Death of an English Muffin

by Victoria Hamilton

  The hope on her face was almost heartbreaking. I had been in her shoes, stuck in a tiny little apartment just trying to survive and stay afloat. She seemed a nice person, and I had a sense that she was going to be a friend. “You’re welcome to bake whatever you want,” I said with as much warmth as I could express. “What kind of cake?”

  “German chocolate, my oma’s recipe.”

  “Did it have to be chocolate?” I said with an exaggerated groan. “One of my many weaknesses. Along with caramel. And lemon. And cinnamon. And . . . well, anything sweet, I guess.”

  She chuckled, a warm sound, like velvet. “My mama never cooked or baked, but Oma did. I inherited the baking gene, I guess. I was called Pattycakes from a really young age, and as soon as I found out what cake was, I wanted to learn how to make it. I can bake any cake on God’s green earth.”

  I had all the ingredients, and she got down to it while I made soup and assembled sandwiches. It was nice, having company in the kitchen. Emerald cooked, but it was more a cooking-to-survive feat than a real love of cooking. We chatted about a lot of things, our lives and what we did. She was fifty-three, a mortgage analyst who had trouble fitting in in corporate America.

  “How many mortgage analysts have you met who look like me?” she asked, waving down at her ample body.

  “I hear you, sister,” I said, as I shared my own trouble in the fashionable world inhabited by rake-thin models.

  She started out wanting to be a professional singer, but as her waistline expanded, her chances at singing shrank, she told me. “I thought I was going to be the next Sade, but I couldn’t even get producers to listen to my tape.” She pulled her chocolate layers out of the oven.

  I tossed a salad, then covered it and stuck it back into the fridge. “Can you take a break and have a coffee while your cake cools?” She nodded, so I made us both a cup, set them on the table, and took the chair at the end. “You’ve known your mother’s friends for a long time.”

  “My whole life,” she said. She set the layers to cool on wire racks, got a saucepan off the stove, then assembled all the necessities to make the frosting: coconut, pecans, vanilla, evaporated milk, butter, sugar, and eggs. She then sat down with me at the long table.

  “Why did everyone put up with Cleta?” I asked bluntly.

  She picked up her mug, cradling it in her hands, then adjusted a ring so it didn’t dig into her finger. Frowning, she took a sip, then set the steaming mug down. “Believe me, as the butt—pardon the expression—of many of Cleta’s jokes over the years, I’ve asked my mother that before. She said they’d been friends for so long, and every time she tried to pull away, one of them would invite Cleta to something. Then there were those weekly bridge games!” She rolled her eyes. “When my oma was alive and lived with us, she would say, in German, Speak of the devil and she does appear, whenever Cleta arrived.”

  “Everyone’s been so evasive about why she was tolerated.”

  The woman frowned down into her mug, then met my gaze. “I’ve always felt that Cleta was a collector.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Pattycakes glanced over at me, then back down at her mug. “I’m so grateful for you, you know. Mama was drowning in New York. Coming here has given her a new lease on life. She tells me I can trust you.”

  It delighted me to hear it, even as I was surprised. “I hope that’s true. I have only the ladies’ best interests at heart, but I have to say, the sheriff believes one of them killed Cleta.”

  She shuddered. “It’s awful. I can’t believe Aunt Barbara or Auntie Vanessa would do such a thing, but I know darn well it wasn’t my mother!”

  “You said that Cleta was a collector. Of what? And . . . pardon me for asking, but why is that important?”

  She sighed, glanced up at me, back down to the cup and sighed again. “Okay. I’ll tell you my personal experience. When I was sixteen there was a young guy who used to work in the apartment building where we spent some time in the city. I liked him, and he liked me. When . . . when our relationship became sexual, I hid it from my mother. Mama would never have understood. Somehow, Cleta figured it out. Now, this shows the lengths she would go to, to find things out. My boyfriend and I would get together whenever we could, so one night, when Mama and Daddy were out, Miss Sanson bribed the building super to let her into our apartment. She caught us in bed.” Her full cheeks became rosy.

  “You didn’t have to tell me this,” I said gently, putting one hand over hers.

  “I’m not ashamed. I was young; I was in love. But that woman made me feel dirty.”

  “Did she threaten to tell your mother and father?”

  Pattycakes regarded me with puzzlement. “That’s what she didn’t do. Ever. But every time she came over, she would look at me with this . . . this sly expression, and I would wait for her to tell Mama. She never did; she just made jokes, ones only I would understand.”

  “She never told your mother?”

  She shook her head.

  I thought about that. “So you waited and waited, in fear, in guilt. What did you ultimately do?”

  “I told my mother.” She smiled. “And then I told Cleta that I told my mother.”

  I laughed out loud. “Good for you. What happened?”

  “With Cleta? I stopped dreading her coming over and started seeing how she worked. I’ve never forgotten. She collects missteps, scandals, mistakes. Embarrassing things, hurtful things . . . sometimes she saves them, and sometimes she uses them, brings them out in public.”

  “Do you think that’s what she did with her friends?”

  “I know it is. My mother was afraid of her, and I never understood why.”

  “She had something on your mother?”

  Pattycakes watched my eyes. “Yes, she did.”

  “Would you tell me what it is or was?”

  She shook her head. “It’s her secret, not mine. But I will tell you, though she is ashamed of it, it isn’t something she did that hurt someone else outside of our family. And that’s all I can say. My mother has her faults, but she’s not evil. Cleta was evil.”

  I watched her for a moment. Pattycakes was a good woman. I didn’t think, the way she spoke of it, that what Patsy was ashamed of could be something violent. However, just because what she was hiding wasn’t violent did not mean she hadn’t killed to conceal it, or to end the persecution she was suffering. A daughter would never think her mother capable of it, but humans were frail, and driven too hard, who knew? Also, it didn’t rule out that there could be some other secret worth killing for to keep hidden.

  “I’m glad you came to stay,” I said simply.

  As I finished making lunch and she frosted her cake, we spoke of Lauda, who Pattycakes did know, though not very well.

  “I keep coming back to her,” I admitted, thinking of her confrontation with Vanessa from earlier. With Pattycakes I found myself speaking frankly, maybe more than I ought. “She was here that afternoon; I feel it. Virgil hasn’t said so, but I’m sure she borrowed the mail truck and came here for some reason, whether it was to do the deed,” I said, looking over my shoulder to be sure I wasn’t being overheard, “or just search for a new will.”

  “I’ve always felt sorry for her. Knowing she was here, I brought some of my old clothes for her. The woman needs to know how to dress for her size. Just because you’re a big gal does not mean you need to dress like you’re trying to camouflage yourself as a mud pit.”

  I laughed out loud and we high-fived.

  Lunch was the first relaxed meal I had endured for some time. Pish and Pattycakes knew each other, and he was happy to see her. Pish put on some soothing music, and we all ate and chatted. Patsy was much happier with her daughter there, and Lush was animated, chattering at Pattycakes, too. Lauda put her head down, plowing through her meal. Barbara was still gloomy, but Vanessa was her charming self.
It seemed like she and Pattycakes had a special bond.

  If there hadn’t been a murder, and if I hadn’t suspected that one of the four women who were my guests had committed it, I would have thought we were having a nice time.

  Chapter Twenty

  I HAD A sleepless night, tossing and turning and worrying. I felt in my bones that the crime came down to Lauda, Patsy, Vanessa, or Barbara. Which one?

  It was Friday and that was normally a baking day, but Zeke had been there the previous afternoon and I sent a bunch of muffins back to Autumn Vale with him, enough for Golden Acres and the Vale Variety and Lunch. So I didn’t need to go anywhere, and decided to pin each of the ladies down and figure it out.

  Barbara was again sitting out on the flagstone terrace wrapped in a quilt, her bulk huddled like a depressed quilted hilltop. I brought her out a cup of her favorite tea, Earl Grey. In my comfort clothes, yoga pants and a long tunic T-shirt, I sat cross-legged on the edge of the flagstone terrace, staring off down the lane.

  “Barbara, I feel like you are maybe one of the more realistic of your group, the one with a firm grasp on the personalities of the others.” Flattery was always a good start to every conversation, I had learned in my time as a stylist to models, whose fragile egos needed to be propped up. Instead of complimenting them on their looks or fashion sense, which they were accustomed to, I always chose something else: their business judgment, intelligence, sense of humor. It was disarming.

  But Barbara Beakman was too cagey an old bird for that. “What do you want, Merry?”

  I glanced at her over my shoulder. “I want your considered opinion on who did this awful thing.” I turned to face her, looking up into her hooded eyes, the wrinkles making them into slits as she narrowed her eyes against the sun. “Who, among you, is capable of killing Cleta Sanson?”

  She smiled, settling her chins on the soft quilt drawn up over her bosom. “You don’t think I did it, do you?”

  Well, of course I thought it was possible, but I wasn’t going to admit that to her. “Why would you? Of them all, I just feel like you don’t have any reason. You seemed on good terms with her.” Enough to double-team in bullying on occasion, I added in my mind. “And your absences from the tea that afternoon are documented, right? You went back to the kitchen once, and . . . where else?”

  “I did go to the bathroom on the main floor, before it became the scene of the crime.” She chuckled, and it shuddered over her body. “I have no clue who killed Cleta, but I do think she had it coming for her years of bullying.”

  “I know I’ve asked this a million times, but why did you all put up with it?”

  “Some things you just get used to.”

  “Not bullying. There was something else going on. Don’t you think? What was she holding over people?”

  “That’s an interesting thought,” she said. “You’re no doubt thinking of that old scandal of mine, my dead husband.”

  I physically jolted and she laughed.

  “Of course I figured out you knew. Someone would have told you at some point. We haven’t lived this long without being in proximity to some meaty scandals. The question you have to ask is, what are the other ladies’ scandals?”

  I recalled Pish telling me how Lush was heartbroken over something Cleta had done. I had never followed up on that, caught up in all the other stuff that had happened. Though I had dismissed Lush as a suspect, I didn’t want to overlook anything. “Okay, what are the other ladies’ scandals?”

  “You think I’m going to supply them to you on a platter? Go find out yourself.”

  I watched her for a moment, huddled into the quilt, frown etched on her face. “Are you all right?”

  “Patsy drives me nuts. She complains constantly, but she has a child who is always concerned about her. She’s the lucky one, but you wouldn’t know it.”

  “Her daughter seems like a nice woman.”

  “What kind of a name is Pattycakes for a grown woman?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that, and it would only bring on another wave of negativity anyway. “Why did you come here, Barbara?”

  “What else did I have? I’d have been stuck in New York with no friends and nothing to do.” She sucked in a deep breath, then cried out, “Who the hell wants an old woman like me around?”

  Her words, like a wounded animal’s keening cry, got to me. “It sounds like you’re in a bad place. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m old and getting older. How could that not be a bad place?”

  “I understand. Coming to Autumn Vale was my answer when I was stuck and going nowhere fast. I don’t mean to be snoopy, but are you actually ill? You seem to still have your mobility.” Better than that, she seemed to do just fine, when she had to move quickly.

  “I was sick for a long time. That’s why I quite working with the theater.”

  “But you’re better now, right? Couldn’t you go back to what you love, working with kids and theater groups? You have so much knowledge; you should share it.”

  She shook her head and stared off into the distance.

  “Just think about it. Barbara, I keep coming back to the same question: who told Cleta you were coming here? Not one of you will admit it.”

  “They all said the same, that they were coming, but not to tell Cleta! And I didn’t, not really. She already knew and asked if I was going. I said yes, and she said she was, too. I assumed someone had broken down and asked her, Lush probably. It was too late to say no by then.”

  “Would you have, if you’d known ahead of time that she was coming, too?”

  “I guess I still would have come. What else was I doing? But I wasn’t the first to tell her.”

  I stood and stretched. “Think about what I said. Consider going back to New York and getting involved in youth theater again. When you talk about it you sound happy.”

  “I was happy, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Who would want an old woman around?” She shook her head.

  “That’s up to you,” I said. She could talk herself right out of it, and probably would, but it was beyond what I could help her with. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Please, just think about it. Ask Hannah for some recent material on youth theater in New York. She’s a great resource and can find out anything for you.”

  I went inside and headed to the kitchen. Juniper was scouring the sink, her favorite occupation, it sometimes seemed. It was as good a time as any to approach her about the cigarettes. I leaned against the counter. “You were good friends with Miss Sanson, weren’t you?”

  Juniper shrugged and kept scrubbing.

  “Juniper, stop; look at me.” She did, and I was surprised by the pain on her face. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  She rinsed her arms off and dried them carefully, wiping the countertop around the sink of any drips. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Yes, it is, and you can tell me.” My voice quavered just a little. I was afraid of what she might say but determined to get at what was upsetting her.

  “I’m never going to be good enough,” she said, her voice low. “My mom always told me I was a screwup. I don’t know why you all put up with me, you and Binny and Em. And then you go and fix up my space so nice, even after I was smoking, and Miss Sanson died, and . . . and—” To my horror, Juniper—tough-as-nails, dangerous-to-cross Juniper—burst into tears, big ugly gulping sobbing tears that made her face red and her cheeks puff out.

  I ran the cold water, got a clean cloth, and made her sit down, putting the cool cloth on her forehead and kneeling beside her on the hard flagged floor. I let her cry. There is nothing worse as a woman than being told not to cry. It threatened to be a long crying jag, so I pulled a chair over and sat knee to knee with her, waiting.

  “What’s this all about?” I finally asked, when she took the cloth and mopped her eyes. She had been wearing Goth makeup when I first
met her, but lately she had given up makeup completely, and it was a vast improvement. She was a very ordinary girl, with a very ordinary face—chin a little too pointed, eyes a little too small—but without the makeup she had an innocence to her look that was disarming.

  She shrugged, her typical answer, but then she started talking. At first I couldn’t understand what she was talking about, but it soon emerged that she had been feeling guilty because Cleta Sanson had demanded she keep a secret from me.

  “What secret?”

  “That she snuck smokes all the time in her room. That’s why she took such a hissy fit about Shilo. Shi commented on the smell once, so Miss Sanson got pissed.”

  I was angry all over again at the dead woman. “I wish I had known! I could have reassured Shilo. I suppose she gave you some of her cigarettes?” I said, thinking of the Treasurer Gold butts I had emptied from the attic.

  Juniper looked a little shamefaced. She shook her head.

  “You took them from Miss Sanson’s things?” I screeched.

  “No way; I gave up stealing,” she said, with a virtuous sniff. “But Miss Sanson only smoked, like, an inch of them, and they’re really expensive. I was curious what made them so expensive . . . like, just how good were they? So instead of emptying her saucer of butts into the garbage I snuck the butts out in my pocket and smoked them.”

  I tried not to look as disgusted as I felt. “So the only reason she wanted you instead of Shilo was because you smoked, too, and wouldn’t rat her out?”

  “It wasn’t just that,” Juniper said. “She was real particular. She liked her towels to be squared off on the rack, with the finished edge—you know, the one with that band of braid—on the outside and halved properly. She couldn’t stand it the other way. Shilo just does whatever she feels like. Miss Sanson called her . . . uh . . . feckless? Is that a word?”

  I nodded. “But Shilo is not feckless. So you two were birds of a feather?”