Some Enchanted Murder

by Linda S. Reilly

  “Let’s see.” I flipped open to the bookmarked page. “Looks like we ended with chapter four, so we’ll begin chapter five.”

  When I reached the end of chapter seven, I closed the book and looked up. Everyone clapped except Irma, whose head lolled to one side as she dozed. For the next ten minutes or so the group chatted about the chapters I’d read. At ten to seven, two aides came in to wheel everyone back to their rooms. I bade the members of the group good night, all except for Bernice. I always stayed a few minutes longer to visit with her. Bernice had helped me form the reading group, and we’d developed something of a bond.

  Tonight I had a dual reason for wanting to chat with her. I knew that Bernice and Lillian were long-time friends.

  “That was wonderful, Apple,” Bernice said when I pulled my chair up alongside her. She had soft gray curls that framed her careworn face. “You have such a good speaking voice.”

  “Thanks, Bernice.”

  She patted my arm. “And as much as I know you enjoy reading to us, I’m sure you have better things you could be doing with your free evenings.”

  “Not true. I love coming here and visiting with all of you.” I looked at the clump of yarn she was working on. “Is that the baby afghan you’re making for your new great-grandson? It’s coming along nicely.”

  Bernice sighed. “It would move along a lot faster if I didn’t have to struggle with these gosh-darn arthritic fingers. At the rate I’m going, he’ll have it in time for college. I’d give a kidney to have Lillian’s fast fingers. Why that woman can knit faster than anyone I’ve ever seen!”

  Lillian and Bernice had been friends since they were girls. They’d worked together at Princess Sweaters in Manchester— the factory that once produced a popular line of clothing. I remembered my aunt telling me how she always loved shopping in the outlet that was part of the old factory building.

  “Lillian and I worked in the winding room. Worked darned hard, too, not that you’d know it from our pay envelopes. Summers were a brute in the factory with no AC, but we did what we had to. Ah, well, that was all a long time ago.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Bernice loved telling stories from her younger days. She somehow managed to make grueling work and skimpy pay sound pleasingly nostalgic.

  Snapping back to the present, I felt a dead weight drop inside my stomach. Bernice didn’t know Lillian was missing. And there was no way I could tell her. It would only worry her needlessly, and for what?

  No, for now I would keep Lillian’s disappearance to myself. But maybe I could do a little digging.

  “You’ve known Lillian a long time, haven’t you, Bernice?”

  “Oh my, yes. We go back to the days when the trolleys still ran in Manchester. Oh, I wish you could have seen Lillian back then, Apple. Such a sweet, lovely girl she was. Prettiest little thing you ever laid eyes on. The men at the factory were always gawking at her, but she never so much as looked them in the eye. She was painfully shy. Truth be told, I was always a bit jealous of her,” Bernice said with a chuckle. “Isn’t that awful?”

  “Not at all. It’s a normal human emotion. How many years did you work together?”

  Bernice stared at her knitting. “Oh, let’s see. Must’ve been thirteen or fourteen years we worked together at the sweater mill. I got married in nineteen fifty-three, but I stayed on another eight years or so. After that I took a job at one of the shoe factories, where the pay was a bit better.”

  “I’ll bet you missed her.”

  “Sure did. You never saw a worker as reliable as Lillian. I swear, she never even took a sick day. Healthy as a groundhog, she was. Oh, well, there was that one time back in the early fifties—fifty-one, I think—when she took a long leave to help out her sick aunt in Scranton. The aunt had had a stroke, as I recall, and had no one to care for her. Lillian took the train to Pennsylvania. She was gone for the better part of a year, but as soon as she came back she went right back to work. For a long time she seemed real sad. The aunt had died, you see, and Lillian took it hard. Very hard.”

  “That’s too bad,” I murmured.

  “Well, it was a long time ago,” Bernice said. “Lil still visits me once a month, like clockwork. Always sneaks me some of those scrumptious butter cookies I’m not supposed to have, God love her.”

  I wondered when Lillian’s next visit was due. If she didn’t show up on her regular day, whatever that was, I was sure Bernice would worry.

  “Bernice, didn’t you once belong to the Hazleton Knitting Club?”

  “Yes I did, back when my Howie was still with me.” She crossed herself. “I think he liked it when I had my weekly night out with the ladies. Made him feel less guilty for playing cards with the boys all the time. But I left the group years ago, after my arthritis starting getting bad. I couldn’t keep up with the other knitters. Since everything we made was for charity, I wasn’t able to contribute much.”

  I squeezed her hand sympathetically. “Do you miss it?”

  “In a way I do. But there was always a backbiter or two in the group. That part I don’t miss at all.”

  “I guess every bunch is bound to have one.”

  “But I do miss the camaraderie,” Bernice said wistfully. “We always held our knitting club meetings at the library. Afterwards we’d pop across the street to the cafe that used to be there. It was always so pleasant, chatting with the other knitters while I pampered my sweet tooth with an ice cream brownie. In a way, that’s the part I miss most. You know, the friendships.”

  “That’s understandable. Did you and the ladies ever go to a different place to have your dessert? To a restaurant out of town, maybe?” Like Darla’s Dine-o-Rama?

  “No, not that I can recall. None of us ever wanted to drive too far, especially at night. It was much easier to grab a snack right here in Hazleton.”

  That made sense. Perfect sense.

  Which made the napkin from Darla’s all the more troubling. Call it a gut feeling, but I felt sure that Lillian had never been inside the place. So who left the napkin in her trailer?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  From the journal of Frederic Dwardene, Saturday, November 18, 1950:

  My Hudson is an impressive vehicle. I’ve kept it in fine shape since purchasing it three years ago. Today, I drove past Dora’s house several times, hoping to catch a glimpse. It was nearly dark when I finally saw her step out onto her front porch. I pulled my car over to the side and stopped. I watched as she called out a name several times. Minutes later, a large white cat ambled out from behind a shrub. Laughing, Dora hurried down the front steps and swept the cat into her arms …

  A light-colored van was parked in front of the duplex when I swung into my driveway. I assumed it belonged to Darby, though in the dark I couldn’t make out the lettering on the side panel.

  My imagination began spiraling out of control. Wasn’t a van the perfect vehicle for snatching a woman from her home and driving her to God-knows-where? Didn’t the serial killers on those creepy crime shows always drive vans?

  I pulled up beside the duplex and killed my engine. Without my aunt’s Caddy moored there, the driveway looked vast and empty. I slid out of my Honda and slammed the door hard, just in case Darby was paying attention. It wouldn’t hurt to let him know someone else was around. And close by.

  Something about the guy bugged me. Bugged me like a tiny sliver wedged under my skin that I couldn’t grasp hold of and remove.

  Sure, he’d seemed polite enough. Too polite, in fact. And Aunt Tressa was right when she said he was smitten with her, though at the time I hadn’t wanted to encourage her by agreeing.

  For sure, there was one thing that didn’t make one iota of sense—his ten-dollar deal with Lillian. What would he gain by charging next to nothing to build an elaborate play area for her cat? Certainly there wasn’t any profit in it. Was he using it as a ploy to get into her trailer?

  If that was the case, then Lillian had something he wanted. And since Lillian subsisted on he
r Social Security and savings, I couldn’t imagine what it was.

  I trudged into my house, kicked off my boots, and shed my outerwear. Cinnie and Elliot were curled up together on my overstuffed chair as if they’d been best buds for years. I grinned at the pair, but seeing Elliot reminded me all over again that Lillian was missing. As for Elliot, he had to be wondering where she was, and why he’d been relocated to this strange new environment. I comforted myself with the thought that he seemed cozy and content, all curled up in a furry orange ball with his new squeeze.

  In the kitchen, I threw some low-fat cookies on a plate and made myself a mug of tea. I hauled it all into the living room, where I plunked down on the sofa.

  The Monday night TV lineup was abysmal. I clicked the remote distractedly, training my ears for any signs of distress seeping from Aunt Tressa’s side of the house.

  Nothing.

  And that’s when I remembered the old journal I’d bought at the antiques shop earlier in the day. This was as good a time as any to see if it contained anything interesting. But where had I put it? Aachh. It was on the back seat of my car. I’d tossed it there when I was driving Aunt Tressa back to her office.

  I pulled on my winter boots and scooted out into the cold to fetch it. The winter sky was crisp and clear. A white nugget of moon hung low over the trees.

  A minute later I was sitting yoga-style on my sofa. After a soothing sip of tea and a bite of a vanilla-flavored cookie, I opened to a random page.

  Saturday, November 18, 1950.

  The painting is coming along nicely. The white cat gave me an idea. I will paint Dora seated on my tufted blue sofa, the white cat nestled in her arms. How impressed she will be when she realizes how much I know about her …

  The painting.

  From the description, it had to be the one Aunt Tressa and I had seen in the antique shop. Whoever Dora was, Frederic Dwardene had obviously been in love with her. I skipped to the next day’s entry.

  Sunday, November 19, 1950

  Today my heart was shattered. I drove past Dora’s house several times, but the weather was cold and rainy, and she never appeared. Around 3:20, after I had driven past the house for the fifth or so time, I spotted in my rearview mirror a rusted old Chevrolet. It stopped in front of Dora’s and a young man hopped out. I drove once around the block. The old Chevrolet was still there. I parked several yards behind it, then sat and waited. It was dark when he finally emerged, and this time I saw that he wore an army uniform. He was a soldier! Even with only the moon for illumination, I could tell that he was dark-haired and handsome …

  Ah, so Frederic had had a competitor for his beloved Dora’s affections. This was getting juicy. I flipped to the following day’s entry.

  Monday, November 20, 1950

  Thanksgiving is only three days away. I’ll be forced to endure another excruciating dinner with my brother Mason, the boor. At least his wife Eleanor is a dear, if a bit simpering. Their younger one, Albert, is a mischief-maker. The elder boy, Edgar, seems stodgy for 18, but then some children are born old. Seeing them always reminds me of my darling boy Kenneth. If he’d lived, he would already be 21 …

  Kenneth.

  The same name on the old report cards I’d perused at the antique shop. Frederic Dwardene’s somber words “if he’d lived” suggested that the child hadn’t made it to adulthood.

  My tired brain strained to visualize the limbs of the Dwardene family’s scrawny tree. A prolific bunch they were not. Mason would have been Blake’s grandfather, so Frederic had been Blake’s great-uncle.

  I kept reading.

  Wednesday, November 22, 1950

  My Dora came into the bank again today. With Thanksgiving tomorrow, she no doubt received her pay envelope a day early. She obviously uses her lunch break every week to ride the bus to Hazleton to make her deposits. How sweet that she patronizes her local bank over one in Manchester, which would be far more accessible during the day! My numerous strolls through the lobby paid a dividend, for I spotted her just as she entered. She wore a yellow knitted hat that perched prettily on her hair, and gloves that matched. This time I greeted her personally, pretending to have ambled into her path as she walked up to the teller. She smiled kindly, but I could see she’d been crying. When I inquired if she was all right, she poured out her heart to me. And then I learned the most wonderful thing—he’s gone! The soldier is off to war! Four days from now he will be in Korea, far, far away from my Dora. I pretended, of course, to be thoroughly sympathetic when she told me about her departing soldier. In truth my heart was singing …

  Friday, November 24, 1950

  I am fully into the painting now, steaming along magnificently. I don’t think I’ve ever painted so swiftly, or so well. But then, I have a date with destiny. I have decided that on February 14, 1951, I will ask Dora to marry me …

  Curiosity blooming, I flipped ahead a few pages. Frederic’s writing style seemed more reminiscent of the eighteen fifties than the nineteen fifties, which made the diary all that more intriguing. I was really getting into Frederic’s love life when a deep-throated laugh—thoroughly masculine—filtered through the wall.

  Muting the television, I set down my tea and tiptoed over to the wall that separated my apartment from my aunt’s. I pressed my ear against it, feeling like some nosy character in a sitcom spying on a neighbor.

  Clop.

  Clop.

  It sounded like a knife cutting something. Hard. My mouth went as dry as the Gobi. I squashed my ear harder against the wall. “Let it be—” Darby’s voice. Let what be? A sudden knot of fear clogged my throat.

  Then Aunt Tressa’s voice, “… that one, too … we can work it out …”

  Dear God, work what out? Was she trying to convince him not to hurt her?

  At that moment, the music started getting louder. And louder. My already mashed ear vibrated like a tuning fork as John Lennon’s voice exploded through the wall, bellowing out a plea for help.

  Help.

  Help!

  Suddenly, I got it. Aunt Tressa was signaling to me, exactly the way I’d asked her to. She’d turned up her CD player loud enough that I couldn’t possibly miss the Beatles belting out “Help!” through the partition wall.

  For a second or two, my head spun. A wave of pure terror rushed through my veins, surging to the tips of my toes and back to the top of my head. I knew I shouldn’t have allowed her to meet Darby alone. I felt like kicking myself all the way to Pluto.

  Panicky now, I snatched my portable phone off its cradle on the coffee table and punched in 9-1-1.

  “What is the nature of your emergency?” a calm female voice inquired.

  I burbled out a story about someone threatening my aunt and possibly killing her, and demanded that they send a SWAT team or the equivalent right away.

  “Ma’am,” said the annoyingly composed voice. “I’m dispatching a patrol car to your location as we speak. In the meantime, I need you to take a few deep breaths, calm down, and describe what happened.”

  What was she, a cop or a kindergarten teacher?

  “I don’t have time to breathe or to calm down,” I sputtered. “My aunt is in deadly danger. I’m hanging up now and going over there.”

  “Ma’am,” she pleaded. “Do not hang—”

  I slammed the phone back in its cradle and raced into the kitchen. Frantically, I looked around for something I could use as a weapon. The ballpoint pen sitting on my counter didn’t look especially menacing, nor did the rubber spatula. I had a drawer full of sharp knives, but after what had happened to Lou Marshall, I couldn’t bring myself to even consider using one as a weapon.

  No, I needed something heavy.

  My gaze landed on the wooden rolling pin that hung from the utility rack next to my stove. I’d made exactly one pie in my life—an apple-rhubarb culinary disaster that even now sent shudders through me—which is the only reason I owned the utensil in the first place. I snatched it off the hook, then opened my junk dra
wer and fished around until I found Aunt Tressa’s house key.

  Armed now with solid wood and a means of access, I rushed out my front door in my red-stocking feet and onto the front porch. “Aunt Tressa, open up,” I said, pounding on her door.

  I thought I heard someone call out my name, but with the music so loud I wasn’t sure.

  With a shaky breath, I slipped the key in the lock and turned it. I quietly rotated the knob. Holding the rolling pin high in the air, I stepped inside the apartment just as Aunt Tressa whipped open the door.

  With all the grace of a wounded pterodactyl I dove into the room, landing kerplunk on both knees on my aunt’s lemon yellow carpet. The rolling pin twirled away, coming to an abrupt stop on the leg of her kidney-shaped coffee table.

  “Apple!”

  Aunt Tressa’s cry pierced my eardrums at the same time I felt two strong arms hoisting me off the floor. Darby held me aloft as if I were made of toothpicks, performed a graceful half turn, and then set me down in the old wing chair that once belonged to my great-grandmother.

  I sat there, humiliated, as he leaned over and stared into my eyes, searching, no doubt, for some telltale sign of insanity. Or maybe he was looking for signs of sanity—at this point I couldn’t be sure. “Are you all right, young lady?” he inquired in the singsong tone generally reserved for the happily demented.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled, rubbing my throbbing knees. “I thought … when I heard the song ‘Help!’ blasting through the wall—”

  “You don’t like that song?” Darby asked soberly, a hint of amusement waltzing in his deep blue eyes.

  I wanted to melt through the floor. Disappear down a well hole. Fall into a freshly dug grave.

  Aunt Tressa, all decked out in a clingy red sweater and a pair of off-white stretch pants, turned down the music, then came and perched on the edge of the wing chair. “Are you sure you’re okay?”