by Lucy Ness
“I had cousins who went to school with her back in the day. Can’t say there was any love lost there. Word was Muriel cheated Felicia Martingale out of a scholarship that should have been hers.”
The name sounded familiar. “Felicia . . . ?”
“She was president here. Before Muriel. Oh yeah, there were some tense times when the two of them were in a room together. And then of course, there was the whole thing about Muriel and Tab Sadler.”
I remembered what Agnes had told me, how she thought Tab might be the killer. “I hear he’s not the nicest guy.”
“Hah!” Gracie shuffled off. “Don’t ever let Agnes hear you say that. As far as I can see, she still worships the ground Tab Sadler walks on. Once upon a time a very long time ago, Agnes and Tab were engaged. That is, until Muriel up and stole him away.”
CHAPTER 11
We had pasta sauce left over.
Boy, did we had pasta sauce left over!
In the spirit of conserving money and making the most of Quentin’s sauce—a blend of plum tomatoes, basil, garlic, and sweet peppers that was as subtle as our chef was not—I waited until after the lunch hour and the rush of diners we’d hoped for that never came, and I helped ladle the sauce into containers so we could freeze it.
“I’m leaving some in the fridge for you,” Quentin told me when we were almost finished. “You come down and make yourself some dinner tonight. You deserve it for how hard you’ve been working.”
Maybe.
But I didn’t relish the thought of wandering the big, empty mansion after dark. Who else besides Clemmie might be waiting in the shadows for me?
The thought caused a shiver to crawl over my shoulders, but fortunately, I didn’t have a chance to dwell on it before a voice called out from the hallway. “Leaving for the day!”
I turned to find Jack laden down with two huge boxes marked Old PPWC records. Just as I did, he glanced at the boxes, too. “I want to check out the stuff in here and see if it needs a little more cleaning. Taking these records home so I can spread them out and give them some serious attention.”
I scurried out of the kitchen and through the dining room to the hallway so I could open the door for him and he wouldn’t have to juggle the load.
“Oh, and just so you know . . .” Since his hands were full and he couldn’t push his glasses up, he wiggled his nose. “There was a statue in Marigold.”
“Yes, Hortense Dash, the first president of the club.”
“Well, that statue isn’t there now. I’ve looked all over for it. I wondered if maybe you moved it to keep it safe while I work on the renovation.”
I didn’t have to think about it. The statue was marble, heavy. If I’d moved it, I would certainly remember. And yet . . .
“It was there the first time you came to check out Marigold,” I told Jack. “I remember seeing it when we walked into the room to take a look around. That was obviously after the fire.”
Apparently Jack remembered, too. He nodded. “And before the murder.”
“You don’t think . . .” My stomach did a flip-flop. “Could that statue be the murder weapon?” Automatically, my gaze traveled toward the stairway that led into the basement.
Jack’s did, too. He frowned. “You should probably let the cops know. If things are missing—”
“There are things missing from up in my rooms, too,” I said, because honestly, with everything that had happened since I started my job at PPWC, I wasn’t sure I’d ever told Jack how my rooms had been trashed. “But that can’t have anything to do with the murder, can it?”
He shrugged and stepped toward the door, but before he could leave, I had things I wanted to ask him.
No, I wasn’t about to bring up his dinner with Kendall and ask how that went. Jack’s business was his own, and I had other things on my mind.
“How much do you know about this house?”
Thinking, he pursed his lips. “Built at the beginning of the twentieth century, big deal at the time. If you like, I can show you the different kinds of wood molding I’ve taken note of. And the doorknobs are splendid! Glass, porcelain, brass. I’m making a list, thinking of writing a paper. I haven’t been up on the third floor. What kind of doorknobs do you have up there?”
I had to admit I hadn’t noticed, but I didn’t give Jack much time to look disappointed at this shortcoming of mine before I asked, “Did you ever hear that there was a speakeasy in the basement?”
“Really?” Jack laughed. “I always pictured ol’ Dennison as a sort of puffed-up, tuxedo-wearing stick in the mud. Knowing there was a speakeasy down there would really put a different spin on the history of the house, wouldn’t it? Hmmm. . . .” He was lost in thought for a couple moments and he mumbled to himself. “House Restoration magazine might be interested. Or the Journal of American Trends in Home Design and Fashion. I haven’t sent anything to them since I wrote that piece on the significance of back porches in the Midwest.” He snapped to. “How do you know, Avery? I mean, about the speakeasy? If you can cite sources, that would really help me.”
I couldn’t exactly explain, so I shrugged. “I just heard someone talking about the speakeasy. That’s all.”
“One of the members?” As if that person might be near, he looked around the lobby. “I’d love to speak to her. I don’t suppose you have any members old enough to actually remember the speakeasy. I mean, firsthand. A first-person recounting of visiting the speakeasy would be priceless!”
“I’ll . . . uh . . . see what I can find out,” I promised, even though I wasn’t all that sure I could. After all, my information had come from a ghost. I wondered how he’d cite that for his article.
I twitched away the thought and scrambled to explain my interest before he could ask. “If it’s true, I thought we could capitalize on the idea. You know, host a Prohibition party down there or something like that. Maybe that would help generate interest in the club.”
His smile wasn’t as soft as it was cynical. “There were plenty of members interested yesterday.”
“And some of them . . .” I thought of the two ladies who’d shown up for Current Events. The six who’d come for lunch. The few who’d helped the planning committee work on Agnes’s swearing-in ceremony. “Some of them are still interested, but it’s the same core group that showed up even before the murder. The rest of them came and saw what they wanted to see yesterday, and now they’ve deserted us again.”
“So a party in the basement might be great. Even if there never was a speakeasy there, we could always say there was.”
It wasn’t the sort of fudging of facts I expected from a preservationist, and I smiled. At least until I thought of what else I wanted to talk to Jack about. I edged into the topic carefully.
“You know I’m not from around here. Have you ever heard stories about the house . . . I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but I was wondering if somehow we could use it for publicity . . . Does anybody talk about this house being haunted?”
Jack laughed. “That’s a good one. An old mansion that’s haunted.”
“I don’t mean by Muriel!” I thought we should get this straight so he didn’t think I was insensitive. “I just mean . . . I was thinking . . . you know, about old ghost stories.”
“Ghosts!” Jack bumped open the door and stepped outside. “I get the appeal. I understand why people like to listen to stories about hauntings. But let’s face it, those stories are for kids. Anyone who actually believes in ghosts has to be totally and completely out of their mind.”
Did I honestly think Jack—or any right-thinking person—would feel differently about the Hereafter?
Let’s face it, before I met Clemmie, I felt the same way.
And now?
Now it would have been nice to have someone I could confide in about what was happening here at the club. Someone who didn’t laugh in my
face at the mere mention of the word ghost.
Disheartened, I was all set to lock the front door behind Jack when I realized I’d left my ring of club keys in the kitchen. Too tired to drag all the way to the back of the building, I rummaged through my top desk drawer. I had a vague memory of some talk of the keys that had once belonged to the last business manager.
Success! I found the keys and the large round ring with the initials B.P. etched on it. Right before I remembered that Muriel had told the board Brittany’s front door key was missing.
“Going home.” Quentin’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “Me and Geneva.” I looked up just in time to see him arrive in the lobby. He was wearing a black leather jacket and had a red bandanna tied around his head, and he poked a thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “We’re all set to go and we’ll use the back door. Just wanted you to know we’re leaving and we’ll see you in the morning.”
I weighed the keychain in one hand. “That’s fine,” I told Quentin. “Only . . .” I tossed the keys and caught them in my right hand. “Do you know, are these the keys Brittany had when she worked here?”
Chewing his lower lip, he leaned closer for a better look. “Sure looks like ’em. Left real fast, that girl did. Which is why they advertised and you got the job.”
“Her front door key isn’t here,” I told him.
Quentin might not look like the brightest bulb in the box, but in that one moment, I knew he’d never let any grass grow under his feet. His eyes lit. “You mean she kept that one key when she left? And she could have used that key to come and go? You don’t think she’s the one who . . .” His gaze skimmed toward the basement door.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. A plan had already formed in my brain, and I went to the computer and checked the employment files and when I found it, I wrote down Brittany’s address. I waved the sheet of paper at Quentin. “But I intend to find out.”
* * *
* * *
Portage Path, Ohio, is way bigger than Lily Dale, New York—which, for the record, is more of a hamlet than a town, a place where the streets haven’t been widened since they were used for horses and buggies, and where there’s a year-round population of something like 275.
I got lost trying to find Brittany’s address, and by the time I pulled up to the three-story redbrick apartment building just south of the Portage Path University campus, it was late. It was rude of me to show up on Brittany’s doorstep when it was already dark. It was wrong of me not to call ahead and ask if I could stop by. I was being what Aunt Rosemary (one of those 275 stalwart souls who endure year after year of upstate New York winters) would surely call insensitive.
I did it anyway.
Brittany’s apartment was on the first floor and had an outside entrance, three brick steps that led to a concrete front porch. I rang the bell and when she answered, I introduced myself and told her I was the one who now had what used to be her job at PPWC.
Brittany was a woman of forty or so. Short, round, dark hair cut short and shaggy. She had a button nose. Tiny eyes. And cheeks that were round and as red as fireplugs. I wondered if she’d just gotten in from work. Or if she was headed out somewhere. She was dressed in a flower-print skirt and a gold sweater and she was wearing lipstick.
“I’d like to talk to you for a couple minutes,” I said.
Brittany shuffled her feet. She bit her lower lip. She looked over her shoulder, though what she was looking at, I couldn’t imagine. The apartment was so small and I could see her entire living room and from there, into the kitchen and toward a back door. There was no one else around.
“I can’t really . . .” Brittany twisted her hands together at her waist. “It’s not really a good time.”
“I swear, only a minute.” Though I hadn’t been invited, I stepped up into the tiny entryway and at that point, Brittany had no choice but to let me in. Or chuck me out on my butt.
Lucky for me, she chose the former.
Once she had the door closed behind me, I breathed in deep and smiled. The apartment was filled with the aroma of garlic and onions. She was cooking, and it smelled divine. When I told her so, some of the stiffness went out of Brittany’s shoulders. While she shared her recipe for sautéed mushrooms, I had a chance to look around.
Behind her, the living room was neat and tidy. Her gray couch had two enormous pink pillows on it, and the bookcase against the far wall was chockablock with Disney character figurines.
Winnie-the-Pooh gave me a grin.
I ignored him and looked, instead, at the round table for two against the far wall. It was set with two blue dinner plates, two sets of silverware, two wineglasses, and a pink candle. Brittany was expecting company.
“I won’t keep you,” I promised her. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”
One corner of her mouth pulled tight. “It’s not about some procedure at the club, is it? Or about how to deal with a vendor or fill out paperwork or keep those old birds who support the place happy? You would have called if it was something like that. You came here to talk about Muriel Sadler.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen the news. Her death hit us all hard.”
There was no amusement in Brittany’s laugh. “Really? That’s funny, I knew Muriel for years, part of that time when I would take my grandmother over to the club, and the rest of it . . . well, three months of it, anyway, when I worked as club manager, and I don’t feel hit hard at all. In fact, when I first saw the story about what happened to her, I did a little happy dance, right there . . .” She pointed across the room. “In front of the TV.”
“You didn’t like Muriel.” Yeah, that was pretty much a no-brainer, but if there was one thing I’d learned in the very short time I’d been on the case, it was that a detective (no matter how amateur) needed to get her facts straight. “Why?”
“Why? You work over at PPWC and you’re asking me why I didn’t like Muriel?” When Brittany shook her head, her gold beaded earrings did a hula. “But you haven’t really been there very long. Muriel didn’t have a chance yet to dig her claws really deep into you.”
Brittany had once had my job. She’d been where I was now. Well, except for dealing with a murder. We were on the same page as far as experiences, challenges. I owed her the truth. “I only worked with Muriel for one day.”
She tsked. “Lucky you. But let me guess . . .” Her look was sly. “Muriel didn’t want you to have the job in the first place.”
I couldn’t help but feel defensive. “The majority of the board supported me.”
Brittany laughed and clapped one pudgy little hand on my arm. “Yeah, me, too. All of them, including Muriel, knew I had the perfect education and background for the job. I had great references who told them I’d work hard and I could really get things done. At first, everything was peachy. Then Kendall Sadler lost her job over at the boutique where she was working as a stylist. As of that day, my qualifications, my great probationary review, my ideas, none of it mattered to Muriel.”
It all sounded too familiar. Even though I didn’t need Brittany to confirm what I was thinking, I said it anyway. “Muriel wanted her granddaughter to have your job.”
Brittany gave me the thumbs-up. “You got that right. Muriel, she would have done anything to see that happen. She fought tooth and nail for it, even though the board supported me.”
I remembered Kendall, so sure of herself. So annoying. “Is Kendall that good?” I asked.
“Kendall Sadler is . . .” There was no one in the apartment except us, but Brittany lowered her voice anyway. “Kendall Sadler might be cute and perky and as rich as all get-out, but that girl is a train wreck. She’s a self-centered little—” She cleared her throat. “Well, you get my point. There was nothing Muriel wanted more in the world than to get the job for Kendall, but not because Kendall would have been any good at it. Muriel wanted Kenda
ll to start out as club manager and then someday be president of the club, but truth be told, that kid can’t keep a job. Not anywhere. She got sacked from that boutique for being on her phone and ignoring customers. Over the years, she even had a couple other jobs with companies owned by the Sadlers’ bigwig friends. None of them ever worked out. Muriel would never come right out and say it, but she knew the truth. She needed to snag the job at PPWC for Kendall because Kendall couldn’t find another job on her own.”
“But you were hired and you were good at what you did.”
Brittany pressed her lips into a tight line. “And you know what? I thought that was all I needed. I always loved that old house. I loved the idea of working there, and I had a lot of really good plans for the place. They’re going down the tubes, you know.”
I did.
There was no use beating a dead horse.
“You said you worked at the club for three months. What finally happened?”
When Brittany made a sour face she looked like a gnome that had bitten a lemon.
A timer went off in the kitchen, and she hurried in there to handle it but was back in a second. “Kendall lost her job and things around PPWC got ugly. I never would have given Muriel the satisfaction of firing me,” Brittany said. “I quit.”
“Because of Muriel.” It didn’t take a genius to figure that much out. “What did she do?”
Brittany snorted. “What didn’t she do? Talked behind my back. Sabotaged a project I was working on for the History Committee. She conveniently lost”—she gave that last word a bitter edge—“the research I’d compiled. She’d asked to see it because she said she was interested when all she wanted to do was dump it and make me look bad. Muriel was underhanded, unreasonable, unsociable, and downright nasty.”
“And you didn’t like her.”
Brittany harrumphed. “Who did? She would have done the same thing to you if she’d lived long enough to have the chance. Just like she did to the two women who had the job before I did. There and gone inside a year. Both of them. Conveniently, they both left just as Kendall was between jobs. When I lasted three months, I thought I was pretty special. But the longer I stayed there, the more difficult Muriel was to work with. Once upon a time, I thought it was my dream job, but I’ll tell you what: By the time I tendered my resignation and walked out of there, I was the happiest person in the world. Couldn’t wait to put as much distance as I could between me and the Portage Path Women’s Club.”