A Mother's Day Murder (Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 1)

by Dee Ernst

I did not want to talk about Doug and this morning, least of all to Kate. I looked at her.

  She was at least sixty, I guessed, with pale hair fading to gray. She was fairly tall and slender, attractive, with blue eyes and an open, easy smile. I could have liked her, if only she’d have kept her mouth shut every once in a while.

  “I was there, of course,” she went on. “Watching with everyone else. How horrible. They’re all saying that you heard the car engine running? It’s almost like God sent you to find him. I didn’t know them at all, of course, but how tragic. Two little boys, right? And Mrs. Mitchell? Just gone? You talked to the police afterward, didn’t you? Did they say anything about finding the poor wife?”

  She paused for breath, so I jumped in. “No, Kate, the police didn’t say anything about Lacey.” Not that I would have told her anything if they had.

  “That beautiful house, that beautiful family, destroyed by one selfish act. Oh, my heart bleeds, it really does. And to think it happened right here, in quiet Mt. Abrams. You know, when I found this house up here, Paul, you know Paul Malone, my landlord? Well Paul told me that this was the perfect place to live, safe and peaceful. Who knew that something like this could happen? I guess it was lucky the little boys weren’t there. Could you imagine? What will become of them now? All that money can’t bring their parents back. Poor little lambs.”

  She had wound down again, so I nodded, murmured something appropriate, and backed away. I hurried to sit with Maggie and Viv.

  Maggie was grinning. “Get an earful?”

  “Lord, that woman can run her mouth,” I whispered. I looked around. “Who are all these people? I don’t recognize half of them.”

  Viv started pointing fingers and naming names. At least a dozen new faces had moved into Mt. Abrams in the past two years, and Viv had handled their transactions. They were mostly younger couples with no children, drawn to Mt. Abrams by its proximity to the train and lower tax rates.

  “How did Lynn track them all down?” I asked.

  Maggie made a face. “Maybe these are Mary Rose’s people.”

  “No, this is all Lynn’s doing,” Viv said. “That woman could lead a priest into a whorehouse.”

  I stared at Viv. “Is that a real saying?”

  She made a face. “It is for me.”

  The meeting started out in a rather orderly fashion, welcoming all the new members (we had to stand up and introduce ourselves) going over the minutes, and handing out the agenda. The library paver question was the fifth item down under Old Business.

  “You mean we gotta sit through all this?” Viv groused. “I wanted to just vote and go.”

  Maggie shushed her. She had lived in Brooklyn her whole life, and found small-town machinations fascinating.

  “I mean seriously, what four other things could these people be talking about?” Viv continued. “Mt. Abrams isn’t that big.”

  “Viv,” I said, “did you happen to notice when that power of attorney was dated?”

  She frowned for a moment. “You’re talking about Doug Mitchell? I think it was just the day or two before.”

  “And it had to be notarized, right?”

  She nodded.

  There was something stuck in my brain, something that wasn’t making sense. “When did he call about putting the house on the market?”

  “That Friday. Right after lunch. Why?”

  Maggie turned away from Mary Rose, who was standing at the podium arguing about peat moss, and nudged me with her foot.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, thinking aloud. “That power of attorney, he could not have gotten it without her signing as well, right?”

  Viv nodded. “That’s right. It has to be signed by both parties in the presence of the notary.”

  “So they were in it together. They had to be. So something must have happened, and they both decided to sell the house.” I suddenly realized something. “And the bank account. Sam said it had been emptied. They both needed to do that, too.” I looked at Maggie. “Do you remember if she seemed different Friday when she got the boys? Think, Maggie. Like she knew she was going to have to leave them?”

  Maggie frowned. “I don’t know, Ellie. She never seemed excited or upset or very emotional about anything. But nothing struck me funny about Friday afternoon.”

  The gavel banged, and we all looked to the front of the hall. Mary Rose had raised her voice. Next item—the pavers for the library park.

  Mary Rose was a throwback. Her hair was bluish silver and permed, and she dressed in a pantsuit with matching accessories to walk around the block. She had been running the Garden Club for years and grew peonies in her tiny back yard. Until Lynn Fahey had started disagreeing with her, she had pretty much been responsible for every tree, bush, and flower planted in Mt. Abrams. Seven years ago, Lynn suggested that the Garden Club had no right to tell people what they could and could not grow in their own yards, and if Beverly Sutter wanted to plant bamboo, she should plant bamboo, even if it wasn’t in keeping with the general look of the community. Lynn and Mary Rose had been at war ever since.

  Mary Rose presented a very compelling case. According to her, even a rise in humidity caused the area around the picnic table to become a muddy disaster. Not only would pavers keep the area cleaner, it would visually broaden the walkway and mean less maintenance for Craig, our grounds manager, in that he would not have to move the tables when he mowed the grass. Mary Rose was an excellent speaker, and I found myself nodding in agreement with everything she said.

  Then Lynn got up, pointing out that the walkway was already five feet wide, how could there be grass under the picnic tables if Mary Rose kept insisting the area was a dust bowl, and that Craig was paid to move the picnic tables when he mowed, so what was the big frigging deal? She then launched into her Death By Rock Salt argument.

  Mary Rose did not take it well. New members asked to be recognized, and the discussion seemed pretty fairly divided.

  My mind was on other things. “Viv, who notarized Doug’s POA? Do you remember?”

  Viv nodded. “Sure. It was Mary Rose. She’s the only notary in town. You gonna talk to her?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Maybe they said something to her. I don’t know.”

  Maggie frowned. “Why is this bothering you so much?” she asked.

  “Because I feel like if I had talked to Doug, tried to make sense of what he was saying, I could have helped in some way,” I said.

  Viv shook her head. “Don’t even start thinkin’ like that. If Doug chose to kill himself, it had nothing to do with you. If Lacey killed him, it also had nothing to do with you. If anything, Doug took those boys and put them in a safe place because of you. Think about that.”

  Voices were starting to get louder, so I tried to pay attention. As with all small groups run by people with either big egos or plagued by self-esteem issues, Roberts Rules of Order were quickly replaced with name calling and general mayhem. Emma McLaren, self-appointed witch of Mt. Abrams, started telling everyone that the very earth beneath the library had a life of its own and needed to breathe. That was apparently the last straw, because someone finally stood up, and yelling over the raised voices, made a motion that pavers be put down in the library park. I jumped up and seconded the motion.

  Mary Rose and Lynn were clearly not through tearing each other’s eyes out, but there was a motion on the floor, and they had to shut up. By a show of hands, the motion was clearly defeated. The hydrangeas were safe for another year.

  We did not stay for the aftermath. I stood up, motioned to Tessa, and we scurried out of there, followed by Maggie and Viv.

  We stood on the street, Tessa and I headed in one direction, Viv and Maggie going down the hill.

  “Are you going to talk to Mary Rose?” Maggie asked.

  I nodded. “Tomorrow. Come with?”

  “You bet,” Maggie said, and started walking.

  “Can I come too?” Viv called.


  “Sure,” I answered back.

  “That was boring,” Tessa said. “This is a boring place to live.”

  I grabbed her little hand and squeezed it. “Not anymore, baby. Not anymore.”

  Mary Rose lived in one of the ranch houses that had been built in the fifties, down the hill and closer to Route 51. It was below Sommerfield Drive which was the dividing line between old and new Mt. Abrams. Among the old guard of Mt. Abrams, living in the new section meant you lacked a certain status, but it also meant you had a real yard, a garage, and an electrical system that could be counted on in all weather conditions.

  Mary Rose’s yard looked like a cover for Better Homes and Gardens. There were daffodils and all sorts of bulbs popping up everywhere, bushes were budding, the Japanese maple was leafing out, and there were no stray leaves or bits of branch to spoil the green sweep of her lawn.

  “How does she keep this so clean?” Maggie muttered.

  “I don’t think she has much else to do,” I answered.

  Mary Rose opened the door at our knock but did not look particularly pleased to see us. I didn’t think she would have been able to see us last night, all the way in the back row, but she did not greet us as fellow paver-lovers.

  “Yes? Can I help you with something?” She was dressed in a skirt, blouse, hose, and heels. Her clip-on earrings matched her pin. At nine in the morning. Maggie and I had come straight from our walk, dropped off Boot and picked up Viv, and were still slightly sweaty and disheveled.

  “Hi, Mary Rose,” I said, smiling. “I know this is going to sound odd, but can I talk to you about Lacey and Doug Mitchell?”

  Immediately, her entire demeanor changed. She opened the door, her eyes bright. “Come in, please. I have coffee on.”

  Her house was immaculate, frozen in the eighties, and there were plastic runners covering the beige wall-to-wall carpet. We followed her into her kitchen, and sat at her round maple table, in matching captain’s chairs.

  “I must say,” she said as she took coffee cups and saucers from the cabinet, “I was quite surprised to see you at the Garden Club meeting last night, Ellie.” Having walked past my yard, she was perfectly justified in saying that.

  “Yes. Well, Cait may be going to France, and since she’s the one who usually looks after the garden, I thought I should maybe get some help.” I stumbled over the lie, of course, but Mary Rose didn’t seem to notice.

  “You have a garden?” she asked. I was so used to drinking coffee from either a mug or a Starbucks take-away cup that the shallow cup and matching saucer looked antique.

  “Sort of. Like I said, I’m going to try to work a little harder at it.”

  “And you, Maggie?” Mary Rose poured coffee from a Corning Ware coffee pot, pristine white and embellished with a single blue flower. I had never seen one in real life, except at garage sales and thrift stores.

  Another legitimate question. Maggie lived in one of the converted summer cottages, long and narrow with roughly twelve inches of yard between her front porch and the curb. Those twelve inches were planted with hostas. The space between her house and the houses on the other side was so narrow that simple pavers had been laid down, creating a dark path barely wide enough to get through. Her back yard consisted of a small deck and two parking spaces. Another legitimate question.

  But Maggie had no qualms about her motives. “I just came to support Lynn. I’m a hydrangea lover.”

  Viv smiled. “Me too.”

  Mary Rose sniffed and put the coffee pot back on the stove, giving us her back a little longer than was probably necessary.

  She sat with us. “Yes. Well, what were you saying? About the Mitchells? I saw you there yesterday morning, Ellie. You too, Maggie. It must have been awful.”

  I nodded. “Yes. But I want to ask you about the power of attorney you notarized for them last week.”

  She took a long sip of coffee and looked thoughtful. “They came to my door just as Fred was coming back, so that was about ten o’clock.” Fred was her husband, who every morning, no matter what the weather, walked from Mt. Abrams to the CVS way down on Rt. 51. It was said you could set your clock by his coming and going, so if Mary Rose said ten o’clock, you could bet she was dead on.

  “They were very nervous. Apparently, she had printed off the form on the computer, and they were very anxious to have it notarized,” Mary Rose said.

  “Excited nervous or scared nervous?” I asked.

  Mary Rose narrowed her eyes and thought hard. “Scared. He was scared. In fact, at one point, she put her arms around him, to comfort him. She kept telling him it would be fine.”

  “What would be fine?” Maggie asked.

  Mary Rose lifted her shoulders, then let them drop. “I have no idea. They were very secretive people, you know. I don’t think anyone really knew them. I’d invited them to join Garden Club, of course, but Lacey said they weren’t joiners.” She raised her eyebrows. “Did you know anything about them?”

  Viv shook her head. “I sold them the house three years ago, and signed the contract to sell it again, and I don’t even think I exchanged ten words with them in between.”

  “They were not,” Mary Rose said, “very good neighbors.”

  “Was she scared as well?” I asked.

  Mary Rose shook her head. “Not so much. In fact, she was in control of the situation. She had the paperwork, had filled in most of it before they got here, and told him where to sign. She seemed in a hurry.”

  Maggie looked at me. “They sign the power of attorney, call Viv, then what? Why was she in a hurry?”

  I had been watching Mary Rose, and she leaned forward. “What do you ladies know that the rest of us don’t?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I stood up. “Thank you, Mary Rose. For the coffee and information.”

  She got up in a hurry. “Ellie, wait now. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, Mary Rose. Honestly. We were just curious about what happened that might have caused Lacey to leave so suddenly.”

  Mary Rose folded her arms across her chest. “Leave? Who said she left? I’m betting Lacey disappeared because her husband killed her, and then killed himself out of guilt.”

  I made my way to the front door. “You’re probably right. Thank you, Mary Rose.”

  We hurried down her walk and up the street.

  “So, what are we thinking?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m thinking that we need to know what happened after the boys got picked up by the bus. Between then and ten, they saw something or heard something that shook them up,” I said.

  “Or not,” Viv said. “Maybe he made it all up. Maybe he did it just to get her to sign, so he could kill her.”

  “Or maybe she made it up so she had an excuse to get the hell outta Dodge,” Maggie said.

  “But when he was talking to me, he said something like he didn’t know she had made friends. That she was using me. If he wasn’t talking about Lacey, who else could it have been?” I asked. The more I thought about what had happened, the more confused I got.

  “Well, since it’s easier to find out if something did happen than if something didn’t, where should we start looking?” Maggie asked.

  “Oh girl,” Viv said. “You have to ask? The post office.”

  “I have to see my mother this morning,” I said. “Do you think—“

  Viv grinned. “Leave this to us, Ellie. We’ve got this covered.”

  Chapter 8

  My mother’s assisted living facility nestled at the foot of a gently rolling hillside in Sussex County. It was an old mansion that had been carefully converted, added on to, improved, and improved again until it met all the state safety standards, yet still managed to look like a very rich person’s gracious country estate. Mom had a room on the second floor. Large and sunny, she had a narrow bed, all her books and pictures, her phone chair and a small television. In the bay window was her dresser and another chair, and that’s where I sat, every Friday before going down to have lu
nch.

  We had once been able to go out for lunch, but last year she went to the ladies room at a local Panera, wandered past where we were sitting, out the door, and was found three hours later, sitting in the middle of the freezer aisle of a Pathmark almost a mile away.

  Now, we had lunch in the common dining room, which was not a bad thing. Aside from the excellent food, the other residents were more or less delightful characters who put on a never-ending floorshow for their guests.

  We sat at a table next to the nimble-fingered Justine Caldwell, who barely had the strength to hold her fork. My mother kept glaring at the poor woman, who, since she was fairly deaf, just smiled and nodded. After lunch we walked around the grounds for about half an hour before going back inside and upstairs. My mother became agitated, as she often did when she sensed my visit coming to a close.

  “Justine is taking all my Agatha Christies,” she muttered.

  “Mom, how is she even getting up the stairs?” I asked.

  My mother sat in her phone chair, rocking back and forth. She was still a lovely woman, her thick hair almost completely gray, her big, dark eyes angry and confused. I had inherited her creamy skin and thick, perfectly shaped eyebrows, for which I will be eternally grateful, as well as her stubby fingers and love of eating, for which I was not so grateful. Now, I could feel her irritation growing. Sometimes I just kissed her good-bye and she’d smile happily. Lately though, our partings were getting harder.

  “And I don’t know why I can’t just live with you. I know Marc wouldn’t mind.”

  “Mom, you need to be with somebody all the time now. You know that. I can’t watch you. I have to work.”

  “You work from home,” she whined.

  “Yes, until I’m off at a conference or a festival or meeting with a client somewhere,” I said. My arguments didn’t matter to her. She’d heard them all before. She just didn’t remember them.

  “This is a terrible place. They do bad things here.”

  “No, Mom, they don’t. You love it here.”

  “And the food is awful. Gruel.”

  I sighed and picked up my purse. One of the aides, Liz, poked her head in. “Leona,” she called loudly, “we’re getting ready for cards downstairs. You want to come with me?”