A Deadly Snow Fall

by Cynthia Gallant-Simpson

  That’s when it occurred to me that it must have been Emily who dropped the cement block and lobbed the rock at poor old Edwin. Murder attempts or simply harassment? Don’t you just hate it when someone reads your mind? This time, however, it was not the spooky Eloise but Emily.

  “If I may digress for a moment, Chet, I must confess to dropping the cement block from the roof of the Canterbury Tales Leather Shop and throwing the rock across Commercial Street at the old miser, but I only meant to scare him. I wasn’t trying to kill him, just unnerve the silly old man. I used to play softball in school and I was pretty good. I did scrape his nose with the rock although that was just pure luck. Never make it to the Red Sox, I guess.”

  She looked directly at the Chief knowing he was an avid Red Sox fan and this might have been just a lighthearted moment among friends, but for the true nature of the scene that Emily was directing like a professional.

  “What did you do to Edwin, Emily, up in that cold tower?” I could tell that the Chief’s reserve of energy was growing thin. It was almost two in the afternoon and none of us had had our lunch.

  “I heard the old bat huffing and puffing and groaning. Then, after a good, long time, he was there, at the top of the stairs. He didn’t see me in the deep shadows. Quite frankly, Chet, I had expected that the old man would die on his way up and save me the trouble. I knew immediately that I couldn’t use the axe on his ugly egg head. I thought about simply jumping out of the shadows and yelling BOO!”

  “So, you didn’t hit him with your axe?”

  “No, Chet, I did not. In the darkness, when I first arrived, I went to adjust the axe because the handle was sticking into my back. I rested the backpack on the ledge and removed it and that was when I heard something fall. I reached over the ledge but it had dropped further than my arm could reach. Then I remembered the large Limburger cheese I’d purchased at Souza’s that morning. Well, no time to search for it then, so I adjusted the axe and slipped further into the shadows. One look at the axe and I knew that I couldn’t split that man’s head like kindling. Even filled with hate as I was.”

  I looked at James and wordlessly, by holding my nose, reminded him of the disgusting smell we’d encountered up in the tower. He grinned and nodded knowingly. Limburger cheese, of course.

  “Edwin stopped on the next to top step. He was gasping for breath and clutching at his heart. He let out a terrible gasp and a kind of gurgle.” Emily stopped talking. No one spoke.

  Emily slipped back into her old, sweet, pink and white persona. “After all the misery he’d caused my mother and me, I suddenly found myself feeling sorry for the miserable old miser. Imagine that?”

  Frozen in our seats, we remained like marble statues.

  “I moved out of the shadows and he recoiled in fear. I suppose he thought it was Granger’s ghost. He shot out both hands in an attempt to push me away from him and in so doing lost his balance. Down he went banging into the wall, bouncing on the steps, hitting the banister, like a plastic toy, tumbling and rolling. Suddenly, I was racing after the miserable old man’s falling body.” Emily’s voice increased in volume and grew shaky. “After all, even though I hated him he was my father and I had to do something. Not that I expected him to be alive after the first few hits against the stone wall or the metal steps. I think I heard bones breaking but never a word from him. No screams so he must have been quickly dead. But still….”

  The Chief stared at Emily, his look seeming to alternate between compassion for Edwin and confusion as to how he would handle so peculiar a case. We all drew in a huge, collective breath and waited. How could any of us have expected a third possibility? Not suicide and not murder. Edwin Snow had died by accident?

  “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

  “When he hit those jagged broken steps that I’d carefully maneuvered around and evidently he had as well on his way up, he sort of catapulted forward and flew headlong onto the cement floor at the bottom of the steps. I froze in place at the top of the final stretch of stairs. I watched him land squarely on the top of his Humpty Dumpty head. His skull cracked loudly. Inside the icy narrow tower, I heard that crack reverberate off of the granite walls.” Emily slumped in the chair.

  With her last words, the sun disappeared as if on cue. Dark clouds rolled across the sky blotting out the light and, off in the distance, a rumble of thunder punctuated Emily’s astonishing story.

  The Chief was the first to speak. “What did you do then, Emily?”

  “When I finally reached him, he had no pulse. So, I dragged him outside and through the snow and left him there like a broken doll. I watched as the snow increased, covering his body in a white shroud. Then, I cleaned up the blood at the foot of the stairs with buckets of snow. I’d found both a bucket and a broom there and between the two, I left the entryway as clean as a whistle. Wouldn’t want Bill to be troubled by such a mess.”

  “Chief, may I ask Emily just one more thing?” I asked and the Chief nodded.

  “Emily, I assume that your mother sent you here to see if you could win over your father and I am sorry that he made it so difficult for you. I just wonder if you might satisfy my curiosity,” I turned around to take in the other faces there, “and I am sure, that of many others in town who have heard the story. Why did your mother, Rosita Gonsalves, leave Edwin Snow at the altar?”

  “Mother did not leave that miserable old coot at the altar. He rejected her. When she told him the night of their rehearsal dinner at the best restaurant in town in the day, The Captain Winslow Tavern, that she was pregnant with his child, he nearly tore her head off. He didn’t want children because he was afraid of passing his genes along. Well, at the time he didn’t know about genes, but he was sure that his father and he had some kind of bad blood that made them mean and he didn’t want any child to suffer as he had. My mother had brought out the good in him but he feared that the bad blood would be passed on to a child. Thus, there must be no offspring. Of course, it was too late for Mother; I was already started. What was she to do? She ran. She went to Bill’s house and he took her in because he’d loved her since they were children. He tried to convince her to go away with him, but she was so confused and hurt she just needed to get far away from the town. She decided to make a clean break, have her baby in a distant city and do her best to care for the child Edwin had rejected.”

  I needed verification of my theory of why Edwin showed up for a wedding and faced a church full of guests who he knew would see no bride that day. “Emily, did he ever tell you why he showed up for his own wedding knowing that Rosita would not be there to marry him?”

  “Don’t look so puzzled, dear. There’s a simple explanation. The man was desperate. No one liked him and he didn’t have the talent for making them like him. My mother had but she was gone. He had driven her away. So, and here I am guessing because I never asked him, he decided to show up and appear to be left at the altar. He figured that the town’s pity was, at least, a, shall we say, caring emotion. No matter how much they disliked him, only completely heartless people would fail to feel sorry for the deserted man.”

  Just as I’d seen it in my mind’s eye. Poor, poor lonely, unloved Edwin.

  The Chief pulled himself together, took a deep drink of coffee and then stood and came around his desk until he was looking down on the tiny woman dwarfed by the large chair. His business-like demeanor spoke volumes.

  “Thank you, Emily. I want to believe your story, but first I need to see that axe of yours. Just in case it has evidence of blood on it. I’m afraid we will have to hold you overnight until we check that out. Where is that axe now, Emily?”

  “Gone to sea.”

  “What? You threw it into the sea? Why? Do you realize that that just compounds our case against you? We have to prove that you did not split Edwin Snow’s head with it.”

  “I guess you will just have to trust my word based on all the years you�
��ve known me then, won’t you, Chet? I can assure you that I did not use the axe, but I just wanted to toss it away anyway.”

  “Where did you toss it, Emily? The wharf? The beach behind your shop? Just pinpoint the location and we will go and look for it.”

  “I tossed it onto the fishing trawler that came in that night. After I left the body, I headed down to the wharf and watched them pull in and tie up. After it seemed that everyone had gone to bed on the trawler, and a few of the local men had gone up the wharf headed home, I tossed it onto the deck. I watched it kind of bounce and then disappear under some piled up boxes. I suppose I needed to relieve the stress the fall had caused me. I felt much better after I tossed it.”

  “Damn, Emily, I have to make a case to try and save your neck and you are not making it easy for me, now are you?”

  “Guess not, Chet. Sorry. Will they let me take Eloise to prison with me, Chief?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Emily spent the night in a cell made comfortable with a plump down pillow, sheets and quilts supplied by me from the inn. James and I looked in on her later to find her sleeping like an untroubled baby. The Chief had sent James to put a padlock on the Fairies in the Garden shop and a sign saying, “Closed for Repairs.” James and I went back to the inn and I made a quick pasta carbonnara for our supper. Sitting over tea and pumpkin ginger ice cream I’d made in my new electric ice cream maker, we reviewed the astounding day.

  “Do you believe her, James?”

  “I’m just not sure, but if the axe is ever located it will be checked for blood. All the fishing trawler captains have been notified to look for it. Meantime, the floor just inside the door to the monument will be checked with a special light that picks up blood even after it’s scrubbed away with even the strongest cleaner. If Emily’s story is proved credible after these checks, then the next step will be up to her lawyer.”

  “Has her mother been notified, James? Poor Rosita; it will be so tragic for her to hear what her daughter did as a reaction to her long desperate need to know her true father.”

  “The Chief will be calling her tomorrow. You did a great job, Liz, despite my concerns for your safety.” The remainder of the evening was comforting for us both, needless to say. Then, we too slept like untroubled, if not babies then at least, successful investigators.

  It was only later the next day that I remembered the one more thing I had figured out that I needed to tell James. I reached him at the police station. “Hi. What’s up, lovely Liz?’

  “James, remember Mary talking about the ghosts in Ned’s house?”

  “Sure, burned the buggers to cinders didn’t that nasty fire?”

  “As you and the arson squad are still questioning who started it, if not how it started, I think I have the answer.”

  “The ghosts themselves. Playing with matches, love?”

  “No. I seriously believe it was Mary. She believes in ghosts and knew that Aunt Libby sent them from the inn to the Snow house.”

  “Listen to you. A ghost believer yourself, now. And the will o’ the wisp and the mysterious pookah horses of Ireland, as well, I assume. Not to mention, Big Foot.”

  “Get a grip, James. Mary was so pleased when the Snow house burned. Well, not pleased to see the grand old place go, but pleased that the fire was a funeral pyre for the so-called ghosts. And no, I do not now believe in ghosts. I am simply reporting what was said to me. I know also that Emily told her that burning was the next best way to rid a place of ghosts. Exorcism being the number one way, but burning being just as effective, Mary set fire to the Snow house. I’m very sure of it. Probably too late for a confession, however.

  “I’m afraid so. She’s as closed as a clam at low tide. The doctors cannot get a word out of her. Her mind has slipped entirely. Probably a good thing. Less suffering that way. But, I’ll tell the Chief what you’ve reported, good citizen.”

  Daphne and I met for breakfast at Beasley's two days later. James had been busy wrapping up the case and I did not expect to see him for a few days. Time to bring my bff up to speed. Daphne had been in Boston hanging her work in a friend’s gallery and returned to find the mysteries all but put to bed.

  All the doors and windows were open to the gentle warm sea breeze. Customers were wearing shorts and flip flops and the pretty colorful flowers spilling out of the window boxes affirmed that the village had made it successfully to yet another summer.

  James took me totally by surprise when he opened the door to Beasley’s, spotted us, and came in. Dee Dee was delivering a fresh pot of Earl Grey tea. She grabbed another cup on her way by the coffee station.

  “Hi, gorgeous women. Any place for a stray male on his coffee break?”

  I patted the bench beside me and he sat.

  “I come bearing news.”

  “Oh, goody; now that the crime wave has abated, I’m feeling bored with this quiet town. I liked it when it was still a small town but had big city crime to take the dull edge off,” Daphne said as she looked around to see what other customers were eating.

  “Daphne, you are absolutely certifiable. Let’s just enjoy the peace and absence of mysterious conundrums that have plagued us for weeks and weeks. Give it a rest, will you?”

  Daphne stuck her tongue out at me and dove into her pancakes topped with bananas, strawberries and a monumental mound of whipped cream. In fact, the Beasley’s clever marketing-major daughter, Mia, had named this breakfast offering the Monumental Breakfast. Bill Windshsip had applauded the honoring of his beloved Monument but refused to try and eat one.

  “Do you eat like that everyday, Daphne?” James asked.

  “You have no idea James; the woman is a trash compacter in designer clothes.”

  I reached for his hand under the table and squeezed it. We had tickets for that night for Bob Ballard’s talk on searching for shipwrecks, particularly the Widah that the pirate Black Bellamy had captained and sunk. My inn manager, Katy Balsam, was due to arrive the next day and I was preparing to cook magnificent breakfasts for the coming three months. The mysteries solved and the cases closed, a nice warm sense of completion had settled over me.

  “Okay, what is this news, big boy?” Daphne asked between huge bites.

  “A special delivery letter arrived late yesterday afternoon for Emily. It was addressed to Edna Gonsalves Snow from a law firm in Asheville, North Carolina. Naturally, no one at the post office recognized the name, but since the address was Emily’s closed and locked shop it was decided to bring it to the Chief. Of course, the Chief knew it was for Emily Sunshine aka Edna Snow. It turned out to be a pretty important announcement, although unfortunately it may have arrived far too late.”

  We put down our forks and focused on the handsome James. I was braced for not having much time for him in the coming months. However, once the summer rush was over, we had a lot to talk about.

  “The letter announced the death of Rosita, Emily/Edna’s mother. She passed away in Asheville, North Carolina, just a few days ago. Left her daughter one million dollars.” James waited for our reactions. He was not disappointed.

  “Wowzer! That confirms that there is indeed damned good money in pigs and corn. I had no idea.” Daphne stopped eating and just stared at James.

  “Oh my goodness, James, where did Rosita get the million? Is there really that kind of money in corn and pigs?”

  “No, it seems that miserly Edwin evidently suffered a stroke of conscience a couple of months ago, despite the hard time he was evidently giving Emily. He hired a detective to find Rosita and to give her a check for a million. For Emily aka Edna after they both were gone, according to Edwin’s instructions. For some reason Rosita never told Emily...er...Edna.”

  “To think that all of this could have been avoided. If Emily had known that her father had relented, she would have backed off. Even if he refused to strike up a cuddly, father-daughter relationship with her at least she would have had some sense of closure. But why didn’t Edwin tell her what he’d d
one? He put himself in harms way on purpose, it seems. I guess that’s just further proof that he was a very peculiar man indeed.”

  “That’s an understatement, pal,” said Daphne as she finished off more food than I ate in an entire day.

  “Hey, wait a minute; I hadn’t even considered this….” Daphne tossed her fork onto the greatly diminished waffle tower.

  “Daphne, what?”

  “Does this mean no murderer, no manuscript?” Daphne’s look of disappointment caused James and me to laugh.

  “Aha, there lies the rub. No, actually the attorney contacted me early this morning. It seems our dear James here notified him of what had transpired. Then, dear James suggested to him that solving the mystery was just as good as finding a murderer. Thus, the codicil demands ought to be honored. I will have the manuscript by tomorrow; it is being sent by overnight mail and then we can all read it and see what we missed back in the forties when the town really rocked. Imagine being here with Eugene O’Neill, John Reed, Louise Bryant and Max Eastman and then later with the Grangers and their crazy New York friends?”

  “I venture to say, Daphne,” said James, “that you missed a great period in the history of the village when you would have fit the town’s atmosphere like the proverbial glove.”

  “I know. Damn, wouldn’t time travel be gobs of fun?’

  The next morning, I was making my breakfast when the special delivery package arrived. Sitting in the sunny sitting room, I tore into it and began reading.

  An hour later, I called both James and Daphne promising cappuccinos and cranberry lemon muffins and, a big surprise.

  They arrived and we sat at the old pine kitchen table that had been my aunt’s. The tattered, very shop worn, yellowed pages of Edwin Snow III’s manuscript lay on the table in front of me. My pals all but drooled waiting to hear about the secrets and scandals the old man had been storing up for decades.