by Donna McLean
“It really is true, Douglas Winton,” Tilda MacArdan insisted. “The door was gone and the bookcase just slid right over it. So the mayor couldn’t get out, you see?”
Light dawned for Officer Campbell. “The bookcase slid over the door, thereby blocking the exit? Is that what you’re saying?”
“YES!” both women shouted.
Puddin’ gave a short yip.
The officer nodded his head, straightened his formerly downcast shoulders and scribbled something in the notebook. “Now I’ve got it,” he said. “Always heard that old man MacGuffin built secret passageways and stairs to nowhere in the old mansion, but never heard about this sliding bookcase! Pretty crazy old dude, I guess.”
“And so you see,” Tilda said, “there must be a secret way in and out of that locked room, too.”
“But there aren’t any bookcases there,” Addie said.
They all looked thoughtful and were quiet for a few minutes.
“There’s a wall with a fireplace on it. That’s out. Can’t move a working fireplace,” the officer stated.
“Nor the windows,” Tilda added.
“So that’s two walls without a hidden entrance,” Addie said.
Campbell mused aloud. “And that leaves two walls. One with the door in it, the door with the glass window panels, and one wall that only has some paintings and those candle holding things—”
“Wall sconces,” Tilda stated. “Didn’t your mama teach you about wall sconces, Douglas Winton?” Her gaze reproved him and his mama for this lack of southern graciousness.
He stifled a grin by rubbing his mouth with his hand and said with sincerity, “Sconces. I’ll remember that, Ms. Tilda.”
“Put it in your notebook,” she commanded in all seriousness, so Officer Campbell did.
Addie said, “Wait a minute. All the walls in the murder room are covered with carved wooden panels, aren’t they? Wainscoting! Starting at the floor and going halfway up the walls!”
“The perfect place for a hidden sliding panel! Just like the bookcase!” Tilda sounded excited. “I’ll bet that’s it, Douglas Winton! I’ll bet you that is it!”
He wrote that in his notebook. “Wall panels. Check. I’ll be looking into that first thing tomorrow.”
Tilda coughed daintily, like a well bred southern lady should just before inviting herself along. “Officer Campbell,” she began in her sweetest voice, “you know it took three of us to find that little switch on the bookcase and figure out how to work it so we could let Mayor Motley out of that room. Me, Addie, and Pearce Allen. And that old mansion is just full of tricks and jokes and things. Why, it might take one person just forever to figure out how the killer got into that room!”
“And out of it!” Addie said. She fastened her beautiful emerald green eyes upon the officer’s face and widened them to their most beseeching expression.
Officer Campbell snapped the notebook shut and stood up. He stretched to his full height and placed his policeman’s cap at the correct angle upon his head.
The ladies watched him with hopeful eyes, but his voice was stern. “The two of you, and Pearce Allen Simms, are officially suspects.” He paused.
“Oh, pooh! You don’t really think we did anything,” Tilda teased affectionately.
Campbell’s posture slumped ever so slightly but the cap remained in perfect official position.
“Suspected of what? It may not be murder. It could be suicide,” Addie suggested.
Officer Campbell finally relented. “Okay, ladies, you’re not really suspects. You’ve both been cleared. The five of you may have had opportunity but as for the two of you, there’s no physical evidence, no motive, no means.”
“And what about Pearce Allen?” Addie inquired, concerned.
“Off the record, he’s okay,” the officer said through stiff lips.
“And the mayor? And his wife?” Tilda asked, her face the picture of innocence.
Douglas Winton cleared his throat and touched his cap. “Ladies, your assistance at the MacGuffin Mansion tomorrow afternoon will be much appreciated by the police force of Sparrow Falls. As long as you both understand—”
Addie said, “We won’t enter the room where the body was found. We can just show you what we discovered yesterday, like the sliding bookcase and the crazy house hallway of mirrors.”
“And the window that wasn’t really a window!” Tilda added.
Douglas Winton Campbell nodded. “Okay, here’s the deal. The two of you will be at the MacGuffin Mansion tomorrow at one. You will not enter the scene of the crime unless accompanied by myself or one of my men. You will not touch anything. You will only advise and suggest. We will test any and all of your, er, theories concerning a secret panel, not you! Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, sir!” Addie and Tilda agreed to the terms with enthusiasm.
* * * * *
It was nearly dark when the doorbell rang and Puddin’ began urgently yapping.
Tilda and Addie had just finished eating a supper of fresh tomato sandwiches and soft drinks and were clearing the table when the interruption occurred.
“I’ll put these away, Tilda,” Addie said over Puddin’s ferocious barking.
She was sweeping the crumbs off the table and into the garbage can when she heard the unmistakable, harsh tone of Delcie Needles’ voice. Addie sighed, pushed her chair into place under the dining table and walked into the living room.
The gossipy trio had already settled themselves on the sofa and chairs of Tilda’s tidy living room, and all three of them chattered at once, like a tiding of magpies. Puddin’ was cheerfully joining in the melee with his constant yelping, this time a sound of friendly welcome, as the little dog usually acted very fierce upon meeting someone and instantly changed to a sweet little marshmallow once they entered the house. Tilda stood in the center of the room clapping her hands, ordering Puddin’ to settle down, and trying to talk over the clamor of her guests.
Addie took a seat next to Peggy and waited for the chaos to settle. This happened as soon as Mrs. Delcie Needles decided to take the floor. All other voices, including that of the little dog, immediately ceased.
“Did you hear about the discovery of a dead man at the MacGuffin Mansion?” she intoned like the voice of doom.
“Yes, I did,” Tilda replied sweetly. Delcie’s face dropped from smugness to disappointment.
Magda chirped, “Isn’t that gruesome! He must have been there the entire time Mayor Motley was giving that speech and we were all standing on the lawn! Just think of that!” Her voice became melodramatic and her gaze shone with morbid glee behind the oversized eyeglasses. “His limp body, hanging from the rafters, with one of those fancy brocade curtain tiebacks wrapped all around his neck.”
“He wasn’t hanging, he was shot,” Addie said without thinking, then realized she shouldn’t have said anything.
The eyes of the trio were instantly upon her. Tilda distracted them before they could ask questions. “Well, we’ve heard so many rumors today, and of course no one knows what really happened at this point. They don’t even know who he was!”
Peggy shivered. “It’s awful, simply awful! He could be anybody, just anybody!”
“Well, we know who he isn’t,” Delcie announced. “He isn’t anyone from this little town. He isn’t anyone any of us know. I heard that from Edison who was at the scene of the crime himself! Said he’d never seen the man before in his life! Said Joe Smyth and Officer Campbell didn’t know the man at all!”
“Just some stranger who came here and got himself killed!” Magda said. “He should never have been messing around in the old MacGuffin Mansion,” she continued, looking over her shoulder. She lowered her voice. “It’s haunted, you know.”
Delcie snorted, a decidedly unladylike noise. “Magda, that is ridiculous and you know it. My goodness, do you think Alfred MacGuffin himself came back from the dead and did the poor man in? Nonsense! Utter nonsense!”
Magda lifted h
er little chin stubbornly. “But there have always been lights, and noises, and creepy things going on over there. As long as I can remember!”
Peggy spoke up. “Mama forbade me to play anywhere near that old place. Said it wasn’t safe and that old man MacGuffin was crazy. Said he hated children especially, absolutely hated them, and that he made all kinds of traps and things to keep them out of his house, like he thought they were mice!”
“And just last week some kids saw lights moving around inside the mansion. Just last week it was! I think I saw them myself!” Magda gushed.
“Magda, you are easily led astray. Why, if I said I saw the man in the moon doing the tango on Main Street, you’d swear you saw it too!” Delcie’s tone was harsh and the effect immediate. Magda seemed to draw up into a tiny ball and disappear into the sofa cushions. Peggy’s lips clenched together in a pout and her gaze dropped to the floor.
Tilda, the perfect southern hostess, decided a change of subject was needed. “Ladies, would y’all like some pound cake? Baked it this morning!”
Peggy and Magda looked up with beaming faces but Delcie rose from the chair and snapped, “No, thank you, Tilda, we must be getting on now. We only stopped in on the way to the chapel. It seems that Butler Jenks has struck again and left a mess for the kitchen volunteers to clean up, naturally.”
Tilda asked in surprise, “Oh my goodness. What happened?”
Delcie stomped to the door, followed by her meek underlings. Her voice was sarcastic. “Seems someone had the not so bright idea of asking Butler to unclog the drain in the kitchen of the fellowship hall. You can imagine the disaster that ensued! And when I find out whose bright idea it was, I am going to give that same person a piece of my mind, let me tell you! Butler Jenks should never be asked to do anything!”
Magda found her voice again. “Ms. Auralee Mays called me and told me that they needed some volunteers to take all the dishes out of the lower cabinets, and wash everything and put it all back. Said that when Butler tried to unclog the drain the old murky stinky water just went everywhere!”
“Apparently he forgot to turn off the water under the sink first. And when he loosened the pipe it spewed water up in the air and over the countertops and soaked everything. Everything! All the cabinet doors were open at the time, for some unexplained reason, so we have to clean those things too. We are going to be there all night, I’m sure, scrubbing and cleaning and drying things off,” Delcie explained with disgust. “Why people ask that man to do anything, anything at all, is beyond me. He is a total and complete failure.”
“A failure at everything he does!” Peggy said.
“Always has been!” Magda agreed.
“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he had something to do with that dead body,” Delcie said.
Addie gasped. “What a terrible thing to say! Are you accusing that helpless old man of murder?”
Mrs. Needles fixed her in a withering glare. “I am saying that he probably did something, purely by accident, that caused the fellow’s demise. That is all I am saying.” And with that she swooped out the door, her face haughty and her head held high like an angry goose, her obedient goslings following on her heels. The trio exited the house still squawking and arguing and blaming poor Butler Jenks for everything that had ever gone wrong in Sparrow Falls.
Tilda closed the door behind them with relief. “Bless his heart. That poor man does have the worst luck. Or something. I don’t know what it is about poor old Butler Jenks.”
“Those gossiping bitties certainly don’t help his confidence. I’m sure he knows what people say about him. It makes me angry.”
Tilda smiled at the young woman. “It’s kind of you, dear, to feel that way.” She put her head on one side and mused aloud. “Maybe he would do a little better if people thought better of him, at that.”
Tilda locked the door, switched off the lights and called over her shoulder, “Goodnight, Addie.”
“Goodnight!” Addie replied. She spoke softly to herself as she walked down the hall to the guest bedroom with the little dog right behind her. “I believe he would do better. I believe he just needs someone to believe in him!”
Addie McRae determined, at that very moment, to find something for Butler Jenks to do, and to make certain that he did it well.
“That will show those old bitties,” she whispered to Puddin’. The little dog wagged his tale, seeming to agree with her sentiments completely.
SIX
Addie slipped out of Tilda’s cottage early the next morning, when the sun had only just risen and the birds were bursting with the joy of a new day’s song. She wanted to get started on the day’s chores of sweeping and cleaning the old carriage house, her new home, just as soon as it was suitable to be lived in. The humidity and heat of a midsummer’s day in North Carolina made it nearly impossible to do anything after noonday that required having open windows and fresh air, so morning hours were best for performing such chores.
She worked for about an hour before Tilda’s knock at the kitchen door interrupted her. Addie leaned the mop handle against the wall, relieved to have a break and satisfied that the floor, for the first time in decades, was beginning to glow. In Addie’s opinion, the old pine wood boards were just too gorgeous to replace. Macon James, who had restored the old carriage house, had reassured her that the floors throughout the one-story cottage were still in good condition and didn’t need replacing. He wasn’t a well educated man, but he had a craftsman’s skill and appreciation for the talents of those who had come before him. Macon James and Addie saw eye-to-eye on the restoration of the old cottage and the importance of keeping the original character intact whenever possible.
“Whoo whee, that floor sure does look purty now!” Tilda stood at the screen door with a cup of coffee in one hand and a small basket of homemade biscuits in the other. Addie grinned with pride and hurried to open the door.
“Those biscuits are still hot, aren’t they?” she asked with an appreciative sniff. Her tummy rumbled.
“Fresh from the oven! Figured you had probably skipped breakfast.”
Addie retrieved a chair for her guest from the adjoining room and placed the basket of biscuits on the kitchen counter. “The table is in the other room while I clean the floors,” she apologized. “I hope you don’t mind making do without it.”
“Land sakes, no, child. I’ve already had my breakfast, anyway. Now what can I do to help?” The sprightly senior citizen looked around the little kitchen with admiration on her pert face. There were now pretty café curtains at the window in a bright, modern red and white design. The leaded diamond panes sparkled in the sunlight. The countertops had been replaced, changed from some unknown faux stone to real white marble with tiny black specks. A white backsplash of subway tiles stretched from the countertop to the freshly painted white cabinets.
Tilda cried out in delight. “You kept the crystal drawer pulls and knobs that my mama picked out!” she said happily. “I was afraid you’d think they were too old fashioned for young folks.”
“No, I think it looks very pretty on the white cabinets. It reflects the light. And with the Tudor style window glass, it all works together very well. Traditional but with some modern bright colors thrown in. I’ll add some new retro-red appliances and it will look great.” Addie chose another biscuit, this one split in the middle and oozing with butter and Tilda’s homemade scuppernong grape jelly.
The new landlady put her hands on her hips. “I like it, Addie. I really do! I never dreamed this old place could look this good!”
“It has good bones, as the saying goes,” Addie said.
“You are right about that. Papa didn’t want those fancy schmancy window panes, as he called them, but Mama said as long as she had to stand at the kitchen sink and look outside at this little house it was going to be purty, and so it was!” The little lady laughed. “She insisted on those Tudor type windows, and a wide wooden door with that round metal knocker thing on it, and window boxes.�
� Tilda grew quiet for a minute and her face was thoughtful as she cast her mind back to her childhood memories. “And it seems to me that there was a little pathway of some sort leading to the front door. I think it was brick. Or stone. And there used to be a rose garden, a red rose garden, beside the house. Just a little one. Maybe three or four tiny bushes.”
Addie’s face lit up. “A red rose garden! That sounds lovely! Can we redo that, Tilda?”
“Well, we can sure try! I’ll take a look outside and see what kind of shape it’s in. Hasn’t been tended to for many a long year. But we’ll see.”
“If anybody can do it, you can, Tilda,” Addie said with confidence.
The spunky senior waved off the compliment, but her face was pleased. “Well now, roses are tricky. Mighty tricky. I’m not promising anything.”
Addie nodded, her mouth full of biscuit and jelly. She finished off the last one, wiped her lips with a paper napkin, then crumpled and tossed it. “Surprising how much trash can come out of an empty house,” she said with a wry grimace, nodding toward the bucket that was nearly full of old paper and miscellaneous garbage. “Speaking of tricky, we have to head over to the mansion in about an hour.”
Tilda stood up and grabbed a sponge. “Then we’d better get to work!” she said cheerfully. “Want me to wash out these cabinets for you?”
“That would be great! Leave the cabinet doors open when you finish so it can air out. I’ll wipe them dry after you clean them. Then I can start putting my dishes in!”
The women got to work right away. After a few minutes of hard work and silence, Tilda said, with a bit of sadness edging her gentle voice, “You know, Addie, before long you won’t be staying at my house anymore. Puddin’ and I are sure going to miss your company!”
Addie glanced at the lady fondly. “Bless your heart, Ms. Tilda,” she teased. “I’ll be living ten feet from your back door!”