“That looks like the notepad Harry had on his desk.”
“He had one like it on his desk at home, too,” Bliss said.
“Which means we have no idea which place this paper came from,” Jesse added, hoping she didn’t sound as disgruntled as she felt. She looked at Maria. “Anything else?”
“I don’t recognize the writing. It’s not Harry’s. It doesn’t look like any of the salesmen at work. I don’t remember any phone calls that might have a link to this.” She held out her hands, looking helpless and frustrated. “It means nothing.”
Jesse looked at the note again, thinking out loud. “Except it clearly means Harry went to the pool to meet someone.”
“It doesn’t sound like a woman to me,” Bliss added. “Or at least, not a girlfriend.”
“No,” Jesse agreed. “I’m not sure it sounds like a friend of any kind.”
“So.” Vivian popped up out of her chair, her patience at an end. “Can we all read it now?” She motioned to Sophia, who didn’t seem nearly so eager, but dutifully rose.
Jesse moved to the side. “Sure, just don’t…”
“I know,” Vivian interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t touch it. I get it.” She pointed to the note and rolled her eyes before she leaned closer to read it. “Evidence.”
Maria returned to the sofa, obviously uncomfortable. “This is getting almost spooky,” she said quietly. “Is anyone else starting to feel really tired?”
Bliss caught her eye and nodded. At the desk, all attention was focused on the small, cream-colored sheet of paper in the silver tray. Sophia leaned in to read the note over Vivian’s shoulder, then drew back and looked into her daughter’s eyes.
“We’ve stepped in it, now, haven’t we?” she asked softly, while Vivian leaned closer to reread the note.
“Sheriff Tyler will not be pleased with us,” Jesse agreed.
“When are we going to tell him?” Sophia asked cautiously.
“Soon,” Jesse answered.
Vivian turned and nodded. “It will have to be soon. I’m guessing any minute now.”
Maria raised her hand to her forehead and rubbed, the weight of the situation seriously pressing on her. “Do we all have to be here? I don’t want to sound like a coward, but I’m afraid if the sheriff sees me here, the other people at work might get drawn into this, too.”
“I see your point.” Jesse gave the matter a few moments thought, then shook her head. “I don’t really see why you or my mother, either one, need to be here. Do you, Vivian?”
“I think we can put Bliss to bed, and you and I can deal with this,” Vivian agreed. “I wouldn’t want the sheriff to confuse a meeting of the Myrtle Grove Garden Club with some sort of a plotting session.”
Sophia shook her head emphatically. “No, wouldn’t want that.”
“So, all right then,” Jesse said. Her gaze skimmed over her mother, reassuring her, before landing on Maria, then on to Bliss. “You two can leave anytime. And I just have another couple of questions for you, Bliss.”
Bliss’s head drooped. “Sure. This is all like one of those nightmares that won’t end. You try to wake up, and it just keeps on going.” She sounded somewhere between exhausted and shell shocked. “He went down there because of some stupid, anonymous note. And now he’s dead!”
A thin thread of hysteria caught Jesse’s ear. Bliss had held up well, but she was running out of steam and at any moment she threatened to collapse completely. Jesse needed to find out what she could and then get the frazzled widow safely upstairs and into bed before the sheriff made his appearance.
Sophia crossed her arms and leaned back against the desk next to Vivian. “I think I’ll stay put for a while longer, if it’s okay.”
Maria popped up from the sofa, lifting her daiquiri glass and Sophia’s from the coffee table as she rose. “And I think I’ll head out now. I’ll just take these to the kitchen on my way.”
“Good idea,” Sophia said to Maria. “Just put those in the sink, and I’ll wash them before I leave.”
Seating herself on the sofa across from Bliss, Jesse said, “Okay, now. Just a few more questions, Bliss. And then we’re putting you to bed for the night. Think you can do that?”
Bliss nodded, clearly holding onto her composure with nothing more than determination. Jesse couldn’t help wondering how any of the rest of them would be faring after having the kind of day the other woman had had.
Then, putting sympathy aside, Jesse leaned closer and asked, “All right now, where exactly did you find that note? How did you get it past Deputy Murphy? And why in the world did you bring it with you, instead of just giving it to her?”
∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙
Jesse hung up the phone and took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. He’s on his way.”
“Oh, dear.” Vivian looked around the room that now held just the two of them. “Maybe we should fix a pot of coffee while we wait.”
“I think I’m having an anxiety attack,” was Jesse’s only response.
Like Vivian, she glanced around nervously. The note remained on its silver tray, bathed in a pool of lamplight. Pitchers, glasses, and empty bottles were all gone. The room looked neat, innocent, somber.
Bliss was tucked into bed, sedated and instantly asleep. Maria was long since gone. Sophia had cleaned up and left for home, cheerfully promising to bail Jesse out of the pokey if need be. Jesse and Vivian remained alone, waiting to face the music. Old friends, who had seen each other through worse times than this on more than one occasion.
“I suppose he’s going to be upset,” Vivian said with what, in anyone else, would have sounded like trepidation.
“That would be my guess,” Jesse agreed. Privately, she couldn’t even imagine what form his anger would take, but she was willing to bet it would be impressive.
“Should I apologize now for getting you into this?”
In the silent, semi-dark house where nothing moved but the two of them and maybe a mouse or two, Vivian’s question was as sincerely humble as it was unexpected. Jesse turned to her friend of countless years, and she was again a girl, staring at a woman of exquisite beauty and awesome strength, her mentor, her hero, her beacon through the dark and troubled years of youth. Vivian Windsor had been a gift, treasured and well-used throughout Jesse’s life.
“No, Vivian,” she said softly, hoping her sudden burning tears didn’t show in the room’s understated light. “You never have to apologize to me for anything, ever.”
“Good,” Vivian answered just as softly, then smiled. “I must be getting a little tired. I don’t know what came over me for a minute there.”
Jesse laughed and linked her arm through Vivian’s. “I think that coffee’s a good idea. We need to get our stories straight before the Lord High Sheriff gets here.”
“We’d better talk fast, then. I’ve seen that man drive.”
“Point taken.” Feeling the urgency, Jesse steered them to the kitchen. “Do we have any snacks?”
“I believe there’s some of Sophia’s orange, cranberry bread left.” Vivian took the plastic wrap off of the half loaf remaining and began to slice it. “The glaze on this is unbelievable, by the way. Your recipe or hers?”
“That one, actually, is my grandmother’s. Mom’s thinking of putting together a cookbook with three generations of recipes.” Jesse started the coffee while she talked, and by the time Vivian finished arranging the tea bread on a platter, the coffee was perking.
“Then what?” Vivian asked.
“I don’t think she’s thought that far ahead.” Jesse shrugged. “Maybe sell it at the tea room?”
“Maybe that could be a project for the Garden Club,” Vivian suggested. She reached into the cabinet and brought down an insulated carafe for the coffee, which had just finished brewing. “Fix a little pitcher of cream, would you? I’ll pour the coffee.”
Jesse headed for the refrigerator. “What garden club?” she asked over
her shoulder. “I thought you were kidding.”
“Nope. We started one tonight.” Vivian arranged the carafe and platter on a tray. “Think you can carry this?”
“Sure.” Jesse placed a delicate china pitcher of creamer next to the coffee and picked up the tray. “Does this garden club have a purpose other than to irritate the local sheriff by poking our noses in where he doesn’t want them?”
Vivian tossed her head and tilted her nose ever-so-slightly aloft. “Not at the moment. But it’s a new club. Maybe we’ll actually do some gardening after we figure out who killed Harold.”
Jesse shook her head and heaved a sigh. “Oh, Vivian.”
“Don’t trip.” Vivian took the lead and headed back toward the library. “There are some dessert plates and mugs in a china hutch behind Malcolm’s desk. I think they’ll be more to the sheriff’s liking.”
“Real mugs, or little, fancy mugs?” Jesse asked, following behind at a more sedate pace. It wasn’t that the tray was heavy, it was just cumbersome. And Vivian was right. She wouldn’t want to trip.
“They’re real mugs,” Vivian defended. “Just not those big, heavy things young people use these days.”
Jesse wasn’t going to argue, but she remembered her father using one of the biggest, heaviest mugs she had ever seen, and that was a long time ago. Entering the library, she went to the coffee table and set down her burden. “Okay, we need to talk.”
Vivian stopped rummaging through the china hutch and turned. “I remember that Deputy Murphy had gone into the bathroom, and that’s why Bliss was alone in the master suite. But the rest of it didn’t make any sense to me.”
“And, that’s exactly why…” Jesse pointed to Vivian with the index fingers of both hands. “Bliss is in bed. Because it’s not going to make any sense to Joe Tyler either.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Keep it as simple as we can. When he asks where Bliss is, we say that she’s in bed sedated, that she was exhausted, physically and mentally. If he keeps pushing, we say all she could do was cry, so we put her to bed.” Jesse held up her hand, palm extended. “Trust me, he will not want to talk to Bliss if she’s just going to cry. He’s been there already.”
“Okay. Exhausted. Tears. Bed,” Vivian repeated. “What’s next? Oh, I know! Why did she bring it home with her? I didn’t understand that one. So if he asked me that, I wouldn’t make any more sense than Bliss did.”
Jesse took a minute to think. All Bliss had been able to say was that she didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know. She just had. Which was pretty much what she had said when she first walked in with the crumpled note in her hand.
“I almost understand that one,” Jesse said finally. Her words came slowly, as she searched through thoughts as vague and confused as Bliss’s explanation had been. “I think it was just instinct. I think it was the last thing she had from her husband. It took her by surprise, and she just couldn’t let it go. So, without consciously thinking about it, she brought it with her.”
“I think I’ll let you explain that one,” Vivian said.
“For the sheriff’s purposes, I think we’ll just say that she was exhausted, grieving and wasn’t thinking straight. How’s that?” Jesse asked.
“Exhausted, grieving, wasn’t thinking straight,” Vivian repeated with a frown. “That sounds a lot like why she’s in bed.”
“That one has tears thrown in. This one has not thinking straight,” Jesse explained. “Other than that, they’re both just blah-blah-blah, leave us alone, take the note, go away.”
Vivian laughed. “Oh, dear, this is starting to get complicated.”
“It’s been complicated,” Jesse said, laughing with her. “It’s just that we’re starting to get too tired to keep it all straight.”
“And what about that nice Deputy Murphy?” Vivian asked. “She wasn’t supposed to leave Bliss alone in the house. Are we about to get her into trouble?”
Jesse shook her head with regret. “I think we’re just going to have to throw her under the bus, Viv. I feel bad about it, too, but I don’t see any way around it.”
“Damn, Harold, anyway,” Vivian said. “What idiot wouldn’t have better sense than to go down to a deserted swimming pool in the middle of night, all alone, on the basis of an anonymous damned note! It’s like one of those gothic suspense novels where you’re yelling ‘don’t go up there alone’.” She spread her arms wide. “And there she goes, marching off into certain danger, like an idiot.”
“Maybe he knew who he was meeting,” Jesse suggested. “Maybe it was someone he trusted, or at least wasn’t afraid of.”
“Yeah, well, fooled him!”
Chapter Twelve
Jesse pointed to the note and moved back. When Joe Tyler leaned in for a closer look, she automatically gave a little start. “Don’t touch it,” she cautioned before she could get her mouth to stop talking.
He turned his head, one brow arched alarmingly high, and pinned her with a stare that would make a lizard look warm and fuzzy.
“Sorry. Reflex action.” She retreated slightly further.
“What is this?” he asked in a voice to match his expression.
“A note Bliss found,” Jesse explained. She glanced over her shoulder to Vivian, who took a step backward and placed a steadying hand on the top of the wingback next to where she stood. Jesse scowled at her, then turned back to take the brunt of whatever the sheriff did next.
“She found it here?” he asked, still with exaggerated calm.
“No.”
“Where?”
Jesse could feel the tension vibrating in the depths of that last word, and knew she had to start the confession now or take the consequences. She sucked in a deep breath, which did nothing to soften her dread, then blurted out, “It was in the pocket of a suit jacket hanging in the closet of Harry’s bedroom.”
“And what was she doing in there?” The reasonable tenor of his question was somehow not reassuring.
“Saying goodbye, I believe. She was crying a bit by then, so it wasn’t entirely audible.” Jesse cut herself off before she began to babble. He was going off script, asking questions that were logical, but that she hadn’t prepared for. This left her scrambling for answers and wasn’t helping her nervousness one bit.
Sheriff Tyler nodded and returned his stare to the desk. “Yes, she’s a little hard to understand when she does that. Is there a reason why she’s not here, telling me this herself?”
Vivian stepped forward and Jesse heaved a silent sigh of relief.
“She was exhausted,” Vivian answered. “I think the trip to her home made it all too real.” She lifted her chin and her gaze moved over the room around her. “I don’t know what it is about a man’s suit, but somehow they seem to embody his presence the way nothing else does.”
A haunted melancholy echoed in her words. Then, as quickly as the mood took her, it was gone. Vivian shook her head and her tone became crisp. “Anyway, Bliss was a basketcase by the time she got through explaining how she found that damned note, so I gave her a sedative and put her to bed. I don’t know if she’s going to be any good to you tomorrow either. Because after she gets a good night’s sleep, she’s going to have to look at those suits again, and figure out which one Harold’s going to be buried in.”
By the time she finished talking, Vivian was ramrod stiff and prepared for battle. Eyes flashing, nostrils flared, and head back with her shoulders braced, she had assumed a stance that Jesse had long ago learned to give a wide berth.
In keeping with that sentiment, Jesse glided back and to the side of the desk. Joe Tyler had gotten himself into this, and he could get himself out. She, personally, was removing herself from the line of fire.
“Ah, yes.” His voice was soft as he turned to face Vivian across the room. Arms at his sides, he seemed relaxed, at ease, nonconfrontational. “Funeral preparations.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes in my line of work, you forget about all of the other things t
hat come after death. I can see that, taken altogether, it could be very overwhelming.”
Wow, this man was good. His tone, his words, even his body language were amazingly mellow, when they had expected exactly the opposite. Jesse could feel Vivian standing down and beginning to relax.
“Would we have any way of knowing,” the sheriff continued in a voice that was both quiet and soothing, “if the jacket Mrs. Kerr found the note in was the one Harry wore to work on Friday?” He laid the question out on the air, addressed to no one in particular.
“Maria, his assistant, might know,” Vivian offered helpfully, absent the flash and fire of a few minutes earlier.
Jesse would have given him a highfive if there was any way to do it without offending everyone in the room but herself. As it was, she would just cling to her invisibility while watching the other two politely dance around each other awhile longer.
“So,” Sheriff Tyler began in a velvety voice Jesse had never heard from him before, “Mrs. Kerr was looking in her husband’s closet, possibly to say goodbye. Possibly…” He extended a hand in Vivian’s direction. “Possibly, to begin funeral preparations. Or, maybe for both reasons. And she notices a particular jacket that draws her attention.”
“It might be worth noting,” Vivian said, careful not to step on his words while interjecting her thought, “that Harold was a personally meticulous man. If you look in his closet, you will notice that things are arranged in order. It’s possible that Bliss recognized the suit as the one he wore on Friday by its placement in the closet.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” he asked, not challenging her, but genuinely intrigued.
“He was extremely systematic. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility,” Vivian acknowledged. “And I do realize that it would have been better to have Bliss here to answer for herself. But I know that when my husband died, I couldn’t have done half the things she’s done today. She had just reached the end of her endurance.”
“I do understand.” The sheriff nodded. “I truly do. The last thing I want is to be insensitive to someone’s grief. It’s just that sometimes that’s what my job requires. And I truly appreciate the cooperation you’re giving me. Now, does anyone know where Deputy Murphy was during all of this?”
Murder, Mayhem and Bliss Page 10