A Just Clause

by Lorna Barrett

  “I doubt that,” Angelica muttered.

  “And now that I’ve got transportation—”

  “What do you mean?” Tricia demanded.

  “I bought myself a car—with cash—and now I can come and go as I please. And I do not please to be stuck in some old folks’ home back in Connecticut to assuage your consciences.”

  “We’re trying to help you,” Tricia said quietly, trying to hold on to the temper that, just days earlier, her sister had insisted she did not have.

  “I appreciate what little help you’ve given me,” John said pointedly, “but it won’t be necessary in the future. I found someone who will love me for myself.” He looked toward the bar, where the woman he’d entered with batted her enormous—and obviously fake—eyelashes.

  “How long have you known her?” Angelica asked.

  John looked at the clock. “About six hours.”

  “And where are you two going to go?”

  John shrugged. “Wherever the wind takes us. That and a full tank of gas. I only came back to Stoneham to collect my things, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  It seemed like he meant to add “forever.”

  Tricia met Angelica’s gaze. That was what they wanted, but not this way. But before Tricia could voice an opinion, Angelica spoke.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Daddy. Tricia and I only want the best for you. But if you feel you must go, you have my blessing. However,” she added rather ominously, “please don’t expect us to clean up any more of your messes—financial or otherwise.”

  John didn’t back down. Instead, he turned to Tricia. “Do you feel the same way, Princess?”

  “I want what’s best for you, Daddy. I don’t think running away with someone you barely know is the answer. And besides, you haven’t exactly cleared your name when it comes to being a suspect in Carol Talbot’s murder. If you leave, it will make you look like you’ve got something to run away from.”

  “I didn’t kill the woman. I have nothing to worry about.” He rose. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ve left Cherry alone far too long.”

  The sisters glanced back to the bar, where Cherry wiggled her fingers in a wave.

  John said no more and joined his new love.

  Angelica took an enormous swig from her wineglass before speaking. “Let’s just hope that woman doesn’t give Daddy a social disease.”

  “What are we going to do about this?” Tricia asked.

  Angelica shrugged. “He’s a big boy.”

  “But you know we’re just going to have to bail him out of some new trouble in the not-too-distant future.”

  Angelica pouted, then looked thoughtful. “We need to go after him with the big guns.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “Mother.”

  Tricia barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “Have you forgotten, she doesn’t want him back—and you hung up on her, too.”

  “Mother may have said she doesn’t want Daddy back, but once she finds out about Cherry . . .”

  Tricia looked back toward the bar. John had thrown an arm around Cherry’s plump shoulder, the two of them looking very chummy indeed.

  Was it possible Sheila Miles would fight to reclaim her man?

  Tricia wasn’t at all sure.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Try as she might, Tricia just couldn’t get used to the considerably smaller quarters she’d been forced to accept at the Sheer Comfort Inn. The home’s top floor—a lovely suite with a soaker tub—had been rented for the week by one of the musicians who was in the village for the wine and jazz fest. He liked to practice the sax until eleven, which was as late as the local law’s noise ordinance allowed, but that didn’t make him a friend to the others staying in the inn. Also, Tricia had a small dresser and one tiny closet to live with—not nearly enough space to spread out all the stuff she required to live a normal life. Normal? What was that?

  Bleary-eyed, she’d driven to her store after consuming an apple-walnut breakfast muffin and a cup of coffee—not that the inn didn’t boast more for the day’s most important meal, but with every room rented for the jazz fest, the dining room felt crowded and not as welcoming as she’d hoped.

  Pixie had arrived at Haven’t Got a Clue before her—and so had the construction crew. However, there wasn’t as much noise emanating from the floors above.

  “They’re spreading the joint compound today,” Pixie said joyfully as Tricia stowed her purse behind the sales counter.

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw them traipsing up there with five-gallon containers of the stuff and asked them. You know what this means?”

  “Oh, please—tell me it means I can soon finally come home,” Tricia begged.

  “I dunno about that, but it’s quiet work, and that seems like a pretty good thing,” Pixie said, smiling.

  Mr. Everett arrived, his usual smiling self. “Good morning!” he called as he approached the cash desk where Tricia and Pixie stood. In his hand he held a white bakery bag. “I stopped to get some bagels. I hope you ladies are hungry?”

  “I could eat a horse,” Pixie admitted, smiling.

  “I’m afraid I’ve already had my breakfast,” Tricia admitted, but from the hopeful look in her employee’s eyes, she acquiesced. “But I’ll bet I could eat half a bagel. What kind did you get?”

  “Sesame, poppy seed—for you, Ms. Miles, because I know how much you like them—and an everything for Pixie.”

  “My favorite,” Pixie crowed. “I’ll go get the cream cheese out of the fridge. You can pour the coffee, Mr. E.”

  He nodded, but Tricia spoke up before he could move.

  “Is Miss Marple behaving herself?”

  “Oh, she’s no trouble at all. She charms us by the hour. She played with her toys for quite some time last evening. Stalking them, killing them, and then presenting them to us. She does so enjoy the praise.”

  It was the cat’s favorite game, and Tricia felt a pang of loss for having missed it for the past couple of days.

  “Grace has joked that we may not give her back to you.”

  It was just a joke, but the threat hit a little too close to home at that moment. Mr. Everett seemed to sense her growing anxiety. “Have no fear. It’s all in jest, but we will sorely miss that dear kitty when it comes time to part with her.”

  Tricia gave him a halfhearted smile and nodded.

  “Now, I’ll just go pour the coffee,” he said, and crossed the floor for the beverage station.

  The phone rang. Tricia made a grab for it. “Haven’t Got a Clue. This is Tricia. How can I help you?”

  “Trish, darling, it’s your ever-humble big sister. I have news and I desperately need a favor.”

  “News—this early?” Tricia asked, ignoring the latter part of the sentence.

  “Yes. I just got off the phone with Antonio. Sometime last night, Daddy made good on his threat and packed his bags and left the Brookview. His room is available if you’d like to move back.”

  Would she ever—goodness knows she missed Miss Marple something terrible, and she could sure use the space to spread out again. “Yes, please.”

  “It’ll be ready after three this afternoon. If you need help moving back, give Antonio a holler and he’ll send someone to the Sheer Comfort Inn to pick up your stuff.”

  “That would be great. And I’ll pick up Miss Marple and take her back there before the shop closes.” Happy about that situation, Tricia wondered if she should bring up a potentially explosive topic—then figured, Why not?

  “Have you had a chance to call Mother yet?”

  “Oh, yes—first thing this morning. She played it cool—but she did not like hearing that Daddy’s been spotted with another woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if she showed up later today.”

  “But what go
od would that do? I mean, Daddy’s left the inn here in Stoneham.”

  “But he didn’t go far. He gave the hotel a forwarding address.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “An apartment complex in Milford. Antonio did a Google search. It belongs to Ms. Cheryl MacIntire—Cherry for short.”

  “Very interesting. Are you going to tell Mother?”

  “I haven’t decided. What do you think?”

  Tricia sighed. “She kept him on a short leash for fifty years. Maybe it’s not fair to sic her on him like a pit bull.”

  “They are still legally married,” Angelica reminded her.

  “Yes,” Tricia admitted. The conversation was getting too heavy. She changed the subject. “You mentioned a favor?”

  “Yes. For some reason, when Frannie went to the bank to drop off yesterday’s receipts, she emptied the entire cash drawer. There’s only spare change left. Can you lend the Cookery twenty dollars in small bills until later this afternoon?”

  “Of course. I’ll run it right over.”

  “You’re a doll. I’ll see you at lunch—and by then I’m sure one of us will have more news to share.”

  “Sure thing. Bye.”

  Tricia first retrieved her purse and found a couple of five-dollar bills, then opened the shop’s cash register and grabbed ten one dollar bills. Pixie approached with the cream cheese, plastic knives, and napkins.

  “I’ve got to go over to the Cookery for a minute.”

  “Don’t worry. Haven’t Got a Clue will be in good hands until you get back,” Mr. Everett assured her.

  Tricia left the shop and hurried next door. Frannie was dusting the front shelves as she entered the Cookery.

  “Hi, Frannie. Angelica said you needed to borrow some change.”

  “Do I—or should I say we?”

  “It amounts to the same thing.” Tricia counted the bills onto Frannie’s open palm and watched as she filled two of the cash drawer’s slots with the bills.

  “Thanks. I can’t think why I didn’t leave enough money in the drawer for us to start the day.”

  “You must have had a lot on your mind.”

  “Probably.” She seemed to think about it for a moment. “In fact—I’ve been preoccupied thinking a lot about Carol Talbot.”

  “Your neighbor?”

  Frannie nodded. Tricia had almost forgotten that fact. What she also hadn’t considered was that Frannie was known as the eyes and ears of Oak Street.

  “As it happens, I had the opportunity to meet another of your neighbors last night at the Dog-Eared Page: Brad Shields.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Frannie said, sounding rather bored. “Nice guy.”

  “I understand Carol used to take care of the Shields’s cat when they went out of town.”

  “She and her husband, Dale, were frequent visitors at the Shields’s house. Very frequent.”

  “Oh?” Tricia asked, playing dumb.

  Frannie leaned in, speaking confidentially. “Of course, they didn’t often visit the Shields’s at the same time.”

  “Oh?” Tricia asked again, only this time she was confused.

  “I’m not the only one of the neighbors who suspected there was a little hanky-panky going on.”

  “Oh!” This time, Tricia uttered the word with surprise.

  Frannie nodded knowingly. “A couple of times a week, Carol would head for the Shields’s house around nine o’clock at night. She and Ellen often passed each other like two ships in the night.”

  Tricia merely blinked.

  “They’d stay at each other’s homes for a few hours, and then—like a couple of synchronized swimmers—they’d pass each other on the way home once again.”

  “Really?”

  Frannie nodded. “This went on for years.”

  “Wife-swapping right here in Stoneham?”

  Frannie shrugged. “Hey, New Hampshire was the setting for Peyton Place, you know.”

  Tricia still couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Carol involved in a long-term illicit relationship with Brad Shields, and Ellen with Carol’s husband? She shook her head ruefully. And did such an arrangement account for Ellen Shields’s taste in reading material? “Like the song says, ‘No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.’”

  Frannie laughed. “Except for the neighbors.”

  “Wow,” Tricia muttered.

  “Of course, it all came to an abrupt end when Dale died suddenly, which some of us speculated happened during one of those regularly scheduled trysts,” she said, her Texas accent growing just a little thicker. “After that, there was a noticeable frost between Ellen and Carol. You know how women get when there’s a widow on the loose. They want to put up a barrier between their man and every other woman around.”

  It wasn’t just widows who often received that reaction. Tricia had felt the same kind of cold shoulder from a number of her woman acquaintances after she and Christopher had separated and divorced. After that, she could hardly call those females friends.

  “So what are you saying?” Tricia asked.

  Frannie shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to cast aspersions on Ellen, but it does seem odd that her competition is suddenly out of the picture.”

  Odder still that couples in their later years were so sexually active, or was Tricia just being a prejudiced prude? “I thought Dale Talbot had been dead for quite a while, so I’d hardly call it a sudden move on Ellen’s part.”

  “He died a year ago January,” Frannie said with conviction.

  “Was that when Carol started drinking?” Tricia asked.

  Frannie shrugged. “There were always liquor bottles in their recycle bins, but they really started to pile up after Dale died.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “That’s when Carol started buying her booze by the case.”

  Tricia remembered something Ginny had told her days before. “I heard she was also seeing a psychologist.”

  Frannie nodded. “Everybody assumed it was because she was a child killer.”

  A child who killed, Tricia mentally corrected.

  “But I don’t think so. She nearly lost her job at the library over her drinking, you know?”

  “Oh?”

  “They didn’t fire her, so I’m assuming they made her go to the shrink to get help.”

  Lois Kerr had been pretty candid, but had never mentioned Carol’s alcoholism, although she had alluded to problems Carol was dealing with. Then again, Tricia suspected that Frannie was now just speculating, and she didn’t need to be distracted by such innuendo.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Goodness, is that the time? Pixie will wonder where on Earth I am.” She headed for the door.

  “Angelica will catch up with you later to repay the loan,” Frannie called after her.

  Tricia gave her a smile and vamoosed while the getting was good.

  Upon exiting the store, she looked to her left and noted that more trucks, trailers, and other paraphernalia were in the process of unloading and setting up in the village square across the way. The Stoneham Wine and Jazz Festival was about to become a reality. Tricia smiled, then remembered how, a few years past, Bob Kelly, Angelica’s predecessor at the Chamber of Commerce, had been jealous of nearby Milford’s annual Pumpkin Festival. He’d been so petty he’d gone around smashing pumpkins in protest. Tricia had advised him to start his own festival—which he’d ignored. Angelica—as Nigela Ricita—had instituted such an event, and from the enthusiasm she’d seen and heard from the villagers, it looked like it was well on the way to being a successful annual event.

  Gloating wasn’t a trait Tricia aspired to, but in this one instance, she wished she could have had that opportunity. Instead, she would participate in the festival, spread the word, and, most of all—enjoy the wine and the music.

  But for now, it
was time to get back to work.

  • • •

  For the first time in what seemed like weeks, Haven’t Got a Clue wasn’t wracked with the raucous sound of hammers, saws, and banging. The workmen trundled up and down the stairs, and the heavy sound of footsteps could be heard on the floor above, but the soothing sound of new age music helped to disguise the din, and customers who entered the store weren’t driven out by noise. They might just break even for the first time in nearly a month.

  It was nearly closing time when the last of the workers left for the day, and Pixie made sure the back door to the shop was securely locked. She returned to the cash desk. “I think this is the first day in a month I haven’t left here with a headache.”

  “Oh no! I’m so sorry. I really never thought it would be so loud,” Tricia apologized.

  Pixie waved a hand in dismissal. “They’re usually gone by the time I get home. I think they’re tension headaches. When I go home, I know I’m going to spend the evening with my darling Freddie, and then I feel as though I haven’t got a care in the world.”

  Tricia smiled. It was cute to see Pixie so in love. But then she thought about how shabbily her father had treated Fred’s hospitality and knew an apology on John’s behalf had not nearly been enough. She would have to think about what she could do to make up for that. She’d ask Angelica.

  As Pixie got ready to leave—gathering her purse and her current book—Tricia’s gaze traveled out the store’s front window. A shiny silver Mercedes rolled by, pulling into an empty parking space in front of the Cookery. She hadn’t seen the driver, but she had a pretty good idea who might disembark from the car . . . and she wasn’t mistaken.

  “See you tomorrow!” Pixie called cheerfully as she left for the day.

  Tricia’s gaze was still focused on the car, but she managed a vague “Bye” in reply.

  She watched as Pixie walked down the sidewalk, heading for the municipal parking lot. The car’s driver’s side door opened and a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, dark glasses, and a sea foam green shirtdress got out of the car. She sized up the Cookery before her.

  Why did it feel like the day had just gone down the toilet?