Bernadine Fagan - Nora Lassiter 02 - Murder in the Maine Woods

by Bernadine Fagan

  To make myself feel better today, sort of better, I concentrated on what I’d do post-animal duty. I decided to prepare what I’d wear. Clothes always made me feel better, like magic. I unpacked the sealed box of clothes that my friend Lori sent from my apartment. Since I figured I was leaving so soon, I hadn’t bothered to open it.

  I made selections, and carefully laid them out on the chintz-covered chair. Sand-colored slim jeans with a slight boot cut, a white T-shirt, a cherry-colored, lined, waist-length jacket that I’d picked up for a song at a special sale, along with a pink belt studded with recessed crystals. Nice. I pictured myself wearing these in a few hours. It helped, but not much.

  When I decided I’d delayed as long as I could, I rifled through a bag in the back of the closet looking for a working jacket. October is cool in Maine. I found an ancient olive drab jacket with gold buttons that should have been tossed a century ago. A few moth holes decorated the sleeves and collar, but it would do. The mothball smell did nothing to deter the creatures.

  Downstairs I found an old relative’s clunky boots. Perfect. I was good to go.

  When Ida saw me, she clasped her hands to her heart. “That jacket belonged to my cousin Sheila. She wore it as a WAC during WWII.”

  “I’ll take good care of it,” I said jokingly.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  “I can handle this,” I assured her. “I’m not incompetent.”

  “Oh, I know. Didn’t mean to offend. It’s just your … allergies.”

  Okay. She thought I was incompetent.

  “WAC?” I asked.

  “Women’s Army Corps.”

  I vaguely remembered that from history class. “Were you a WAC, too?”

  “No. Just Sheila.”

  “My allergies. I’ll need more protection. I’ll be right back.”

  I ran upstairs. I’d wear a mask is what I’d do.

  I pawed through my suitcases for something to cover my nose. Found a scarf. No, I wouldn’t wear a good silk scarf. What if I dropped it, and the dogs ran off with it? A quick, ugly flash of cat and dog hairs, or worse, tooth holes made me shiver. No, my scarves were out. Inspiration finally struck in the most unlikely spot, the underwear section. I grabbed a red bra, tested it over my nose, and decided the little pocket was perfect, better than any scarf. It was like one of those filter masks people wear in a contagion zone. Who would see? No one, that’s who. I stuffed it in my pocket and headed downstairs.

  Vivian lived about a half an hour away. I was beginning to think of distance in terms of time, not city blocks or even miles. Interesting.

  Since I’d been to Vivian’s a few times, I didn’t have much trouble finding the place. It took about forty minutes. I’m getting better. Although I did come from the opposite direction this time. How that happened, I’m not sure. Maybe I should have called Mary Fran. I slowed as I passed Verney’s house. The yellow crime scene tape was still in place.

  I paused at the foot of his driveway. That’s when it hit me. He probably owned a computer. Assuming he died of natural causes, it might have been overlooked when the body was picked up. What a bonanza that could be. I’d tend to that when I finished at Vivian’s. This whole case might be wrapped up in a day or so.

  I’d feed the dogs first. That way if I found a computer I could check it out without worrying about the dogs howling with hunger.

  The barking started as soon as I drove up. Fortunately they were all in the dog pen, locked up. I counted eight dogs. I gave them water first. How easy was this. Just squirt the hose into the water bowls through the chain link fence. Piece of cake.

  Next, I took the key from under the front door mat and went inside to the open pantry off the kitchen. I sneezed twice. That was enough. I was prepared, and I intended to do this right. I took the lacy red bra from my pocket, cupped it over my nose, wound the straps around my head and tied them. I tightened it, and anchored it as securely as a boat docked in a high wind. This sucker was not coming off. It would keep out the cat dander and dog hairs quite nicely. One of my best ideas yet.

  Ingenuity. It’s what made this country great.

  I scooped a huge portion of dog food into a plastic container and took it outside. This might be a little dicey. I had to open the gate, enter, and divide the food among four bowls lined up on the far side. I recognized the gas-passer lying in a corner, alone, eyeing me suspiciously. I’d give him a wide berth.

  “Hello, you guys,” I said in my friendliest voice. “My name is Nora. I’ll be your waitress for this meal. You will have to share a bowl with your neighbor. Two to a bowl. No fighting, but the fastest eaters will get the most.”

  I unlocked the gate, and opened it wide enough to slip in sideways, then closed it.

  They rushed me. Surrounded me.

  Holding the plastic bowl over my head, I inched toward the dishes, zigzagging around little heaps of dog dooty.

  After being left alone for hours, they were ecstatic about company, even if it was only me. They jumped at my ankles, bouncing and pawing, woofing and yapping, like they’d been stranded on a desert island and I’d arrived with a yacht and a T-bone.

  Then I bent over to distribute the dry dog food.

  That’s when it happened.

  One little guy jumped at my back, another started licking my face, and a third one, or was it two, came at the hand that held the food. I teetered, took a few steps to the side, and went down on one knee, landing in you-know-what.

  One of them got a little paw, or maybe a long nail, caught in the bra strap at the back of my head.

  He panicked.

  I panicked.

  For the others it was time to rock and roll. Lots of jumping, hopping, yipping.

  When I tried to free the dog at my back, he started thrashing around like crazy, twisting and turning, howling like a maniac, like I was killing him or something. Off balance, I wobbled on the one knee and flopped to the ground. It was like a signal.

  Yipppie, she’s down on the ground. She wants to play with us.

  Omigod. They crawled all over me, barking, licking, prancing, wagging their curly tails. A few were diverted by the food. The one caught in the bra continued to flail and yip. I was so busy holding him and keeping the others at bay, that I wasn’t able to remove the bra from my head. With all the flailing, the bra cup slipped back and hooked under my nose. I could hardly breathe.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw an SUV pull up. Relief mixed with dread.

  “Holy shit. What are you doing?” Nick yelled above the fray as he jumped from his vehicle and ran to the fence.

  “Sunbathing,” I gasped in a nasally voice. “What does it look like?”

  “You have a bra on your head,” he remarked as he moved toward the gate.

  “Nothing gets by you, does it?” I wheezed, awkwardly holding the squirming dog behind my head. “Don’t just stand there. Get in here and help.”

  The dogs rushed him as he opened the gate. I thought he was moving more slowly than the situation warranted. For a first responder, he was very slow.

  Yippee. Someone else has come to play with us.

  “Hurry. Get this dog off my head.”

  My nose was stretched to the limit. I wondered about the possibility of having a permanent crease in it. I might need nose surgery, rhinoplasty, I think it’s called.

  “I have him,” he said, lifting the squirming puppy. “His nails are caught. Let go. Take your bra off.”

  He laughed at his own words. Men are so juvenile sometimes.

  In seconds I was on my feet, the red lace bra in my hand.

  Nick set the dog down and studied me a moment.

  “A bra on your head? That’s something I haven’t seen before.”

  “I happened to have an extra one just laying around,” I said as I stepped outside the pen and latched the door. “And I thought it would look nice hooked under my nose.”

  “Well, it certainly did. Quite the fashion stateme
nt. You New York women are definitely avant-garde.”

  With all the dignity I could muster, I headed to the house, rubbing my sore nose, wondering about the crease and the possibility that my nose was bigger than the last time I’d looked in a mirror.

  What a crappy day. It could not possibly get any worse.

  I opened Vivian’s front door.

  “Nicky, darling,” a woman trilled from his SUV. “What’s going on?”

  EIGHT

  Darling?

  Had I heard that correctly? A woman called him Nicky darling?

  I would not turn around.

  I would not.

  I never suspected he was seeing anyone, not for a moment. This was off the radar. The kiss in his office, that little bone-melting show of affection that turned my knees to jelly and sent my senses spinning had been the kiss of a cheater, like my cheater ex-fiancé back in New York.

  Nick and I were not really dating, definitely not engaged, so he could see anyone he wished. It’s just that I never imagined myself in the roll of the other woman. I honestly thought he wasn’t seeing anyone.

  I’m usually perceptive about people. Why that ability vanishes completely when it comes to men I’m attracted to, I have no idea, but there it was. I’m a foolish woman where men are concerned. I intend to work on that. Be stronger, less gullible.

  I was foolish enough to get engaged to a man who kept another woman on the side. I thought Nick was different, he was … I caught myself. I thought what? That there was a future for us?

  There was no future for Nick and me. None. I knew that and so did Nick. He’d been engaged to a woman who left him for another life, and I’d told him I was returning to New York. No romantic relationship for us. We were friends, the kind who kissed now and again. Passionately.

  “Are you following me? Why are you here?” I asked, suddenly adopting my business persona, the first step in getting stronger.

  That he didn’t like being put on the spot showed on his face and in his posture. At least I was savvy enough to pick that up. Progress. No one was going to walk all over me again. Ever.

  He hesitated for long moments.

  Finally, he said, “I could hear the racket from Buster’s place. I was over there picking up his computer.” He paused, studying me intently, like I was evidence under a magnifying glass. Sherlock.

  I stared right back at him, careful to keep my face as blank as possible, pushing aside thoughts of the woman in his SUV as skillfully as I pushed aside visions of that woman with my ex-fiancé. Without conscious thought I thumbed the back of the ring finger on my left hand. I stopped abruptly when I realized what I was doing. I remembered when I took that ring off. How easily it slipped from my finger, as if it never belonged in the first place.

  “I thought there was a massive attack of some kind going on over here. I was about ready to call for backup.”

  He was trying to make me smile. I would not smile at him. To keep my strong odor in his space I stepped toward him, downwind. Or was this called upwind? Who could keep these things straight?

  “Did Vivian talk to you yet? Tell you what happened?” I asked, my heart breaking a little as I stood in front of him, this man I found so appealing on so many levels.

  “Ay-uh. I heard her side of it when her lawyer came. Don’t know why she didn’t tell me immediately.”

  “She’s cautious, a quality to be commended.”

  He tipped his head and stared at me.

  “You believe her, don’t you?” I asked, making no attempt to disguise the coolness in my voice.

  “Haven’t made up my mind,” he said so slowly I thought he was thinking about something else, maybe talking about something else.

  “She didn’t murder him,” I declared, as if I carried positive proof in the pocket of the moth-eaten jacket I wore. “Tell me about the poison.”

  He hesitated, I’m not sure why, but for some reason I didn’t think it had anything to do with reluctance to share information.

  “The digitalis poison was from foxglove. I told you we found trace evidence of that. We expect the toxicology reports from the autopsy to confirm this.”

  “Foxglove?”

  “Yes and the cup matched a set in Vivian’s cabinet.”

  “Her cup. Of course. How convenient, and such a great choice on the part of the cretin who planted it. Did that get your cop antenna vibrating?”

  “I have to consider all the angles, Nora. I can’t dismiss the charges against her.”

  “Foxglove. That sounds like an animal product from fox skins or something? I don’t think Vivian the animal lover collects fox skins. Besides, I thought you said it was from a flower?”

  He almost grinned and I knew I’d made another nature error, something Maine folks knew and I didn’t. So what.

  “You surprise me sometimes. You’re smart in so many ways. Actually brilliant once in a while, but you turned your back on nature along the way.”

  I tilted my head and smirked at him. “All right, Mister Flora and Fauna Expert. What is foxglove?”

  “A flower. The plant has a spike with rows of beautiful bell-shaped flowers.”

  “Oh, wait a minute. I bet I know the rest of this. My brilliant side just kicked in. The flowers grow on Vivian’s property, right?

  His brows shot up.

  “My goodness,” I said. “Another coincidence.”

  “I know it looks….”

  “Suspicious? Contrived? Either of those words fit?” I bit my bottom lip and scrunched my eyes as if I were concentrating extra hard.

  “Nicky,” the woman trilled again.

  We both looked over. I couldn’t see her clearly through two rows of chain link fence. I was glad I was leaving Silver Stream. Whoever she was I didn’t want to run into her ever again.

  “Your date’s getting impatient,” I said, unable to keep quiet a second longer. To my credit I did an admirable job of keeping emotion from my voice. “You’d better go.”

  His brows shot up and I thought I detected a quirk in his mouth.

  “I said something funny?” I snapped, spinning and heading toward the house.

  He followed me.

  I added food to the cats’ dishes and fresh water to their bowls. No cats were in sight. In spite of that, I sneezed four times in a row.

  Nick, bless his black heart, cleaned the litter box.

  When I finished with the cat food, I grabbed a fistful of paper towels and began to brush the crud off my jeans and the WAC jacket.

  “Let me run through this,” I said as I worked and gagged. “Vivian picks her foxglove, makes a poison tea, tromps through the woods with the delicate cup, knocks on Buster’s door—perhaps she also has a bagel with cream cheese?—hands the cup to an unsuspecting Buster, a man she hates and hasn’t seen or talked to in how long? And he willingly sips it and says thank you so much, you’re really a wonderful, thoughtful woman, how could I not have noticed all these years, what was I thinking?”

  Garbage bag in hand, Nick replied, “Probably not quite that way.”

  “No. Not quite. She didn’t kill him.”

  Instead of replying, he headed out.

  Ignoring the clap of the front door, I attacked the mess on my jeans with added gusto.

  Minutes later, he returned with a pair of patched jeans and a well-worn blouse.

  “Probably not your size, but they’re clean,” he said, holding them out to me.

  “Where did you get these?” I asked, washing my hands, guessing I already knew the answer to that one.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course not.” Liar, liar, liar.

  I headed for Vivian’s bathroom, and in record time stripped off the filthy clothes, washed up, and stepped into clean clothes, a little large, but a huge improvement. I picked up the dirty ones with two fingers and headed out.

  “Much better,” he said as he handed me a bag for the dirty jeans. “Good enough to kiss.”

  I wanted to smack him. I re
ally did. Instead, I said pleasantly, “The woman waiting for you in your police vehicle might object.”

  Suddenly, without so much as a would-you-like-to, he grabbed my hand and led me outside to the SUV. The urge to pull back was strong, but the desire to meet the woman trumped that. What is wrong with me, anyway? Nora Lassiter, masochist.

  “Mom, this is Nora Lassiter.”

  Mom? As in Nick’s mother? As in Mrs. Renzo? Relief should play absolutely no part in this.

  “Nora, my mother, Arianna Renzo.”

  I seldom feel awkward. But here I was meeting Nick’s mother for the first time, probably wearing her old clothes, and a pair of crud-encrusted clunky boots that belonged to some long dead relative. Awkward doesn’t begin to cover the situation. I am a woman who prides herself on dressing to suit the occasion in a carefully planned outfit. I almost always follow my color palette. Naturally I make exceptions. I’m not a slave to my palette. The color specialist classified me as a summer and told me I should wear warm colors. Most of the time, I do. Those complement my blond hair and blue eyes.

  Nick thought this was funny. I could feel it, even though he didn’t smile.

  “Hello, Mrs. Renzo. I’m happy to meet you.” Big fat lie. Huge. I smiled. I am a polite person.

  “Arianna,” she corrected, her voice sweet and gentle as she smiled at me. “And I’m happy to meet you, Nora.”

  City Girl meets Earth Mother. Based on appearances, I’d have to say that Nick’s mother was my exact opposite. If I had to guess, I’d say she was not acquainted with my friends Revlon and Almay, and considered L’Oreal an abomination.

  Arianna flicked a few errant gray strands that escaped her waist-length braid. Dressed in well-worn jeans and an orange wool sweater that she probably knitted herself, after spinning the yarn, that is, she struck me as a woman at home in this rustic environment, definitely determined to leave a small footprint on the planet. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she churned her own butter.

  “You sure had a time of it with those dogs. It’s fortunate we came along when we did.” She laughed lightly.