Bran New Death (A Merry Muffin Mystery)

by Hamilton, Victoria

  “No, I’m beat. I think I’ll go to bed with a book.”

  “You go on to the car, Shi. I’d like to talk to Merry,” McGill said.

  Shilo smiled and floated over to the car, leaning against it, elbows on top of the tiny roof, staring off to the woods.

  Tugging at the cuffs of his jacket, the real estate agent looked uneasy. “Merry, I need to ask you a couple of questions. And . . . and to say something.”

  I matched my expression to his serious tone. “What is it, McGill?”

  His lean face, beaky nose, and too-full lips combined in a look that was earnest and honest and wholly adorable. I understood Shilo’s attraction; McGill was the kind of guy you just looked at and trusted. Trust was a big deal for Shilo.

  “Shi and I have talked a lot, but she keeps avoiding the subject when I ask about her parents.” He glanced back at her. “Are they dead?”

  “Not that I know of. I’ve known her a long time, McGill, and she rarely mentions them. I have a feeling they’re alive, but she’s estranged from them.”

  “That doesn’t seem possible! She’s such a sweetheart.”

  “I know, but there are reasons a girl might cut off contact with her parents. I figure she’ll tell me about them when she’s ready.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. I just don’t know what to say to my mother. She’d like to know more about Shilo, but there isn’t much to tell.”

  It must be quite an adjustment for a small-town parent, accustomed to knowing something about the girls her son dates. “You’ll have to get used to that. Her life started when she came to New York at eighteen to become a model. That’s about all I know. But I can tell you a lot about her life since.”

  He smiled as he watched her. “I feel like I know everything I need to know.”

  “Then what else did you want to ask?”

  Turning his gaze back to me, he said, “What kind of ring would she like? Elaborate or simple? I don’t know much about stuff like that. I only did it once.”

  “Are you . . . are you sure?” I gasped, my breath knocked out of me. I knew what he was really asking, but I composed myself. This was important. “Are you sure you’re not moving too fast?”

  “I’m sure here,” he said, hand on his heart. “My mind hasn’t quite caught up yet.”

  My eyes burned, and so did my heart. I wasn’t sure if it was joy for Shilo over what she’d found, or jealousy, or a sense of loss, a fear that I might never feel that emotion again. “Pretty . . . a heart-shaped stone, maybe, as unusual as she is. Not a plain white diamond, but maybe a pink diamond, or something colorful. Anything you like, she’ll love.”

  “Thank you,” he said, taking my hand in his and squeezing it. “I’ll have her home late. I want to show her all my hideouts from when I was a kid.”

  I sighed as he hopped in the car and drove away, and sent a wish after them, that their love was true, and happiness would follow them wherever they went. Instead of looking through the library, I spent a couple of hours going through more paperwork, and searching through my uncle’s stuff, trying to understand his relationship with Rusty Turner. Not a lot to go on there. I checked in often on Becket, following doctor’s orders, which were to feed him and give him water, as much as he wanted, but in small quantities often, rather than letting him gorge himself. He seemed to want out, but I kept him in my room to keep him from doing too much too fast.

  My supper was solitary, a grilled chicken breast and salad eaten at the big kitchen table with a book of poetry propped up in front of me. It gave me a good sense of what my life would be like if Shilo married McGill and moved in with him. The castle was far too huge and echoed at night, making weird noises that had me on edge. I was tired and weepy and feeling sorry for myself. What was I going to do with Wynter Castle, being that I was the last remaining Wynter? I was about to turn out the lights and go upstairs when the phone rang. I picked it up, said “Hello?” as I flopped down in one of the chairs by the fireplace.

  “Merry? It’s Hannah.”

  “Hi, Hannah! Nice to hear your voice.”

  She said much the same back, a very polite girl, then told me that over supper, she had asked her mother some questions. Her mom was the Lady’s League organizing chair, and she knew Isadore Openshaw and Dinah Hooper quite well. When Hannah mentioned Isadore’s trouble with Dinah, her mother told her something important.

  “It all goes back to Dinah taking her job away at Turner Construction,” Hannah said.

  “Dinah doing what?” I said.

  “Dinah got a job there as kind of office manager, mostly because Rusty was hot-cha-cha in lust with her,” Hannah said on a cute giggle. “But Isadore did the bookkeeping for the company . . . you know, taxes, payroll, that kind of thing. It was just part-time, in addition to her job at the bank, which was just part-time at that point, too. I forgot that there used to be a lady named Mrs. Murphy, who was like the dragon lady of the tellers. Isadore supplemented her teller’s job with doing bookkeeping for folks. Anyway, that all changed when Dinah took over at Turner Construction.”

  I thought about it for a long moment. That explained Isadore’s venom toward Dinah, but it didn’t explain why Dinah had claimed not to remember who used to do the books for the construction company. Although . . . if I had had to get someone fired because they were doing a lousy job, I might avoid the whole question, too. “Wait . . . how did Isadore get out to Turner Construction? It’s a ways out of town. She couldn’t have ridden her bike out there all winter.”

  “Wait a sec, I’ll ask my mom,” Hannah said. When she came back, she said, “Mom says Isadore used her brother’s big, old car to drive out there. I guess she can drive, but leaves the car in the garage most of the time.”

  Except when she was running my uncle off the road? Okay, so that was a stretch, but it was possible. “You have been a busy little bee, haven’t you, to find all this out?”

  “I have! Oh, and one more thing I found out,” she said. “Tom was following someone for a lawyer, right, but we didn’t know what lawyer? Well, I know Mr. Silvio’s secretary, Chrissie; in fact, we went to school together when we were just little kids, and she comes in to the library all the time. She says that Tom was following a woman because Mr. Silvio suspected her of something, she wasn’t sure what.”

  “What woman?”

  “She didn’t know,” Hannah said regretfully. “She might be able to find out, though, tomorrow, when she’s in the office.”

  “Why wouldn’t he hire the private investigator who has an office in the same building, if he wanted someone followed?”

  “I don’t know. That guy doesn’t spend a lot of time in Autumn Vale, I think. Plus, Tom would have been cheaper, I suppose. He wasn’t doing much, with his dad missing and Turner Construction mostly out of business.”

  “You’re right,” I said thoughtfully. “Thank you, Hannah. You’ve given me a lot to think of.”

  “I may find out more tomorrow!” she said.

  “Hannah, now listen to me; you be careful. I don’t want you asking too many questions.” In every detective book I’ve ever read, the one who gets snoopy gets in trouble. I couldn’t bear the thought of little Hannah being targeted. This was serious. I heard someone yelling in the background.

  “I’m coming, Mom. Yes, I’m getting off the phone now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Merry,” she said, and hung up.

  I hope she had heeded my warning. I headed to bed, making sure Becket was comfortable first. He seemed to be okay, though he was still standoffish with me. He watched me, and it was unnerving, especially as I undressed and did my nightly ritual of shower, face cream, and hair. It seemed as if he was not used to being in the presence of a woman.

  Sleep came fairly quickly, and I was happy about that. I thought about Shilo as I nodded off. I hoped she had found love. Would I ever? “Miguel,” I whispered, “will I ever find anyone like you?”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I HAD A strange dream. I saw Migu
el, but he was just leaving for work. I clung to him at the door, like I often did, but he told me he had to go, and I was upset. Then something woke me up—something sharp and painful—before I had a chance to ask him why he had to leave in such a hurry.

  The “something sharp and painful” was a full set of cat claws. Becket’s method of waking me up was by smacking my face. He looked better, a lot better. Even his coat had regained some gloss. Being a naturally bright person, I figured that he was hungry. Yawning, I wandered downstairs, with him following me, and opened a can of tuna. I plopped it into the saucer of one of the cups that came in the box of mugs I had bought from Janice Grover. I then remembered I had a case of cat food, but it was too late. He ignored the tuna anyway, prowling back and forth near the door. Lightbulb moment—my brain is slow to work before my first coffee of the morning—he had to go to the bathroom, and didn’t like the litter box I had bought. After almost a year of living in the wild, he had developed certain habits, I supposed.

  I looked down at him as he paced back and forth, scratching at the door in the butler’s pantry. “You won’t go far, right? You’ll just go out, do your business, and come right back?”

  He looked up at me and meowed loudly. Sounded like a “Sure, just let me ooooout!” to me. “Okay, all right. I’m losing my mind, talking to a cat. I’m trusting you here, so go out, do your business, and come back in. You’re still on the mend, fella.” I opened the door, expecting Becket to saunter out, but he suddenly became an orange streak and headed directly for the woods. I hopped outside, my slippers hitting the cold stone, but he was already gone.

  “Darn cat!” I said, only it wasn’t “darn.” I had a million things to do, but how was I going to do any of it when I was worried about the cat? The vet had cautioned me that he might seem fine, but was still recuperating; she wanted to see him again in two days. That would be hard to do if he was roaming the woods. I futzed around for a few minutes, but there was nothing to do but go looking for him. I hopped from foot to foot in the cold morning air, considering dashing after him then and there, slippers and all, but then the castle phone rang. I ran back into the kitchen.

  “Hello?” I gasped.

  “Merry, darling, are you okay? Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  It was Pish, of all people! This early? I looked at the clock. “Why are you calling me at six a.m.? I didn’t think you even knew the early hours existed.”

  “Sweetie, I was a financial planner and investment counselor for how many years? I used to get up at the crack of dawn to read the financial news before hauling myself downtown. I don’t look at dawn’s crack anymore, but I still do know it exists. Enough of that; I have news!”

  “What kind of news?”

  “The kind of news I can only deliver in person.”

  I stood there, phone in hand, perplexed. I held the receiver away from me and glared at it for a moment. Was he kidding? “In person? I can’t come back to the city right now.”

  “That’s why I thought I’d come to you!”

  “You would come all the way here, to Autumn Vale, the backwater of upstate New York? To tell me what?” My stomach twisted. “Pish, is it dreadful news?”

  “No, darling, it’s not dreadful,” he reassured me. “Not for you, anyway. But it is fascinating!”

  “Hint! Please, Pish, a hint! I have to go search for a cat—long story—but I’ll die without a hint.”

  “It has to do with Autumn Vale Community Bank. And that’s all I’m saying! I’m heading out this minute to catch a flight, but I need you to meet me at the airport in Rochester. You’re only an hour away from Rochester, right?”

  “If that. More like forty-five minutes, depending on the driver.”

  “Well, my flight leaves in an hour, and it’s only an hour long, so best get moving.”

  “Darling, I can’t . . . but maybe . . . okay, all right.” I sat down in a chair and thought quickly. “Look, some way or another I will make sure that someone meets you at the airport.” I took down the flight details, then hung up, since his cab was waiting at the door and his ancient mother was yammering at him in the background.

  I raced upstairs, woke Shilo up—she had gotten in very late the previous night—and told her about Becket and Pish and the whole shemozzle. She drowsily agreed that she could go fetch Pish at the airport in Rochester.

  I stood over her watching her drift back to sleep. “Maybe I ought to go,” I fussed, glancing at my watch. “I’ll just run out, see if I can get the cat, then . . . if Becket won’t come to me, to heck with him,” I said. “I have too much to do to be ruled by that feline conniver.”

  Shilo chuckled sleepily. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll go and fetch darling Pish. If I can’t figure out how to get to the Rochester airport, I’ll rope McGill in to help.”

  I sat down on the side of her bed. “What’s going on between you and McGill, Shi? I’ve never seen you spend this much time with a guy.” I knew his secret, but supposed that he hadn’t actually proposed to her yet.

  She sat up and hugged her knees, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders in waves. “Do you remember way back, when Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett and everyone thought it was so weird?”

  I nodded.

  “I always thought her biggest mistake was divorcing him,” Shilo said dreamily, and yawned again. “That guy had character, you know? I mean, they got married real quick, and that was because the connection was immediate, intense . . . but she let it get away from her. Dumb girl. You find that kind of guy, you hold onto him.”

  I didn’t say another word. She was an adult, and it wasn’t up to me to caution her against moving too fast. Shilo had been beaten up by the world when she was young, I figured, and deserved to find happiness however she could. She didn’t have contact with her family, as I had told McGill—that I knew—so her friends were the only family she had. I remembered how serious McGill seemed about my darling friend. I kissed her forehead, and said, “I’m going to get dressed, see you on your way, then go out to find that little monster.”

  A half hour later, after running Shilo through what she had to do, calling McGill, and telling him she’d pick him up in my rental car—I just could not subject Pish to both Shilo’s driving and her car; it would be inhumane—and making sure she knew what flight he was arriving on, I was out the door to look for the cat. Okay, so I had stalled, not really wanting to go search for the wee beastie in the woods alone, hoping he’d come back on his own, but knowing I didn’t have a choice since he hadn’t.

  He was probably all the way to Canada by now, I figured, but armed with sliced chicken breast from my dinner the night before in a plastic baggie, I waded through the weeds across the field toward the forest. I paused at the edge, peering into the shadowy depths, as a crow cawed raucously, and a wind came up, tossing the tops of the trees. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” I called, hopeful that I could tempt him out with just the magical sound of my voice.

  No kitty.

  “Becket, come on, boy! I have chicken!” That would have worked with a dog, but not Becket. I had been seeing his orangey hide on and off for weeks, but now that I wanted him, he had melted into the woods like an Iroquois hunter.

  A breeze rustled the long grass behind me; I shivered as I mumbled a stream of invective against Gordy and Zeke, my nonexistent grounds crew. Then I took a deep breath, thinking of how pathetic Becket had looked when I found him near death, and started down the path into the woods.

  “Becket! Here kitty, kitty, kitty!” I said, rattling the plastic bag. “I have chicken!”

  I peered into the green, shadowy depths every few steps, looking for a streak of orange. Where had that cat gone? And why? I didn’t get it; he had a home, a litter box, food and water and a comfortable bed, with a shirt of my uncle’s draped over it, so the smell would be familiar. He had the run of the castle, his home, even if my uncle was gone. Why had he taken off first chance he got?

  As
I walked, I couldn’t help but let my mind drift to the troubling mystery of Tom Turner’s murder. I hoped that the mystery was like a sweater I once had, one that had a loose thread. I picked at that thread so much, it eventually unraveled and the whole sweater fell apart. Maybe if I picked at the threads of this mystery it would all fall apart and I’d see the pattern, as I had that knitted sweater.

  The threads that I kept coming back to were:

  There was no evidence that Rusty Turner was dead.

  And the body in the woods had been there a little while, at least.

  Tom Turner was following some female for Andrew Silvio.

  Isadore Openshaw hated Dinah Hooper, who had taken away her job at Turner Construction.

  But now, Isadore virtually ran the Autumn Vale Community Bank on her own; Simon Grover seemed to be a figurehead roaring for his coffee and reading the funny papers.

  When I thought of the bank, I wondered what Pish had to tell me. It was seriously distracting that he was coming to the castle. What would he think? What would he say? I knew that he must have something very interesting to tell me or he would not come in person, but I suspected that half the reason for the trip was his curiosity about Wynter Castle and the town of Autumn Vale.

  Then my mind Ping-Ponged back to the murder. It all kept coming back to Isadore Openshaw. Was she the woman Tom Turner had been hired to follow?

  Every now and then, as I walked and thought, I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for Becket, and I’d call him. There was no cat to be seen. There was rustling in the bushes, and an occasional noise, there was birdsong, and the wind tossing the treetops. I could hear a loud motor somewhere, like a dirt bike. A screeching blue jay followed me, and a group of crows—that was called a “murder,” right? A murder of crows?—chattered and cawed. No Becket.

  I stopped. Did I even know where I was? It should just be a simple matter of following the path back to the castle, right? I turned around, and realized there were a couple of paths I could have come from. I’m not terrible with maps, but we’ve already established that my internal GPS is not flawless. It had seemed so easy while Lizzie was leading the way. But the forest was pretty big. Even the lousy plat I had seen in the Turner Construction office had placed the size at about three hundred acres. That’s huge. But I wasn’t going to panic.