided to share my plan with James. After all, the Edwin Snow death was now officially a possible murder case. In addition, with arson, blackmail and a cold case torso in Mary Malone’s garden, it seemed we ought to achieve more working as a team.

  Patton had just been bathed and coiffed at veterinarian Taylor Eastman’s pet grooming parlor where mostly dogs but the occasional cat came out looking “best in show.” Patton was grinning from ear to ear looking spit and polished and seemed to be seeking compliments. “Oh Patton, you are so handsome. What a fine looking fellow you are.” This got me lots of wet, doggie kisses. Mary laughed and it was obvious that she was enjoying her new companion.

  We had come to discuss a female partial skeleton found in her garden, but Mary appeared undisturbed. Greeting us at her front door wearing a butter yellow sweater set with a pearl necklace, a matching skirt and old lady sturdy white tie shoes, she might have stepped out of a children’s book. A beloved grandmother. Greeting visitors for tea.

  “Come in, children; come in. Isn’t it a fine day? My flowers are coming up daily. I love this season, don’t you?”

  “So nice of you to have us, Mary, and, yes, it is a grand day indeed.” The lilt of James’s voice spoke of four leaf clovers and warm from the oven Irish soda bread. The man was certainly a charmer. But a charmer as solid and sincere as the rolling green hills of Eire. Definitely a keeper.

  “I wonder, dear,” she said to James, “if you’d put this fellow out into the backyard. He’s needing a bit of fresh air; been in all morning keeping me company. Now that you are here, it’s time for him to go and frolic about a bit. Such a good companion he’s become to me.”

  James led Patton to the back door and out he went, but instead of frolicking the dog walked to the very center of the fenced-in yard, lay down with his chin on his paws and gazed in the direction of his former home. Of course, there was nothing to see but a raked-over blackened scar on the land. I wondered if tears were running down the handsome white and black face spoiling his body coiffure.

  “Coffee or tea, dears?”

  “Whatever you are having Mrs. Malone. Thanks.”

  The conversation took off on its own independent course as Mrs. Malone told us stories about the old days in town and about some of the old town characters. She told us about the fish weirs just offshore that trapped tinker mackerel and how she and Edwin, when they were youngsters, would go out to buy a bucket of them from the old fisherman who tended them. “His name was Harry Mutt, so all the children made fun of him calling him Dog Man and Mixed Breed. Children are often not very kind.”

  “Was Edwin a good friend to you, Mrs. Malone?”

  “It’s just Mary, dear. And, yes; we were the best of friends all through childhood but later…when he came back from Yale, he’d grown mean. Just like old Ned, his father.”

  “Do you recall anything odd going on over next door, Mrs. Malone, way back?”

  “Odd, you say? Well, dear, you’ve come to the right place. There were a lot of odd things going on over there all the time. I know everything about that balmy family. You see Edwin and I are, well, we were, until he died, the same age. I was born in this house on a stormy November day and two months later Edwin was born next door. Didn’t run off to the hospital back in those days to have babies. Well, the closest hospital was in Plymouth anyway so why set out to drive a hundred miles and just have the little one on the way? Better for a woman to stay snug in her own home and her own bed with the local midwife there to attend to her in her important moment. Ours was Maggie Crocker. She delivered ninety-six babies in her long career. Imagine that? Everyone called her Mother Goose, just like in the nursery rhymes. Because she kept geese.”

  “What wonderful memories you have, Mary.” I was fascinated and wanted to hear more. I nearly lost track of why we’d come, but the afternoon was young and all I had waiting for me was an eight bedroom inn waiting to be prepared for the long busy summer season. C’est la vie.

  “My mother survived, but Edwin’s did not. The poor little motherless tyke was nursed by my mother. She told me how she’d have one on one side and the other on the other side, and that is why we grew up more like siblings than just neighbors. My mother never understood why sweet Annabelle Jenkins ever married that nasty thieving Ned Snow in the first place. But once he had a son, my mother at least expected him to take some interest in the tiny innocent baby. But he couldn’t have cared less. So poor Edwin spent most of his childhood in our house. My mother took him in like a stray cat. Fed him, made sure he put on his boots and mittens, made his school lunches and patched up his skinned knees. Edwin loved my mother like she was his own. Old Ned Snow just went about his business stealing land for back taxes and putting people on the street with never a fare thee well. Never even knew where his son slept of a night. Imagine?”

  “So, you and Edwin probably had no secrets, then?” Time to detour the fascinating trip down memory lane at this juncture before we got too far off of a winning tack. Mary’s lead-in seemed a good opportunity for me to take the tiller. James’s eyes said, tread carefully.

  “You know how it is, Liz. When you get to the teen years, boys get weird.” That brought laughter. Mary put out her hand and lay it on James’s hand. “But, probably not you, dear boy. I suspect you’ve always been sweet and reliable.” James actually blushed.

  “What I mean is,” she turned toward James, “boys are so silly and immature and such…what is it my nieces say? Oh yes, dorks. Well, that was when Edwin and I began to drift apart. However, the drift became a chasm when he returned from Yale and just stayed. He had no ambition. He was wasting all that fine education. I blame that strange group he joined at Yale--Skull and Bones.”

  “Did you talk after that? When he came home and just hung around?” I hoped she would tell us why he made such an odd life choice.

  “No. Well, by then I had met my husband-to-be. Although I had loved Edwin for all of my growing up and actually believed he loved me and that naturally we’d marry one day, I finally realized it was not going to happen. My Charles was a good man. I decided not to wait so I married Charles.”

  “Did his father mind his being home again?” James asked.

  “From what I could tell, Edwin and old Ned just sort of bumped along on their separate roads through life as they always had. Lived in the same house but they might have been living in different towns.” Mary looked toward the place where the house once stood.

  “Did his father support him?” I asked.

  “Didn’t need to. Edwin had a sizable trust fund. However, until he turned twenty-one, he received only a small, monthly stipend. Later, when he came of age, he had control of his own money. Up until then, however, the old man paid for school and books and such, although most reluctantly. I do remember letters to me from Edwin when he was still at college complaining about how he had to beg his father for money when his monthly stipend didn’t stretch far enough.

  Her eyes misted over and we looked away to give her time to gather her emotions.

  “His letters to me were few and far between by then, but I do know that there were times at Yale when he went hungry. I started sending him care packages. Son of the richest man in town and I was using my allowance to send him cans of baked beans and Spam and boxed cookies.”

  “Can you tell us about Edwin and Rosita Gonsalves?”

  “Always liked Rosita. That is, until she left poor Edwin standing at the altar feeling like a fool. I was there that day and my heart just broke. I suppose that time stands pretty much alone as a day when the entire town felt pity for poor Edwin Snow. Over the years I’ve thought about how strange it was that the two women who caused havoc and loss in Edwin’s life were Portuguese.”

  “Edwin’s mother was Portuguese, Mary?”

  “No, no, dear. It was his father’s kept g
irl. That tramp, Estrella. She came to live with old Ned while Edwin was away at college. No shame at all. It was she who convinced the old man to cut his own flesh and blood out of his will and leave his millions to her. Traipsing around like she did half naked in front of proper neighbors. Well, she got her just desserts, now didn’t she?”

  Silence. James and I shared a look of confusion. Had Estrella’s just desserts been murder, I wondered? I could feel James having a similar thought. So, Edwin had come home and killed the interloper who was after his father’s wealth. Made sense. Then, afterwards he gave up on any plans he’d had for a career and just slipped into a miasma of guilt and ennui. He lost all interest in life and since every one expected him to be like his father anyway, why not fulfill their expectations? A psychologist’s dream patient. I pulled my mind back from my sleuth’s daydream. It seemed we might have the answer to the cold case. Edwin as murderer of his father’s wild gold-digging mistress.

  I opened my mouth to speak but James put his finger up to his lips and we sat silent. I knew he feared interrupting the flow of the story. Once again, Mary picked up where she’d left off.

  “Ned, of course, had no concern for the scandal he was involved in. He lived with her openly and she flaunted her flashy clothes and jewelry all over town.”

  James had said the arson squad found a trunk full of women’s flashy clothes in Edwin’s office that survived the fire. So, they belonged to old Ned’s mistress. But, why would Edwin have kept them? Well, no accounting for the deranged mind of a killer.

  “When Edwin found out that the old man had written him out of the will in favor of his girlfriend he came to me. Knew I’d never judge him and always be there to put a band-aid on his wounds. Just like my mother. But, I wanted to be more than a surrogate mother to Edwin.” Mary sighed deeply. “I remember him sitting in my kitchen just seething. Why, I thought his head would go up in flames, he was that mad.”

  “What did he do? Did he move out of his father’s house?”

  “No, he just dug himself in like a mole, refusing to leave his room. But I knew he snuck out after dark and went into town to drink with his pals. The few pals he had left. Then one day, like a miracle, Estrella was gone. There at breakfast and gone by midnight. Everyone just figured she and the old man had quarreled and she left to punish him.” Mary grew quiet, contemplative.

  “If she was a local girl, Mary, hadn’t someone missed her? Wasn’t Estrella reported missing?” James’s mind grabbed onto this story like a tick on a deer.

  “She was a half-breed. That’s what the Portuguese-Indians were called back then. No longer politically correct, according to Bill Windship. But, you know what I mean. Estrella was sort of adopted by a local family. Norm and Millie Tavares over to The Point took her in. Never legally adopted her but just as well. Estrella was a wild thing. Nothing but trouble from the day they gave her a home. She was pure blooded Wampanoag on her mother’s side and her father was from Portugal. Both of them drowned on a trip back from Boston on a coastal schooner, but the baby was found floating on top of a trunk in the bay. Everyone else drowned. After she turned sixteen she took her mother’s Indian name, Proudfoot. Princess Proudfoot she called herself. The old man only encouraged her by watching her dance around like a wild Indian in the backyard.”

  Proudfoot. Princess Proudfoot! The name ricocheted around in my brain as if it was a squash court. Then it came to me. Emily, or Eloise, had contacted a Princess Proudfoot. Nosy Emily would probably have picked up that Estrella was related. She made it her life’s mission to know everything about everyone, even going back into the history of the village. Was her story about the old sacred tribal burial ground just a ruse to put me off--or a solid clue? Did Emily know that Edwin killed his father’s mistress? And if she did know, then it made sense that she might have been blackmailing him with this knowledge? But why? What could Emily have hoped to gain and now that he was dead why not tell what she knew? I couldn’t wait to share this with James.

  Mary perked up and continued with her story. “Before the tramp left, I’d see through the windows at night when they had the place lit up like a bonfire. They’d be dancing and snuggling. It was disgusting. Old Ned was ancient by that time, but he was sashaying around like he was a boy. Well, he’d never cared what anyone thought of him anyway. Then, Estrella was gone. Edwin came home to stay and the rest is history as they say.” Mary’s face clouded over and she sighed deeply. Patton scratched at the back door and Mary rose to let him in. Patton came to sit at Mary’s feet looking up at her with concerned eyes.

  Pouring more tea for us all, Mary continued her story although it was obvious that something vital was missing. She’d slipped a piece of the puzzle into her pocket. I could see the hole but was at a loss to fill it. “Ungrateful boy. Not a word or thanks. Made me wonder why I’d even bothered doing it for him.”

  “Mrs. Malone, did you ever speak to Estrella when she was living with Edwin’s father?” I asked, hoping Mary’s answer might lead back to the question of what she did for Edwin for which she’d received no thanks.

  “Occasionally over the garden fence, but she was not our kind. My husband used to make furniture for people, special things with fine details and his workshop in our cellar is still there. It was just a hobby but he was good at it. He had all the right tools and he was so proud of them. I oil his tools and keep everything really nice in his memory. Once she ordered a table from him but he refused to make it because she was living in flagrant sin and he told her that in no uncertain terms. That was the end of any neighborly communication. My husband died soon after.”

  “Then she disappeared from one day to the next, Mary?”

  A simple, “yes” and Mary appeared ready to shut down just like the controlling Eloise. But I was not about to let that happen. Not when we’d come so close. I looked to James and he gave me the silent high sign.

  “So, once Estrella was out of the way, the inheritance reverted back to Edwin. Correct, Mary?”

  “Yes, dear; that was why…well now, how about some nice chocolate chip cookies, dear?” We were so close. There was no way I was going to let Mary avoid what I was afraid she had to tell and was trying to skirt around as if it shouldn’t matter. I was sure that for all the years since Estrella disappeared, Mary had neatly compartmentalized her deed and labeled it, naughty but necessary.

  “You would have done anything for Edwin; wouldn’t you, Mary?” I hoped the affection and understanding in my voice would earn the woman’s confidence.

  Mary leaned down to scratch Patton behind the ears. Returning to our eyes intent upon her, she paled and seemed to slip into a semi-trance. Her words got a bit slurred as if she’d been into the elderberry wine. She spoke but not to us. Looking into space, she spoke to Edwin. Wherever the old coot had gone in the after-life.

  “I had to impress you with just how much I loved you. I was sure you would be grateful and realize what a great sacrifice I’d made for you and love me back. I was widowed by then and I could have made you happy. Not like that Rosita who gave her favors to others and left you to be the ridicule of the whole town.”

  Before James could speak, I was jumping into the ring. “So you took matters into your own hands, didn’t you Mary?”

  James looked at me with wide eyes. He reached out and took Mary’s hands in his.

  Mary turned to James and smiled at him but said not a word. I worried that the thread had been broken and we’d find out no more. There was a long silence and then Mary began speaking again. She was calm and seemingly transfixed on what she saw in her mind’s eye, a place far away in time and space where the present company could not follow her.

  “Edwin came home that last summer before everything changed for good. That was when he found out what his father had done. That awful Estrella taunted him, telling him what she was going to do after his father died and she was a rich woman. She was going to Paris and Rome and she was going to buy furs and jewels and on and on she went.”

/>   “Did he confront his father about the will, Mary?”

  “No dear. No one confronted old Ned. No one. No, Edwin just simmered and drank and ran around with a rough crowd. That drunken artist and his wife and their city friends took him under their wings and taught him lots of bad ways.”

  “So, that was when be began seeing Rosita Gonsalves, Mary?”

  Mary didn’t answer but once again slipped into a kind of free association drift and I was sure the scene she was seeing was not the present but something that happened over sixty years ago.

  “When Edwin went to New York that winter weekend like a fool traipsing after those artsy people, I happened to be out in the yard on the Saturday. It was a mild day but there was Estrella muffled up in furs the old man had bought her. I suddenly had such a fine idea it startled me. It would be so simple. So neat and clean. I called to her and invited her over to tea. Old Ned was down with the gout and the doctor had him all drugged up for the pain. He slept right through and woke around midnight to find her gone. She never suspected that I was being anything but a friendly neighbor and came right over.

  “I invited her to come in by the cellar door and, slipping behind her silently, I locked the door. There she was in her leopard coat looking like a trapped animal. I had set the perfect trap for the jungle cat. All it took was hitting her over the head with an axe and then there were all those lovely saws and rippers just waiting to send the slattern to H. E. L. L.”

  We both sat shocked but silent. Equally surprising as her grisly story was Mary’s tone that she might have used to report on a successful bake sale. Mary smiled a sweet grandmotherly smile at James and patted his hands. Was she expecting congratulations for her heartfelt deed?