Clause & Effect

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  Frank took the insult with good grace, but he was shaking his head, a confused look on his face. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but the timing makes no sense. That’s not when Darlene and Judy stopped speaking to each other. The rift didn’t come until much later, after Judy took up with Brohaugh.”

  My forehead knit in puzzlement as I considered the chronology. “What made Ronnie broach the subject today? Were you talking about the bicentennial?”

  “Not exactly. We were discussing the whole village-town /county issue, and if it wasn’t a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face to make residence in the village a prerequisite for holding office, not only in government, but in groups like the historical society. That led Ronnie’s thoughts around to Judy, because she was forced to resign from the board of directors when she moved to Monticello.”

  “Was Max Kenner still around at the time Judy remarried?”

  “I think . . . yes, he must have been, although he moved away shortly after that.” His eyes widened. “You think that’s when he started spreading rumors about his exwife? Why? They’d been divorced for years by then.”

  “Who knows? Jealousy? Mean-spiritedness? Does it matter?” I stood. “Come on. You need to go home and talk to your wife. Straighten her out on a few things. If Darlene had just heard from her good friend, the first Mrs. Brohaugh, that Judy was the one who broke up her marriage, and Kenner chose that moment to reveal that his ex had also had an affair with you, or at least made a hard pass, Darlene might have believed it.”

  “But why wouldn’t she confront me? I’d have told her the truth.”

  “Maybe she was afraid of what you’d say, especially since you didn’t tell her about the incident when it happened.”

  “Because nothing happened!”

  “Nothing happened in a motel room,” I reminded him.

  We might have gone around and around on the issue all afternoon, but it was already two o’clock. Ada was waiting for us to leave so she could close up. She flipped over the OPEN sign on the door and followed that none-too-gentle hint by stomping over to our table and making a great clatter as she collected plates and glasses.

  Frank sent one last anguished look in my direction and left in a hurry. I could only hope he was going straight home to talk to his wife.

  Chapter 38

  Since I was in the neighborhood, as in right across the street from the police station, I decided to drop in there after leaving Harriet’s. I wanted to know when I could have my typewriter back. At least, that’s the excuse I used to get in to see Detective Hazlett.

  “I’d like to hold on to it a bit longer,” he said.

  “Really? Why?”

  He shot an enigmatic look my way and didn’t answer.

  “Have you learned anything from it, or from the note?”

  “You know I can’t talk to you about the case.”

  I smiled sweetly at him, a not-so-subtle reminder that he’d already broken that rule on several occasions.

  “I doubt there’s anything left to find after all this time, but we are trying to be thorough. I sent the typewriter and the scrap of paper out to be tested.”

  “You’d be surprised what could show up. Have you ever seen that meme about the smell of an old book? For the most part, it’s the smell of its death—the glue, ink, and paper, all organic compounds, break down over time and release chemicals that give off a distinctive scent. But the meme also points out that paper hangs on to odors. You can often tell something of its history if you just take a good whiff.”

  He choked back a chuckle. “For instance?”

  “Well, smoke, if the book survived a fire or was owned by a someone with a pack a day habit, or the scent of a flower that was once pressed between its pages.”

  “This paper had no lingering smell of anything, and there was no water damage. No burn marks, either.”

  “Were there fingerprints?”

  “Aside from yours?”

  I winced.

  After a brief staring match, he literally threw his hands in the air and told me what I wanted to know. “We found a few partials. One may have belonged to Grace Yarrow.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “It would have been, if there had been enough for a positive ID.”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to match any of the other partials?”

  “Even if we can, what do you think that would tell us?”

  “The identity of Grace’s murderer,” I said promptly.

  He shook his head. “All it would establish for certain is that another person touched that surface at some point in the last twenty-five years. Suggestive, perhaps, but hardly grounds for an arrest.”

  Chapter 39

  Rehearsal that afternoon went well. By the time it ended, I was cautiously optimistic about the success of the pageant. I doubted it would come off without a hitch, but all the actors had learned their lines, props had been acquired and were in use, and construction on our minimal set was complete. The only element as yet untested was the music, but I’d been assured that everything in that department was under control.

  I had to take that promise on faith. I’m not exactly tone deaf, and I can certainly tell if a singer is seriously off-key, but beyond that I’m no judge of whether something is “good” or not. I listen to audiobooks on long car trips rather than a playlist, but if I were to make one it would probably consist of folk music from the ’60s.

  It belatedly occurred to me that some of the songs sung by Peter, Paul and Mary or the Kingston Trio back in the day might work very well as the score for our vignettes from the history of Lenape Hollow. I did not suggest we use them. The task of picking the tunes we’d use had been delegated to Greg Onslow and I felt compelled to let that stand. With luck, I wouldn’t be in for any unpleasant surprises tomorrow, when the musicians showed up for their first run-through.

  That would be Tuesday. The pageant would be performed on Saturday. How many catastrophes, I wondered, could occur in the course of the next five days?

  In just one, I’d been hit by one curve ball after another. That those successive surprises had enabled me to solve a couple of minor mysteries was gratifying, but the larger one remained. I found it frustrating that there was nothing I could do to help the police with their inquiries. I was carrying on what Grace Yarrow had set in motion a quarter of a century earlier, but I wasn’t any closer to discovering who’d killed her than I had been at the beginning.

  Preparatory to leaving, Luke handed me the loose-leaf binder containing the script. He sent an inquiring look in my direction. “Penny for them.”

  “It’s almost as if the pageant is going too well. I keep waiting for disaster to strike.”

  His eyes danced with ill-concealed amusement, but he kept a straight face. “Don’t worry. I think I can guarantee we’ll have a terrible dress rehearsal, but the good news is that, if we do, it will guarantee a great performance. That’s the way it works.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I don’t ordinarily think of myself as superstitious, but his teasing reference to this well-known theatrical tradition reassured me. Feeling considerably more cheerful, I checked for anything I might have left behind and then walked beside him toward the parking lot.

  “If you’re willing to take potluck, I’d be happy to have you come to my place for supper.”

  “Can I have a rain check?” Gallantly, Luke relieved me of my car keys, unlocked the driver’s-side door, and held it open for me.

  I tossed the oversize tote containing the binder and a much smaller purse onto the seat on top of the sweater I’d left there earlier. “Hot date?” I asked as I slid in behind the wheel.

  “Yeah, right. Who did you have in mind?” Bracing one hand on the top of the car door, he looked genuinely puzzled.

  “You and Spring seem to be hitting it off, and you did go out for pizza with her on her birthday.”

  “Along with almost everyone else in the cast. Hey—gotta eat. But she�
�s ten years younger than I am.”

  “You’re twenty-eight?” I’d had him pegged at twenty-five at the most.

  “As of March. Way too old for Spring or any of those other girls. They’re nice and all, but they’re still in high school.”

  His grimace made me smile. Way back in history, a man who was ten or more years older than the woman he was courting wasn’t problematic. Even now, a man of thirty-five who married a woman of twenty-five didn’t raise any eyebrows. But twenty-eight and eighteen? Even if Luke had been the age I’d thought he was, his interest in Spring might have raised some eyebrows. I was relieved to hear him say they were just pals.

  “So what are you up to? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “I’m meeting a guy for drinks to talk about a job. I’ll tell you about it if it pans out.”

  Another surprise! I wished him luck and started the engine.

  The drive home didn’t take long, but it gave me time to wonder what kind of position Luke had applied for. He certainly didn’t have to work, and neither of his interests—genealogy and the theater—were likely to be in great demand in Lenape Hollow. Even at the advanced age of twenty-eight, he was probably too young to be considered for Gilbert Baxter’s post at the historical society. The only theatrical endeavors I knew of were in the schools, where teachers took on directing duties in addition to their regular jobs.

  I tried to picture Luke at the front of a classroom, attempting to drum information into teenage heads. Nope. It didn’t compute, but the image did jar loose a memory. When I was in high school, several of our teachers had been fresh out of college and younger than Luke by a couple of years. There had been one in particular who’d created a minor scandal when he turned up as a senior girl’s graduation-night date. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. She was already eighteen and he waited until she was no longer a student before he asked her out.

  I was shaking my head as I pulled into my garage. That teacher had probably been no more than four or five years older than my classmate, but no matter how close in age they were, teachers weren’t, and aren’t, supposed to think of their female students in a romantic, let alone sexual, way.

  My late husband was a whole six months my senior. My father had been exactly one month older than my mother. That seems about right to me, but I may be biased.

  Chapter 40

  It took a while for the frantic banging on my front door, accompanied by the steady buzz of my doorbell, to pull me out of my absorption in the manuscript I was editing. I’d removed my hearing aids earlier that day, the Tuesday before the pageant, when it seemed as if every lawn mower in the neighborhood was in use at the same time.

  I stuck them back in. Yes, indeed. Someone really wanted to come in. I saved my edits, closed my laptop, and headed downstairs to see what was so all-fired important that it required an in-person visit. Most people know better than to disturb me when I’m working, even if I do work at home. They leave a message on my answering machine or send me an email, knowing I’ll check both locations as soon as I wrap up for the day.

  I took a cautious peek through the small window in the door and found myself staring at Judy Brohaugh’s infuriated face. It was no good pretending I wasn’t home. She was staring right back at me. She charged inside as soon as I undid the locks and turned off the security system.

  “I suppose I should be grateful you have the courtesy to answer your door,” she said in a snippy voice. “Unlike my sister.”

  Since I hadn’t spoken to Darlene since yesterday’s conversation with Frank, I couldn’t be certain what was going on, but I could make an educated guess. “Why don’t you come on through to the kitchen and let me make you a nice cup of—”

  “Whiskey would be good.” Judy stomped down the hall in the right direction. I couldn’t recall that she’d ever been in my house before, but the layout was pretty simple. She plunked herself down at the dinette table and looked up expectantly.

  “No whiskey. Sorry. Would you like a rum and cola? Or a beer?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Never mind. I suppose it’s too early in the day for a drink anyway.”

  “The sun’s over the yardarm somewhere in the world. At least that’s what my father-in-law used to say.” I took the seat opposite her. “What’s going on, Judy? Why are you here?”

  “I’m here because I want to know what’s up with Darlene, and you’re the one most likely to be able to tell me.”

  “Why do you think anything’s up?” I countered.

  “Because she called me, apologizing all over herself, except that she never explained what she was so sorry about. When I tried to get a sensible answer out of her, she burst into tears and hung up on me.” Judy’s anger had faded to mild irritation. “I went to all the trouble of driving over here to talk to her face-to-face, and she wouldn’t let me in. She wouldn’t even talk to me through the door.”

  “Are you sure she was home?”

  “I’m sure. Her van was in the garage.”

  “Maybe she went somewhere with Frank. He has his own car, you know.”

  Judy’s jaw was set in stubborn lines. “She was home. She’s avoiding me. I want to know why.”

  I hate being thrust into the middle of a family drama, but I couldn’t see any help for it. I knew Darlene well. She felt things deeply. If Frank had convinced her she’d been conned by Max Kenner all those years ago, she’d be dealing with big-time guilt. She’d believed a lie and deepened the rift with her only sibling because of it. Her conscience had driven her to apologize as soon as she managed to contact her sister, but it would take a good deal more time for her to work up the courage to face her in person.

  “Let me ask you a question first,” I said. “Why do you think you two became estranged to begin with?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Darlene told me it was because she was close friends with your second husband’s first wife.”

  “What—did she think I stole him? That marriage was over long before I entered the picture. If Darlene implied that it wasn’t, then she was lying.”

  “Does that run in the family?”

  Judy glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Lies of omission are still lies. When I came to see you, you told me about Gilbert Baxter’s relationship with Grace Yarrow, but you left something out. I talked to him before he was murdered, Judy. He told me the rest of the story. All of it.”

  Yes. All right. I was stretching the truth myself, but Judy didn’t have to know that.

  “It was a mutual decision to split up.”

  She sounded for all the world like a sulky teenager defending herself to her parents. Ridiculous in a woman in her seventies, but there it was. She stared out the window at the currently unoccupied bird feeder, shoulders slumped.

  “Why on earth did you take up with Baxter in the first place? He was years younger than you, and unless he was a lot different back then, he did not have a particularly appealing personality.”

  “If you must know, I was trying to get back at my cheating husband. I went a little crazy, even letting Max think I was carrying on with other men, too, just to get a rise out of him.”

  “Other men? Including Frank Uberman?”

  “Even him. I’m not proud of it!”

  “Max Kenner must have been a real piece of work. It appears that he waited until you really did find someone else to drop that tidbit on Darlene.”

  Judy looked blank.

  “If my theory is correct, your ex convinced your sister that you made a serious play for her husband, maybe even had a fling with him. He probably told her that the two of you met at least once at a local motel, which was actually true. Unfortunately, Frank had no idea that Max had talked to Darlene, or that she’d believed his lies, so it wasn’t until yesterday afternoon that he finally got around to straightening her out.”

  “Good God. Don’t those two talk to each other?”

  “Apparently, not about y
ou. Give your sister a couple of days to work through her guilt before you try to talk to her again. After all, she’s only just realized that she was more to blame for the estrangement between you two than you were. She’s got to be taking that hard.”

  “She always was too soft.”

  Despite the muttered criticism, Judy looked quietly pleased by this turn of events. By the time she left, I felt confident the two sisters were well on their way to a reconciliation.

  Chapter 41

  When I arrived at the amphitheater later that day, it was to discover that the board of directors of the historical society, all except Diego and Stacy, had come to observe the rehearsal. With only four days left until the performance, I could understand why they’d take an interest, but I could have done without the added pressure. I swear I felt their eyes boring into my back as I took my usual place at the director’s table and opened my copy of the script.

  Fortunately, there were only a few setbacks as we progressed. An actress was late with her cue. A costume needed repairs. One of the small children recruited to play a small child in the opening sequence dissolved into tears when he momentarily lost sight of his mother.

  A more serious delay came about when Adam Ziskin reported that a wheel had come loose on the rolling set. Since his crew needed a few minutes to secure it and stabilize the platform, I called a break.

  “I see all the high mucky-mucks are here,” Adam remarked.

  “Interesting choice of words,” I murmured.

  Muck led me to mud-slinging and mud made me wonder if there was more dirt, as in gossip, that I’d missed hearing about the four people sitting on the stone seats rising around us. I was convinced Darlene was in the clear, given how little contact she’d had with Grace Yarrow, but what about the others? Neither Ronnie nor Sunny had been married twenty-five years ago, so it seemed unlikely they’d have killed Grace to free a man with a birthmark from her clutches, let alone kill Baxter all these years later on the off chance that he might remember who had one.