A Groom With a View jj-11

by Jill Churchill

  “The police wouldn't let me in her room to see how far along she was with the sewing," Jane said. "They said I'd have to wait another hour at least. I'm going to call Mel. He was going to come up here tomorrow anyway. I'd feel better about all this if he were here."

  “You mean you'd know more because he's a detective and they'll tell him things."

  “Same thing," Jane said.

  “An elderly woman took a tumble down the stairs and you want me to come up there and butt in?" Mel said a little later.

  Jane was almost whispering into the phone. "I'm not sure it was an accident, Mel, and the local people are acting like it's the Crime of the Century."

  “That sounds like a little bit of an exaggeration," Mel said.

  “Maybe a little. But Mel, I've invested four months of my life planning this damned wedding and—"

  “Okay. I'm off today anyhow. But I'm just going to introduce myself to the local people. That's all. If they want to talk to me, fine. If not, I'm not going to interfere. How do you do this, Jane? It seems everywhere you go, there are dead bodies."

  “It's certainly not deliberate," she said huffily. Then, because she was asking him a favor, softened it with, "I'd just like to see you a littler earlier than planned.”

  Detective Mel VanDyne seemed to find this very funny.

  The rest of the morning was too hectic for Jane to find time to brood, much as she would have liked to sit down with Shelley and puzzle out Mrs. Crossthwait's death. Larkspur managed to escape to fetch his flowers from the shop. Aunt Iva and Layla volunteered to whip together the last of the dressmaking jobs. Mrs. Crossthwait had made some remarkable progress during the evening before her death. There was little but hemming and putting on hooks and buttons to doand they both proclaimed themselves willing and able to do these jobs. The only holdup was trying to get into Mrs. Crossthwait's room.

  Before the ambulance people were allowed to gather up the body, Mr. Willis's skivvy sneaked away from him, told the medical workers how ill she felt, and was tentatively diagnosed as possibly having an appendicitis attack. Jane thought Mr. Willis was going to have a stroke when he was told that he was losing her. Kitty and Eden reluctantly agreed to help out in the kitchen until he could find a replacement.

  There was a lot of mean-spirited jockeying for possession of the one phone between him and everyone else who had calls to make. Both Iva and Marguerite seemed to have a wide circle of friends they felt honor bound to keep in touch with on a daily basis.

  “It's unraveling," Jane nearly wept. "All my work, all my meticulous planning, and it's falling to bits."

  “Nonsense!" Shelley said briskly. "These things happen in clumps. Nothing more will go wrong now. Bad things happen in threes, you know."

  “Then why are we up to five or six?" Jane asked.

  Shelley ignored the query. "You've already had all the bad luck and it'll be clear sailing from now on."

  “You know you don't believe that," Jane said. "No, not really. But I thought you'd like to hear it. Soldier on, Jane. Just soldier on.”

  The equipment rental people arrived as the two ambulances pulled out of the parking area — one with Mrs. Crossthwait, the other with the skivvy, who was now screaming with pain. The driver of the truck seemed seriously alarmed by this.

  “It's nothing," Jane lied. "Just an appendicitis attack."

  “Two of them?"

  “No, just one," Jane said curtly, feeling that he might flee if informed that the other vehicle was transporting the body of another employee.

  Jane was enormously pleased that there seemed to be no hitches with this stage of preparation. There were three men on the truck. Two immediately got busy hauling in a table to go in the side room where the bridal shower and bachelor party would be held. The tables and chairs for the main room wouldn't arrive until the morning of the wedding because there was nowhere to store them. The third man brought the folding chairs that were placed in the side room where the bridal shower and bachelor party would take place today. The chairs were wooden, painted a rich shade of ivory, and had real fabric seats and backs.

  “Good choice, Jane," Shelley said, watching and nodding.

  Jane was too weak with relief to reply. One thing, at least, was going right.

  The rental people were providing the linens, plates, and silverware for these events as well. Mr. Willis had made the selection of these items,with Jane's approval. The rental company workers would come back and set up the main room the next morning, remain during the wedding ceremony itself, and be ready to whisk the chairs away as soon as the bridal party went outdoors for pictures and set up the buffet table and then hang around somewhere until it was all over and they could take everything away. It was expensive to have them hanging around for so long, but given the available space, there had been no alternative.

  “See," Shelley said smugly. "I told you everything was going to work out from here on.”

  Mr. Willis appeared at Jane's side, looking considerably less frazzled. "That Uncle Joe person has found me two local women who will come in and replace my help," he said. "But it's going to cost a little more."

  “I don't care," Jane said. "Hire them."

  “Better and better," Shelley said. "You deserve a break now that everything's back under control. There's somewhere I want you to go with me."

  “Where's that?"

  “Wanda's Bait and Party Shoppe. I can't miss the chance to see it.”

  seven

  They sought out Eden to show them the way. "Thank goodness! I'd like to get away from here for a while," she said. "The aunts are driving me bonkers."

  “Speaking of the aunts," Jane said. "They were up to something late last night."

  “What kind of something?" Eden asked, trying (and failing) to hide her surprise at the state of Jane's terrible old station wagon.

  Jane caught the look. "I could afford something better," she said. "I just hate to shop. As for the aunts, I have no idea. I tapped on Iva's door to ask her something and there was a lot of rustling and whispering before she opened it a bare inch."

  “A greedy scheme, no doubt," Eden said. "They're always trying to con somebody out of something. It never works. Never. But that doesn't discourage them. They're weird old things. Marguerite must have been quite a number when she was young. My dad says she was a stunningbeauty once, and had whole flocks of suitors. Dad's never admitted it, but I think he might have been one of them. But Iva never married."

  “Why is that?" Shelley asked from the backseat of the station wagon as they turned onto the main road.

  “I don't think she found one rich enough," Eden said. "That's just a guess though. She anticipated being very wealthy in her own right someday when their father, Oliver Wendell Thatcher, popped off. And she had Marguerite as a bad example."

  “Bad example of what?" Jane asked.

  “Getting taken to the cleaners by a man. Marguerite fell head over heels for an Englishman my dad always said reminded him of Bertie Wooster without the money. Rowe, his name was. Percival? Lancelot? Tristram? Something classic and silly. He claimed, in a convincingly bumbling way, to be the scion of an ancient British family. Very posh stuff for a snob like Marguerite. So she married him without checking this out thoroughly enough."

  “How many of us do that!" Shelley said with a laugh.

  “Marguerite should have. It turned out that he was the great-great nephew or second cousin three times removed of an 'honorable,' which I think is the lowest rank of the aristocracy, and that his line of the family had been fishmongers. Or maybe it was eel fishers. Something to do with slimy water creatures. By the time Marguerite fig‑ ured out why he kept dawdling about taking her to see the 'family estate' back in Merry Olde England, he'd spent nearly all her money. Marguerite went to O. W. for more and he said he'd only give her enough to get a divorce. Which she did."

  “And she never remarried?" Shelley asked.

  “Nope. Once was plenty. Turn right at the next corner
, Jane. And Iva has never let poor old Marguerite forget her mistake."

  “You said she expected to be rich when O. W. died," Jane said. "She wasn't?"

  “Oh, yes. All three of them, Iva, Marguerite, and Jack, inherited a lot. Well, a lot by most people's standards," Eden said. "Take the right-hand fork at the bottom of the hill. But they'd all expected it to be much more. Jack got the company, of course. Iva and Marguerite got some stocks and a couple of pieces of good commercial property in downtown Chicago that's given them both generous incomes. But they were expecting something along the lines of what the Sultan of Brunei might leave. They had an extremely exaggerated idea of what their old daddy was worth."

  “Oh! The treasure story!" Jane exclaimed. "I wanted to ask you about it."

  “Treasure? Oh, the secret treasure! I'd almost forgotten that," Eden said. "Where did you hear about it?"

  “Larkspur. The florist. He mentioned having heard about a treasure at the lodge.”

  Eden waved this fantasy away. "There was talk of hidden riches years ago when O. W. died.

  Mainly put about by Iva and Marguerite to explain why they weren't fabulously wealthy, I think. Jack never bought the theory, though. He told my dad he'd expected there to be more, too, but thought O. W. had spent all the rest of the money on women. He was quite the old roué. Nearly eighty when he died, I think, and still had two mistresses."

  “You're kidding!" Shelley exclaimed.

  “Well, they probably weren't technically mistresses anymore," Eden said with a laugh. "One was in her fifties, the other sixty-something. But O. W. had supported them both for decades and Jack, to his credit, continued to pay for their apartments and give them an allowance."

  “Does he still?" Jane asked.

  Eden shrugged. "I have no idea. I never thought to ask my dad if Jack kept it up. They may not still be living. O. W. died about fifteen years ago and they weren't spring chickens. Anyway, that's probably where the rest of the fortune went. There might have been any number of other women as well who benefitted from old O. W.'s hormonal largesse."

  “So there's no treasure?" Shelley asked.

  “Oh, I guess there could be," Eden said. "But if there had been, surely somebody would have found it by now. And Jack must have gone through his father's records very closely. It would be tricky to convert very much cash to something secret without having a paper trail. Oh, Jane, turn left here.”

  Wanda's Bait and Party Shoppe was something of a disappointment. It was a tiny combination of convenience store, old-fashioned dime store, and sports shop. Everything was dusty and antiquated, including the elderly clerk who they assumed was Wanda herself. Shelley bought a fishing reel for her husband Paul in the belief that it might actually be an antique that he'd get a kick out of.

  Jane found a tube of Tangee lipstick. "It's probably dried up into a little orange pebble," she admitted, "but I used to love the stuff. My mother wore it and the smell was wonderful.”

  When they got back in the car, Jane said, "I don't suppose there's a McDonald's anywhere near, is there? I need a hash brown. Comfort food.”

  Eden wrinkled her nose. "Those things are greasy, salty, and starchy."

  “That's what I said. Comfort food.”

  They found one on the main highway and Shelley and Eden had coffee while Jane wolfed down her food. "I've been thinking about this treasure," Shelley said. "What could you convert cash into that wouldn't be obvious?"

  “Jewels?" Eden suggested. "They'd be easy to conceal without taking up obvious space. Or a rare stamp collection? Stamps are small and flat and can be worth a lot."

  “You could buy bonds and hide them," Jane said after some thought. Suddenly her eyes lit up. "The missing pictures!”

  “What missing pictures?" Eden asked.

  “Those hunting scenes in the main room of the lodge," Jane explained. "Last night they were missing. This morning they were back in place. If the aunts really do believe there's a treasure, they might have been taking the pictures apart to see if some kind of valuable documents or stamps were hidden behind them. That would explain all the rustling and whispering."

  “Wait a minute," Shelley said. "We're putting the cart before the horse. Why would O. W. have hidden anything in the first place?”

  Eden had the answer to that. "Tax scam.”

  Shelley nodded. "Oh, right. To pass valuable stuff on to his heirs without paying estate and inheritance taxes. Of course. Okay, I'll buy that. But if he had invested big sums in something secret, why didn't he tell them about it?”

  Eden shrugged. "If it happened at all, maybe he just told Jack, not trusting the aunts to manage their money well without Jack supervising." She thought for a moment. "No, probably not. After O. W. died, Jack did some pretty heavy borrowing to bring Novelties up to speed. New warehouses, computerized ordering, color catalogs instead of the old crummy newsprint black and white — that kind of thing. My dad invested in Jack and Novelties back then, and has always been pretty smug about how well it paid off. If Jack had possessed a secret fortune, he could have used it instead of borrowing."

  “Maybe not," Shelley commented. "That would have been a tip-off to the I.R.S. that there was some financial hanky-panky going on.”

  Eden leaned back and frowned. "It's all so long ago. And because my dad didn't believe there was a treasure, I guess I didn't either. It would be fun if there were one, though. Oh… I think O. W. went a bit gaga at the end. A stroke or something. Hung on for another six months or so, but was a bit on the vegetable side."

  “Which could account for why he didn't tell anyone about the treasure — if there really was one," Shelley said. "He could have simply forgotten about it."

  “I still don't see how you could hide a lot of money from the I.R.S. that way," Jane said. "It would be bound to show up in the bookkeeping somewhere, wouldn't it?”

  Shelley shook her head. "Not if you're patient and determined. Say the old boy had taken a thousand dollars a month out of his income every month for years and years. There are people who like to buy with cash and always have a lot around. Even the government can't keep a person from doing that with their own money. And once it comes out of the accounts, it's 'invisible' in a way. If the Feds ask what became of the money, the old boy could have said he used it on expensive dinners for friends, or just act vague and say he frittered it away. Or gave it anonymously to charity or handed it out to homeless people. It would be impossible to prove otherwise."

  “Shelley, I didn't know you had such a sneaky streak!" Jane said.

  “Of course you did," Shelley replied. "I spend a lot of my free time fantasizing about good ways to beat the I.R.S. You know what's wrong with this whole treasure theory?"

  “What?" Eden and Jane asked like a chorus. "Uncle Joe. I get the impression he's been there since the beginning of time.”

  Eden nodded. "As long as I can remember."

  “Well, if there were something valuable in the lodge, wouldn't he have stumbled on it by now? Even if he weren't looking for it?"

  “I think you're right," Eden said. "If Iva and Marguerite blabbed about it so much that even a florist from the city has heard the story, surely Uncle Joe has heard it."

  “And if he'd found it, would he still be there?" Shelley asked.

  Eden shook her head. "He'd be lounging on the beach somewhere in the Caribbean. At least, I would be, if it were me.”

  Jane nodded sadly. "It's interesting and kind of fun to imagine a treasure, but hard to make it work in practical terms. Especially since the building's being torn down this summer. If Uncle Joe thought there were something valuable there that he hadn't yet found, he'd be tearing the place apart in a panic by now."

  “And the lodge part of the story could be wrong, too," Eden said. "If you were trying to keep something valuable hidden away, it would seem logical to keep it where you could check on it pretty frequently. I don't know if O. W. spent a lot of time out here in the later years of his life.”

  She
lley sighed as she stood up. "You're right. And we'd best go back. At least this speculation's kept me from fretting about Mrs. Crossthwait for a while."

  “Me, too," Jane said. "And that makes me feel guilty."

  “Why should it?" Eden asked, tossing her coffee cup in the trash and gathering up her purse and scarf. "She wasn't a relation. Not even a friend. Just a business connection who really wasn't doing her job."

  “True. I guess I feel bad because it happened on my 'watch.' I shouldn't have put an elderly lady upstairs," Jane said.

  “Where else could you have put her?" Shelley asked. "If she'd gotten the dresses finished on schedule, you wouldn't have had to put her anywhere. And it's too late now for fretting about it.”

  Jane acknowledged that both women were right. It really wasn't her fault that Mrs. Crossthwait had died.

  But she couldn't help but wonder if it might have been someone else's.

  Eight

  when they got back to the lodge, Eden said, "If I can tear the phone away from Mr. Willis and the aunts, I'll give my dad a call and see if he remembers anything more about the supposed treasure. By the way, he can't be here for the wedding after all. My dad, I mean. Some joint venture he and Jack Thatcher own is having trouble and naturally Jack couldn't run off to see to it right now.”

  Jane and Shelley remained in the car, reluctant to throw themselves back into the wedding plans. "Do you think Mrs. Crossthwait's fall was an accident?" Jane asked.

  Shelley thought for a long time. "I hope so," she finally said. "I don't think I could bear to think of anybody in the house actually being a killer."

  “If it was murder, it wouldn't necessarily have to be someone in the house. There are already friends and relatives gathering at that motel in town. And the family all knows where the place is," Jane said. "The front door was open, remember?”

  Shelley frowned. "Jane, you're right about opportunity. But the important consideration is motive. Mrs. Crossthwait was a mildly irritating old lady. Nothing more. She apparently had no connection to the Thatcher family or friends except that someone recommended her to Livvy, right?"