Morning Glory Circle

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “I just can’t believe it,” she said, pulling a fresh tissue out of the box on her desk.

  “It’s awful, I know,” Scott said. “Did you have any idea he was upset about anything?”

  “Nothing that bad,” she said. “I mean other than Gwyneth kicking them out of their home, and having to live at the inn with Connie, and all her nuttiness.”

  “What was Connie doing?”

  “You know, Scott, Newton’s wife Delores is the sweetest woman I’ve ever known, and she never has a bad thing to say about anyone, but she had to go to her daughter’s house in Florida because Connie was driving her so crazy.”

  “In what way?”

  “Connie’s a germ freak, everyone knows that. Delores said she followed them around sterilizing everything they touched. That would be enough to make me nuts, but she was also nosy. Delores said she caught Connie snooping in Newton’s room, and they had a fight about it. Also, I guess Connie has some old cat she lets roam around everywhere, and Delores has a phobia about cats.”

  “Wait a minute. Delores and Newton had separate rooms?”

  “Oops, I shouldn’t have let that slip. When you work for someone as long as I’ve worked for Newton, you get to know personal things. Newton had a bad snoring problem so they slept in separate bedrooms. She was always after him to get tested, you know, for that sleep apnea, but he refused.”

  “Did Newton ever say anything about Connie?”

  “Said she was mad as a March hare, and he didn’t know how long he would be able to stand living at the inn. There are no big houses available in Rose Hill, you see, and it wouldn’t look right for the college president to live just anywhere. They were considering buying something in Glencora, and commuting from there.”

  “Did Margie Estep ever come to see Newton here?”

  “Margie? No, why would she?”

  “I just wondered. What was on his schedule last Monday night?”

  “You’re certainly piquing my curiosity now, Scott. Let me look. Last Monday was the board meeting, so we were here until 7:00 pm, and the board dinner that followed lasted until 10:00 or so. I went home after the meeting, but I know he stayed the whole time at the dinner. Lucille, who works in food service, said he had a long talk with one of the board members after everyone else left. It kept her staff from cleaning up and going home and they were kind of mad about it. You know those executives, they never think about the lives of the service personnel who wait on them hand and foot.”

  “Which board member was it?”

  “Lucille didn’t say, but I could ask her.”

  “Would you? It’s probably not important, but I have to follow up with anyone he talked to last week.”

  Darlene made the call and then gave Scott the name and phone number of the board member.

  “Anything else going on that would have been upsetting to him?” Scott asked her.

  “Not really,” she said. “Newton’s a really easy going guy. I mean was.”

  Tears began to flow again, and Scott apologized for having to ask her so many questions.

  “I just can’t imagine why he would kill himself,” Darlene said. “He wasn’t depressed about anything that I could tell.”

  “If you think of anything else you’ll let me know?” Scott said.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Okay if I look through his desk?” he asked. “I can get a search warrant if you want.”

  “No, you go ahead,” Darlene said. “If I ask someone higher up they’ll probably require it, so let’s just not ask anyone.”

  Scott looked through the president’s office, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. He copied down the man’s schedule for the past week, but nothing appeared suspicious about it. He used the president’s phone to call the board member, who had already heard about his death.

  “The board has scheduled an emergency conference call this evening, so we can appoint an interim administrator,” she informed him.

  Scott guessed the board’s bureaucratic concerns must outweigh their emotional ones. The man’s body was barely cold and the woman seemed heartlessly business-like. She also didn’t remember anything odd about their conversation, which she said concerned an amendment they were considering making to the bylaws to increase the number of board members. Scott knew there was nothing a bunch of rich, powerful people liked more than multiplying the number of people in a room who liked to hear themselves talk, so he wasn’t surprised the board was expanding.

  When Scott asked what her personal relationship was with the president, the woman laughed.

  “Newton?” she said. “Sorry to laugh. God rest his soul, I know, but he may well have been the dullest man I ever met.”

  Scott thanked her for her time and hung up. Darlene was on the phone as he walked through the outer office, so he waved and went on.

  Scott didn’t know Newton very well. He knew Delores better, she being a pharmacist at Machalvie’s drug store and on several town committees. She was a soft-spoken, kind woman who seemed to have a lot of common sense, and she was always friendly to Scott when they met. The scandal of her husband killing someone and then committing suicide would be devastating enough to any wife. If there was some hanky panky going on with Connie as well, plus the blackmail, and maybe a murder dressed up to look like suicide, Scott wondered how Delores would handle it. Scott wished he could question Connie, who Sarah would no doubt tackle as soon as she woke up. Instead he went back to his office, and wrote up his notes on what he’d just done for Sarah to review.

  Later in the day a call came saying the search warrant for Phyllis’s post office box was ready to be picked up at the county courthouse, and Scott rushed it down to the post office. Sadie solemnly handed over Phyllis’s mail and Scott took it back to the station. He couldn’t believe what he read in Margie’s letter to Phyllis. He made a photocopy of the letter and then drove up to Morning Glory Circle, where he parked in front of Mamie Rodefeffer’s house. Her maid let Scott in and directed him to Mamie’s sitting room, where the old woman was reading a paperback book through a page-sized magnifier.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  “I have something very private to discuss with you,” Scott said. “Can we be excused?”

  He glanced at the maid, who looked very interested.

  “Get out,” Mamie told the woman, “and shut the door behind you. I’m going to open it every five seconds just to see if you’re listening.”

  The maid looked insulted but did as she was told.

  “They spy on me and make fun of me,” Mamie said. “They don’t know I can hear everything they say. I may be legally blind and old as the hills but I’m not senile and I have excellent hearing. Sit down, sit down. What’s so important?”

  Scott explained to her about the letters Margie had sent, and showed her what was mailed to Phyllis Davis. Mamie placed it under her page magnifier and held both up to her nose as she read.

  “Hmph,” she said as she read. “Ha!”

  When she finished she used her cane to stand up, walk to the fireplace, and before Scott could stop her, she threw the letter on the fire. He wasn’t too upset, as the one he’d shown Mamie was the photocopy of the real letter, which was in the station safe.

  “Is it true?” he asked her.

  “That dreary little mouse turned out to be a dirty rat, didn’t she?” Mamie said. “Hah!”

  “She’s also a dead rat.”

  “Do you think I killed her?” Mamie asked him as she resettled herself in her arm chair. She peered at him through magnified lenses that made her eyes look twice their size.

  “Did you?”

  “No, of course not,” Mamie said. “But think how exciting it would be to stand up in court and confess to a murder. ‘I did it!’ I could say. My father would roll over in his grave, of course, but my mother might have approved. Homicidal tendencies flow in our bloodline, apparently.”

  “Tell me about it,
” Scott said. “How did you find out?”

  “My father told me on his deathbed. What an old fool he was. He practically gave the glass factory to Theo Eldridge so the truth wouldn’t come out, but then he was worried Theo would try to blackmail me with the same information. My mother could not have children and our family needed heirs. Her maid was a young, willing idiot and my father was very generous. She gave him me and my younger brother. My father set her up in business afterward. She had another child out of wedlock after she left our employment, a daughter who was not my father’s, and when the maid died her daughter took over her business.”

  “Davis’s Diner.”

  “Yes, Gladys Davis is my half sister; Pauline is my niece, and so on.”

  “Phyllis is your great niece and Billy was your great, great nephew.”

  “And Billy murdered Theo, the man who blackmailed my father. That vicious circle is complete, I should say.”

  “Billy killed Theo thinking he would inherit his money, when actually he was your heir.”

  “And would not have hesitated to do me in as well, I’d wager. That family is what I would call poor relations, in every sense.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “Nothing. What should I do? Can you imagine my nephews’ faces if they found out about it? Richard probably wouldn’t care, but Knox, with his political aspirations and very high opinion of himself? How would that smutty rumor play out in political circles, do you think? His grandmother was a maid who ran a diner; his father was born on the wrong side of the blanket, his second cousin is a prostitute and his third cousin a murderer.”

  “Theo may have already blackmailed Knox with that information.”

  “Blackmail’s results are so often at odds with the intended outcome, don’t you think? I can’t imagine why anyone practices it anymore.”

  “I can’t think of any legal reason why I should publicly reveal this information,” Scott said. “But don’t you think you have a moral imperative to help the Davis family?”

  “You don’t look like the blackmailing type,” Mamie said, and then wagged her finger at him. “Remember how it always ends.”

  “I’m not threatening you,” Scott said. “Gladys and Pauline are good people, and they’re struggling financially right now. They don’t have to know who it was that helped them.”

  “What makes you think I have any money?” Mamie said. “Is it this house? Looks can be deceiving, Chief Gordon.”

  “It was just a suggestion,” Scott said. “I appreciate your candor and I promise your secret is safe with me. No strings attached.”

  “Hmph,” she said. “Hah!”

  Scott made his way out of Mamie’s impressive home and noticed as he went that everything was perfectly dusted and polished. It smelled like lemon furniture polish and old money. He wondered how much she had left.

  Ava Fitzpatrick made sure her children had a quiet, low-key evening with no stress or over-stimulation. She was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers, which was something her father used to say. She was determined not to let her own stress affect her children, so she got them focused on a book and a video while she prepared for the next day.

  Several of Connie’s customers had checked out of the Eldridge Inn and into the Rose Hill Bed and Breakfast after the death of fellow guest Newton Moseby, so Ava had plenty of chores to keep her busy. Her housekeeper had washed sheets and towels all day, and the last load was tumbling in the dryer.

  Ava was concentrating on the breakfast portion of her business by mixing up a huge batch of muffin batter to refrigerate overnight in an airtight container. In the morning, she could just scoop it into muffin pans and bake it, and it made the morning routine much easier. Everything was harder to do with only one working wrist, but Ava was managing.

  The phone rang and Ava answered, “Rose Hill Bed and Breakfast, Ava speaking.”

  “Hey gorgeous,” her husband Brian said.

  Ava felt light-headed and gripped the counter with her free hand, then winced at the pain in her sprained wrist.

  “What are you doing?” she stammered. “Where are you?”

  “Can’t a devoted husband call his darling wife just to see how she’s doing? The place looks really nice, honey. And the kids! That Charlotte is going to be a knockout, just like her mama.”

  Ava stretched the phone cord as far as it would reach, hurriedly shut herself in the laundry room and turned off the dryer so she could hear.

  “How dare you!” she said, trying to keep her voice down. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”

  “I would like nothing better, sweetheart. All I need is some money to make that happen.”

  “Of course, I see. How much?”

  “I heard your old boyfriend left you a pile of cash.”

  “I can’t touch that. It’s in a trust.”

  “You can borrow against a trust, my precious, for the full amount. Ask any banker.”

  “You would take that from us, the only security we have?”

  “All you have to do is bat those eyes and shake that sweet ass, honey, and you can have anything you need from any man with a heartbeat. If you want me gone you have to pay.”

  “Was that your baby I saw in the grocery store today?” she asked, “With an old woman who doesn’t speak English?”

  Brian was silent, and Ava could hear a dog bark in the background of wherever he was.

  “I have to go, sweetie,” he said, “but I’ll be in touch. Go to the bank tomorrow and get that loan paperwork rolling. As soon as I get that money you’ll never have to see me again.”

  He hung up before she could say anything else.

  Ava stared at the phone.

  “Mommy,” asked Timmy, from outside the door, “what are you doing in there?”

  Ava took a deep breath and turned the dryer on before she opened the door.

  “Nothing, sweetie,” she said, embracing her little boy, “nothing at all.”

  Hannah stayed late at her father’s gas station, finding things to do and people to gab with, until Curtis eyed her and said, “What’s up, little bird?’

  Hannah felt tears fill her eyes, and she blinked hard to stop them.

  “Tell your old papa what the matter is,” he said, and hugged her tight in his arms.

  Hannah shook her head and her eyes filled again.

  “It’s Sam,” she said.

  “I figured that,” Curtis said, letting her go. “He got them blue meanies again?”

  “He’s headed in that direction,” she said. “I just don’t know if I can go through it again.”

  “Has he called his counselor?”

  “I asked him to, but he told me to mind my own business.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “He’s staying locked up in his office, when he does come out we fight, and he’s getting darker and darker. I can see it happening.”

  “You wanna stay at our place for a bit? Maybe give him some breathing room?”

  “No, but thanks. I’ve got to be a grown up girl and work it out myself.”

  “That’s my girl. Just don’t you let him drag you down in there with him, ya hear?”

  “Don’t worry,” Hannah said. “I won’t.”

  But in her heart, she could see she was a little further down the path with Sam than she wanted to admit.

  Ed was trying to look casual as he watched the trailer next door through Mandy’s front window.

  “I had to get on Tommy for peepin’, but I never took you for a pervert,” Mandy said.

  “I’m sorry,” Ed said. “I’m just naturally curious, which comes in handy when you write news stories for a living.”

  “Well, go on over there and knock.”

  “I did that earlier, and no one came to the door.”

  “Maybe they weren’t home then. You want me to do it?”

  “No, no, I’m just being silly.”

  “Well, come on over here and be silly with me on
the couch.”

  “Mom,” Tommy said sternly.

  “Oh, get over yourself,” Mandy said.

  Tommy rolled his eyes and went back to his homework, which lay spread out on the coffee table, but he was smiling. Ed’s dog Hank was lying on the floor with his head on Tommy’s lap, looking very content.

  “You write anything about that guy what offed hisself?” Mandy asked.

  “Newton Moseby was his name. Yes, I wrote that up today, and sent it to the city paper for tomorrow’s edition.”

  “You put it on your web site?”

  “No, I haven’t launched that yet.”

  “Sounds like a boat or a rocket ship.”

  “Did Newton ever come in the bakery or the bar?”

  “Not that I ever knew. I couldn’t even tell you what he looked like.”

  “What about Connie?’

  “Ed,” Mandy laughed. “Are you interviewing me?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Well, then I have a hot news flash for ya. Miss Miranda Wilson says, ‘My boyfriend needs to leave his work at the office, and concentrate on his woman when he comes home.’”

  “I get it.”

  “Oh yeah, I think you can count on that.”

  “Mom!” Tommy complained.

  “Put your headphones on then! I’m sparkin’ with my fella.”

  “I saw them today,” Tommy said.

  “Saw who?” Mandy asked.

  “The old lady and the little baby.”

  “When?” Ed asked him.

  “Today when I got home from school I saw her pulling a wire cart with some groceries in it. I asked her if I could help but she shouted at me in Spanish, so I left them alone.”

  “It was nice of you to offer,” Mandy said.

  “Please be careful with strangers, though,” Ed warned.

  “You think the worst of everyone,” Mandy accused.

  “Your last neighbor killed a man,” Ed reminded her.

  “You got a point there,” Mandy said. “We better move.”

  “That isn’t a bad idea,” Ed said.