by Parnell Hall
Cora cast a glance at the front office. It had a side window, through which proprietor Jerry Lynch undoubtedly kept tabs on the comings and goings of his guests. She wasn’t sure at that distance, with her frosty breath fogging her glasses, but she thought she could see his face in the window.
Cora frowned. She walked down to unit 12, turned her key in the lock, pushed the door open, switched on the light.
It was your typical motel room. A queen-sized bed with neutral blue-gray coverlet tightly tucked under a row of pillows at the head. Two nightstands, one undoubtedly containing a Gideon Bible. Over a double dresser hung a framed print of dogs playing poker. Cora wondered if it, too, had traveled from the Jersey shore.
At the foot of the bed was the TV Jonathon Doddsworth had mentioned. Cora was glad he had. The Surf & Sun was the only motel in the Bakerhaven phone book advertising cable TV.
The telephone was on the bedside table. Cora checked the number. Her extension was 112.
Cora nodded in satisfaction. If phone extension 112 was unit 12, surely extension 107 was unit 7.
Cora slipped off her coat and pondered her options. With nosy Mr. Lynch watching the unit, the front door wouldn’t do.
Cora checked out the bathroom. As she had hoped, there was a window in the back wall. Small, high, and frosted, with a single metal-framed pane that could be cranked open or shut. The window bore out Cora’s none-too-glowing opinion of the motel’s design. A woman of her stature could hardly reach the crank, let alone turn it.
Under normal circumstances.
These were not normal circumstances.
Cora grabbed a towel off the rack, dried the soles of her boots. Then she stepped up on the toilet seat and climbed to the back of the toilet tank. She stretched her right leg out until her foot reached the rim of the sink. She tested it, found it would support her weight. Straddling the two plumbing fixtures, she was able to get a tentative purchase on the crank. She turned it, was rewarded when the window swung out with a creak.
Cora surveyed the open window with displeasure. It was big enough, but just barely. The buttons of her tweed jacket would surely catch on the sill. Not to mention the buttons on her matching skirt. Was she nuts? Surely she could use the door.
Cora hopped down, went to the front door, opened it, and stepped out boldly, as if she had just forgotten something in her car.
The proprietor’s face was definitely in his window.
Cora snapped her fingers, as if she’d suddenly remembered something that negated the need for whatever it was she’d forgotten, and went back inside.
She wriggled out of her tweed jacket, flung it on the bed. Likewise her tweed skirt. Clad only in her blouse, boots, and bloomers, Cora went back in the bathroom. She climbed up on the toilet and the sink, put her hands on the sill of the window, and launched herself through.
As she’d hoped, the snow broke her fall. She’d be sore the next day, but nothing was broken. She pulled herself to her feet and brushed herself off. Then, starting with twelve, she counted the bathroom windows down to seven.
To her delight, Doddsworth’s bathroom window was partially open.
To her chagrin, she couldn’t possibly reach it.
Cora looked around for something to stand on. Nothing. Any plank, box, or ladder that might exist was buried under snow.
Cora frowned. She reached down, picked up a handful of snow. It was wet, formed a dandy snowball. She could chuck it through Doddsworth’s window. . . . Wouldn’t that give the old bore a jolt when he came home?
Instead, Cora dropped the snowball, bent down, pushed it with her hand, rolled it along. She cursed the fact she had no gloves, but they were in her coat, back in her motel room. No way to get them now.
Cora rolled the ball of snow diligently, as if she were building a snowman. When it was big enough, she rolled it over to Doddsworth’s window, smushed it up against the motel wall. There. If it would just hold her weight . . .
Cora patted the huge snowball down until it felt solid. Discovered to her chagrin that she had no way to climb up on it.
Cora rolled a smaller snowball to use as a step.
Moments later she was enjoying a view of Jonathon Doddsworth’s tiny bathroom.
The toilet seat was down, which was a plus, but the tile floor looked hard. This would not be like falling in the snow.
The shower curtain rod was almost within reach. Cora pushed herself over the windowsill. The more weight she put on it, the more the dull metal edge cut into her stomach. Cora grimaced, leaned out, and . . .
Grabbed the shower rod!
Now, if the damn thing would just hold.
It didn’t.
Just as she swung her legs free, the shower rod pulled out of the wall. Cora crashed to the floor. She lay there tangled in the shower curtain, and began to have serious misgivings.
Maybe 107 wasn’t the phone for unit 7.
Maybe one of the windows she had counted was the housekeeping and maintenance room, and this wasn’t unit 7 at all.
Maybe this was unit 7, but the proprietor was wrong and Doddsworth was there!
Get a grip, Cora told herself. Doddsworth was at dinner with the TV reporter. And he’d have to be deaf not to have heard her entrance.
Cora pushed the bathroom door open a crack and peered out. There was a light on, but the unit was unoccupied.
Cora heaved a sigh of relief, switched on the bathroom light, and inspected the damage. Not too bad. The shower rod was only slightly bent. Cora straightened it, rethreaded the shower curtain, and hung it back up. She surveyed it critically, hoped the dent wouldn’t show.
Cora scrubbed a snowy footprint off the toilet seat, set a razor back on the sink, and hung up a towel. Satisfied everything was more or less the way she’d found it, she switched off the light and went into the bedroom.
The bedside lamp was on, not the overhead, which was too bad. Cora would have loved to switch on the general lighting, but the nosy proprietor would be sure to notice. So she made a hasty inspection without it.
It was Cora’s experience that men tended to live out of their suitcases, but Doddsworth was apparently staying long enough to have unpacked. His suitcase was in the closet, along with a suit jacket and two dress shirts. Cora closed the cheap accordion closet door, then turned her attention to the room.
A dresser identical to the one in her room held nothing of interest. Three drawers held clothes. Two drawers were empty. The drawer on the bottom right was stuffed with dirty clothes.
There wasn’t much else. The nightstand the light sat on held a Bible. The other nightstand held nothing.
Cora snorted in exasperation. She’d gotten banged up for this?
Then she saw it. On the floor. Leaning up against the dresser. A small leather briefcase.
Jackpot!
Cora snatched it up, discovered it was not a briefcase but a leather-bound notebook. Grinning, she took it over to the bed, unzipped and opened it. It was a binder for three-hole notebook paper. On the first page, she could see jottings in ballpoint pen.
The name D. Taggart topped the page.
Underneath were the notations, Max—10:00–11:00; S. Carter—12:00–1:00.
The name S. Carter was heavily underlined.
On the rest of the page were names and times of the other actors from the tableau.
Cora turned the page, and her face hardened. There was the notation S. Carter—Visa, followed by what was obviously Sherry’s credit card number and expiration date, and the record of her purchasing Enigmacross.
Cora turned the pages hastily. Doddsworth could be back at any moment. There were copious notes about the dart, the blowgun, and the sandbag, and copies of each of the poems. Everything she would expect to find in a good policeman’s notebook.
Only one thing was missing.
Aside from the live Nativity schedule, there was no mention anywhere in the notes of Maxine Doddsworth.
Cora frowned as she read the last written page.
She riffled through the rest of the pages, but they were blank.
Next she examined the notebook itself. A slit on the inside back cover caught her eye. She reached in, felt something, pulled it out.
It was a red envelope!
Cora fought to contain her excitement, told herself the envelope didn’t necessarily mean anything. After all, Doddsworth had found the envelopes. Maybe he’d hung on to one, just for comparison.
Cora wasn’t buying it.
She flipped back to the front of the notebook to see if there was a similar pocket. There was. She reached in, felt another envelope, pulled it out.
This one, however, wasn’t red but white. It was addressed to Doddsworth in London, England. This, Cora reasoned, had nothing to do with the crime, and she had no excuse for reading the letter.
Cora examined the envelope, hoping for something to change that assessment. There was no return address. But the postmark was Bakerhaven, Connecticut. And the date was December 10, presumably just days before Doddsworth had come to America.
Cora pulled out the letter.
It was written on a single sheet of stationery, in a woman’s flowery hand.
My dearest Doddsy,
I hear you are coming to see Maxine. Do you really think that is wise? I would never stop a Father from seeing his Daughter, but even so . . . It has been many years, but nothing has changed. I still feel the way I did, and so does Horace. If you must come, and I know you will—I was never able to talk you out of anything—but if you must, I beg you, stay away from us. For your Daughter’s sake, as well as for mine. You cannot fix anything. You can only make it worse. I beg you to be smart.
Cora turned the paper over, read the closing.
Be smart, Doddsy.
All My Love,
Mindy.
Cora’s mouth fell open.
A car pulled up to the unit. A motor roared and died.
Cora shoved the letter back in the envelope, thrust the envelope back in the leather case. Zipped the leather case shut. Propped the case up against the dresser where she’d found it. Thanked her lucky stars she hadn’t turned on another light.
A key scraped in the lock.
On cat feet, Cora sprinted for the closet, squirmed inside, tugged the accordion door.
Moron! she told herself, her heart hammering. The first thing that neatnik will do is hang up his coat!
The door banged open and Jonathon Doddsworth stomped inside, muttering something about American rental cars, which apparently were not up to the highest British standards. Judging from his tone, he and Rick Reed had hoisted a few at the Country Kitchen. Even so, Cora figured, the inspector was probably not drunk enough to fail to notice a woman in her skivvies huddled in his coat closet.
Which he would open any minute.
But he didn’t. Through the crack in the door Cora could see Doddsworth’s coat land squarely on the bed as the detective himself stomped into the bathroom.
Quick as a wink, Cora slipped out of the closet, closing the accordion door behind her, and sprinted out the front door.
Instantly, Cora could feel the eyes of the proprietor on her. There was no help for that now. She hurried down the walkway, panicked that she didn’t have her room key, then remembered she’d left the door unlocked. With a gusty sigh of relief, she let herself in to unit 12, shivering with the cold.
She went into the bathroom, shut the window. Then she checked in the mirror: no obvious scrapes. She pulled on her clothes and coat.
The mound of snow made her walk past unit 7 again. She was sure that just as she reached the door Doddsworth would come popping out to confront her. He didn’t. Cora hurried to her car, revved up the engine, and pulled out.
Her headlights illuminated the figure of a man blocking the driveway. Cora slammed on her brakes.
The proprietor walked around to the driver’s side, motioned to her to roll down the window.
“Yes?” Cora asked brightly, as if everything were just fine.
Everything clearly wasn’t.
Jerry Lynch shook his head. “You checked in with no luggage. I might have said something, but I didn’t. Gave you the benefit of the doubt. But when I see you, in your underwear, coming out of the room of a gentleman guest, that’s something else.” He stuck his nose in the air. “I don’t run that sort of motel.”
Cora grimaced.
And here she’d thought she was compromising Sherry’s reputation.
39
THE TAGGARTS’ SPRAWLING, THREE-STORY COLONIAL WAS SO big that Cora expected a butler, but Mindy Taggart answered the door herself. Her face seemed startlingly pale in contrast to her black mourning dress. Her blond hair was tied back. Her eyes were dull. Haunted. “I’m sorry,” she said. “My husband isn’t seeing anyone.”
“I came to see you. May I come in?”
“I’m not seeing anyone either.”
“Yet here we stand.”
Mindy Taggart took a soft breath. “Miss Felton, I just lost my daughter. Could you have some compassion?”
“My niece has been charged with your daughter’s murder. She didn’t do it. I mean to find out who did.”
“You’ve come to the wrong place. I know nothing that would help you.”
“I think you do.”
“Well, you’re wrong. And now you’re being impertinent, as well as intruding on my grief. I’m going to ask you to leave.”
“What about Doddsy?”
Mindy Taggart’s pale face froze. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was hoping to discuss your dear Doddsy. But if you’re not up to it, I’ll just have to ask him. . . .”
Mindy Taggart glanced around in consternation, lowered her voice. “Come into the parlor.”
In light of her grief, Cora resisted retorting, “Said the spider to the fly.” Instead, she followed Mrs. Taggart into what at one time would have passed for a Victorian sitting room but now was dominated by a big-screen TV.
Mindy Taggart closed the door and turned. Her face had become a mask of anguish, as if her whole world were collapsing. “In the name of heaven, why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m not doing anything to you. I’m trying to solve your daughter’s murder. That may bring up things you’d rather forget. But wouldn’t you like to know?”
“As if I didn’t.”
“You’re saying you know who did this?”
“No, of course not. Please. My daughter’s been taken from me. Haven’t I been punished enough?”
“Is that how you see it?”
Mindy said nothing.
“Tell me about Doddsy.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“I read the letter.”
“What letter?”
“The one you wrote. Just before he came here. ‘My dearest Doddsy’ is not exactly ambiguous. So there’s no need to pretend.”
“Men are such fools!” Mindy sank into a chair by the coffee table, lifted the lid of a ceramic box that proved to contain cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” Cora draped her coat over the back of the couch, sat down and dug into her purse. “I prefer my own. Here, let me give you a light.”
The two women lit up, sat back smoking.
Mindy Taggart took a deep drag, blew it out, said, “Where were we?”
“We were talking about the stupidity of men. I’ve married enough of them to agree completely. With regard to Jonathon Doddsworth: I gather you two were an item. I assume by the way you spirited me off at the slightest mention of his name that your husband doesn’t know?”
Mindy said nothing, merely glared.
“Oh. Of course he knows. That was the whole point. Your affair with Jonathon Doddsworth was to pay your husband back for his affair with Doddsworth’s wife.”
“So that’s what you think.”
“That isn’t true?”
“The story holds up after all these years.”
“What story?”
/> “My husband is a powerful man, Miss Felton. A man used to getting what he wants.”
“What he wants? As in Pamela Doddsworth?”
“Yes and no.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Mindy took another drag on her cigarette, blew it out. “I will tell you. And then you must go away. And leave me in peace. Peace. As if there could ever be any peace. But I will tell you. And you will tell no one. Because that’s how it works.” She laughed ironically. “Fifteen years ago, Jonathon Doddsworth was quite the young man. Thinner, with a mop of curly hair. And that English accent. And those twinkling eyes. Witty. Amusing.” Mindy smiled at the memory. A sad, wry smile. “I was a married woman. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. But those things happen.”
Cora rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it!”
“All I know is when I was with Jonathon I was happy. It seemed so innocent. Until Horace found out.”
“So, it was the other way around. Your husband and Pamela Doddsworth got together to pay you two back.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Mindy tapped her cigarette into the ashtray, then looked Cora straight in the eye. “Horace and Pamela never got together.”
Cora blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“It didn’t happen. That was just a story Horace put around.”
“What?”
“Like I say. My husband is a powerful man. Used to buying whatever he wants. In this case, he wanted Doddsy gone. They had been the best of friends. When he found out about us, Horace was hurt, terribly betrayed, and angry. He couldn’t bear to see Jonathon anymore.”
“So what happened?”
“There were children involved. Dorrie and Maxine were too young to understand, to even know what was going on. We didn’t want them hurt. You have to understand that.”
“I’m trying to understand. I’m not having much luck.”
“Horace’s solution was amazingly simple. Jonathon would take his family back to England. The girls would miss each other for a while, but they were young, and they would forget. The problem was Pamela. She refused to uproot her family on some rich man’s whim. Doddsy could go if he liked. Her feelings toward him weren’t too cordial along about then.”