Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries)

by E. E. Kennedy

  “I can’t imagine. This morning I did overhear some kids saying Derek had threatened to get whoever killed Marguerite.”

  “And Miss Prentice, in her infinite wisdom, still saw no reason to go to the authorities.”

  “I’ve tried to call Dennis twice,” I protested.

  I tasted another spoonful of my soup. It was getting cold fast.

  Gil popped an entire saltine in his mouth and chewed. Then he picked up his soup bowl and drained it. I now knew where Vern had learned his manners.

  “Ahh,” he said, “just like Mother used to buy.”

  I put down my spoon and moved my bowl aside. It was time to clear the air.

  “Gil, what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The other day, you said I’d thrown a spell over Vern. I’m beginning to think Vern has thrown a spell over you.”

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin, crumpled it, and dropped it into his empty bowl. “Meaning?” His gaze was direct and disconcerting.

  The acrobat inside me was getting restless. “Meaning . . . ” I cleared the table, putting the dishes in the sink. It gave me time to frame my words carefully. “Have you or have you not maxed out your charge account at Bailey’s Menswear?”

  “What if I have?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “I needed a little spiffing up.” He adjusted the collar of his new and very handsome sport shirt.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I swept cracker crumbs off the table and into my palm, willing my hands not to shake. “Next question: Have you really put a down payment on a certain cottage by the lake?” I dumped the crumbs in my empty soup bowl.

  “I’m considering it. I’ve been throwing away my money on rent for years. It’ll be a better investment. Besides, it has a yard for Vern to play in.” There was a familiar twitching at the corners of his mouth.

  I took a deep breath. “Right. And now for question number three: What were you doing at Statler’s Jewelry store?”

  He stood abruptly. “That Vern! I’m going to finish what the Standish kid started—”

  He stood and whirled dramatically, giving me just enough time to reach him before he headed for the stairs. I couldn’t help it. I was laughing as I tugged on his shirt.

  “Gil, cut it out! Sit back down here. We need to talk.”

  He obeyed.

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but Vern seems to think it involves me. Does it involve me?”

  He folded his arms again. “Maybe.”

  “All right, then. In that case, I think we need to understand each other.”

  “God knows I’ve tried,” Gil said, smiling.

  “You see, that’s just what I mean, speaking of God. You were at my church this morning.”

  “You want me to apologize, or what?”

  “It’s just that, knowing how you feel about religion—”

  “And now you’re psychic? How could you possibly know the state of my soul? Didn’t it occur to you that I might want to learn more? Aren’t you supposed to welcome me with a fatted calf or something instead of sneering?”

  “I wasn’t sneering. It’s just that you were so abrupt.” I had a flash of insight. “That’s it! That’s what it is about you that drives me crazy. You keep doing things so abruptly, without thinking.”

  Gil looked injured. “I like to call it spontaneous. Besides, how do you know I don’t put a lot of thought into what I do? Kinder people might call me decisive.”

  “Decisive, spontaneous, whatever, you just never give a person any warning, any hint about what you’ve got in mind. You just decide. Years ago you up and decided we were getting married. Boom, without warning. You caught me off guard.”

  “So you told me at the time,” he mumbled.

  “And here you show up at my house out of nowhere on Friday and turn into Romeo, wanting to neck at any given opportunity—”

  “You didn’t seem to mind. Not at first, anyway.”

  “That’s just it, Gil. I didn’t—don’t mind.” I laughed shakily. “If you just weren’t so cotton-pickin’ abrupt.”

  Gil had been sitting forward, his elbows on the table. He looked at me a long time, sighed, and said, “I see.”

  I shook myself free of his gaze and looked down at the paper napkin I had been holding. It was in shreds.

  “Well, anyway, that’s how I feel.”

  I just couldn’t look at him any more. The chair legs scraped loudly against the floor as I got up. I walked to the kitchen sink and stood there, staring at my reflection in the window above Mother’s collection of humorous salt shakers. My face looked like it had been drawn in chalk on a blackboard.

  Gil’s face appeared behind me. “It’s true. I am impulsive. I do go on instinct, and it’s served me well in the past, but this time, I want to do things properly.”

  Gently, he turned me around, took my hand, and led me to the front parlor. “It seems more, well, proper in here, somehow.” He sat beside me on Mother’s antique loveseat, my hand in his. “You’re right. I have made some big decisions in the last few days. But you’re wrong about one thing: I did put in a lot of thought into it.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it.

  “I’ve been living alone for a long time, and it’s not—good.”

  “‘It is not good that man should be alone,’ ” I quoted.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Sorry I interrupted.”

  “Amelia, I want you to have the time you needed all those years ago—to decide.”

  “And what you want me to think about is . . . ”

  “Whether you will marry me.” He compressed his lips nervously.

  I looked into his eyes, which didn’t avoid mine. I couldn’t detect a trace of the old mockery in his expression. What I saw was anxiety and, I thought, sadness.

  “And you are asking me this because . . . ” I prompted shamelessly.

  “Because I love you,” he said as gravely as a diagnosis of terminal disease.

  I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. It was a good kiss and I was rather proud of it, considering the limited opportunities I’d had to practice.

  “No,” I said softly.

  There was a moment of shocked silence as he gathered himself. His eyes widened and he shrugged, but he didn’t let me go.

  “Okay.” He bent down and kissed me back. “Live in sin, then?” he said, whispering against my lips.

  I leaned back and traced a finger around his mouth. “How about this: We take our time. We date. We court. We keep company. We get to know each other all over again. And then, maybe.” I held up a stern finger. “The marriage thing, not the sin thing!”

  Gil’s face was a blank. He shrugged.

  “Sounds reasonable, I guess.”

  We sealed the bargain.

  “Now I’m going to have to stop avoiding you all the time,” I told him some minutes later.

  “And I you. Why do they call this thing a loveseat, anyway?” Gil grumbled. “You can’t do anything on it.”

  I slapped him playfully on the chest. “I mean it. We’ve been antagonistic for so long, it’s going to take some adjustment.”

  “Just how long is this adjustment supposed to take?” he asked, holding my hand to his cheek.

  I stroked his face. It was a nice one, with lots of pleasant places to kiss. A slight roughness was beginning to form on his chin and cheeks. I ran my fingers across them, enjoying the texture.

  “As long as it takes,” I whispered.

  “Well, Miss Prentice,” he groaned, lifting himself from the seat and pulling me to my feet. “If you really meant what you said about the living in sin thing, I’d better be getting home.”

  We found his jacket and I walked him to the door.

  “Take care of my nephew.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “He needs you, you know.”

  I was surprised. “Me?”

  “He still misses his mother. You’re the clo
sest he’s come to having one in a long time. You’ve been good for him.”

  “Right. As long as I don’t get him shot or something.”

  “And don’t forget—tell O’Brien!” he said, tapping my nose.

  “I’m trying,” I said meekly.

  “Just do it. Promise?”

  I did, and he left.

  It was embarrassing how wonderful I felt. Dear, sweet Marguerite LeBow was dead. Judith Dee had been attacked, and poor, mixed-up Derek Standish might not pull through. On top of that, Vern lay upstairs, prostrate from the evening’s trauma. I knew all this, and yet I couldn’t quench the desire to sing.

  “Never gonna give you up; never gonna let you down . . . ” I crooned as I washed the dishes, remembering a song Gil and I had danced to long ago.

  I heard a rustling noise at the back door. I squinted at the window, but there was nothing but blackness outside. Frantically, I grabbed the first thing that came to hand with which to hit the intruder—a large jar of mayonnaise—then jerked the back door open.

  “I’m baaack!” said Lily Burns.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Thanks, but that’s not my brand,” said Lily as she strolled into the kitchen. “I like Miracle Whip myself.” She took the jar from me.

  I hugged her. “You’re looking well. Are you?”

  “I’m in amazingly good health for a woman my age, to quote an under-aged adolescent who pretended to be a doctor,” she said, opening my refrigerator and replacing the mayonnaise inside. “Where do you keep the ground coffee these days? I’m longing for a cup.”

  “I’m out,” I said, handing her a jar of instant and a spoon. “I haven’t had time to go to the store.”

  “Just don’t get between me and that microwave,” she said, running water in a mug. “I’m going fix myself a cup, we’re going to sit at that table, and you’re going to tell me everything that’s been going on. And I mean everything.”

  So she did and I did.

  Telling her lasted through three cups of coffee and two slices of buttered toast, which Lily prepared herself, all the while listening intently. Of course, I left out the part about Gil and me, especially when she flatly refused to discuss her treatment of the Professor.

  She was especially interested in Steve Trechere and his plans for a bed and breakfast. “Did he say who this mystery woman was?” she asked, pulling out her old leather cigarette case and extracting a small bag of jelly beans. She popped a green one in her mouth and offered me the bag.

  I shook my head. “No, just that he’s loved her for a long time. But he hasn’t met you yet. Would you like an introduction?” I added coyly. “He’s very attractive.”

  Lily patted her well-coiffed hair. She cocked an eyebrow mischievously and tossed down another jelly bean. An orange one.

  “Well, anybody with a nickname like the Millionaire from Montreal can’t be all bad.” She chewed vigorously.

  “Was that Mae West or Marilyn Monroe?”

  “Neither. It was Lily Burns.” Her face turned suddenly serious. “Tell me more about this UDJ thing.”

  “I’ve told you all I know.”

  “I just thought of something. It might not be initials. Udy-jay—couldn’t that be a code of some sort?”

  “UDJ. U-D-J.” Something connected in my brain. “Udy-jay. Lily! It’s pig Latin! For Judy!” I jumped from my chair. “Judy. Judith Dee, maybe? Lily, of course!”

  “Now don’t go jumping to conclusions. That’s pretty silly.”

  “But it’s just the sort of thing Marguerite would do! And Derek must have figured it out. That’s why he tried to kill Judith!”

  “Amelia, the boy’s been blundering around all over the place. He had you figured for the killer at one point. He could be wrong about her too.”

  “That makes sense, of course. But think about this: Marguerite tried to volunteer to go undercover to expose drug activity. The police turned her down, but what if she decided to conduct her own investigation?”

  Lily frowned. “That’s a silly, dangerous thing to do.”

  “What do I keep telling you? Marguerite was sweet, but she was just silly enough to do something dangerous, especially if she felt strongly about it.” I picked up the empty plates and carried them to the sink. “You know, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It would explain the journal too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Marie said Marguerite wanted me to have it, if anything happened to her. She may have been keeping a record of her investigation. It would be just like her.”

  “It might explain her letter to Alec,” said Lily thoughtfully dipping into her jelly bean bag and pulling out a pink one. “He told me all about it on the drive home. She accused him of corruption of minors, whatever that means. He took it as a slam against the validity of his work. Made him furious.” She chewed rapidly and swallowed.

  “Isn’t that what you were doing?” I pointed out.

  “No, of course not. Alec said that he’s used to skepticism. It’s the idea that his work might be actually harmful to young people that set him off.” She explored her bag of candy with her index finger.

  “It would upset me too,” I conceded, wondering at Lily’s familiar tone when she mentioned Alec’s name. Could he be getting through to her after all?

  “Where did the Standish boy hear about UDJ, then?” Lily asked, getting back to the main subject. “Yuk. Licorice.” She tossed the offending black jelly bean on the table.

  “From Marguerite, of course. He was infatuated with her. She must have dropped hints about her suspicions, including UDJ.”

  “And when she was killed, he decided to find out about UDJ.”

  “Poor Derek,” I said, remembering that limp arm hanging from the stretcher.

  Lily looked up suddenly. “Could he have been the one who tossed me in the drink?”

  I considered the idea. “He did have a job on the ferryboat. What do you remember about it?”

  Lily squinted. “I was walking toward the car. It was raining and there was a lot of wind, so I was hunched over. Something sort of rushed me. Everything happened so fast. I felt myself falling . . . then . . . then . . . ” She sighed. “I’m sorry. Everything goes black from there.”

  “What about ‘Woooo-eeee’ and the dark shadow in the water?” I asked wickedly.

  Lily slid her eyes sideways. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I remember that too.”

  I sighed. “Lily, you’re hopeless. Still, this Derek thing makes all the sense in the world. At the hospital, he asked about you and said something about making a mistake. You know, I think we may have figured out this thing!”

  “So basically you think Judith Dee was dealing drugs and Marguerite found out about it,” Lily said, setting down her bag of candy and ticking the statements off on her fingers. “She wrote an I-saw-what-you-did letter to the people she suspected. Judith took the bait and killed the poor kid.”

  I started pacing in my excitement. “And Derek, who obviously had a crush on Marguerite, takes it on himself to go after the murderer. Think about it—a school nurse. What better way to distribute drugs? She’s in contact with young people on a regular basis. She can—Oh!” I cried.

  “What is it?”

  “She gave me some pain capsules for my head. I have them in my purse.”

  Hurrying to the front hall, I located my purse and found the small, unmarked bottle and held it up. Lily took it and tipped out the capsules.

  “They look pretty standard, but what do I know? You haven’t taken any?”

  “No, thank goodness, but Judith was insistent I keep them.”

  Lily handed back the pills, yawning. “Well, I can’t say I’m a hundred percent sold on your theory, but you better call Dennis O’Brien and tell him about it anyway, just to be on the safe side.” She put her hand to her chest. “Whew! I’m exhausted all of a sudden.” She retrieved her jelly beans, walked to the back door, and paused, hand on the doorknob. “You know, the
only thing that makes me think there may be something to all this is when Derek Standish accused Judith Dee of murder—”

  “She shot him,” I finished for her.

  She pointed her finger at me like a pistol. “Exactly.”

  Her navigation of my backyard was slow and cautious. “It’s so dark out here,” she complained loudly. “I thought you had lights or something.”

  I looked up at the motion-sensing lights. None of them was working. I clicked on the porch light.

  “Thanks,” I heard her call.

  I watched until I saw her silhouetted by her own back porch light, then called the police station again and asked for Dennis. He still wasn’t there.

  I sat for some minutes at the kitchen table, praying for Marie, for Derek, even for Judith. Then I went to bed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next morning went so smoothly I found myself almost forgetting the strain of the last few days. Vern was still sleeping like a little boy in a storybook when I left. I put a note for him on the bathroom mirror:

  “Washed your sweatshirt & jeans (hanging in closet.) Fix a big breakfast & be lazy. Dr.’s orders. Amelia.”

  The teacher’s workroom was deserted when I arrived, and I finished all the copying, collating, and stapling early enough to enjoy a cup of the first coffee out of the big percolator in the teacher’s lounge. My classes actually enjoyed hearing Shakespeare read aloud by trained actors and laughed in at least some of the right places.

  “Why don’t they do this stuff in the Drama Club?” Hardy Patschke asked. “It would be awesome.”

  “You could suggest it. We did Midsummer Night’s Dream when I was a sophomore here.”

  “Didn’t know it was written then, Miss Prentice.”

  There was an apprehensive hum as the class waited for my reaction.

  “Good try, Hardy, but not up to your usual standard,” I commented dryly. “You seem to be slipping.”

  I spotted several smiles of agreement.

  Hardy was undaunted. “Don’t worry, I’ll do better next time,” he promised with a grin that displayed his new braces, loyally tinted in the school colors.