Murder by Decay

by Suzanne Young

  At fifty-seven, Mary was twelve years younger than Edna. The single child of wealthy parents, she had been a surprise to the elder Osbournes when they’d been in their forties and given up on ever having children. Often bewildered by their precocious child, the Osbournes resumed an old habit of exploring exotic countries and often left Mary to be raised by her nanny. The child-minder, Miss Hattie, was a second or third cousin of Mary’s father. Not much younger than the senior Osbournes, she was also only slightly less intimidated by her charge.

  Not surprisingly, Mary had grown into a somewhat eccentric adult, specializing in learning all she could about her neighbors and her small town, especially if gossip or facts smacked of the forbidden. She listened to dispatches on her father’s old police scanner that he’d received as a member of the community’s volunteer firemen and befriended a number of locals who were probably connected with the police department. These unidentified individuals most likely passed along bits and pieces of information to their redheaded friend, although Mary would never admit to such contacts, let alone mention names.

  In her early thirties, Carol was the same age as Edna’s younger daughter Starling. Like Mary, Carol was an only child, but had grown up in the Midwest. She was a senior in high school when her parents were killed in an automobile accident. Her only inheritance had been the family’s suburban ranch-style house which she sold to finance her college education. Now an award-winning photojournalist and investigative reporter, Carol was equally as enthusiastic as Mary when it came to exposing unlawful activities. Last year, her occupation had put her in danger from thugs sent by a criminal mastermind. The life-threatening ordeal seemed to have settled her down in recent months. Or, Edna thought, perhaps Carol’s complacency might have something to do with the man she’d met last fall who occupied a good deal of her mind and her time. At least he had done so until recently. The boyfriend, an agent with the Treasury Department, was currently away on a top-secret assignment for an undetermined amount of time. His absence accounted for Carol’s restlessness, Edna was certain. The distraction of a ten-year-old murder case was just what her young neighbor needed.

  In comparison to her younger friends, Edna considered her own upbringing in the suburbs of Boston where both her parents had been elementary school teachers, devoted to each other and to their three children. The middle child with an older brother and a younger sister, Edna had met Albert Davies when she was a freshman in college and he a senior. She wondered where the time had gone. She’d be seventy years old next year, something she’d rather not think about until the event arrived. She was certain her family would do something secretive and elaborate to celebrate, in payback for the surprise garden party she’d thrown for Albert three years ago for his seventieth. She chuckled remembering his astonishment when his golf buddies insisted on accompanying him home and escorting him around to the backyard where sixty men, women and children serenaded him on the hot August day before tossing him into the pool.

  Her mind having strayed for longer than she’d intended, Edna mentally shook herself and forced her thoughts to the day ahead. Since Albert would be staying in Providence that night, supper would be easy. Meals tended to be simpler when she was alone. Her house was clean and the larder full, so she had time on her hands.

  Edna tried to imagine the trial at which Pieter Resnik had identified a body as Billy Rob Kailey. How peculiar that, ten years later, she should discover the body of that same man. What could she find out about that court proceeding … and from whom? She stopped wiping down the kitchen table and stood still for a minute, planning a strategy. Maybe by satisfying her own curiosity, she might dig up some information to pass along to Carol. As Edna mentally listed long-time residents in the area, wondering who besides Mary might remember the episode, the images of Tuck and Peppa, two of her closest friends, popped into her head. With a final, flourishing swipe across the sink’s edge, she draped her cloth over the faucet and headed to her office.

  Picking up the phone, Edna first dialed Helen “Tuck” Tucker. “How would you like to meet me for lunch somewhere, maybe down by the shore?”

  “Can’t today, Edna. My car’s in the shop. Won’t be ready until late this afternoon. Why don’t you swing by and have lunch here with me? I’m sure I can rustle up something tasty, and I’d enjoy the company. No fun sitting home alone.”

  “I’ll do that, Tuck. Thank you.” Edna thought for a few seconds before she added, “What about Peppa? Would you like her to join us? I can stop and pick her up on my way.”

  Harriet “Peppa” Peppafitch had been the town librarian for nearly forty years and had been close friends with Tuck since the latter had married into one of the small community’s more prominent families. Tuck had introduced Edna and Peppa after the Davieses moved to the area. Now, the three women met at a local beauty salon and gossiped over brunch every Friday morning. Edna couldn’t wait another three days for a chinwag. She wanted to pick her friends’ brains as soon as possible.

  Tuck didn’t respond for several heartbeats, and Edna was beginning to wonder if she’d lost the connection when Tuck finally spoke. “Apparently you aren’t aware …” After another brief pause, as if considering how to phrase what she had to say, she continued. “Except for meeting us on Fridays, Peppa leaves the house only to buy groceries these days. She puts on a brave face for you and me, but I know she’s still brooding over Clem and that affair with Lily Beck.”

  Edna knew the “affair” referred not to a romantic interlude, but murder. More specifically, one of the victims had been Peppa’s ex-husband. Having occurred less than three months previously, the matter was too fresh and raw in Edna’s own mind to dwell on it. “I think I’ll stop by and check on her,” Edna said. “If I’m a little late for lunch, you’ll know why.”

  “Well, if you can get her to come with you, that’ll be an accomplishment I will applaud. I’ll have enough food, so you don’t have to phone if she decides to eat with us. Just bring her along.”

  When the call ended shortly thereafter, Edna decided not to phone Peppa and give her the chance to think up an excuse to stay home. Edna wanted to speak to both old friends and get each one’s version of what happened ten years ago.

  On the way to Peppa’s house, Edna stopped to buy a bouquet of fresh cut flowers, knowing that blossoms were one sure way to cheer up the old librarian. Edna was rewarded by the look of happy surprise her offering evoked when Peppa opened the door to her knock. Rufus, Peppa’s gentle Rottweiler, was also on hand to greet Edna and to sniff the blooms.

  She was disturbed to see Peppa’s disheveled appearance, but tried not to let it show on her face. The woman wore a hand-knitted, red shawl over her wrinkled denim shirt and baggy khaki trousers. On her feet were pink bunny slippers, worn but intact. Her short, tightly-curled gray hair stood out on one side, as if she’d been pulling at it with her fingers.

  Extending her gift, Edna said, “I stopped by to see if you’d have lunch with Tuck and me. I want to pick your brain.”

  “I’m not dressed for visitin’, but if you have something to ask me, you might’s well come in,” Peppa said, turning to shuffle down a short hall to the living room and beyond to the kitchen with Rufus close on her heels. “Thanks for these,” she said, reaching into a low cupboard and coming up with a clear glass vase.

  Edna waited to speak until mistress and dog both returned to the living room where Peppa put the flowers on a side table before resuming her seat at the card table in the middle of the room. She’d obviously been working on the jigsaw puzzle that was spread out with the edges in place and a portion of one side completed. The fragmented scene looked to be a thatched-roofed cottage surrounded by a lovely English garden.

  Without being told, Edna pulled over a ladder-back chair to sit opposite her host as Peppa began searching the loose pieces, picking up one before discarding it and poking around some more. Rufus dropped down next to Peppa’s chair and rested his head on outstretched forepaws. After a moment of
silence, Peppa spoke without looking up from her examination of puzzle bits. “Well? What’s brought you here?”

  Edna had been so distracted by her friend’s self-neglect that she’d nearly forgotten the main purpose of her visit. Now she wondered how to begin. Pieter Resnik’s image came to her mind as Peppa raised her eyes to frown across at Edna.

  “Did Tuck send you over to check on me?” Peppa’s face lit up at her own idea. “No need, you know. I’m coping in my own way. You can tell her that.”

  Edna relaxed as she saw her friend seemed more cheerful. “I know you are, and so does Tuck. I really came to see you about an old murder case.”

  Peppa frowned in thought as she stared for a few unfocused seconds before asking, “How old?”

  “Ten years.”

  Peppa nodded and went back to studying pieces spread around the tabletop. “Billy Rob Kailey.” It was a statement, not a guess.

  Edna was taken aback. “How’d you know?”

  Peppa smirked and raised her eyes briefly to Edna’s. “If you’re asking me about it, I assume it’s a local incident. Kailey’s is the only murder I can think of that carries a mystery to this day. A real sensation at the time. Folks still bring up the subject now and again. Some’re still trying to figure out what happened to all the money, I suspect.” She chose a piece and fitted it into the garden scene before looking up again. “What’d ya wanna know?”

  Edna shrugged. “What was he like? Did you know him?”

  Not seeming to be concerned about why Edna wanted to know, Peppa sat back in her chair, setting aside the game’s distraction for the moment. She lowered a hand and leaned a little to her left to stroke absently along her sleeping dog’s back. Rufus slept on as Peppa slowly shook her head. Her eyes stared over Edna’s shoulder, seeing something in the past rather than in the room. “Never met the man. Knew his family, though. Fran--that was his wife--Fran and the two kids frequented the library.”

  Edna smiled at the image. “More of your Saturday morning kids?” she asked, having learned that nearly every child who grew up in the community knew Peppa as the “library lady” who read stories for an hour every week to whomever came to listen.

  Peppa seemed to enjoy a memory as her eyes refocused on Edna’s face. “Yes. Saturdays for certain, but they often came in during the week, too. They were avid readers.” She gave a short laugh. “Those two kids were full of curiosity. Kept me on my toes, I can tell you.”

  Edna chuckled at her friend’s recollections as she thought of the endless questions her own children asked of her before they grew old enough to be smarter than she. “How old were the children?” she asked, more curious than pertinent to her inquiry.

  “Grade school age. Girl was about eight, I guess, when her daddy died. Boy was four years older, as I remember. Robby was very protective of his little sister.” Peppa started to lean toward her project on the table again. “That all you wanted to know, if I knew the man?”

  Edna shook her head. “Did you attend the partner’s trial?”

  “Nope. Had a library to run. Couldn’t be wasting my time on speculation and sensationalism. Heard enough gossip from my patrons. Then there were the newspapers, of course.”

  “Can you tell me what you heard, what you remember?”

  Quiet for a moment, Peppa sat forward again to examine some puzzle pieces. The action seemed to help her think. “He was a bad man.” She glanced up briefly, amending, “Oh, he was a charmer, from what I heard, but he had no conscience.”

  Edna was beginning to feel as if she were talking to Mary, having to pull information out of her, only to get confusing scraps of information in return. “Who? His partner? What do you mean?”

  “Not the partner. Billy Rob. Greedy is what I mean. He stole money from a lot of people before someone up and killed him. That was my opinion. Someone he swindled did him in and made it look like an accident, like the sea did it. I’ve never believed it was the partner.”

  “If this Billy Rob was such a crook, why wasn’t he arrested?”

  “According to the papers, his methods were all legal, at least on the surface.” Peppa sat back in her chair again and laced her hands across her stomach. “He and his partner sold insurance. Billy Rob also sold annuities to some of his customers. After he died, the money couldn’t be found. Company’s bank accounts had been closed out and o’ course, the annuities were worthless. Some folks lost their homes. Billy Rob even left his own family destitute.” She made a face. “Fran sold everything she had, including their house to pay back as much as she could, but from what I heard, when she began liquidating the family’s assets, she discovered they were broke, too. Billy Rob had handled all their finances, so she didn’t realize how far beyond their means they were living. The multi-million-dollar house they had near the shore was heavily mortgaged, and Billy Rob hadn’t even begun paying off the loan on the fancy fifty-foot cabin cruiser he’d bought. She and the kids ended up renting a two-bedroom apartment above the hardware store in town. They’ll probably always carry the shame and blame for what Billy Rob did.”

  “Oh, my,” Edna exclaimed, trying to imagine the pain and stress of finding herself suddenly penniless, never mind having to live with someone else’s sins. “Did you and Clem lose money?” As soon as the name slipped out, Edna wanted to bite her tongue, not knowing if mention of Peppa’s ex-husband would send her into silence and depression again over his death. Edna needn’t have worried. Peppa seemed thoroughly absorbed in the older case.

  “Lord, no,” she said. “We invested our money in this house and the wood lot behind. Clem didn’t believe in buying paper that could turn out to be worthless. Happened to be one of his smarter moves, not falling for Billy Rob’s schemes.”

  “Do you personally know anyone who did lose substantially?”

  Peppa nodded. “Sure. Some have moved away, but a few still live around here.”

  “Someone I would know?” Edna was totally caught up in the story now.

  “Well, let’s see,” Peppa rubbed her chin and looked toward the ceiling for several seconds before her gaze dropped to Edna’s. “Norm Wilkins,” she said with a smirk, knowing full well Edna’s animosity toward the man who owned a local handyman business in town. Besides being mean and sexist, Norm had tried to have Edna arrested, accusing her of killing his cousin.

  Edna grimaced at Peppa’s verbal jab and said, “Anyone I know and like?”

  Peppa laughed in appreciation of the comeback before she sobered. “Your dentist. Gordon Jennings was one of the bigger losers. Had to fire three employees in order to save his dental practice. He was close to them all, like family they were, and it nearly killed him to let them go.”

  Edna stored the news in the back of her mind. Maybe Carol could look into those former employees and discover if any of them might be capable of retaliating in such a manner as to leave a dead body in Gordon’s office. Edna didn’t want to think Gordon could be capable of seeking such revenge, nor would he be stupid enough to implicate himself. Before she dwelt too long on the thought, she spoke. “Anyone else I might know?”

  Briefly, Peppa looked away before sliding her eyes back in Edna’s direction. “The Tuckers. Nip almost lost the family estate.”

  Edna gasped. Not quite believing what she’d just heard, she said, “You don’t mean our Tuck?”

  Peppa nodded. “If you want more information than that, ask her. I’m not about to spread tales about something that’s none of my business.”

  Chapter 9

  Edna had a lot to think about on the drive to the Tucker home. Weighing on her mind was the man she found in Gordon’s office, identified as someone who, supposedly, was killed ten years ago and whose business partner was in prison for the murder. Add missing money to the mystery and locals who had been swindled by the dead man. Foremost on her mind, though, was her friend Helen Tucker. How much had she known about her husband’s finances? Would she be willing to open up to Edna?

  Bernard “Nip”
Tucker had been Albert Davies’ undergraduate roommate during their four years at the nearby University of Rhode Island. While Albert went on to medical school, Nip married his college sweetheart, stayed in South County and became a prosperous realtor, enhancing the already-sizeable family fortune. Two years ago, Nip helped Albert and Edna find their dream retirement home. The two couples had kept in touch over the years and looked forward to spending their “golden years” in closer proximity. When Nip suddenly died of a heart attack two weeks before the Davieses closed on the property, everyone was devastated.

  Now, as Edna pulled off the road onto the quarter-mile dirt driveway to the Tucker mansion, she wondered if the strain of what she’d just learned from Peppa could have contributed to Nip’s premature demise. She wondered how she could approach the subject with Tuck, assuming she had been privy to her husband’s financial affairs.

  At Edna’s knock, Tuck opened the door almost immediately, proof to Edna’s mind that her friend was indeed at loose ends stuck at home. A social person, Tuck disliked being alone for long and could often be seen driving around in her blue Lincoln Town Car, heading for shops or meeting someone for lunch. That she chose to keep her husband’s family property surprised Edna, but Tuck refused to sell, even when enticed to live closer to her daughter in northern Massachusetts, where she could spend more time with her three-year-old granddaughter. If asked, Tuck would say, “I could never betray my darling Nip like that. This house has been in the Tucker family for generations and will be passed on to my grandson.” She poo-pooed the fact that, so far, she didn’t have a grandson. Tuck was busy convincing her only grandchild that she needed a brother, certain that the precocious child would pressure her parents for just such a pet.

  Always stylish and neatly dressed, this day, Helen “Tuck” Tucker wore a flowing caftan of royal blue with a double-strand necklace of multi-colored glass beads. Her salon-enhanced blonde hair was twisted in a French knot and, as usual, not a strand was out of place.