A Distant Murder

by Donna McLean

  The elderly lady puckered her lips. “Even so, many people said that they were, well, romantically involved. And looking at that portrait I can see why! The exposed shoulder, the wind pressing the dress against her figure like that, outlining her shape in a rather suggestive way—”

  “Oh, I think it’s very romantic and lovely. Not a bit vulgar at all!” Tilda interrupted vehemently.

  “Well, I’m sure I never used the word vulgar!” Now Miss Dowd sounded indignant.

  Addie stood up. “Please don’t argue about it, ladies. I’m not bothered by rumors and things like that. I only wanted to see the portrait of my grandmother.” She turned to Frances with a smile. “Thank you so much, Miss Dowd. This means a lot to me.”

  Miss Dowd stood up and hugged Addie. “You are so welcome, Addie. And you do look exactly like her, you know. You act like her, too. She was so pretty and so kind.” The elderly lady’s eyes began to tear up and her hands trembled. “Why, I sometimes blame myself for what happened. If only I had been there that day, I tell myself, maybe I could have stopped it!”

  Tilda rushed over to Miss Dowd and put an arm around her. “Now, now, Frances, you shouldn’t think anything of the kind. It wasn’t your fault! You had to go help your sick uncle, didn’t you? Family comes first.” Her voice was soothing but firm.

  The old woman nodded her head and sniffled. “Yes, you’re right. I know that. Ada and James were my dearest friends, but family does come first. Poor Uncle Joseph needed my help. He had no one else to care for him.” She sighed and wiped away a tear.

  “Even so, I’ve never forgiven myself. Poor Ada. Poor James! He needed me too, you know, after the unpleasant incident. Having to make all the arrangements himself and taking care of a little baby, too.” She turned away from Addie and Tilda. “But by the time I got home Ada was gone and everything was all over and done with. Poor, poor James! He needed me!” She dabbed her eyes with a shaky hand.

  Addie and Tilda exchanged sympathetic glances that the sad, sweet old lady couldn’t see through teary eyes. Tilda murmured kind words and patted her on the shoulder. Then she winked at Addie behind Miss Dowd’s back and said cheerfully, “Thank you, Frances, for that delicious tea. I don’t know how you do it! Always coming up with some kind of interesting flavors that no one else would ever think of using.”

  The elderly woman’s hands fluttered and her cheeks went pink with pleased modesty. “Oh, it’s nothing special, just some tea here and some spices there.”

  Addie joined in with the compliments. “You have a real gift for it, Miss Dowd,” she said politely.

  Tilda took a few steps toward the door. “But we really must be going now. I have just got to weed my flower beds today and if I don’t get started on it soon the sun will be too hot to do anything but melt.”

  “Yes, and I have some work to catch up on, too,” Addie added.

  Miss Dowd followed them to the door, the two older ladies saying that they must come back again sometime and they would have to get together more often and wouldn’t it be nice to do something like this every day, and finally Addie and Tilda found themselves going down the porch steps and strolling toward home.

  They meandered at a leisurely pace along the wide sidewalks of the Sparrow Falls neighborhood where Tilda lived. Miss Dowd’s quaint Victorian was only a few blocks from Tilda’s pretty cottage, or in her own words, “just down the road a piece.” She chatted comfortably with Addie as they walked, pointing out the various flowers that were blooming in neighbors’ yards along the way as though she had personally planted and tended every one of them.

  Addie found it difficult to keep up with the monologue. She knew next to nothing about plants and flowers. But listening to the older woman’s words in her folksy dialect, hearing the various stories about the neighbors that seemed to accompany every bloom and blossom, and enjoying the leisure of a stroll in summertime was a new thing to the successful young writer. She so often had to meet deadlines and deal with pressure that she hardly remembered how to unwind.

  Addie caught the soothing fragrance of honeysuckle mingled with pine and lifted the tip of her nose to catch the pleasant breeze.

  Tilda paused to bend over a neighbor’s azalea bush, examining the pink blossoms closely, and Addie jumped in with an observation. “This is such a pretty place and everyone seems so kind and caring. I wonder how my Granddad could bear to leave it. His heart must have been broken beyond repair.”

  Tilda straightened up with a proud smile upon her face. “I gave this cutting to Annie fifteen years ago and look how big and bright it’s gotten! Such a purty shade of pink. Time sure does fly.” Then the smile vanished and the tone of her voice turned serious. The two women resumed their slow pace toward Tilda’s cottage, only one house away now. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that very thing ever since we talked to Morwenna the day we visited Ada’s grave. Dr. McRae had so many friends here, an established medical practice too. And he had a wee baby to raise, that would be your daddy.”

  Addie chuckled. “Yes, I know that would be my daddy.” She reflected that the gracious lady often used the phrase, another of her charming colloquialisms.

  Tilda continued. “So I wonder why he would leave Sparrow Falls? Was it only because of a broken heart? It just doesn’t seem likely that he would uproot himself and his wee baby and go some place where they didn’t know anyone, didn’t know anyone at all, and have to start all over again. Establish a home, find someone to help him raise the baby, he couldn’t do that and work too, and he had to build up his medical practice starting from scratch. Do you see what I mean, Addie?”

  The young woman slowed to a stop and frowned, following a line of reasoning begun by Tilda’s comment. “Yes, I think I do know what you mean. It is rather strange, now that you mention it. Do you think that, maybe, he was trying to get away from someone? Trying to protect my dad? That would mean that he suspected someone, and suspected that person pretty strongly!”

  Tilda nodded her head eagerly and the frizzy, pale brown wisps of hair bounced in the sunlight. “Yes, yes, that is just what I’ve been thinking! He suspected someone, but for some reason he couldn’t come forward and accuse that person!”

  “Or maybe he wouldn’t accuse him. If it were someone he had been close to, a good friend.”

  “A friend of the family!” Tilda said.

  “That points us back to Garnett Simms.” Addie mulled it over silently and then said, “It wouldn’t be the artist because, if he had fallen in love with my grandmother, Granddad would never have tried to protect him. I’m sure he would have been indignant and accused the artist publicly, if he’d really believed that the man had killed her in a jealous rage.”

  “But he may have protected a good friend like Garnett, at least, he would have if he had not been absolutely certain that Garnett had done it,” Tilda pointed out.

  “Or unable to prove that he had done it. Granddad may have been afraid to accuse the deputy of the town where they lived. Maybe he would have been afraid of retaliation, toward himself or his son.” Addie shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts that swirled there. “It must have been a terrible situation. One he felt that they had to escape. And it would also explain why he never again contacted anyone in Sparrow Falls.”

  “I’m afraid that’s the same conclusion I’ve drawn, Addie. It always seems to point back to Garnett Simms, much as I hate to say it. He was one of the nicest fellows you’d ever want to meet and I never did believe the ugly rumors about him and Ada, but . . .” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged her shoulders.

  Addie’s voice was grim. “But it sounds like the only logical choice.”

  nine

  Early that afternoon the weather was sunny and warm approaching muggy, and the heat reminded Addie of the time she had written a review of a new resort for a magazine. She had spent a long weekend at a fancy spa complete with a sauna room, all expenses paid. The food was fabulous, the room luxurious, and the amenities grand, but
she had never gained an appreciation for sitting in a hot room filled with steam and strangers while wearing only a towel. The air conditioned and private ocean front room was much more to her liking.

  Addie had spent the remainder of the morning catching up on email and making notes on the article she planned to write about genealogical research and cemeteries, and that task completed to her satisfaction, the afternoon was free to do as she pleased. The young writer decided to visit the downtown shops again and see the sites, taking her time about it rather than rushing as she had done the first time.

  She opened the screen door and poked her head out, looking for Tilda, and finally spotted the little woman on her knees next to the flower beds with a trowel in one gloved hand and a handful of dandelion weeds in the other. The floppy sunhat was pushed back and askew, balanced precariously over the pale, wispy brown hair as though the breeze from a passing gnat’s wing would topple it.

  The spunky lady looked up when she heard her name called and waved the trowel in Addie’s general direction. “What do you need, honey?” she asked.

  “I’ve decided to go downtown for a little while,” Addie replied, stepping outside and allowing the screen door to bang shut behind her. She crossed the yard quickly, scuffing her shoes against the dry brown pine needles scattered across the fine white sandy ground, and marveled again that anyone could get anything at all to grow in it, much less bloom and become a beautiful garden.

  Tilda MacArdan looked up at the young woman and shaded her eyes against the bright sunlight. “Downtown? We have a very nice downtown. Lots of cute little shops, a beauty parlor, not fancy though, it’s probably nothing like what you have in the city. And there’s Wemblee’s Five and Dime, you can get just about anything you want there. Not for a nickel or a dime anymore!” She laughed. “No sir, not for a nickel or a dime. But they do have just about anything a body could want.”

  Addie tilted her head to one side and asked curiously, “What, exactly, is Wemblee’s Five and Dime?”

  Tilda stopped exploring for weeds long enough to cast the young woman a pitying glance. “Bless your heart. A five and dime is kind of like an old country store. But you might not know what that is either.”

  Addie grinned and shook her head no.

  Tilda explained in a nostalgic tone. “Well, a long time ago things really did cost only a nickel or ten cents, that’s why they called it a five and dime. But they had lots of other stuff too that cost more than that. It was more like a general store. And even today you can find just about anything you want there. Candy or paperback books, or household things like cups and saucers and laundry detergent and things like that, or you can get shampoo, or gardening supplies, or just about anything. Lee Wemblee started that store back in the 1930’s and his young’uns have carried on with it. Junior Wemblee runs it now.”

  The gardener shoved the trowel into a flower bed at just the right spot to uproot a particularly nasty looking weed and grasped it with her other hand. She yanked it out by the roots and threw it onto a pile of shriveled vegetation atop an unfolded page of yesterday’s newspaper, in preparation for the disposal of the bothersome plants later.

  “I thought I’d have lunch downtown, too,” Addie said.

  “Lunch?” Tilda echoed absentmindedly. “Oh, that sounds very nice, Addie. There are a couple of good restaurants if you like good old country cooking, and a little coffee shop that calls itself a café type of thing that you might like. It’s the Coffee Clique Café. That really is its name! Downright citified. Lots of young folks seem to go there.” She mumbled a few inaudible words and then her voice trailed off as she poked the trowel around the lower part of a blue hydrangea bush with determined ferocity, concentrating on spotting any strange thing of a plantlike variety that should not be growing there.

  Addie McRae pushed the remote button lock on the car key and then tucked it into her handbag, absentmindedly noticing that the headlights flashed to signify that the doors were fastened securely. It was more a force of habit developed by living in a large city all her life than a concern for her safety, and she briefly wondered if any of the citizens of Sparrow Falls bothered to lock their vehicles. Eying the busy two way street and the dozens of people walking to and fro beside the varied storefronts, Addie decided that it was better to be safe than sorry, even in a closely knit community where it seemed that everyone knew and trusted everyone else. She slung the bag over one shoulder, donned dark sunglasses and started out along the wide sidewalk.

  The first stop on her imaginary list of things to do was the antique shop that had beckoned her interest from the first moment she had driven into the little town. Behind the store’s large plate glass windows that lined the street were displayed an old spinning wheel, some very primitive works of art that she definitely deemed to be by an amateur hand, and an odd assortment of old cast iron skillets and kitchen utensils mixed in with colorful depression glass. These were spread out upon a yellowing white crocheted tablecloth that topped an old, long farmhouse table made from the wood of a longleaf pine tree.

  A little bell tinkled twice, once when Addie pushed open the glass door and again when she shut it behind her. Complete silence engulfed her and a musty sweetness permeated the air, the combined fragrance of many old objects gathered together in one place.

  To the left and just inside the door was an old fashioned glass fronted display case stuffed to overflowing with bits of costume jewelry, old ink pens and letter openers, delicate white cloth gloves for ladies, and a few very nice pocket watches. A cheerful face peered at her from behind the long display counter, a head from the nose up all that was visible of the petite shopkeeper.

  “Good morning! Welcome to The Pine Knot. Can I help you find something today?” The perky middle aged woman with short black curls stood up and beamed at Addie, her plump cheeks pushing the skin around her dark brown eyes into gentle folds when she smiled.

  Addie replied, “No, thank you. I’m just browsing,” and wandered into the store slowly, her gaze already eagerly searching through the vast array of vintage items displayed all the way to the back of the large building. She was happy to meander among old books, a rocking chair here or an end table there, little knick knacks atop everything, all the archaic remnants of daily life as it used to be lived in a small country town. She paused to look closely at a brass picture frame that swirled its gilded edges around an unsmiling couple and child in fading black and white, their garments shabby but probably the best that they had at the time. Addie wondered about their story and why the picture wasn’t being passed down through the generations, and the young woman thought how sad it was that the little Victorian family portrait was now for sell in a shop among other inanimate things, where no one remembered their names or the people they had been.

  The little bell tinkled again and a sudden voice from across the room startled her, not by its proximity, but by its familiar tone. She peered around a tall mirrored hall tree and saw that it was, indeed, Pearce Allen Simms who had entered the shop and called out hello. Addie quickly pulled her head back behind the protection of the stately piece of antique furniture and silently prayed that he would not see her standing there.

  “Good morning, Pearce Allen!” The cheerful lady answered him from behind the display case. “Come to look at that Art Deco wireless again? I can give you a good price on it today!”

  He murmured something inaudible in reply and they talked for a few minutes. The bell sounded again and Addie peeped around the furniture, relieved to see the handsome young editor disappearing out the door. She exhaled slowly.

  A dignified grandfather clock chimed the noon hour elegantly and Addie realized that she was beginning to feel hungry. She smiled at the cheerful lady behind the counter who said, “Y’all come back now!” when the young woman reached the door.

  Addie responded with a grin. “Don’t worry, I will! I’ll come back in a few days when I have more time to look around. This is a wonderful shop.”

  The
bright sunlight hit her eyes hard and she shoved the sunglasses over her nose hurriedly. The interior of the store had been dim and cool, but the summer heat outside had grown, infused with that southern humidity that was almost tropical. She looked around for the Coffee Clique Café and was happy to see that it was just a few doors down the street and not a long way to walk.

  She started off for it and then came to a sudden halt. Pearce Allen Simms was just a few doors down the street too, but on the other side, and he seemed to be looking right at her! She stood perfectly still for a moment and watched to see where he was going. Golden boy was definitely walking down the opposite side of the street in the direction facing her.

  Thoughts raced through her mind. Did it seem like he was not only looking in her direction, but had also started walking directly toward her? She thought that it was strange that he had turned up in the same store she had entered, and only a few minutes after her arrival.

  Addie resumed her pace slowly, wondering as she walked. She put her head down and concentrated on the sidewalk, trying to shrink so that Pearce Allen wouldn’t notice her. Could he be following her? And why would he do that? Was he still angry that she was asking questions about his grandfather?

  The young woman glanced up and was startled to see that he had crossed the street and was now approaching her on the same sidewalk. She did not want to have another rude encounter with this young man! Quelling the sudden panic she felt, Addie decided to duck into the nearest storefront, hoping he wouldn’t notice, and wait for Pearce Allen to pass. She grasped the long metal handle of the closest door on the street, the cold metal biting into her hot hand. She yanked it hard and stepped inside quickly, never noticing the red, white and blue barber pole spinning slowly next to the doorframe.

  Inside, the beehive of activity and conversation went abruptly silent. The young woman blinked a couple of times, wondering why things were so dark, and then realized that she was still wearing sunglasses. She lifted a hand to take the glasses off and then froze.