Three Widows and a Corpse

by Debra Sennefelder

  “More like pains in the patootie. I spent most days refereeing and cleaning up their messes. Believe me, five years is a long time. But it was shocking to find out someone murdered Mr. Whitcomb.”

  Hope rinsed the salad bowl, then pulled open one of the two dishwashers and set the bowl and pitcher inside. “I’m sure the shock of Lionel’s death hit your whole company hard.”

  Billie arched a brow. “Not exactly. Mr. Donnelly came in Monday morning and acted like nothing had happened. Let me tell you, between us, I kinda enjoyed the day.”

  “How so?”

  “It was finally peaceful. For the past few months, he and Mr. Whitcomb had been fighting like cats and dogs. Now, they’ve always had a rocky partnership, but it had gotten so bad, I thought they’d come to blows any day.”

  “Do you know what had caused the dissension between them?”

  “No.” Billie glanced at her watch. “I should get going.”

  “One more question, if you don’t mind. Did Lionel ever mention the Parson horse farm?”

  “No. But he got an angry call from a Bart Parson last week. Why?”

  “It’s nothing. Someone mentioned the farm. Thank you for your help.” Hope was also thankful for the information Billie had given her.

  “No problem. If you know anyone who needs an assistant, please let me know. I’ve been thinking about making a change and now seems like a good time. Mr. Whitcomb’s death proves life is short.” Billie reached into her purse and pulled out a business card. “My cell number is on it.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen.

  Hope tapped the card in her palm. She grabbed her purse and slipped the card into a side pocket. While office drama was always intriguing, what really had caught her interest was the angry call Bart made to Lionel before his death. She couldn’t help but wonder if Bart had been desperate enough to keep his family’s land that he’d resorted to murder.

  * * *

  Bart Parson’s home sat just a few feet from the heavily traveled Greenwood Road. When Hope and Claire took riding lessons as teenagers, the road was quiet enough to ride their leased horses along. Now Hope wouldn’t dare do such a thing. A speeding car whizzed by, and she shook her head. The price of development. She turned her attention back to the house. The two-story, red farmhouse was shabby, and not in a chic sort of way. Peeling paint, missing roof shingles, and a crumbling chimney left Hope frowning.

  Years ago, the home had been charming. In the summer months, flower pots nestled on the porch spilled over with blooms, and at Christmas, twinkle lights lit up the house. Now it was sad-looking.

  She walked along the battered brick path to the porch carrying a container of chocolate cookies and shortbread bars. They were extras she had from the reception. She climbed the two weathered steps and knocked on the front door. After a few seconds, she heard footsteps advancing, and then the door creaked open.

  A tall woman with long, gray hair to her waist and sallow skin squinted at Hope through the partially open door.

  “Hi, Hildy. I’m Hope Early. Do you remember me?” Hope searched the woman’s dull eyes for any recognition. None was forthcoming.

  “Hope Early?” Hildy stared at Hope, and then she smiled. “Elizabeth’s daughter? Yes, yes, I do.” She opened the door wider, and a cat slinked by and darted down the porch steps.

  “Elizabeth’s my mother. I was thinking of my riding lessons and thought I should stop by for a visit. I baked.” Hope handed Hildy the container. Her baked goods were always a welcome gift, and she’d hoped they would gain her entry into the Parson house so she could ask some questions about Lionel’s offer on their property and find out how firm Bart was against selling the farm. Aware of what she’d promised Ethan and Drew, she would take any information gleaned from Hildy straight to them.

  “Your mother was a fine baker. Are you?” Hildy stepped back and gestured for Hope to enter. Dressed in a pair of baggy, cropped white pants and a lime-green T-shirt, Hildy was bordering on the frail. She towered over Hope by a few inches, but her shoulders slumped forward, and when she turned to lead Hope inside the house, the hump on her back was visible through the thin shirt.

  “Thank you. She taught me everything I know.”

  Hope stepped into the house and entered the living room, which was tiny and in desperate need of an airing out. Nicotine odor hung in the air. Hope suspected the walls weren’t a muted shade of beige but rather white layered with years of smoke.

  She spotted another cat seated on the arm of a chair, licking its paw.

  “We’ll see.” Hildy’s smile widened and revealed cigarette-stained teeth. She then led Hope into the kitchen.

  The pint-size room was laid out to be functional, but Hope wasn’t sure if the old appliances were. The dark wood cabinets had seen better days too. Some of their doors were loose and the hardware was missing.

  “Sit.” Hildy dropped to a chair at the table and opened the container. She reached in for a shortbread bar and took a bite.

  Hope peered out the window over the sink for Bart. There was no sign of him. A ball of fur startled her. The dark gray feline had jumped up onto the table and rubbed its head against the container.

  How many cats did the Parsons own?

  Hildy swatted at the cat and it jumped down. “That’s Edgar. He thinks he’s the king around here.” She laughed, and it turned into a hacking cough.

  “Would you like a glass of water?”

  Hildy waved away the offer and her cough lingered for another moment. “Nah, I’m good.” She finished eating her cookie.

  “Is Bart home?”

  “He’s around somewhere. We may live in the same house, but I don’t keep tabs on him. I appreciate the visit and the cookies, but I’m curious as to why you’ve shown up suddenly after all these years. And don’t bother with the nonsense about reminiscing.” Hildy helped herself to a chocolate cookie.

  Hope wriggled in her seat. She’d forgotten Hildy’s tendency to being direct and her ability to hold a grudge for an indeterminate amount of time. Maybe visiting the Parsons hadn’t been the best idea. Their property was located on the edge of town, far away from any other houses, and if Bart was the killer, she’d just put herself into a very sticky situation.

  “Have you heard about Lionel Whitcomb’s murder?”

  “Who hasn’t? It’s a shame. He was going to make us rich.”

  “How so?”

  Hildy waved her half-eaten cookie. “Turns out we’re land rich. Which doesn’t help pay the bills. Look at this place. It needs a hell of a lot of work and we can’t afford it. Mr. Whitcomb said he would buy all this and turn it into condos.” Hildy finished chomping on her cookie and leaned forward. “I was dreaming about buying one myself.”

  She broke out into a deep laugh that turned into another hacking cough.

  “Your brother wasn’t on board with selling to Lionel?”

  “That old stick-in-the-mud? He has some idea he should die here in this house. He almost did last week, but they saved him.” She sounded disappointed.

  “He called Lionel last week. Do you know why?”

  Hildy licked her lips and considered Hope for a long moment. “Did you come here to find out if my brother killed Mr. Whitcomb?” She reached for the lid and covered the container and shoved it across the table to Hope. “You should give your mother a call. You need some more baking lessons. They aren’t as good as her cookies.”

  Hildy stood and breezed past Hope.

  Stunned, Hope grabbed the container and stood to follow Hildy to the front door. It was clear her visit was over.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.” Hope reached the now-open door.

  “And all along I thought your sister was the bratty one. Two peas in a pod.” Hildy closed the door, shuffling Hope over the threshold.

  With the door slammed in her face, Hope stood on the porch feeling exposed and frustrated. It wasn’t the first time she’d been tossed out of someone’s house, but it was becoming more c
ommon now, since she’d begun channeling her inner amateur sleuth.

  And, honestly, she wasn’t sure which irritated her more, being shown the door or having her cookies critiqued.

  “I guess your visit didn’t go as expected.”

  Drew.

  Hope looked over her shoulder and there he was, standing on the crumbling walkway with his arms crossed over his chest with a caught-ya look on his artificially tanned face. Not a sun worshipper, he got his tan thanks to a pump bottle and a sponge. And when he shared his self-tanning sessions, they always fell into the TMI category.

  “What are you doing here?” Hope turned around to face Drew. She wished he’d wipe the smirk off his face.

  “I came to talk to Hildy and Bart, but I’m thinking now may not be the best time because you’ve annoyed them.”

  “Only Hildy. I don’t know where Bart is.” Hope descended the porch steps.

  “Why are you here?” Drew planted a hand on his hip while the other hand gripped the strap of his messenger bag.

  “I spoke with Rupert at the reception and when I mentioned the condo deal, he got very tense and warned me to stay out of his business. He also said the call I overheard the night Lionel was killed wasn’t meant for my ears.” Hope started walking to her car. Her fishing expedition had been a bust.

  Drew grabbed her arm and stopped her from walking any farther. “Whoa. What call?”

  “I didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “After my interview with Reid finished, I was on my way out of the restaurant and I passed the hallway that led to the restrooms. Rupert was down the hall on his cell phone talking to someone. He said Lionel had been shot and wanted to know how it happened. And then he said they can’t let anyone find out.”

  “Find out what?”

  Hope shook her head. “I don’t know. He finally saw me, and I walked away.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot.” Hope continued to her vehicle with Drew beside her.

  “Want to hear what I know?”

  Hope stopped again and cocked her head sideways. “What do you know?”

  “Three things.” Drew held up a finger. “One, Bart isn’t the killer because he was in the hospital Friday afternoon until the next morning.” He held up a second finger. “Two, Milo and Pamela Hutchinson were in a group therapy session—marriage counseling of all things—at the time of the murder. So the ex-mayor and his wife have an alibi.”

  “Rats.” Three prime suspects—well, at least in Hope’s mind—had airtight alibis. “What’s number three?”

  Drew grinned as he lowered his hand and opened his messenger bag. He pulled out a composition notebook and handed it to Hope.

  “Three, you’re involved and now you have a notebook to jot down your ideas and theories. No need to thank me. Just keep me in the loop.” Drew walked past Hope toward his car.

  Hope juggled the notebook and the container of cookies. “You’re not going to get all upset and remind me how I’ve broken my promise?”

  “I thought about it. But I figure if you help, I’ll have a better chance at scooping Norrie. So, it’s a win-win for me.”

  “You’re really good with this?”

  “Well, there’s one more thing.”

  Of course there is. “What?”

  “Are those cookies? I’m famished. Running down all those alibis left me with no time for lunch.” He eyed the container and looked hopeful.

  Hope handed him the container. “Enjoy.”

  “What’s the plan? Who are you going to talk to next?” Drew lifted the lid from the container and took out a chocolate cookie.

  “I don’t know. I need to think.”

  “What recipe are you going to make? You always bake when you need to think.”

  “I do, don’t I?” With Bart and the Hutchinsons ruled out as suspects, Hope needed to think about who else wanted Lionel dead and why. Good thing she’d purchased a twenty-pound bag of flour the other day and collected a bounty of eggs from her hens, because she had a lot of baking to do.

  Chapter Ten

  Hope stepped around her camera and gingerly moved one of the morning glory cookies on the backdrop paper. She’d returned home from the Parson farm and, as Drew predicted, baked. Motives, suspects, ex-spouses alive and dead, all jumbled together in her head, and she needed clarity before she could begin to process the information.

  What better way than to bake a batch of morning glory cookies? The recipe wasn’t difficult, but it was time-consuming and the perfect vehicle to help her collect her thoughts. She’d developed the recipe for her Cooking Now feature. The cookie was perfect for a grab-and-go, healthy breakfast. Muffinlike in texture, it was dense and satisfying.

  She’d set to baking after letting Bigelow out to do his business and a quick check on Princess, who elongated her furry body into an oh-you’re-home-already kind of stretch. Not deterred by the aloofness, Hope bent down and scratched the cat’s head, right between her eyes, and the feline purred gently. Hope smiled. While Princess had an independent streak, she was still lovable. Most gals were.

  In the kitchen, she shifted her focus to the cookies in hopes of letting her subconscious wade through all the information she’d learned so far, which admittedly wasn’t much. By the time she’d set out all her bowls and pulled out the spoons and whisks and ingredients, she was in the zone of baking.

  The slow weep of the locally sourced honey into the measuring spoon, the hard sound of chopping walnuts on her mother’s cutting board, and the whizzing of her megablender turning almonds into butter took her so far away from murder and lies and hysterical widows that, by the time the oven’s timer beeped, she was clearheaded and ready to jot down notes in her new composition notebook.

  But first, she had to photograph her cookies. As she mixed the dough, she’d decided to write a series for her blog about the behind the scenes of the collaboration, giving her readers a rare glimpse into the magazine’s test kitchen and her recipe development process. She wouldn’t be able to share the recipes just yet, but she could tease her readers with photos of the recipes they could get in the January issue.

  With the cookie in the far-left corner of the photograph frame moved ever so slightly, she snapped another photo, and another one, before glancing at the camera’s screen and reviewing the photographs. Almost there. She’d been using the flat lay as she went along. Shooting from directly above, the layout gave her blog readers or social media followers a bird’s-eye view of the recipe. That had become her latest photographic obsession.

  She viewed the last few photographs with a critical eye.

  The sprinkling of chopped walnuts to the layout was a good call. Unlike the decision she’d made to visit the Parsons’ earlier.

  In hindsight, she realized going out to the isolated horse farm was a bad decision. It would have been unlikely for Bart to confess to killing Lionel if he were the killer. And if he were, she’d put herself in danger. Then there was the harsh critique of her baking skills.

  She shook off Hildy’s angry words. They weren’t personal. Rather, they resulted from her lashing out at the easiest target. Hope reached into the container on the side and snatched a cookie. Taste testing was an ongoing process, and the reason why she ran several days a week. When she finished eating the cookie, she continued with the photo shoot. She fussed with the composition of the shot and snapped away, hoping to get the hero shot, the one all her readers would salivate over.

  During the session, her mind kept drifting back to Lionel. How could Miranda not know she wasn’t divorced? How could Rona not pursue a divorce after Lionel left her? Why didn’t Lionel legally end those marriages? What really went down between him and Rupert? Had one of the heated arguments they had at the office Billie had told her about led to murder?

  All of those unanswered questions gave Hope a headache. She paused to stack three cookies and add a glass of milk on the edge of the frame. She
reviewed the photo in the screen. Satisfied, she continued photographing.

  After a food photography course a few months earlier, she’d invested in a C-stand to mount her camera on for overhead photographs, rather than continuing to climb a ladder to get those shots. Now she couldn’t imagine ever going back to contorting herself into a pretzel.

  Another unanswered question that fell into the none-of-her-business category was why neither Miranda nor Rona had remarried. Then again, if they’d tied the knot again, their new marriages would have been invalid.

  She shuddered. How horrible it would’ve been to learn your new marriage was bogus because your first one never ended. That would’ve been a horrible thing to happen if she and Ethan married.

  Whoa.

  A couple of months of dating didn’t mean they were going to a chapel and exchanging vows anytime soon. No, this time around, she planned on taking it slow. Real slow.

  She’d been down the road of falling head over heels in love and saying “I do” sooner than she should have.

  Six months after meeting Tim, they got engaged. Way too fast.

  Then again, Ethan wasn’t Tim, and her relationship with him was different. They’d known each other since high school. He was the cool football player with the cool car who dated the cool cheerleader. Yeah, Ethan’s cool meter was through the roof. She was his sister’s cookie-baking, bookworm friend. He barely noticed her back then. After graduation, they’d all gone their separate ways.

  She went to New York City to attend college and Ethan went to a state university and got on to the Hartford Police Department. They’d remained friends, running into each other at town events when they both came home for visits.

  When Hope moved back to Jefferson, their friendship strengthened and flourished into something unexpected. Never in a million years did she ever think she’d be dating Ethan Cahill.

  She noticed the shift from friend to something more and worried it would ruin their friendship if they made the leap. But their first date kicked Hope’s worries to the curb. Their first kiss sent off fireworks and a tingling of warmth right down to her toes, leaving no doubt there was chemistry between them. She’d also never forget the look on his face when she opened her eyes after the kiss. Her heart swelled with joy, contentment, and love.