Some Enchanted Murder

by Linda S. Reilly

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said. “He was awfully frugal.”

  Oh, God.

  Unless that was the mistake Lou tried to tell Sam about. Had Lou found a will when he was cleaning out that desk? A will that changed everything?

  A will that someone would kill over?

  I felt my chest tighten with anxiety. I was getting as bad as Sam, thinking the absolute worst.

  Forcing myself to calm down, I thanked Sam for letting me bail early. After letting Vicki know I’d be gone for the afternoon, I phoned Aunt Tressa from my office.

  “I’m working on the contract for my new listing,” she said. There was a lilt in her voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. “Can you pick me up around one?”

  “Won’t you be starving by then?”

  “Normally, yes, but I zapped a frozen pizza to hold me over.”

  A microwave pizza would have held me until dinner, but for Aunt Tressa it was a mere canapé. With a promise to swing by around one, I hung up. I realized I was feeling a bit hungry myself.

  I could only hope that Darla’s Dine-o-Rama would live up to its napkin: New Hampshire’s best eats!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  From the journal of Frederic Dwardene, Thursday, December 14, 1950: The weather has grown cold and dreary. Since the day of our delightful luncheon, I have not seen any sign of my Lillian. She did not come to the bank today to make her usual weekly deposit. My worst fear is that she might be avoiding me. Oh, I pray it isn’t so! Perhaps she is only sick with a cold, or with some other minor illness …

  Aunt Tressa emerged slowly from the Honda and slammed the door shut. “Well, curl my hair and call me a poodle. Darla’s Dine-o-Rama is a dump.”

  I was already out of the car, but I hadn’t yet locked the door. I stared at the squat white building that housed New Hampshire’s best eats. The place was in dire need of a paint job, if for no other reason than to cover the rust stains caused by the leaking gutters. The front steps consisted of two sagging concrete slabs that looked as if something had chewed their edges. Around the perimeter of the grimy front window, a string of red and green lights blinked anemically.

  Only two other vehicles occupied the lot—a salt-encrusted pickup and a red SUV.

  “Still want to eat here?” I figured it wasn’t too late to save ourselves.

  Head down, Aunt Tressa made a determined beeline for the entrance. “I promised you a hot plate lunch, and a hot plate lunch you’re going to get.”

  Lord help me.

  A tinny bell jingled as we pushed open a door that screamed for a shot of WD-40. With the exception of a lone diner sitting at a window table forking up globs of some gravy-covered conglomeration, the Dine-o-Rama was empty.

  I know it sounds cliché, but the place smelled vaguely of boiled cabbage—sharp, sour and nauseating all at the same time. To our left, six round stools stretched along a chipped Formica counter. One of the stools listed sideways, its red seat charmingly adorned with crisscrossed strands of duct tape. At the far end of the counter, a scratched display case boasted an assortment of gooey, gunky-looking pastries.

  “I guess the lunch rush is over,” my aunt remarked.

  “Think anyone works here?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, where’s Darla?” Aunt Tressa strode over to the large chalkboard propped on an easel near the counter. I stood slightly behind her and read the daily offering.

  Yankee Doodle Noodle Stroodle

  All you can eat ~ $7.95

  Includes a king size slab ’o Darla’s famous cornbread!

  Aunt Tressa looked all around, growing clearly annoyed. “Stay here, I’m going to go find someone. After driving all this way, the least we can do is find out if anyone has seen Lillian. Hello!” she called out. “Anyone here?”

  “Maybe there’s someone in the kitchen,” I said, dipping my head in the direction of the metal door behind the counter.

  Aunt Tressa followed my gaze. Handbag propped over her shoulder, she marched toward the swinging door and pushed her way through.

  I meandered over to the lone customer, who was staring blankly through the dirty front window, a toothpick bobbing between his lips. The table in front of him was littered with crumbs—cornbread crumbs, it appeared. Darla’s stroodle—if that’s what he’d ordered—must have been scrumptious. The man’s plate had been licked dry, save for a few swirls of brown sauce.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir.” I unzipped my purse and pulled out the photo of Lillian I’d printed. “Have you ever seen this woman, the one in the middle? I think she may have eaten here once or twice.”

  Ignoring the photo, he stared up at me as if it were the first time he’d ever seen a human of the female persuasion. I was inching the photo farther under his nose when a cry of distress, followed by a loud thump, made us both swivel around.

  Aunt Tressa burst out from behind the swinging door and threw herself onto the nearest stool. “Oh God, Apple. Oh. Dear. God.”

  Dropping the photo, I rushed over to her. Her face was chalky. One red-gloved hand was clamped firmly over her mouth. I grabbed her shoulders. “Aunt Tress, what is it? Are you all right?”

  “Horrible …” she gurgled out. I half expected her to heave all over me. “Dead … everywhere … hanging …”

  I felt my stomach drop with the force of an anchor. What kind of carnage had my poor aunt stumbled into back there? Were the two of us even safe, sitting here like this? Abruptly, I jerked around, half expecting the lone diner to be standing behind me with a gun. Instead, the table he’d occupied was empty. As was the restaurant.

  I squeezed my aunt’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” I soothed, digging out my cell with my free hand. “I’m calling the police—”

  “No.” She closed her hand over my phone and shook her head. “Don’t. They won’t come. Go … see for yourself.”

  Mouth open, I stared at her.

  She nodded bleakly. “Go ahead. Go look. It’s … beyond description.”

  I turned slowly and shuffled toward the swinging door. I had the odd sensation I was headed for the gallows. My fingers felt like rubber pins as I gingerly pushed my way through. The door swung shut behind me with a squeak, but I barely heard the sound. I was in the kitchen, gazing at a sight so surreal that my knees almost gave way.

  Dangling from the ceiling—in quantities that boggled the imagination—were rolls and rolls of fly paper. Coated with the mortal remains of unwary flies, the hideous things hung everywhere. Two were suspended directly above the grease-coated grill, three more above the scarred wooden cutting board. The rest were distributed in willy-nilly fashion throughout the kitchen. Unless the room was shifting, they all seemed to be swaying to the rhythm of an unseen air vent.

  They all looked as if they’d been there since the Reagan administration.

  For several moments, I couldn’t breathe. Or maybe I was afraid to breathe. I pictured tiny, decomposing fly wings drifting through the air, landing on everything. No wonder Aunt Tressa had nearly swallowed her teeth. To her this must have looked like a house of horrors.

  Beyond the kitchen’s work area, a protruding row of tall metal shelves was stacked with supplies. Could Darla be hiding back there? Finding my voice, I squeaked out, “Hello? Is anyone back there?” I moved forward a few steps, which unfortunately brought me closer to the grill. On top of the grill, a battered metal pan held remnants of the stroodle—globs of twisted noodles soaking in the same brown sauce I’d seen on the lone diner’s plate. I stifled a shudder.

  A door that led into the back of the building suddenly banged open. Someone carrying a large cardboard box trudged through it and into the kitchen, then kicked the door closed with a booted foot. The box dropped to the floor with a thud. A tall woman in a bulging pink uniform, her orange hair swirled into a messy beehive, stood glaring at me. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “I … I’m Apple Mariani. Are you Darla?”

  She moved toward me, her eyes narrowed into slits. “I am,�
� she said. “Who wants to know?”

  I swallowed. “Actually, I’m looking for someone who might have patronized your … establishment,” I said.

  Was it my imagination, or did she look relieved?

  “You’re probably wondering,” she said, swirling her finger at the ceiling, “about all the fly paper. ’Bout seven years ago I had a bad fly problem. Couldn’t get rid of the things for nothing. Finally got sick of swatting ’em and invested in some fly paper. Lucky thing the hardware store still had some in their stockroom. The stuff’s hard to find these days. Can you imagine?”

  Oh, yes, quite easily. “Is that so?” I said weakly.

  “Yeah, and it did such a good job killing the little buggers that I decided just to leave it there. No flies on me, right?” she cackled.

  Somehow I sputtered out a polite laugh. “Oh, yes, right. Um, is there someplace we could talk? I’m here with my aunt, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Sure! Hey, you hungry?”

  I might be hungry, in a week or so. “Thanks anyway, but I’ve already eaten.” It wasn’t really a lie. I’d eaten breakfast.

  “Well, that’s a shame. You’re missing out on my homemade stroodle, you know. I’d be willing to bet you’ve never tasted anything like it!”

  I’d be willing to bet she was right. “Can we chat for a minute, Darla? Out there?”

  “Oh, sure, no prob.” She bounded through the swinging door. I trailed in her wake.

  Aunt Tressa was still sitting on the stool, clutching her handbag to her chest so it wouldn’t touch anything. I was glad to see her looking a bit more relaxed. Her color was definitely better.

  “I found Darla,” I said. “Darla, this is my Aunt Tressa.”

  Darla grinned, displaying two rows of stained teeth. “Pleased to meet you, Tressa. Man, I like that name. Real pretty. And you”—she pinned her gaze on me—“how’d you get a name like Apple? Your mom have a passion for apples or something?”

  “It’s actually Apollonia,” I explained for the nine hundred forty-seventh time since my birth.

  “Oh, yeah, like that babe in the movie! I gotcha. Now Tressa”—she turned to my aunt and looked her up and down— “you look like a lady who could use a good meal. How about a nice plate of my homemade noodle stroodle? Give it to you half price, since the lunch rush is over.”

  To her credit, my aunt managed not to gag visibly. Instead, she coughed into her gloved hand. “Thanks, but I think I’m coming down with something. I’m not really hungry.”

  Darla shook her head, dislodging a few strands of the beehive. “Well, that’s too bad. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Darla,” I said, “we’ve been trying to locate someone who might have eaten here recently. We haven’t been able to reach her for a few days, and we’re worried about her because she’s elderly.” I omitted the fact that we thought she’d been kidnapped. “She might have come in here with a group of friends. Can I show you a picture of her?”

  Darla scratched one side of the beehive with a jagged fingernail. “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

  I reached into my bag, then remembered that I’d dropped the photo when Aunt Tressa had fled in terror from the kitchen.

  “Excuse me a minute,” I apologized. I scooted over to where the lone diner had sat. The photo was upside down on the floor, marred by a big brown footprint. I picked it up by one edge and shook it.

  “This is her,” I said, handing it to Darla. “The one in the middle.”

  Darla took the sheet of paper from me. I watched her face for any sign of recognition, but her expression remained blank. “Nah, I haven’t seen her,” she said, thrusting the photo at me. “I’d remember an old dame like that. I’d definitely remember a bunch of old ladies coming in together. Actually, just about all my customers work at the parts plant down the road.” She nodded in the direction of the front window. “Or at the insurance company across the street.”

  Frustrated, I folded the photo and stuck it back inside my bag. That’s when something oddly familiar attracted my attention.

  Inside the Plexiglas pastry case was a strange-looking cruller. It was about half a foot long, with a bloated mound at one end. The mound had been swirled in dark frosting and then plunged into a vat of chocolate sprinkles.

  My stomach did a mini-flip.

  Only once before had I seen a cruller like that.

  “Ah, you can’t fool me,” Darla crowed at me. “You’ve got your eye on my last lion’s tail, haven’tcha?” She walked around to the other side of the counter, and with an exaggerated wink opened the pastry case. Using her bare fingers she plucked the lion’s tail off the tray and slapped it onto a paper plate. “Here you go. No charge, either. I close this place up at three, and if I take it home with me my fat old bulldog’ll just eat it. And he needs that like he needs another flea, if you catch my meaning.” She grinned and pushed it over in front of me.

  Oh, Lord, now what? No way was I going to eat the thing, not with visions of decaying fly corpses dancing in my head.

  “Apple,” Aunt Tressa said sharply. She pointed a finger at me. “Don’t even think of eating that after what your doctor told you last week.”

  For one surreal moment I wondered if the sight of all the fly paper had driven her totally insane. Then, feeling like a dolt, I realized she was coming to my rescue. Duh.

  Darla stuck her hands on her hips and gawked at me. “What, are you sick or something?”

  “I—”

  “Her cholesterol was up to three forty,” Aunt Tressa told Darla helpfully. “Something like that pastry there could kill her in one fell swoop. She’s supposed to be sticking to a low-fat, high-fiber fruits and vegetables diet, the way I do.”

  I’m glad I hadn’t been drinking something—I’d have choked to death.

  Darla looked at Aunt Tressa, then smiled ruefully and shook her head. “Man, I’ll never understand you grainy granola types. Shame, really. All’s I can say is, I’m glad my customers don’t eat the way you do. I’m grateful they appreciate the kind of good old-fashioned, hearty cooking I’m known for—the kind of food that sticks to your ribs.”

  And your gums. And your arteries.

  “Yeah, once in a while I get these peddlers comin’ in here,” she droned on, “wanting me to sell their healthy muffins or crappy whole wheat doughnuts or some other such nonsense to my customers …”

  Darla prattled on, but her harangue had faded to the lower chatter of a squirrel because my thoughts were now fixed on something I’d spotted through the restaurant’s front window.

  The sign on the building across the street.

  “—I mean, some of their baked goods looked like they swept the floor and dumped it all into the batter, for corn’s sake,” Darla was still whining. “I mean, get real, right? I can’t sell crapola like that to my customers!” She scooped the lion’s tail off the plate and stuffed the business end into her mouth. Chocolate sprinkles dripped everywhere. Chewing vigorously, she brushed them off her pink uniform, scattering them onto the floor.

  “Well, we’d better get going,” I said brightly to my aunt, using eye movements to signal that I needed to talk to her. “We’ve taken up enough of Darla’s time.”

  Aunt Tressa nearly leaped off her stool.

  “Hey, sorry I couldn’t help you out with that old lady,” Darla said. She swiped her lips with the back of one hand. “You think she’s okay?”

  “We’re not sure,” I said truthfully. “It’s not like her to go away without telling anyone.”

  “Why’d you think she might’ve come in here?” Darla asked.

  “We found one of your napkins crumpled up on the floor of her living room,” Aunt Tressa explained. “If she didn’t leave it there, then we want to know who did.”

  Darla looked away thoughtfully. “Yeah, I can see where you’re headed with that. This lady rich or something?”

  “No,” I said. “But she may have witnessed a … crime, and we�
��re concerned for her safety.”

  “Whoa.” Darla’s eyes widened. “Look, why don’t you both give me your numbers, and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for her. If she comes in here, I’ll get right on the horn and give you a fast ringy-dingy. Mind if I keep the photo?”

  I didn’t hold out much hope that Lillian would be dropping into Darla’s any time soon, but I wrote down Aunt Tressa’s and my numbers on the back of Lillian’s photo and gave them to her anyway. “Here, and you’re welcome to the picture. I can always print more.”

  Darla stared at the photo again and her face softened. “Poor old gal. Reminds me of my Aunt Nellie, God rest her soul.

  Hope she’s okay.”

  “We hope so, too,” I said.

  In the parking lot, I grabbed my aunt’s arm as she paraded toward my car. “Aunt Tressa—”

  “Did you notice how insects were a recurring theme in there?” my aunt was ranting. “First the dead flies and then her dog’s fleas. And that hairdo—”

  “Aunt Tressa, stop for a second and listen to me. Look at that building across the street.”

  She stopped short. “Yeah, so? It’s an insurance company.”

  “Yes. Diamond Crown Insurance.”

  She tapped the side of her head. “Call me dense but I’m still not getting it. Why do we care?”

  “Because Josh Baker works there, remember? And yesterday I saw him eating one of those fat bombs Darla calls a lion’s tail.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  From the journal of Frederic Dwardene, Friday, December 15, 1950:

  I’ve known, of course, that Lillian works in the sweater factory in Manchester, but lately I’ve been quietly observing her routine. (How fortunate that as a banker my work day ends at 3!) The bus drops her off on Elm Street each morning at 7:50 AM, and she walks the block or so to the factory. Her shift runs from 8 to 5:15, then she catches the 5:35 bus back to Hazleton. I will be grateful when she does not have to work anymore, when I can take care of her every need …