Wow. Elsie had been one busy woman.
The minister approached the podium again. “If anyone else would like to say a few words about Mrs. Farmer, please come forward at this time.”
The silence was deafening. No one came forward. Most of the congregation seemed motionless like students in a classroom that fear being called on.
“Perhaps you’d like to share a memory.” He paused.
Still nothing.
Finally giving up, the minister cleared his throat.
He looked to Kenny Farmer who nodded.
“Let’s end with a prayer.”
After a short prayer, the minister announced that refreshments were available in the church basement.
Dixie and I waited for the crowd to clear a bit before making our way to the back and then downstairs.
After that uncomfortable service, everyone seemed to be talking at once as they went through the line and filled their plates with food that had been provided by the church luncheon committee.
I bypassed the sandwiches and went straight for the pie. There were several varieties to choose from and all looked homemade. I finally settled on a French Apple and then looked around for a place to sit down.
Dixie was caught up in a conversation with Dot Carson. It sounded like the postmistress had embarked on a guessing game about where Bertie Sparks might be holed up. Spotting a table with coffee I grabbed a cup and found a folding chair off to the side. Hoping against hope that no one thought this was an appropriate occasion for me to recount the finding of Elsie Farmer’s body, I took a bite of my pie. I wondered how much longer it would be before the State Medical Examiner finished the results of the autopsy.
Attendees milled about and more kept coming. The large television that had been set up for the overflow crowd had been switched to a video with pictures of Elsie. I shifted to a chair that was closer to watch, curious about the woman who no one had been willing to memorialize with a story or anecdote.
There were a few older photos of Elsie and Kenny at various functions. In those her expression was still unsmiling but less severe than the Elsie I’d known. Then there was a series of photos that appeared to have been taken at more recent events. Two ladies perched on folding chairs in front of me offered a running commentary on the photos.
“And that’s the Winterfest where she got her knickers in a knot over her name being misspelled in the program,” said the one with the pill box hat.
“That’s right, and that one,” the other one pointed as the picture changed. “That’s the New Year’s Eve party at the Country Club when she had a cow because the toasting glasses were plastic.”
A younger woman sitting in front of them turned around and chimed in, “And this one—” She pointed at the screen. “Was the library craft fair, where she made Suzie LeGrande, the new librarian, cry.”
Wow. I wondered who had picked the pictures.
In addition to the unflattering anecdotes they sparked, not one of the photos was flattering to poor Elsie. Either a sour expression, or a frown, or the photographer had caught her mid-sentence or, every woman’s worst nightmare, mid-bite.
I watched the loop of pictures begin again. Really? Could no one have found a nice picture of the poor woman? A happy Christmas, a dinner with friends? Many of them seemed to be at either company events or events in the community. Kenny Farmer was in some. I noted the woman from the committee meeting, Minnie, in a high percentage of the photos. I imagined as the Girl Friday she took care of the details at many of the events so was probably required to attend.
Dixie slid into the chair beside me balancing a slice of pecan pie and a coffee. “I finally escaped.”
Like me, she’d gone straight for the dessert. “What did Dot Carson have to say?”
“She was full of ideas about my aunt Bertie.” Dixie took a bite. “She did give me some useful information though. She said Bertie had been getting mail from an address in Minnesota on a pretty frequent basis.”
“Do you think that’s odd?” I asked. “It could just be a family member or a business contact.”
“We don’t have any family in Minnesota,” Dixie mused. “It’s possible it’s a business contact but Dot said the correspondence was addressed by hand.”
“Did she remember an address?” I wasn’t sure Dot was supposed to share information about someone else’s mail. Even with a relative.
“No, she didn’t. But she did remember the town was Winona.”
“Maybe a road trip is in order.”
“I don’t know where in Winona we’d look for her but it may come to that.”
“Here I’ll take your plate,” I offered. “Did you want anything else?” I really wanted another piece of pie but restrained myself.
“No, I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
“Let me make a trip to the ladies’ room. I’ve somehow managed to get sticky apple pie on my hands. I’d better wash it off before I get it on my one and only decent dress.”
“It’s down that hallway.” Dixie pointed. “And to your left.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” I slipped through the crowd, dropped off our plates and then headed down the hallway Dixie had indicated, but didn’t see the ladies’ room. I must have misunderstood. I backtracked and saw another hallway, but the arrow on the wall said it led to Sunday School classrooms. Maybe I was to go down there and then turn left.
No luck. I started back toward where I’d started when I heard a giggle. I peeked through the doorway on my right, which the sign on the door said was the Little Angels classroom. I could see a blond head and a white dress with big bright red cherries, but couldn’t see the woman’s face. She giggled again and then leaned into a man who stood just out of my sight. Oops, it didn’t look like the occupants were little and they definitely were not angels.
None of my business. I started to turn away but then out of the corner of my eye caught a glimpse of the man.
It was Kenny Farmer.
What the heck? I let the curtain fall and got out of there. What was the supposed grieving widower doing with the blonde? Well, let me rephrase that. I could see what he was doing. But really? At your wife’s funeral?
You know they often say that the first person you should look at in a murder case is the spouse. What if Kenny Farmer had seen an opportunity to get rid of his unpopular wife so he could move on to someone new?
When I got back to my starting place, I realized where I’d gotten confused. I had turned right instead of left. I have no sense of direction and am often lost, but not usually inside a building. I spotted the restroom. I hurried in and washed my hands and then headed back to the main area to find Dixie.
She stood by the stairs looking around.
“What took you so long?”
I didn’t answer.
“You got lost, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “We need to go.”
“I can’t believe you got lost on the way to the ladies’ room.” Dixie laughed. “I didn’t even give you any north or south instructions. You do know your right from your left, don’t you?”
“Let’s get out of here.” I took her arm and pulled her toward the stairs.
“Okay.” She gave me a strange look.
“I’ll explain when we get to the car.”
We climbed the narrow stairs to the first floor and were headed out the door, when we ran into Harriet Hucklebee. Her gray plaid suit was neat and tidy like always, but her short gray hair which often reminded me of a bicycle helmet seemed nicely tousled today.
“Glad I caught you both. Together.” She ran a hand through her hair and sighed.
That might explain the tousled look.
“Yes,” I prompted.
“I’m worried about the cookbook project.”
“We’re making great progress on the recipes,
” Dixie noted.
“And we’ve got a photographer lined up,” I added. “No reason to be concerned, we’ll be fine on the timeline.”
Though we wouldn’t be if we spent more days like the last few, trying to locate Dixie’s aunt.
“It’s not the time that I’m worried about.” Agitated Harriet ran fingers through her hair again. “It’s the Farmer family. One of the committee members stopped me and she had heard that in light of Elsie’s death the family is thinking it might not be appropriate to publish the cookbook.”
“But the cookbook had nothing to do with Elsie dying.”
“I know, but it was a sort of catalyst. Getting Elsie all riled up,” Harriet was quick to clarify. “I can understand that they might have reservations.”
“Kenny was a big supporter of the idea,” Dixie noted.
“Well, we’ll just have to see.” Harriet sighed. “But I wanted you two ladies to know, just in case we have to call it off.”
“Thank you, we appreciate that.” I took Dixie’s arm and steered her in the direction of the truck.
“But—but—” I ignored her sputters until we got out of earshot.
Once we were down the sidewalk and away from the church. I let go of her arm.
“They can’t do that.” She huffed. “We have a contract.”
“Yes, we do.”
We fell into step, her long legs and her agitation eating up the sidewalk.
“Dixie, I can’t jog in these heels,” I finally spoke up after trying to keep pace.
“They can’t walk away. We’ve already put so much time into this project. That’s why we had them sign a contract, right?”
“Yes, but do we really want to be the company that made the Founders’ Day Committee pay up when there’s been a murder of one of the committee members?”
“Well…no.”
“So, we’re going to have to convince them not to cancel.”
Maybe the best way we could do that was to figure out who really killed Elsie Farmer. Greer had mentioned a disgruntled employee and I’d just seen Kenny playing kissy face with someone he was obviously interested in.
I filled Dixie in on what I’d seen at the church.
* * * *
When we entered the shop, I kicked off my heels. I should have taken Dixie up on her offer to take me by my house to change, but I wanted to get busy working on planning the remainder of our testing.
“Sugar…” Dixie stood in the doorway of my office.
I looked up from the history pages I was still trying to get through. I’d pulled out several interesting bits and had made notes on where I thought they might fit into the chapters.
“What is it?” The look on her face worried me.
“You know what Harriet said about the Farmer family wanting the committee to not do the cookbook.”
“Yes.”
“What if we can’t find Aunt Bertie and what if we can’t figure out the real killer?”
“What are you saying?”
“Well, maybe we should see if we can talk to them.”
“I’m not sure how to go about doing that.” I made another note. “Do you have an idea?
“Why don’t we stop by Kenny’s house this evening? Maybe take him some food.”
“But not scones, right?” The minute that was out of my mouth, I couldn’t believe I’d said it.
“Gosh, no. Like a casserole he can re-heat. It would give us a chance to see if we can find out anything about who he was playing Sunday School with. And we might also talk to him about continuing to support the cookbook.”
“I like that idea. Did you want to make something here? Or did you want to do it at your place?” I just assumed Dixie would be the one cooking. And then I immediately felt bad about my assumption. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle making a casserole, but when you’re around a really great cook, you begin to rely on their superior abilities.
“I think I’ll just go to my place to do it. I’ve got all the ingredients. And I’ve got a casserole dish there that I don’t care if I don’t get back. We’ve got all the fancy stuff here for staging.”
“I’m happy to help with something.”
“I’m good.” She seemed calmer now that we had a plan of action. “How about you pick me up in an hour?”
“I can do that.” Now I was kind of glad I hadn’t changed clothes. What I had on would look much better for a condolence call, rather than the jeans I usually wore when we were working in the office.
Dixie gathered up her things and headed out the back to her truck. She’d only been gone a few minutes when I heard a knock at the back door. I hadn’t opened the curtains of the storefront because we’d been gone. We didn’t get many but it could be a delivery.
I opened the door to Max Windsor. Casually dressed in jeans and an untucked white shirt, he still managed to look crisp. And handsome.
“Hello,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you were here, but thought I’d check. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure.” I opened the door wider and stepped aside so he could come in.
I led the way back to my office and offered him a chair.
He sat and studied me for a few minutes.
“A bit dressed up today,” he noted, smiling. “You look very nice.”
“Thank you. I felt my cheeks heat up at the compliment. “Dixie and I attended Elsie Farmer’s funeral. I didn’t see you there.”
“I didn’t know her.” He shrugged. “Knew of her, of course, and the family. But I really don’t know any of them.”
“It was odd,” I mused.
“In what way?” His blue eyes sharpened on my face.
“Well, first off. No Elsie,” I explained. “Because they haven’t finished the autopsy, they couldn’t release the body, but Kenny had already made all the arrangements. So, they went ahead without her.”
“That is odd.”
I shifted papers to make some work space. “I don’t know that I’ve ever attended a funeral without the deceased present.”
“Hmmm.” He moved his chair, the lone chair in my office, closer to the desk.
“And then there was the tribute video.” I shook my head. “You could appreciate this, working with images as you do. I don’t know who put it together, whether it was the funeral home or a family member, but there was not one nice picture of the woman in the whole thing.”
“It can be hard to find candid shots that are flattering.”
“I know. But literally not a single one.” I’d not known Elsie well, and most of our interactions hadn’t been warm and fuzzy. But still, I was offended on her behalf that no one had been able to come up with a nice photo. “Anyway, back to why you’re here.” I turned back to where Max sat watching me.
“Yes, I’ve done some work on the historical photos and think I can create something useable for you, but wondered if you had particular ones you’d thought about using.”
“Interesting you should ask.” I reached for the folder that held my notes. “Here are some of the items I’ve pulled from Jimmie LeBlanc’s history tome.”
I showed him my list.
“I thought that one was interesting.” He pointed to one of the pages I’d marked.
I did too. Before its incorporation, the town had been a trading post. Like many other Iowa towns, it had been a stopping off place as settlers migrated farther west. But apparently some had decided to stay and take advantage of the rich farmland.
The town had been named by a Jesuit priest. Father Paul Nickless was a German immigrant and had moved west with a group of farmers. When he and many members of the party became ill, the rest traveled on without them. A log structure served as the first church. Though the log church was not still around, the second effort, a building made from local limestone, was.
There was also an interesting story about one of the other founders, W.L. Buckwald, who was well known for his stories about the frontiersmen of the times. Most were considered tall tales but were highly popular in their time. He became interested in the newspaper business and bought the Constitution which later became the St. Ignatius Journal. The home that he’d had built was still standing as well as the home of an Otto Styles, a chemist who had done groundbreaking work in the field of weed killers. Both homes were native limestone and pretty impressive.
We spent more than an hour pouring over the pages and Max made notes as to some of the locations. I looked up at the clock on the wall and realized it was almost five o’clock.
“My gosh, look at the time. I could easily get lost in this stuff. It’s easy to see why Jimmie LeBlanc got so carried away.” I turned to Max and suddenly became aware of how close he was. I mean it was simply so we could read the articles together, right. A matter of convenience. But realizing it made me blush like a school girl. Good grief, I was really out of practice.
Max offered to stop by in the next couple of days with some of the restored pictures and I promised to have a finalized list for him of the food pictures we’d need. That is if we could salvage the cookbook project. As soon as Max was gone, I grabbed my phone and bag and headed out to pick up Dixie.
Chapter Twelve
As I parked my Jeep on the street in front of the house, all that happened the day I found Elsie dead in her backyard came flooding into my mind. The veranda was still swept clean, the flowers were still in full bloom. And as we approached the house, their fragrance hit me again, just as it had that day. The crime scene tape was gone from the side of the house. The garage door was closed so we couldn’t tell if Kenny’s car, a Cadillac that matched Elsie’s, was there. Surely he would be home by now.
We rang the doorbell and waited. Dixie had made a ham and potato casserole that smelled so good. I could hear a voice inside the house so someone was there.
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