A Deadly Snow Fall

by Cynthia Gallant-Simpson

  “So, you took Estrella’s body and cut it up and buried some of it in your garden and hid some bones around town in other people’s gardens, Mary?” The handsome Irish cop’s voice was unsteady, shocked that the cookie-baking woman could have done something so dastardly.

  “Oh, no, dear, at least not right away. No. I dragged her out into my backyard and dug a hole and pushed her in. I was still young and strong and she was only a bag of bones, anyway.” She laughed at her own macabre joke but James and I sat quietly, barely breathing.

  “Some time later, after I read a very good mystery, I think it was either Agatha Christie or Somerset Maugham…no, I think it might have been Mary Roberts Rinehart. No, now I remember; it was Poe. I got the idea of cutting her up and doing what a maniacal killer might do. Figured if the police ever came looking and found her I’d tell them the old man went wild and did it. I’d say I was frightened for my own life, so I kept mum. I had such a fine story all made up about it. It began to seem like a lot of fun. Like a movie.”

  “So, you cut Estrella in pieces and did what with the pieces, Mary?” James looked gray.

  “I tried to get into the mind of a terrible murderer. First, I cut off one leg and then one hand. I planned to cut her all up like a Sunday roast and then spread the pieces around the town. Wasn’t that a good plan? Sounds like a really scary movie, doesn’t it, dears?”

  We nodded. Mary’s mind was going fast. She did not see anything wrong in what she had done to Estrella. After all, she’d been motivated by the deepest of love.

  “I soon grew tired of that, you see. After I took her leg and buried it in Libby’s garden and her hand in the Gonsalves’s garden, that was it. Changed my plan.”

  “Mary, why Libby’s and the Gonsalves’? Was there some important meaning behind those choices?’

  “Yes, dear. Libby always loved a good mystery. Thought one day to tell her and we’d get a good laugh out of it. The hand, though, in the Gonsalves’s garden was a kind of tribute. To Rosita. You see, although I’d been very angry with her for leaving poor Edwin at the altar, I later came around. One day, Rosita’s mother told me that she knew where her daughter was and that she’d had Edwin’s baby. Well, you can imagine my shock. Told me that Rosita had written to Edwin telling him about the baby and asking for financial assistance. He’d flatly refused her. The Gonsalves didn’t have much at the time. With all those children and just a little store to support them, they couldn’t help their daughter. So, as I had plenty of money, I began sending her checks each month for the little girl, Edna. Edwin’s child.” Tears ran down Mary’s face and I handed her a tissue. She smiled and patted my hand.

  Poor Mary had slipped a cog right before our eyes. For some reason, it occurred to me, I was sounding very much like Daphne. Oh, well; shock does funny things to a person.

  A deep breath and she was back to her story. James reached under the table for my hand. Together we waited for what was to come.

  “Can you imagine? Edwin actually laughed when I told him I’d killed her for him so he could be happy again? Ungrateful man. Then he went and proposed to Rosita Gonsalves. Treated me like some kind of hired help. Like he’d hired me to kill the interloper so he could ride off on his high horse with the prettiest girl in town.”

  “Did he ever mention it again, Mary?”

  “No. Not until recently, that is. We hadn’t spoken a word in years and then one night not long before he died, he came to the door and asked if he could come in. Well, I was all alone and a little company is nice now and then, even an ungrateful rat like Edwin Snow III.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He got to recalling lots of things about the old days, but I knew he was up to something. All that fondness for the old days was just a way to try to get to me. Soften me up. He asked me to do something for him. A special favor. He was having some trouble and he wanted me to help him, as he said, “because you’ve done something like it before.” When he told me what he wanted, I flatly refused to help him. He was really angry and called me a hypocrite. Said that once someone has done one murder the others came easily. Imagine that?”

  “He asked you to murder someone, Mary?” James looked shocked but I had an idea of who that someone had been that Edwin wanted disposed of. A thorn in his side. Someone demanding some of his precious money. The blackmailer.

  “I refused to listen to why he wanted that sweet woman killed. Such a kind and sincere person, so concerned with the welfare of the town’s citizens.”

  Emily Sunshine. Blazing before my eyes in neon letters, the name slipped into the gaping hole in the puzzle. Hypotheses: Emily found out about Edwin’s father’s mistress, the change in the will and that Estrella had suddenly disappeared. Of course, most likely it had been Mary Malone who’d told her. How opportune. The richest man in town and Emily had the goods on him. Why not blackmail? Emily certainly wasn’t getting rich telling fortunes.

  No time to think this through any further as Mary began a slow motion slide toward the floor. James reached out and prevented her from hitting the wood floor. Placing her on the nearby loveseat, he looked completely crestfallen. It occurred to me that with his sweet sensitivity to people’s troubles, it was a good thing he worked in a small village rather than a city. I covered Mary with an afghan and reached out to James who came into my arms for a reassuring hug.

  Coming out of the faint, Mary Malone’s first words were, “More tea, dears?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Police Chief Chet Henderson sat behind his desk and Mary Malone sat across from him. It was the day after our amazing meeting at Mary’s house and she seemed not to have been adversely affected by all that she’d told us.

  Mary sat there as if she had been invited to an afternoon strawberry social. The Chief offered her tea and she accepted. Annie Cannon, the Chief’s ever so efficient secretary, served our hot drinks and a plate of her homemade chocolate pecan dried cranberry cookies. We all settled in as if ready for a pleasant talk. However, if Mary was ready and willing to repeat her story for the Chief, there was unlikely to be a pleasant out-coming.

  Annie, with her notebook on her lap waiting to take down the discussion; the Chief sitting behind his desk with the painting of his dear departed wife Trudy hanging on the wall behind him; Mary in the hot seat; James standing by the desk and I sitting across the room might have been a tableau of a Norman Rockwell painting entitled, The Town Sherriff Entertains.

  No one was prepared for the Chief’s abrupt official opening to the meeting.

  “Mary, dear, did you kill Edwin?”

  “Gracious no. Chester, dear, how could you entertain such a thought? All right, I must admit that I did entertain that idea but soon passed on it. After all, I loved the man, even after he grew to be as nasty as old Ned. No, instead he did it himself when he jumped. The man was of no use to himself or anyone else, now was he?”

  “But you did kill Estrella Costa, correct? And Edwin wanted you to kill Emily Sunshine, is that also correct, Mary, dear?” James and I had gone over every detail of our meeting the previous day with Mary for the Chief. He was right on top of it and in his best form regardless of the constant pain he lived with.

  “Oh, dear me, Chester; why don’t we just forget all this nastiness, shall we? It’s all over now. No good can come of digging up such old doings. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about things that happened so long ago.”

  “Oh, how I wish it were that easy, Mary, dear.”

  It seemed to me that Mary’s mental state was so fragile that at any moment she might just shut down, hidden from reality in a place where all of the answers we needed would be forever unavailable to us. As the Chief reached for the bottle of aspirins and a glass of water, it occurred to me that one more vital question had to be asked before Mary slipped away from us as it seemed she might be doing.

  “May I ask Mary a question, Sir?”

  The Chief smiled at me and nodded. I stood and moved my chair up next to Mary’s
and she turned to face me. It was now or never.

  “Mary, the night of the fire at the Snow place, you said something that I’ve been wondering about. You said something to the effect that the fire would have driven something, some things, away. The fact seemed to please you very much. What were those things to which you were referring, Mary?”

  “Dear, Elizabeth; the ghosts, of course.”

  “The ghosts? Do you mean that the Snow house had ghosts?”

  “Oh my, yes. Although they used to reside at the Cranberry Inn, your Aunt Libby’s place. But that’s a story you should ask dear Emily to tell. It’s her story too. She was there that night when they were sent away.”

  When the Chief had heard enough, he had James drive Mary home before he called Doc to have him schedule an appointment with a good psychiatrist in Boston. Mary was hardly a flight risk and the sixty year old murder of Estrella would require some deep thought for Chet Henderson. Much to his chagrin, the Chief’s beloved hometown was becoming a hotbed of intrigue. In other words--a damned nuisance for a man who ought to have retired already and was now reconsidering just that move.

  Later, James and I sat in a window seat at Napi’s, sipping Mojitos, trying to gel the surprising day into something we could manage. The very cold case of the wandering bones could be closed. But we still had other mysteries to unlock. I didn’t say so at that time but I was pretty sure I knew who set the Snow house ablaze; I just needed a little more information that meant another visit to the miasma of the Fairies in the Garden shop. I sneezed in negative anticipation and James handed me a crisply ironed white handkerchief.

  I took a deep drink of the cocktail that tasted like summer in a glass. I needed some answers from Emily to close the arson case. What a complete surprise I had in store. Striving to keep my face unreadable to my favorite Irish cop, I said, “Just one more thing I want to check out, James.”

  “You have that mysterious look on your face, woman. Just promise me it’s not a dangerous mission you’re pursuing. This thing is still volatile until we put it to bed. Not everything is known yet for sure. No danger, okay?”

  “Don’t worry; no danger.” I crossed my fingers under the table.

  “Hello! Emily! Anyone here?” I called out but the shop felt empty. Well, empty only considering that there were no customers and Emily was not in evidence. But empty of stuff it was not. Even more stuff than usual it looked like. The smog, however, was the same as always. It had reached critical mass and, I believed, couldn’t get any worse. Not that that helped my stricken sinuses.

  “Why, hello, dear; come to have your fortune told today?” Emily came through the front door that she always left unlocked when she slipped out to get some lunch. She was looking very pretty in a turquoise cotton dress. More bright color than I’d ever seen her wearing.

  “No, actually I have two reasons for being here. I realized recently that I failed to pay for your services on the two occasions when you…and Eloise were so helpful to my inquiries.”

  “No, dear; not necessary. After all, you are helping the police with their investigation so as a good citizen, it’s my duty to assist for free.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but I really feel that I should pay you.”

  Emily smiled and motioned me to sit at the lace covered table. She placed her hands on the table palms down waiting. I felt obliged to say something.

  “All right. Perhaps I could treat you to lunch one day soon.” Emily nodded.

  “Today I am here for some personal information. Well, not exactly personal, but about my house…and the Snow house.” Emily’s eyes changed; I could have sworn they went from light blue to deep violet with silver sparks.

  “I simply can’t imagine what your house and the Snow house might have in common, however, I will help if I can.” Emily’s hand began to shake as she pulled Eloise toward her, I noted. Had I hit a nerve?

  “Actually, I don’t believe we will need Eloise’s help on this one, Emily. I just need some information on a subject that I thought might be in your purview. Ghosts.”

  “Ghosts. Oh, my dear, that term is not used in my work. They are non-corporeal spirits. ‘Ghost’ is a term made popular by Hollywood.”

  Or Shakespeare. Deciding not to get into a discussion of Hamlet, I moved on, hoping to catch the woman off guard.

  “You once said that my inn had ghosts. I wonder what you based that comment on. Did my aunt complain of things that go bump in the night, maybe?”

  “Your aunt was a lovely woman, Liz. A smart business woman and a generous member of the community. She was very kind to me when I first arrived in town years ago. She helped me to approach my…oh well, that’s hardly important anymore. She let me stay at the inn for a couple of weeks until I found this storefront with a small apartment upstairs for me to live in. I couldn’t have managed without her.”

  “That’s very nice to hear, Emily; but what about the ghosts?”

  “She had some gho…non-corporeal spirits left over from long ago when the first family built the house. It was a successful sea captain who went off whaling for years at a time and while he was gone, his wife fooled around with a young sailor who rented a room in the house. The young man had been badly injured aboard her husband’s ship and she took him in and nursed him back to health. They fell in love and when the captain returned and found out he killed them both. The captain’s wife and her lover remained to haunt Libby’s inn. But have no fear, Liz; they are gone now. Definitely gone.”

  “Gone? Exorcised?”

  “Moved on.”

  “How do you convince ghosts to move on, Emily?”

  “As it happened, this woman from Philadelphia came to stay at Libby’s inn one summer years back and, like the man who came to dinner, she just stayed and stayed. She did séances and fortune telling. It was that clever woman, Maude Muckle, who taught me all I know about the crystal ball and tarot cards. When I opened this place, it was basically a gift shop. But once Maude trained me, I found that I had a real calling and from then on I had a better way to make my living. Libby asked Maude to do a séance so she could talk to her ghosts because at that time she did not yet know their identities. The first séance went nowhere, but the second was a great success. If you could call a truly frightening night of howls and blood and mayhem a success.”

  “So, the murdered lovers appeared? Is that what happened?”

  “They more than appeared; they put on a show. We sat there around that table and watched them being slaughtered by the furious sea captain. He used an axe. He split them asunder and there was blood and guts everywhere, even hunks of flesh landing on the lace tablecloth and into our teacups. I will never forget that night. But that is not all that happened; it got even wilder when Edwin showed up.”

  “Edwin? What was he doing there? Had he been invited to the séance?”

  “Oh, no! He hated such things; disapproved of any kind of mystical stuff. He and Libby were still on and off in their friendship at that time and he just happened to drop by. He saw us all there looking like frightened rabbits, and although afterwards he claimed he never saw anything but a bunch of silly woman sitting around a table in candlelight drinking tea, I knew he saw them too. Libby was always such a daring and independent woman. I know I said she was friendly with Edwin, but he also got on her nerves. She loved a good joke and he was an easy mark. She got a clever idea while he was standing there calling us names and telling us we were all crazy. She whispered to Maude that she should try and convince the ghosts to move on to Edwin’s house. Imagine that?”

  “Can that be done? Can you convince ghosts to move from the place they are attached to just by telling them they ought to?”

  “I am no expert, but Maude evidently was because she made up some wild story about how Libby’s house dishonored their memory or some such and that they would be happier in the Snow house. She even gave them directions. What a hoot. Well, Edwin, that miserable excuse for a man, just harrumphed and slammed the door
behind him when he heard Maude’s words.”

  “What happened to the ghosts?”

  “As I recall, Libby never had another peep out of them from that day forward.”

  Hardly an answer to the question, but I decided to move on before she shut me out. She most certainly knew a whole lot more than she’d ever let on without prodding. So, I meant to prod.

  “Do you know if Edwin believed they came to live...er...dwell in his house after that night even though he feigned disbelief in such things?

  “I believe that after that night, he became a believer. But when he came to me just before he…died, it was something else troubling him more than ghosts.”

  “What are you talking about, Emily?”

  “Doc had told him that he only had only a short time to live. Had a tumor or some such. He was upset, of course, but also he couldn’t sleep because of them. They were tossing things around and making a terrible mess of his orderly life.”

  Remembering the description James had provided about the condition of Edwin’s house, I doubted that one more mess would upset him.

  “Yes, Edwin lived in what appeared to be a tightly packed warehouse, but to him it had order and the piled boxes and rolled up rugs made him feel that he was safe in a kind of fortress. He liked living that way and he was persnickety about how things were kept. The so-called ghosts made a mess of things regularly and they were driving him crazy. He said they were tossing out closets and drawers.”

  That explained the tossed office at Edwin’s house. But what were the ghosts looking for? Asking myself that question, I began to doubt my own sanity. Was it the sea air, the shock of losing one career and beginning another totally unrelated to anything I’d ever imagined for myself? Surely, if I, a scientist, was asking about ghosts, I needed immediate professional help. Well, I had no choice but to follow along on the present line of inquiry.

  “What did you do for him, Emily? Did you help him get rid of his ghosts?”