Iced Tea for Two

by Donna McLean

  “And that is exactly what happened that night at the Marble Garden. Remember, Douglas Winton, how the whole restaurant looks like Italian ruins? There are broken walls all over the place. Basil and Elyse, and Dane too, used that little fact to their advantage, and staged a scene in which someone would finally see the faces of both twins. That person being me.” Tilda MacArdan paused and a pout creased her lips. “They set me up, and I just about fell for it!”

  Addie looked at her with admiration. “But you didn’t fall for it, Tilda!”

  The spry lady tossed a hand in the air and laughed. “No, not after I thought about it, I didn’t.”

  “How did they pull it off, Ms. Tilda?” Douglas asked.

  “Well, they planned it all ahead of time. Remember that they were both wearing green polo shirts and blue jeans. Basil Falters wore a baseball cap when I first saw him, if y’all recall, I said I thought he was coming out of the restaurant and looking toward somebody in the parking lot. Then I saw the person he was approaching. It was Elyse, but her back was turned to me and I assumed she was a boy because she was wearing a lightweight summer blazer and a tam cap, with her long hair tucked way up underneath it! I’m ashamed to say that when I saw the two of them together I thought exactly what they wanted me to think: that I was looking at two identical twin boys, the long lost McGrady twins!”

  “They started walking toward the restaurant together and I hurried up because I wanted to meet them. They disappeared briefly behind that broken stone wall, and that’s when they really fooled everybody! I expect that Elyse took off the blazer and the tam and gave them to Basil, who put them on. They tossed the baseball cap aside, most likely. Elyse shook her long hair out and walked on toward the restaurant, disappearing into the crowd. Basil went around the wall and near about bumped into me! And that’s when I thought I had seen the face of both twins. They sure pulled a fast one on me.” Tilda sounded disappointed.

  Campbell remarked, “And on us, too, Ms. Tilda. We were all so busy looking for a bearded man that we didn’t see a petite brunette with long hair on the surveillance footage, even though she was still wearing that green polo shirt!”

  “That is exactly right, Douglas Winton. But y’all didn’t know to look for Elyse at that time, because she didn’t show up in Sparrow Falls until much later. Can’t really blame yourselves for missing that one.”

  “It was a very clever ruse,” Campbell said grimly. “So Dane, Elyse and Basil were in it together, and planned to con McGrady out of the money. They must have known about the inheritance before their arrival in Sparrow Falls, and they also must have believed, for some reason, that the real twins were two boys. Somehow they were going to convince McGrady and Frederick and everybody else that Basil and Elyse, in disguise, were the identical twins, and split the inheritance three ways.”

  “They probably assumed Mr. McGrady was a confused old man like all their other victims. Boy, were they ever wrong!” Addie remarked.

  Tilda laughed. “You are right about that! His eyesight isn’t what it used to be but his mind is as sharp as ever. They tried to fool him once the day they visited him at home, but he realized something fishy was going on even though he couldn’t see them too well.”

  Addie mused out loud. “I guess Dane and Elyse thought they could still pull off the scam after Basil was murdered by pretending that they were the twins.”

  “Yes, Addie, I believe you are right about that,” Tilda said. “By that time word was out that nobody knew if the twins were two boys, two girls or one of each, so they decided to go for it! They didn’t want to let their chance at millions slip through their fingers, even after their cohort was killed.”

  “And everyone already believed that they were brother and sister, so it would have been an easy thing to convince people that they were the missing twins!”

  Campbell still looked distressed. “Okay, I’ve got all this. I realize that you’re right, Tilda, and that Elyse could not have fired the fatal shot at Basil Falters. But I still don’t know who could have done it.”

  Tilda MacArdan’s face grew serious and sad. “Oh, dear, Douglas Winton. I don’t like to say this, I don’t like it at all, but it has got to be said! Mr. Frederick shot Basil Falters!”

  TWENTY

  Stunned silence filled the room. Two shocked people stared at Tilda MacArdan as though she had just announced her candidacy for Queen of Mars.

  Campbell tried to speak. “Mr. Frederick? Mr. Richard Frederick?”

  The little lady nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so. And the whole thing was a complete misunderstanding. A tragedy of errors!”

  “Why do you say that, Tilda?” Addie asked, trying to grasp the idea that the distinguished and well respected family lawyer could do such a thing.

  “Basil Falters must have been a purty good con man, because he convinced Mr. Frederick that he really was one of the McGrady twins. And that, you see, is what killed him,” the dear lady said. She looked from one confused face to the other as though that little statement explained everything, and marveled that they still seemed astonished!

  “But Frederick wanted the real twins to be found. He’s the one who encouraged McGrady to check their backgrounds and to have the DNA tests, well, that is . . .” Campbell left the statement unfinished, remembering Frederick’s recent refusal to allow any tests until Lach McGrady recovered. He squinted at the little lady and rubbed the back of his neck.

  Tilda nodded her head brightly, as though she knew what the policeman was thinking. “It only seemed that Mr. Frederick wanted the tests to be done, but when it came time to take the actual steps to do so, Richard Frederick always seemed to be the one standing in the way.”

  “And that’s what got you to thinking,” Campbell commented, with a wry, admiring glance at the clever little lady.

  “What about the first DNA test, the one that McGrady refused?” Addie pointed out. “Even Dr. Jones said that the old man was dead set against taking it!”

  “Well, I’m afraid that had more to do with Lach McGrady’s cantankerous nature than anything else. He wasn’t about to make it easy for anybody to find the twins. And he has always been kind of at odds with Mr. Frederick, for some reason. I guess he just plain does not like the man! For one thing, he always refers to Mr. Frederick as a stuffed shirt. And another thing, McGrady would even say to people that he liked to yank the man’s chain!”

  Addie spoke up. “Oh, like the day he sent Mr. Frederick after a book by Jack Napes. Poor old guy ran around town for hours looking for that book!”

  They couldn’t stop themselves from laughing a little over that one.

  “Yes, and Mr. McGrady did things like that to him all the time, for years and years, at least as far back as I can remember!”

  Campbell shook his head. “Ms. Tilda, I know that’s true, but it isn’t a motive for murder!”

  “No, maybe not in and of itself, Douglas Winton. But you forget that there was an estate at stake, and a great deal of money, if the twins were never found.”

  The officer drummed his fingers on the desk. “I’m sorry, Ms. Tilda. I still don’t see it. I can’t see Mr. Richard Frederick gunning down a guy in cold blood.”

  “Well, first of all, we have to consider Mr. McGrady’s personality. He didn’t like Frederick, and he did like to aggravate the man to pieces. Now consider Mr. Frederick’s personality. He served the McGrady family for many long years, but I’m thinking there wasn’t much money in it. McGrady kept him tied up with all sorts of things so Frederick couldn’t do much work for other clients, either. Maybe that rascally Lach McGrady, at some time or other, put a bug in Frederick’s ear. Maybe something like, ‘if the twins don’t show up, everything will go to you, the faithful family lawyer.’ Now I don’t know that for a fact, Douglas, but you can check on it.”

  Douglas Campbell nodded, fascinated by the unfolding story.

  Tilda continued. “And then one day Morwenna and I were talking and she told me a little story about a piec
e of paper that changed everything. It was about Mrs. Constance McAndrews, who lived in that beautiful old house down the road a piece, the one with the purty garden and the pink camellias. That house is on the historical register now, I do believe. Did you ever meet her, Douglas? No, I expect all that probably happened a long time before you were ever born. Well, to make a long story short, Constance McAndrews was reunited with her long lost husband after many years all because of one little piece of paper that changed everything, a letter he had written to her and hidden in a place that was special to both of them. Now the important thing is that little phrase, ‘a piece of paper that changed everything’. And suddenly I remembered that day I took my homemade blueberry pie to Mr. McGrady’s house, and Mr. Frederick saying he was fixing to leave and would I stay with Mr. McGrady until Hannah got back, and of course I would, and Mr. McGrady hollered after him, ‘did you get the letters and the codicil and the business contracts?’ like it was a very important matter.”

  “Codicil,” Campbell repeated.

  “Well, I went straight to you, Douglas, do you remember that day I stopped you outside the town hall and asked you to tell me what a codicil was?” She turned to Addie and said, “He’s a smart young man and I figured he would know a little something about a thing called a codicil, and sure enough, he did! Told me what it is and what it does. A little piece of paper added to a will. And I got to thinking, you know, if that rascally Lach McGrady had actually told Mr. Frederick to draw up a codicil, saying he would leave everything to Mr. Frederick if the twins didn’t show up, and McGrady even signed it and everything to make Mr. Frederick believe it, why, that would be—”

  “A perfect motive for murder,” Campbell finished.

  “What about the arsenic in the pie, Tilda?” Addie asked. “I don’t like to think Mr. Frederick was trying to kill Mr. McGrady.”

  “Neither do I, Addie, but I believe that is exactly what happened.”

  “What happened, Ms. Tilda?” Campbell sounded bewildered.

  “Sugar ants!” The little lady looked mad.

  Addie and Campbell looked at each other and back at Ms. Tilda, waiting for clarification.

  She nodded her head wisely. “I do believe those sugar ants are what gave Mr. Frederick the idea to begin with! Annoying little things. Hannah wasn’t there the day I took Mr. McGrady my homemade blueberry pie, and when I put it on the table and turned around to get Mr. Frederick a cup of coffee, I spotted those pesky sugar ants! They were lined up all along the countertop behind the kitchen sink, going to and fro; you know the way they do, Douglas Winton. Well, I knew that Hannah would get right on that, being a wonderful housekeeper. She keeps everything in that big old mansion spotless, all by herself, she sure does! And has for years!” Tilda paused and a faraway look came into her eyes. “But you know, no matter how good a housekeeper you are, those pesky little sugar ants can and will get into everything. It is a real battle to keep them at bay, no matter how often you scrub and clean and keep the crumbs swept up and all of that. You scrub everything and think they are gone for good, and turn your back for a minute, and there they are again! Once they get started it is mighty hard to stop them, unless you use some powerful strong stuff.”

  “Arsenic,” Campbell said.

  “Exactly! And just about everybody in town has some ant killer stuck back somewhere, to be used in case of those pesky sugar ants. I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it at the time, Douglas, but afterwards I remembered seeing those sugar ants all lined up in the kitchen like that, and I remembered that Hannah wasn’t there when I took the pie over to Mr. McGrady’s house, and Mr. Frederick was there that day, and the fact that he didn’t get sick even though he sat right there and ate a big slice of it, why, I cut that very slice for him myself! Well, it all fell into place.”

  “Whew!” Campbell exclaimed, listening to the amateur sleuth in wide-eyed amazement.

  “Well, Mr. McGrady said something odd to me that day, very odd. We were talking about that Basil Falters showing up all of a sudden like the way he did, and Mr. McGrady winked at me and he said, ‘I didn’t say he isn’t one of the twins’. And just then I noticed that somebody had been listening right outside his door, and I had a sneaking suspicion that Lach McGrady knew somebody was listening! Turned out, that somebody was Mr. Frederick. And Lach McGrady said that odd thing about the twins, and later I remembered it and I thought to myself, there Lach went again, yanking the poor man’s chain.”

  “And the worst part of all,” Tilda continued sadly, “is that Lach McGrady never had any intention of leaving everything to Mr. Frederick. He did it just to aggravate the man. Because you will recall, Douglas, that mischievous old catbird knew where the real twins were all along!”

  TWENTY ONE

  Officer Douglas Campbell shook his blond head and wondered if he had heard the lady right. “What did you say, Ms. Tilda?” he asked, baffled.

  Tilda MacArdan looked him straight in the eye and said, very simply, “That Lach McGrady knew where the twins were all the time!”

  “All the time?” The man still didn’t seem to understand.

  “Yes, he did! And I believe he has known their whereabouts all their lives. That’s just the kind of thing he would do. Maybe hired a detective to keep an eye on them and make sure Sarah had enough money after that good-for-nothing she ran off with left them, and made sure they had enough food to eat and clothes on their backs, and things like that.”

  Campbell gripped the arms of the chair. He leaned forward with a desperate, confused look on his face. “Okay, you’ve lost me. Now tell me exactly how and when you began to suspect all this.”

  The spry lady placed a finger to her cheek. “Now let me think. I believe it must have been the day I took Addie to meet Mr. McGrady. He seemed awfully full of himself! Chuckling and carrying on! And I got to thinking, knowing him the way I do and seeing the way he loves to pull the wool over folks’ eyes every chance he gets, well, I got to thinking! Mr. Lach McGrady is mischievous but he has a kind heart. His daughter runs off with a good-for-nothing who leaves her with two little ones to take care of, all alone. The McGradys have a lot of pride, too much pride, they always have. Sarah wouldn’t reach out to her Daddy and he wouldn’t reach out to her, either! But I’ll bet you he would hire somebody to keep an eye on her and those twins, and see to it that they were provided for now and inherit after he’s gone. It’s just the kind of thing Lach McGrady would do! And he would have taken that secret to the grave, if these con artists hadn’t shown up when they did and tried to put one over on him!”

  She paused and looked at the two shocked people looking back at her. “Now, y’all realize I’m just figuring. You will have to verify this story with Mr. McGrady if he gets better, or send out some detectives to find Hannah or Sarah, or the twins, wherever they may be.”

  Addie said, “It does make sense, though.”

  Campbell said slowly, “And Frederick never knew any of this. McGrady led him along for years, letting him believe the twins would never be found and that he would inherit everything via the codicil. Go on, Ms. Tilda. I want to hear the rest of your theory!”

  “Well, if you recall, Douglas, the day that we visited Mr. McGrady to ask him about Hannah—”

  “The day he had a mild stroke,” Douglas said. “Just before it happened Lach McGrady told us he sent Hannah to find the twins.”

  “No, Douglas, that is not what he told us. He said he sent Hannah to fetch the twins. Meaning, go where they were—”

  “And bring them back to Sparrow Falls!” Addie said.

  “Exactly!” Tilda MacArdan replied. “And I expect it is just a matter of time until Hannah Smith shows up, bringing the real McGrady twins with her!”

  * * *

  Addie fluffed the bed pillows and Tilda opened the windows to let in the mild spring breeze. She pulled the sheers together to dim the bright sunlight, and they billowed like soft clouds.

  “There, Mr. McGrady, now you should feel a whole lot be
tter! Fresh air is always good for what ails you.”

  The old man leaned back against the pillows and pointed at the glass of water next to the bed.

  “Hand me that, missy.” His voice was hoarse, but feisty.

  Addie gave him the glass of water.

  Tilda pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. “I declare, you are looking a little better every day now, Lach.”

  McGrady turned his wrinkled face toward her and winked. “Are you flirting with me, Tilda? The ladies always did like old Lach McGrady!”

  She laughed at his teasing. “It’s good to see you acting more like yourself, and that’s the truth. I figured you’d feel a whole lot better once you got out of that hospital and back in your own home. We’re going to take turns sitting with you until Hannah gets back.”

  Lach winced. “You mean that bossy Delcie Needles will be staying with me again? Don’t know if I can take that, in my feeble condition.”

  “Oh, you can take it, all right! You can give it out, too.” Tilda said firmly. “I’ll admit you had us scared for awhile there, but you’re recovering nicely now.”

  A cloud slid over the old man’s face. “Won’t never be as good as I was. Can’t believe that Richard Frederick went and did what he did. It was my fault, Tilda, you know that? Went and shot that man because of me and my tall tales.” His mouth worked fretfully.

  Addie and Tilda exchanged glances. The spry little lady grasped the old man’s hand. “Don’t think about it, Lach. What’s done is done, and you never meant any harm.”

  The grandfather clock in the hall chimed three. The sound reverberated around the vast room until the bells grew still and the distant noise of ticking resumed.

  “About time for Hannah to get here,” Lach McGrady said. “She said she was bringing the young’uns, didn’t she?” This was the hundredth time he had asked.