Of course, when opportunity came my way, I had cooperated fully with Providence and many good things had resulted. “Lord,” I murmured, quoting a T-shirt I’d seen somewhere, “please give me the strength to endure my blessings!”
It was time to hunt for Edward Thomas, Vern’s father. It wasn’t a chore I relished, and not only because I’d be the bearer of bad news. Vern’s late mother, Carol, had been Gil’s sister and her death several years ago from a virulent form of cancer had so embittered Ned that his son had moved away and taken up residence with his uncle.
The subject of Ned was verboten in our household, at least in front of Vern, but Gil managed to keep tabs on his brother-in-law, probably using his many journalistic connections.
“Saratoga, huh?” I said, and called directory assistance. There were six Edward Thomases in Saratoga, but only one Ned, so I tried the number.
“You know the drill,” a recorded voice growled cryptically. At the tone, I suddenly realized that my news wasn’t the sort one should deliver via voicemail.
“Uh, Ned, this is Amelia Prentice, you know, Gil’s wife? Amelia Dickensen, that is.” I gave a little mirthless chuckle and cleared my throat. “It’s about Vern. Your son.”
Good grief, Amelia, of course he knows the name of his own son!
“Well, he’s all right, but there has been a, um, well, a difficulty has arisen. I mean, he has a problem, and we think you need to know about it. Call us, please.” I added the numbers of both our telephone and Gil’s cell.
As I hung up, it occurred to me that I wasn’t even sure I had the right Ned Thomas. And what would I have told him if he had been home? I wondered.
Ned, Vern is at the police station. He’s involved with a murder investigation and may be in trouble for withholding evidence. He may even be a suspect, but Gil and I know he’s not guilty of anything except being young and loyal to his friends.
For that matter, I added to myself, his friends aren’t guilty of anything, either; I’m certain of it.
I fixed myself a glass of milk and a peanut butter sandwich, moved to the couch, and turned on the television. I ate my dinner answering arcane questions posed by Alex Trebek, then watched as a sinister-looking fellow with a punk haircut extolled the virtues of some kind of chamois cloth costing $19.99, but wait, if I called in right away . . .
I dozed.
Cold air coming from the front door woke me. I sat up and caught a glimpse of the back of Vern’s coat as he slipped into his room and slammed the door shut. I glanced at my watch: nine thirty-seven.
“They’re not holding him right now, letting him go to classes and work, but they told him not to leave town and to keep completely mum about the lunchbox. I’m calling a lawyer in the morning,” Gil whispered, joining me on the sofa.
“But what about Dennis—”
“His hands are tied, honey. When they questioned Vern the other day, he left out the bit about the lunchbox, and now claiming he wanted to return it sounds pretty thin. That, combined with the fact that he’d been meeting with the Rousseau boys regularly—”
“But he was tutoring them!”
“Shh! I know that, and you know that, but it looks, well, suspicious, under the circumstances.”
Tears came into my eyes. “So that’s it? They think they have their culprits?”
Gil yawned. “Could be. But don’t worry, we’ll find him a really good lawyer, not that idiot he has now.” He stood. “Come on. I’m dead on my feet. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
I dried my eyes with a paper napkin. “Have you had anything to eat?” Food was becoming ever more important to me these days.
He grimaced and stood. “Some chips and soda from the police station machines. That’ll hold me.” He arched his back and groaned. “You coming?”
“I’ll join you in a while. I’m wide awake right now.”
Gil went to bed. On television, Andy Griffith was cross-examining a witness. I clicked the remote off just as the culprit shouted his confession in open court.
In the silence, my thoughts crowded upon me again. It occurred to me that I possessed knowledge of this situation that no one else had: I knew for certain that all three young men were innocent.
And how would you know that? The logical side of me asked.
I know them. All three of them. They wouldn’t do this thing.
That’ll really go over well in court! Exhibit A: Amelia knows these defendants, your Honor; the Defense rests!
All I know is that someone else committed this crime.
Who?
I don’t know, but I intend to find out.
I knew this town and the people in it. I’d taught many of them, read their thoughts put to paper, observed how they behaved. I even knew their parents, heaven help me!
“I can do this.”
~~~
I was going to need a compatriot, a sidekick, as it were, with whom I could share this task. In short, I needed Lily Burns, or a close facsimile thereof.
I called her. It was late, but she’d be up, I knew.
“Lily? It’s me.”
There was a long silence on the other end. “What do you want?”
“A favor,” I said brightly, ignoring the ungracious tone. “Mind if I drop by tomorrow after school? Something rather, uh, interesting has come up, and I’d like your opinion.”
“Here? Come here?” The concept seemed new to her. “Tomorrow?”
“That’s right.”
Another long silence, then a sigh. “Look, Amelia, that just isn’t going to be convenient. But what’s wrong with right now? Can’t you tell me about it on the phone?”
“Well, I guess so,” I said.
Lily’s backyard bordered on Chez Prentice’s and from time immemorial, we’d always talked in one another’s kitchen over tea or coffee. Maybe this was her way of keeping our badly injured friendship in traction until the damage healed. More than ever I regretted my sharp words to her, and the least I could do was to comply.
“Just a second.” I didn’t want to wake Gil, so I buttoned up my cardigan sweater and carried the portable receiver to the screened back porch.
I hesitated. I had to go carefully here. There were some things I couldn’t tell her. Lily was good in a crisis, but as I’ve said before, she was also a world-class gossip.
“Now Lily,” I began, “suppose, speaking hypothetically now, that you know someone—a woman, a friend of yours—who has a family member that has some evidence of interest to the police, and . . . ”
“The woman? Or the friend?”
“The woman is the friend.”
“Then who’s hiding from the police?”
“No one is hiding from the police, Lily, in fact, they’ve already gone to the police.”
“The friend.”
“Right. I mean, no, the family member.”
“What evidence does the woman have?”
“She doesn’t have evidence, the family member does. And they’ve already turned it in.”
“Which family member?”
I sighed. My breath was coming out in frosty clouds. “Let me start again.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Just get on with it. Oh!” She was interrupted by a crash and a series of muffled thumps. “Look what you’ve done! Behave yourself!” I heard her say to someone, then to me, “Hold it just a second.”
She was breathless when she returned to the telephone. “Sorry about that. I knocked something on the floor with my elbow.”
Sure she did.
“Look, Lily, I didn’t know you had company or I wouldn’t have called.” I shivered and stamped my feet.
“Company? Oh, right.” She gave a little giggle. “Don’t worry about that. No big deal. What were you saying?”
I’d had enough. “No, it’s all right; never mind.”
“Suit yourself,” she said airily.
I pressed the button marked End as forcefully as my near-frostbitten finger would allow. It was now obvious
why she didn’t want company. It would interfere with her trysts with Blakely.
So there it was. I was on my own.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next afternoon as I trudged among the exhaust-stained piles of snow on my way from school to Chez Prentice, I tried to think how I could conduct my own investigation.
My answer came literally in a flash as I crossed the street and looked down Dover Avenue toward the old downtown section. In the distance was a ten-foot sign bordered by neon lights, reading:
“Shea’s Quality Sporting Goods”
What better place to do research on ice fishing? Truth be told, I would have preferred to go to the REI store out at the mall, but that was a long drive and I was currently on foot. Due to my unfortunate involvement with Serendipity, I might be considered persona non grata around here, but Shea’s was a large store and hired any number of shaggy young men who were knowledgeable about all things sports. The likelihood of my meeting anyone of the Shea clan could be limited if I kept my eyes open.
Besides, it’s a free country, isn’t it? I reminded myself. And the store is open to the public, is it not? I was part of the public.
I entered and winced as a bell fastened to the front door announced my presence. I paused and looked around.
Good. Nobody was anywhere in sight.
The store was arranged much like any variety store, with long aisles between tall shelves.
I moved carefully, trying not to let my boots make much noise on the wooden floor. I was passing a display of canteens—who would imagine there were so many types?—when I heard a low conversation between two young male voices. I paused and listened.
Yes, as a general rule, I frown on eavesdropping, but I was conducting an investigation. Besides, we were in a public place, and they had no expectation of privacy. (Or so I had heard on television.)
“ . . . been squirrelly ever since she let Dus go.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that. Why’d she do that? He do anything wrong?”
“Don’t think so. Maybe she knew he was a killer even back then.”
“I don’t think he did it, Jack. Or his brother neither.”
Hear, hear! You dear, ungrammatical young man, I thought.
“Sure they did. They stuck the guy’s head in—”
I stepped around the corner. “Excuse me.”
Two young men in plaid flannel shirts looked up, startled. I had interrupted them as they unpacked pairs of snowshoes from a huge carton and arranged them in a display.
One of the young men stood and dusted off the knees of his jeans. “Can I help ya?”
Oh, how tempted I was to correct him: May I help you? But I was no longer Miss Prentice, English teacher, but Amelia Dickensen, Intrepid Detective, who also happened to speak all the local dialects. It was also time to stow any Latin idioms that might pop, non vocatus, into my head.
“Yah, maybe ya can.” I swept my gaze around the store. No sign of a Shea, so far.
“I need to see your ice-fishing tents.”
He looked down at me with some amusement. “You fish?”
I glanced down at my prim wool coat, medium-heeled winter boots, ladylike leather purse on one arm and leather satchel containing workbooks for the Rousseau boys in the other. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” I demanded, inwardly kicking myself for not getting into costume for this excursion into another world. Overalls, perhaps.
“No, I guess not,” said the young man, scratching his neck uncomfortably. He beckoned. “The tents are back here. C’mon.”
And it was, indeed, another world. As I scurried to keep up with the youngster’s long stride, I observed row upon row of mystifying objects and cartons. On the way, I identified ropes, fishing hooks, soccer balls, small axes, Thermos bottles, weights of various sizes, elastic bands, lanterns, running shoes, and ice chests. At last we reached a back corner of the store where several ice-fishing tents were displayed.
“Where ya plannin’ to fish?” he asked.
“On the lake,” I said. I would have thought that was obvious. I lifted a tent’s flap. This looked like what I’d heard described third-hand as the tent the Rousseau boys encountered. “May I—I mean, can I?” I asked, indicating that I’d like to enter.
The young man shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.”
Still carrying my purse and school supplies, I stepped easily inside without having to bend my head at all. This structure was about the same size as the shanties Etienne and Bert were building.
I looked down, surprised. There was a plastic floor equipped with three snap-shut fishing hatches for the convenience and comfort of the fisherman. But the boys had described a floor of ice.
I stuck my head out of the tent, remembering just in time to use the vernacular. “Ya got any tents with no floors?”
He gave me a quizzical look, but jerked a thumb in the direction of some smaller tents. “Just one model, over there. We’re almost out of ’em, on account of the ice festival, y’know,” he said, trying his hand at a little salesmanship. “They fold up real neat. They’re only a couple hundred bucks, so they move fast.”
Sure enough, there in the corner was a blue, dome-shaped shelter much smaller than the first tent.
I stuck my head inside and looked around. It was a good deal smaller than the tent my mind had sketched, but apparently it sat directly on the ice, allowing a would-be perpetrator plenty of space to accomplish, unobserved, any number of nefarious tasks and leave the body to cool.
“ ’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve,’ ” I murmured.
“What?” the young man said. “You gonna have church in that?”
I laughed out loud. “No, I was just thinking of something else.”
“Jason,” boomed a disembodied voice, “phone for you on line one.”
“Um,” said the young man, “We’re kinda short-handed. I gotta go for a second.” He gestured toward the back of the store.
“Please, go ahead. I’ll continue to browse.”
He loped away, making heavy sounds with his boots on the wood floor.
I went back inside the small tent and sat down, tailor fashion. I tried to imagine it as bare ice. Judging by the hatches in the bigger tent, holes broken in the ice for fishing were about twelve inches across. There would be room in here for one hole, perhaps two persons (sitting, one hoped, on stools) and perhaps two standard large ice chests.
I heard footsteps outside the tent, lighter ones, then the tinkling sound of a cell phone ringing. A woman answered, “Hello? Hello? What?” Abruptly, she changed to “Who is this?” a hoarse, angry whisper, “Listen, pal, if you think you’re scaring me, you’re wrong! Who is this?”
I made a mistake at this juncture. I should have just remained in the tent until she walked away, but curiosity impelled me to crawl forward and pull back the tent flap.
Brigid Shea must have been looking right at the tent. She pocketed the telephone and demanded loudly, “What are you doing here?”
With all the dignity I could muster, I said, “I’m looking at ice fishing tents.” I raised myself up on my knees, emerging disheveled from the tent.
“What d’you think you’re doing?”
“I just wanted to see your stock of tents” I repeated, clumsily retrieving my satchel from inside.
“I’ll bet you’re spying for that husband of yours. Trying to run us out of business with those lousy rental shanties!”
“But that’s not my husband!”
“Get out!” She stood trembling with rage, pointing a finger in the general direction of the egress.
Apparently it wasn’t enough that I complied. She then felt the need to come from behind, grab my shoulders and push me toward the door, talking all the way.
“I shoulda known it was you when Jason told about the nutty woman with the books. I knew right away who it was.”
“Nutty? I tell you, I just wanted to look at the tents.”
>
I tried to squirm away from her grip, but her hands were vise-like. Clearly, this woman had been using those weights I’d seen earlier.
“Yeah, to scope out the competition, you mean!” As we approached the entrance, she came around and shook a finger in my face. “You tell that Frenchman you’re married to to leave us alone!” She let me loose with a shake.
A workbook fell from my arms, and I stooped to retrieve it. “But I’m not married to—”
“That’s your problem. And you’re not much of a teacher, either. We all know you’ve had it in for my Serry ever since she started high school.”
“Now see here, Mrs. Shea!”
She pointed her finger again. “Out! Out! Out-out-out-out-out-out-out!” She sounded like a barking dog. A terrier.
As I headed back town the street, slightly twisted Latin phrase popped into my head, courtesy of my student Hardy Patchke: Veni, vidi, concouri.
We came, we saw, we ran.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You know, Miss—Mrs. Dickensen,” J.T. said as he vigorously erased a wrong answer in his workbook and blew away the debris. “You’re a lot nicer here with us than you are in school.”
“Shut up,” Dustin whispered between his teeth. He was hunched over his math lesson.
“But it’s true. In school you’re sort of a tight—uh.” I could see him searching his vocabulary for a word that wouldn’t offend me.
“Sort of, you know . . . ” He waved his pencil in the air.
I decided to help him. “Would formal be the word you’re searching for?”
J.T. grinned. “Yeah, formal. But you’re not that way when you’re here. You even laughed a minute ago. Why can’t you be like that in school?”
“Golly, J.T., can’t you keep your mouth shut for one minute?” Dustin exploded. “How can a guy get his work done with you yapping all the time? I’m going upstairs!”
He gathered up his pencil, papers and books and headed out of the room. He stopped abruptly at the door, his face losing its stormy expression.
Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) Page 14