by Leslie Meier
“Right.” Bill poured two cups of coffee, one for himself and one for Lucy. “Here. Have some coffee and we’ll figure this out.”
Lucy sank into a chair at the kitchen table and wrapped her hands around the mug of coffee. Bill toasted some English muffins, poured glasses of juice, and joined her and Patrick at the table. This was better, thought Lucy, thinking that Patrick looked a lot like his father looked when he was a little boy, seated at this very table.
They were finishing breakfast when a rumpled Toby appeared with Skittles. He grabbed a parka from the hooks by the door and pulled it on over his pajamas, stuffed his feet into Bill’s yard shoes, and let the dog outside, unleashed but insisting that he wouldn’t go far. “He’s trained to come when I whistle,” he claimed as he ducked out the door.
Bill and Lucy were doubtful, and Bill decided to take Libby to work with him in his truck, which he sometimes did to have company when he was working alone. When Toby returned with a slobbering and excited Skittles, Bill suggested that he make use of the fenced kennel for the beast after he left with Libby.
“Thanks, Dad,” responded Toby, availing himself of Libby’s kibble to fill Lucy’s favorite spatterware mixing bowl, “but Molly doesn’t believe in confining Skittles. It was bad enough having to crate him for the plane.”
“Well, just warning you, the town has a strict animal control regulation,” said Bill, watching as the dog began gulping down the food. “If he gets in trouble, they’ll put him down.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. Skittles won’t get in trouble.”
“Right,” murmured Lucy, giving Bill a good-bye kiss. Then, passing child care duties off to Toby, she went upstairs to get dressed for work. She left somewhat reluctantly, wishing she could spend the day with Patrick, perhaps taking him ice-skating on Blueberry Pond or going to see the Christmas greens and decorations for sale at Macdonald’s Farm Stand. But that was not to be, she thought somewhat resentfully, because she had to work.
As she drove the familiar route to the Pennysaver office, she reviewed the previous evening’s events, preparing herself for a busy deadline day. When she arrived, setting the little bell on the office door jangling, she realized Phyllis had had a much rougher night than she had. The receptionist had dark circles under her eyes, she’d forgotten to wear her dangly Christmas-tree-light earrings, and her pink sweater didn’t match her orange hair.
“Tough night?” asked Lucy, in a sympathetic voice, as she took off her jacket and hung it on the coat stand.
“You could say that, but it was the morning that really got out of hand. Honestly, I don’t know how Elfrida manages to get all five kids up and fed and dressed for school.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t Elfrida come home?”
“No. The cops are still keeping her.”
“That’s not good,” said Lucy.
“Tell me about it,” said Phyllis. “So we missed the school bus, but I managed to get the younger kids to school before the bell. Angie was late for high school, of course, but I told her to say there’s been a family emergency and maybe she won’t have to stay for detention. Wilf is pitching in and he’ll meet the kindergarten bus and give little Arthur lunch.” She let out a long sigh. “Of course, all of this is beside the point. The real problem is, we don’t know what’s happening with Elfrida.”
“Well, we’re a newspaper,” declared Ted, who was already seated at his desk, staring at his computer screen. “We’re gonna find out, right, Lucy?”
“We sure are,” said Lucy, managing an encouraging smile. “I bet the cops will realize their mistake and she’ll be back home in time for lunch.”
“At the latest,” said Ted.
“I sure hope so,” said Phyllis. “This is something completely new to me. I know what to do if somebody’s sick or dies, but we’ve never had any experience of crime in the family.” She drummed her fingers on her desk. “I can’t help being mad at Elfrida for getting herself in this situation. Just when I thought she was pulling herself together, taking good care of the kids and working at a real job instead of all that waitressing and housecleaning, she goes and gets involved in a murder.”
“I don’t think she did it on purpose,” said Lucy, settling herself at her desk and reaching for her phone to call Bob.
“Sorry, Lucy,” said his receptionist, “he hasn’t come into the office yet. I tried his cell, but my call went to voice mail. Why don’t you try again in a little while?”
“Thanks, I’ll do that,” said Lucy, going on to call the district attorney, Phil Aucoin. There her call went straight to voice mail, which turned out to be full.
With a sinking feeling that things were not going well for Elfrida, she decided to try calling Officer Barney Culpepper, hoping he might be willing to share some inside information.
Her friend Barney, as it turned out, was being unusually cagey. “Sorry, Lucy, but I can’t talk, I’m, uh, I’m on my way to the senior center to talk about charity scams during the holidays. Hey, do you want to cover it? It’s good information.. . .”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” said Lucy. “I’m on deadline today.”
“Oh, okay.” Barney sounded disappointed. “Give me a call anytime.”
“Will do,” said Lucy, hanging up. She looked at Ted, and he nodded back, getting her unspoken message: No news, in this case, was decidedly not good news.
“Why don’t you make a coffee run, Lucy,” said Ted, “and get some donuts, too. I think we could all use a little sugar-carbo-caffeine lift.”
“Good idea,” she said, hopping to her feet, grabbing her coat, and hurrying out the door, avoiding Phyllis’s questioning look.
Lucy enjoyed the short walk to Jake’s Donut Shack, which was perched above the town cove parking lot. Most of the stores on Main Street were decorated for Christmas and there were little Christmas trees attached to every other light pole.
Jake’s had the usual silver Christmas tree set out on the porch, and the music system was playing a selection of corny carols about grandmas run over by reindeer and the Hawaiian way of saying “Merry Christmas.” Lucy hummed along while she waited her turn at the counter, trying to decide whether she should get the eggnog donuts, or the chocolate-mint ones. In the end she opted for the plain home-style ones and regular coffees, figuring this was no time to experiment.
She was at the door, where she encountered Officer Sally Kirwan, making the coffee run for the police department. Lucy had recently written a feature story about the department’s only female officer and figured she had some leverage, so she asked what was happening with Elfrida.
“Oh, Lucy, I’m not supposed to say anything, and this is completely off the record, but I know you work with Phyllis and she must be going out of her mind. . . .”
“You said it,” encouraged Lucy.
“Well, the lab checked the knife for fingerprints and there were only two sets, Elfrida’s and Bobbi’s.”
“That’s to be expected, right?” countered Lucy. “They both worked in the kitchen and used the knife.”
“That’s not how the DA sees it,” said Sally, whispering. “He’s planning to charge Elfrida. The arraignment will probably be tomorrow, unless there are some new developments.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Lucy, shocked to her core.
“Me either,” said Sally, giving a shrug before stepping up to the counter.
The walk back to the office wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the trip to the coffee shop, not least because she had to pause at the fire station as the town ambulance exited with lights flashing and siren blaring. Continuing on her way, Lucy didn’t notice the sunshine or the festive decorations, but fretted instead about Elfrida. Should she tell Phyllis about the pending charges, or would it be better to wait, hoping that new evidence would emerge that vindicated Elfrida and implicated someone else?
That question was answered when she reached the Pennysaver office and Phyllis flew out, putting her coat on as she ran down t
he sidewalk to her car. Lucy stood there dumbstruck, holding the bag of donuts and the little cardboard tray with the coffees.
“Don’t you want your coffee?” she yelled.
“No. I gotta run, it’s Wilf,” replied Phyllis, yanking open the car door and getting inside.
Lucy watched, horrified, as Phyllis pulled right out in front of a pickup truck, which swerved just in time and narrowly missed hitting her car. That didn’t slow Phyllis down in the least. Lucy wondered if she’d even noticed the truck as she tore down the street, intent on reaching her husband.
“What’s going on?” she asked Ted when she stepped into the office.
“Apparently, little Arthur left his bike on the porch and Wilf somehow got tangled up in it and fell. Rescue’s on the way—”
“I saw the ambulance,” interrupted Lucy.
“But now Phyllis has to meet the kindergarten bus and get to the hospital. I guess it never rains, but it pours.”
“It’s only gonna get worse,” said Lucy, handing Ted a donut wrapped in a napkin and his paper cup of coffee. “Sally Kirwan told me, off the record, that the DA’s going to charge Elfrida. The arraignment is tomorrow.”
“Damn!” exclaimed Ted, burning his hand as he struggled to remove the plastic cap.
“Do you want ice for that?” Lucy asked as Ted stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked it.
“No. It’s okay.” He took a bite of donut, then slurped some coffee. “You know,” he began, in a thoughtful tone, “I think our journalistic standards are slipping a bit here. We both care about Phyllis, and Elfrida, but they shouldn’t be our focus. Bobbi Holden is the victim of a terrible crime, but we haven’t given her, or her family, a thought. We’ve overlooked them while worrying about Elfrida, when for all we know the DA is right and she’s a murderer.”
Lucy chewed her lip thoughtfully while carefully prying the plastic lid off her coffee. “I don’t believe Elfrida killed Bobbi, not for one minute, but I have to admit you’ve got a point. Bobbi’s death is a tragedy that’s going to affect a lot of people, and we need to address that.”
“Good,” said Ted, picking up his coffee. “You can get started on the obit. . . .”
“Me?” Lucy hated writing obituaries, since the job involved awkward and painful interviews with loved ones of the deceased.
“Yeah, you. You’re much better at it than I am. People open up to a woman, you know.”
Lucy sighed. “Ted, you know I have tremendous respect and admiration for you, but in this case you are a sexist pig.”
“I know,” he said, before popping the last bit of donut into his mouth.
Lucy glanced at the Seth Thomas clock that hung on the wall above her desk and noticed that it was almost eleven. Deadline was twelve, so she had to get moving on the obit. Fortunately, she had Bobbi’s mother’s number in her Rolodex, because she’d done a story about her prizewinning recipe for Bird’s Nest Pudding Pie. As she dialed the number, Lucy wished she was following up on that story, perhaps seeking an unusual holiday recipe.
The phone rang several times, and when it was answered, Lucy was relieved that the voice she heard belonged to someone much younger than Mrs. Holden. “Sorry, Lucy, but Auntie is too upset to come to the phone. I’m Nanette, Bobbi’s cousin.”
“Oh, Nanette, I’m so sorry about Bobbi. I know this is a difficult time for you all, but I would like to talk to you a bit about Bobbi and how you’d like her to be remembered.”
“Oh, sure, Lucy. I know you’ll write something nice.”
Lucy swallowed hard, determined to set aside her early impression of Bobbi as an irresponsible prankster and to listen with an open mind. “So what was Bobbi like?” she began.
“We’re cousins, you know. I’m about five years older, so I used to babysit for her sometimes, you know, when she was in elementary school and I was in high school. It was an easy job because all she wanted to do was watch TV. She was stagestruck at a really early age. I think it started when Aunt Harriet took her to see Disney on Ice. After that, she was always wearing princess costumes and singing songs from the movies. As soon as she could read, she got a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. I’m not kidding, she was a really advanced reader. When she got to high school, she joined the drama club. She starred in Little Shop of Horrors. She was in heaven when she got the job at Pine Point. She figured it was her big chance to break into show business. She was determined to catch the attention of a Hollywood insider who would recognize her talent, that’s why she did all those practical jokes. To get attention.”
“So she graduated from Tinker’s Cove High School, did she go on to college?”
“Well, she got accepted at Emerson College in Boston, but she didn’t get much financial aid, so she was working for a year to save up.”
“I thought she was an unpaid intern on the movie,” said Lucy.
“She was. She took a break from her job at the Queen Vic Inn so she could work on the movie. They were real nice about it.”
“Now I need the names of survivors, family members.”
“Well, there’s her mother and father, Dick and Harriet Holden, my mom and dad, George and Sarah Walsh, me and my brother, Donald, and, oh, Nanny and Poppa, that’s Stephen and Gloria Holden, and Grandma Walsh, her name is Audrey. I guess that’s it.”
“Well, if you think of something you want to add, just give me a call. I can usually put changes in until around three this afternoon.”
“You’ve kind of got me thinking,” said Nanette, her voice growing stronger. “I mean, I don’t think that whoever did this should get off. It’s a terrible thing and my whole family is devastated, especially Uncle Dick and Aunt Harriet. Bobbi was their only child, you know, and they adored her, you might say they even spoiled her. That’s not to say that Elfrida is the murderer, I know she’s innocent until proven guilty, but believe me, my whole family is sure as heck determined that justice should be done, and if she’s charged, we’ll do everything we can to see she gets the maximum sentence.”
Lucy knew that was no idle threat, as Harriet Holden was a court stenographer, friendly with the judges and attorneys at the county courthouse. It was simply human nature that they would bend over backward to support her through a difficult time.
“Well, thanks for your help,” said Lucy. “Once again, I want to let you know how sorry I am for your loss.”
“Thanks,” replied Nanette, with a little sniff.
After the call ended, Lucy turned to Ted. “Bobbi’s family is out for bear,” she said.
“Can you blame them?” he asked.
“No, but I just hope they get the right bear, and I’m not convinced it’s Elfrida.”
“Well, it’s up to us to keep the pressure on and make sure the cops don’t miss something or someone. Right?”
“Right,” said Lucy, vowing to make sure that no stone was left unturned in the investigation. She was going to do everything she could to figure out who killed Bobbi, and she seriously doubted it was Elfrida.
It was well past the noon deadline when the week’s issue of the Pennysaver finally went to press, and Lucy was free for the remainder of the afternoon. Instead of heading home, however, she went straight to the IGA to shop for groceries. She now had two extra adults, a child who was a picky eater, and a dog to feed, in addition to the usual crew. She zipped through the aisles, grabbing a gallon of milk, a couple of loaves of bread, a huge bag of dog kibble, salad fixings, potatoes, and a ham. Cruising past the frozen food, she threw in a couple of boxes of frozen pancakes.
Arriving home with her car full of groceries, Lucy was surprised to see Toby out in the yard, assembling a wire run for Skittles.
“What changed your mind?” she asked, watching as he perched on a ladder to screw in the hardware for the run on a corner of the porch. The coiled cable and remaining hardware were still in the package, lying on the ground.
“The dog officer stopped by,” he said, looking down from his perch. “He saw Skittles out
by the road and had some trouble trying to catch him. I don’t know why he couldn’t leave him be, it’s not like Skittles was misbehaving, he was just kind of sniffing the mailbox post, but I guess that’s against the law here in Maine.”
“You know better than that, Toby,” said Lucy, surprised at her son’s attitude. “It’s irresponsible to let a dog run loose, you can’t predict what they’ll do. What if Skittles got hit by a car? Or went after the mail carrier?”
“I guess you’ve got a point—but Molly’s not going to like it.”
“That’s life,” said Lucy. “Sometimes you’ve got to adapt.”
“I’m not sure Molly got the memo,” muttered Toby, grunting as he twisted the screwdriver. “Do you need help with the groceries?”
Lucy was surprised by the offer. “How’d you know I went shopping?”
“Just a hunch,” he said, climbing down the ladder. “It’s Wednesday, right?”
The spicy scent of chili met Lucy when she entered the kitchen, carrying a couple of bags of groceries. Sara was at the stove, stirring the pot, and Zoe was at the table, mixing up a batch of corn bread.
“Great idea, thanks for cooking,” said Lucy, holding the door for Toby and the twenty-five-pound bag of dog chow he was carrying.
“We didn’t think you’d mind,” said Sara.
“And we found all the ingredients,” said Zoe.
“Everybody likes chili,” said Sara.
“Well, everybody except Patrick,” said Toby.
“He can eat pancakes,” said Lucy, flourishing a box before tucking it into the freezer.
Dinner was a lively affair, with all the family, except Elizabeth, gathered around the table. Lucy sent up a silent little prayer of thanks for her family, for their health, and for the dinner she didn’t have to cook. Her eyes traveled around the long dining-room table, where Patrick sat between his two aunts on one side, Bill was at the opposite end, and Molly and Toby sat on the other side. She was overcome with gratitude and affection for them all. Even Skittles didn’t seem so bad, now that he was restrained on the outside run.
She was spooning out seconds for Bill and Toby, when Molly put down her fork and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “I guess I won’t be getting meals like this in Germany.”