by Lucy Ness
“She sure did.”
So there was no way Patricia could have killed Muriel.
I’d just begun to release a sigh of relief at the news when the reverend’s next word made it wedge in my throat. “But . . .”
Afraid to hear the rest, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wallowed in exactly three seconds of apprehension. Then I gave myself a figurative kick in the butt. I was there for answers. Whether I wanted to hear them or not, I had to keep digging.
“But . . . ?” I asked the reverend.
“She bustled into the meeting and hardly said a word. I figured she was just mad at me, you know, for upsetting her schedule. She sat in the back and kept her mouth shut, too. That’s not like Patricia at all! And then . . .” His shoulders rose and fell. “We weren’t halfway through the meeting when she got up and walked out.”
With plenty of time to slip back over to the club and . . .
I dashed the thought away. It was too soon to make judgments and I needed to stay on track. “Patricia left the meeting before eight forty-five?”
He nodded. “Long before eight forty-five. If that’s the time she told you she left, she’s getting her meetings mixed up. You do think . . .” He gave me a penetrating look. “You do think that’s all it is, don’t you?”
Since I couldn’t say, I didn’t answer. “And she never said anything about why she left early?” I asked him.
“Not to me. And naturally, I asked a couple of the other volunteers. I wanted to make sure everything was all right. You know, that Patricia wasn’t sick or anything. Martin Forsam, he said Patricia mumbled something about how inconvenient the meeting was for her but how she knew she had an obligation and she had to be there. And Glenda Sythe, she told me she was coming back from the ladies, room just as Patricia was leaving. Said Patricia raced out of the building like her shoes were on fire.”
“When she left”—I swallowed hard—“did she go back to the club?”
“That, I can’t say. Glenda didn’t mention anything about it, but then, she came right back into the meeting room, so she probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway. All I know for sure is that Patricia, she’s always busy with one thing or another. All of us, we just figured she had another meeting to go to.”
A meeting, yeah. One I’d bet anything had nothing to do with that J-trap she claimed to be fixing after the Kids Coats meeting that evening.
Cold realization seeped through me, and what felt like betrayal soured my insides. Patricia had lied to me and of course I wondered why. Suspicion made my nerves tingle.
I had to find out why Patricia felt the need to make up an alibi.
I don’t know where it came from, but an idea popped into my head. “What do you suppose would happen if you rescheduled this week’s meeting?” I asked the reverend.
His eyebrows slanted. “You mean tomorrow instead of Wednesday? You think that would tell us something?”
“I have no idea!”
He nodded. “Well, if it might help you figure out what happened over at that club of yours, I’d say it’s worth a try. I’ll make the calls, get the word out. Let’s see if we can help you get Patricia’s alibi sorted out.”
I thanked the reverend and left, already planning what I’d do the next evening, how I’d keep an eye on the Kids Coats meeting, and on Patricia.
Could anyone blame me for being curious?
As I walked back across the parking lot toward the club, I couldn’t help but wonder why Patricia just happened to leave the meeting early that Tuesday. And if her early departure had anything to do with those bruises I’d seen on her arm, her lame explanation about the J-trap in her sink, or Muriel’s murder.
I wondered about something else, too. I took a long look at the shaggy lawn around the mansion and the piles of newly fallen leaves gathering against the walls. I studied the showy flower arrangements in urns that had greeted our members and their guests all summer and saw brown and crinkly leaves, drooping flower heads, bourgeoning weeds.
It was a sad fact—PPWC looked as unkempt as St. John’s, and at the same time I wondered who on earth was going to tend to all the outside chores now that Bill Manby was gone, I stopped dead in my tracks, sure of the answer.
Without Bill to do the work, it was up to me to make sure PPWC got spruced up in time for Sunday’s inauguration.
I hurried inside, where I checked my phone messages (none), checked my email (none), and firmly ignored the pile of inauguration invitations marked Return to Sender and sitting amid the mail that had been slipped through the slot on the front door while I was gone.
I raced upstairs, and by the time I got back outside, I was wearing my rattiest jeans, a T-shirt (a going-away gift from one of Aunt Rosemary’s friends) that proclaimed Dead People Love Me in Lily Dale, New York, and a pair of tennis shoes that had seen better days. The only question now was where to start.
Fists on hips, I stood in the middle of the parking lot and weighed my options.
The urns, I decided, would be the easiest.
I had slipped my ring of club keys in my pocket before I left the building, and now I pulled it out, tossed and caught it in one hand, and headed for the summerhouse at the very edge of the property.
Back in the day, the summerhouse had been just that, an oasis in a wooded park-like area of the Dennison estate, designed as a shady retreat from summer heat. I imagined Mrs. Dennison lounging there on sultry afternoons, dressed in white linen and waving a fan in front of her face, sipping tea brought by the inimitable Dodie. When the Dennisons sold the house, the acres surrounding it were sold off too, bit by bit, and where there were once grand gardens and tall trees, there were now homes and businesses, parking lots, a playground, a frozen custard stand. These days, that shady haven of a summerhouse was tucked between a sleek mid-century ranch house and a convenience store.
The house itself was a miniature version of the mansion, dark stone with faded white woodwork, beveled windows and, so it could be used as a place of cooling relaxation, a wide stone front porch designed to catch every errant summer breeze. The summerhouse wasn’t large, and once the club bought the property, I heard there had been plenty of discussion on how it could be used. Little theater. Art gallery. Bed-and-breakfast.
None of the plans had ever come to fruition, and over the years, the summerhouse had never been used for anything except storage. Christmas decorations were kept in what used to be the living room. Extra tables and chairs for parties that never happened these days were stored in the various bedrooms. The grounds maintenance supplies were around the back, so I’d been told, in the kitchen, where the old back door had been replaced by a lift door and the back steps by a ramp.
I let myself in that way and didn’t close the door behind me. For a fall afternoon, it was pleasant enough outside, but here in the unused summerhouse, the cold settled in every nook and cranny. So did the quiet.
I shook away the chill that touched my shoulders and ignored the unsettling squeak of the floorboards when I ventured farther into the old kitchen.
I wasn’t there to let my imagination run wild, or to allow thought of ghosts and hauntings to distract me from what I knew I had to do. “Work gloves, a trowel, clippers,” I reminded myself, and I got busy looking for what I needed.
I’d say one thing for Bill Manby: He was organized. Tools hung in orderly rows from pegboard on the wall. The clippers were wiped clean after their last use and propped against a cupboard.
Gloves, though, were harder to locate.
I looked through every drawer and cupboard, and when that didn’t work, I decided to try the other rooms. I pushed through the door that led out of the kitchen and into what was once the dining room. It was dark in there, and I automatically spun around to grope for a light switch, then gasped. The first thing I saw were two big blue eyes staring back at me.
* * *
<
br /> * * *
I’m a lousy poker player. For one thing, I don’t have a whole lot of money to toss around. Yeah, it’s fun to win, but losing is another story. And bills don’t pay themselves.
For another, it seems to me there’s something just slightly dishonest about poker. And I’m not talking about players who cheat. I mean trying to bluff through a game. It always felt just a little shady to me, pretending the cards in my hand were better than they actually were, acting cool and calm and oh so in control when all I wanted to do was toss my cards on the table and admit surrender.
Having a poker face is not one of my strong suits.
Somehow, I managed.
I played my cards close to my chest, kept my voice even and calm, and made a phone call. I cobbled together a whopping good story about how I had some questions and how there was only one person who could possibly answer them. I said it had to be done in person.
Lo and behold, it worked.
Within forty minutes Bill Manby arrived at the club, and he brought Brittany with him, and the moment I saw them get out of the car, I congratulated myself—maybe my poker face wasn’t so bad after all.
I met them out in the parking lot. “I’m glad you could get here on such short notice,” I told them. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
They exchanged wary looks, then gave the same sort of slant-eyed, suspicious glance at the club.
“We don’t understand,” Brittany said. “When you called, you said you had to talk to Bill about something important, but—”
“No worries!” I swept past them and on in the direction of the summerhouse. “I just need some help with a maintenance problem and Bill is the perfect person to ask.”
“You said it was important,” he reminded me.
“Did I?” I stopped and turned to make sure they were following along like I wanted them to. “I guess I was being a little dramatic, but well, you know, with Agnes’s inauguration coming up, the place really needs some grooming. I’m going to get right on it, but I just want to make sure I’m doing everything right. I know I’ve brought you out of your way. Both of you.” Playing it as cool as possible for a woman who wasn’t used to games, I slid a smile from one to the other. “I hope you’ll join me for lunch in the restaurant after we’re done. My treat. It’s my way of thanking you for your help.”
“Yeah, but—”
I didn’t give Bill a chance to offer any more of a protest. I kept on going, across the parking lot, on toward the summerhouse. I’d closed and locked the back door when I left and I paused, the key near the lock. “If you’ll just come inside with me.”
“Sure.” Bill shuffled his sneakers against the ramp that led to the back door. “I’ll try to help, but—”
“Good.” I unlocked the door and Bill swung it open and all three of us stepped inside.
“My questions have nothing to do with the equipment in here,” I told them. “If we could just go into the dining room.”
They walked ahead of me, never hesitating.
It was all the proof I needed and if I were the skeptical sort, even that cynicism would have been washed away when I saw Bill and Brittany flinch when they saw what I’d found earlier.
“What the—!” Instinctively, Bill stepped back.
“Percival Dash,” I said, pointing to the painting that had greeted me when I walked into the dining room. “You didn’t know the picture was here, did you?”
“No. I swear.” Even in the dim light, I could see that Bill’s face was pale. His eyes bulged. “Why would somebody put this painting—”
“It’s not just the painting.” Brittany’s words were as jumpy as the breaths she took in and let out in little whooshes of surprise. She pointed toward the corner of the room. “There’s a ewer and a basin, and two stained-glass lamps. It’s the stuff—”
“The stuff Muriel said I stole from the club.” Bill’s voice was sharp. “Avery, you’ve got to know, I didn’t—”
“I know,” I told him. “You wouldn’t have walked in here so casually if you knew that stuff was here.”
“Then you believe me?”
“I do.”
“Then why—”
“Sorry. I know you told me you weren’t involved in stealing from the club, but I just needed to prove it to myself. So why—”
“Why did Muriel make up that stuff about me?” Bill asked.
I could have told them right then and there, but it was far easier to show them. The way I figured it, a picture is worth a thousand words.
And a whole stack of them?
Maybe that would help explain what Muriel was up to.
CHAPTER 16
It seemed silly for all of us to limbo our way through the crime scene tape that covered the doorway of Muriel’s office, so I squeezed my way in there alone and brought the photographs of Bill back out to the hallway, where he waited with Brittany.
He shuffled through them, and his cheeks got redder and redder.
“I thought Muriel was keeping an eye on you because she was trying to catch you stealing,” I explained, peering over his shoulder while he looked at the picture of himself, bare chested, working in the parking lot. “Now that theory doesn’t make much sense. It seems pretty clear Muriel made up the story about you stealing from the club and she stashed the supposedly stolen goods in the summerhouse to support her story. Obviously, she was looking for an excuse to fire you. Can you explain? What are these pictures all about? What was Muriel up to?”
When he tapped the photos into a pile, Bill’s words wobbled. “I . . . I have no idea.”
“Oh, come off it, Bill!” Brittany stripped the photos out of his hands and slapped them against her leg. “Avery might as well know the truth.”
Bill hung his head. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Not as embarrassing as me thinking you might have killed Muriel,” I reminded him.
His head came up. “But I didn’t! You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think. And I won’t. Not until I know the whole story.”
Muriel’s—soon to be Agnes’s—office was at the top of the staircase that led from the first floor. Letting go a long sigh, Bill walked away from it, sidestepping the stairway. There were meeting rooms up on the second floor—Marigold, Lilac, Dahlia, Tulip—and outside of Geranium, there was a padded bench set against the paneled wall. Bill dropped onto it.
“Muriel . . .” He swallowed hard and looked away. “There’s no easy way to say it, Avery.”
Brittany stood to his right. I sat down next to him. “Then just say it and get it over with.”
His shoulders went rigid. “Muriel had the hots for me.”
I might have laughed if Bill didn’t look so darned serious. And so appalled at the very thought.
Instead, I pointed out, “Muriel was way older than you.”
He nodded.
“And technically, she was your boss.”
Another nod.
“She was so hoity-toity.”
This, we all knew, so he didn’t bother to nod again.
“How did you—”
I didn’t have a chance to finish the question when Brittany sputtered, “She was a cougar!” Her voice pinged against the silver sconces on the wall above our heads. “She was after Bill from the moment he started working here.”
“Really?” It wasn’t that I didn’t believe them. It was just . . .
I searched for the words that would help me explain what I was thinking, and would lead to the truth. “Muriel and Tab had been married for a long, long time.”
Bill puffed out a laugh. “Like she cared about that! Honest, Avery, from day one when I came here to work, that woman was after me. She’d just happen”—he emphasized the word—“to show up places where I was involved in some project or anot
her. Raking leaves or fixing something. Or . . .” When he looked at the photos still clutched in Brittany’s hand, his top lip curled. “Or black-topping the parking lot. I never encouraged her,” he was quick to add. “I was polite. And friendly enough. But believe me, I never said anything that would have made her think I was interested in more than passing the time of day with her. After a while, she’d just happen to stay late when I had to be here after hours. At first I told myself I was just imagining things, but then . . . well, I don’t know any other way to explain it, but Muriel, she started coming on pretty strong.”
I pictured Muriel, short and thin, dressed to perfection, cutter of the purse strings, devoted to the club. “She came right out and—”
“At first she just asked me if I’d go out for a drink with her after work one day,” Bill explained. “And I figured sure, sure, why not. There were a couple projects I wanted to discuss with her. You know, stuff I thought needed to be done around here. But then the next week, she asked the same thing, and I couldn’t do it, you know? I had something else going on. She wasn’t happy about that. She told me if I couldn’t meet her at a local bar, well, her husband was out of town, and why didn’t I stop over at her place for dinner and a nightcap.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “Made me plenty uncomfortable, I’ll tell you that. That was when I knew I had to steer clear.”
“And did Muriel? Steer clear of you?”
“She did not. She was always following me. Always asking questions about the dumbest little things. You know, not like she needed answers, just like she wanted to have something to say to me and get me to talk. Then when Brittany started working here . . .”
I knew what was coming, knew it deep down in my bones. “So it wasn’t just that she wanted Kendall to have your job,” I said with a glance at Brittany. “She saw you and Bill were interested in each other and Muriel, she was jealous. How did she find out?”
“About me and Brit?” Bill reached out and took Brittany’s hand. “She’d see us talking together. And she knew that most days, we ate lunch together.”