A Most Curious Murder (21 page)

It was morning after a long sleepless night. Dreams of Aaron Cane’s house and the smell had haunted Jenny throughout the night. Something was there, in those shadowed corners where things lived a life of their own. The key came from there. She’d dreamed it was right in front of her, but every time she tried to pick it up, the key moved out of reach.

Then she was in Adam’s yard and the hatchet came to life and chased her.

Jenny was grateful for morning.

She was on her second cup of coffee, still in her pajamas and trying to shock herself awake with caffeine. There was a knock at the door and Tony walked in with a brightly painted library house in his arms. He set it on the table with a mumbled “Good Morning” and went back out. “I’ve got the other house,” he said over his shoulder.

The house in front of her sparkled: white walls, bright-green roof, and a red chimney. “Adults” was emblazoned on the green-and-white flag attached to the roof.

Tony was back with the other house, showing it off, proud as a kid of what he’d made. He pushed the sleeves of his work
shirt up his arms. She could see his arms were damp with heat and exertion. She looked back at the house and grudgingly told him he’d done a great job.

He said he was glad she liked them.

They didn’t look at each other. Didn’t speak. They concentrated on the library houses, looking at them one way and then the other.

“See the space I was able to get?” he pointed to how the adults box was constructed: deep but with slots for books to sit in a double tier. “Hold at least two dozen books at a time. Got a sign-up sheet in the top—see the brackets? Should be good for years.”

He cleared his throat and turned to the other house. “And see here? Kids’ box opens right up.” He lifted the front of the house to show her how easy it was for kids to pull out their books, the top settling back in place by itself.

“Mom will love them.” She brought him coffee. “Are they going in today?”

“Whatever your mom wants. She was talking about waiting until a better time.”

He looked at her, tipping his head just enough to see her. He pulled out a chair and sat, taking up the large cup she’d given him in both his hands.

Jenny wanted to laugh. What a game they were playing. A children’s game. Whoever spoke sincerely first was the loser.

He went on about installing the houses. “I think she meant, with what’s going on in town, maybe it isn’t a good time for a celebration.”

He drained his cup then turned to look out the window at the sunny morning.

“Are you waiting for Mom? I’ll go see if I can find her.”

She hesitated next to where he sat. She felt the heat coming from his body and wondered what would happen if she ran a finger down his bare arm.

He’d probably shake her off.

The eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room gained another eight hundred pounds when he didn’t answer.

Maybe she’d ask him what in hell was wrong with him. Or say she was leaving Bear Falls. Anything to force the empty space hanging in the room between them.

She watched the side of his face and longed to run her finger over that scar—just once.

He turned to look up at her. His large hands were braced on the table, ready to push him up. When he looked at her, the excitement over the houses was gone.

“Want to go over to the lake with me? Take a walk?”

“Now?”

She got an unexpected smile. Or a need for reassurance. Something.

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“I can’t. Zoe and I are meeting this morning. Penny’s coming. She was hoping you could—”

“I want to talk to you about Johnny.”

She stiffened.

“I know there was trouble. You left town over him.”

“I went to college. Who have you been talking to? I’d love to know who makes
me
the topic of conversation around here.”

“Actually, it was Ed Warner who brought it up, but I already knew. Not a well-kept secret in Bear Falls. Ed told me a shoe print on one of the books matched the shoes Johnny had on. They’ve got him on that one. Then he started telling me about the raw deal Johnny gave you and why you left town. I guess
what I want to know is if you’ve still got feelings for him. Seems as if you might.”

“If you’re asking if I think he committed the murders, no, I don’t. I can’t see Johnny killing anybody. Before the booze, Johnny wouldn’t have hurt a flea. But even now I doubt it. As for the library, yes, he did that. There’s no question about that crime. It seems Johnny was getting even with me for coming back to town. Maybe he’s mad about the way he turned out. As if I could have saved him.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“With what? That he hurt my mother the way he did? No, not at all. That some people think he’s a murderer? No, can’t stand it. Would I throw him to Ed to get Zoe off? No, I wouldn’t do that either.”

“Do you still love him?”

She reached out to set her finger on the green door of the adult’s house. The small screen door pushed in against a background of painted rocking chairs. Illusion.

Jenny squirmed. He’d asked the one question she couldn’t answer.

“Am I pissing you off?” He leaned closer and put one of his hands on hers. She wanted to turn her hand and hold on tight.

“Can’t answer?”

She said nothing.

Tony closed his eyes, then opened them and went to the door.

He looked back at her. “You know, Jenny. Lots of people are happy you’re back.”

“Really?” She couldn’t look at him.

“Your mom, for one. Zoe—now that she knows you. Me. I’m glad you’re here.”

She prayed she wouldn’t cry. His voice was soft. The words were kind. He confused her completely.

“I don’t know why you got stuck with two bad ones, Jenny. I had one—she was no prize. But that’s not all there is out here. Just wanted you to know.” He tipped his head. The smile was teasing. “You’re a beautiful woman. We’ve all got our scars. Real scars and the other kind.”

“Sorry, I guess I’m not—”

“I’m not asking you for anything, just to be a friend.”

She caught her breath. “Give me a while, Tony, okay?”

“How long?” he asked, his finger on her chin, tipping her head back so he could look into her eyes. “Ten years enough? I’ll be fifty-four in ten years.”

“And I’ll be forty-six.”

“Think we can still have babies?” His smile was wicked.

She thought awhile. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s make it five years.”

“It’s just terrible, what they’re saying about you.”

Delaware Hardy stood, coffee pot in one hand, beside the table where Jenny, Zoe, and Penelope sat waiting for their breakfast. She leaned toward Zoe. “Poor thing. You’d think you’ve got enough on your hands without being accused of murder. Why, I just tell all those people with their tongues flapping to hold their judgment until the real killer’s caught.”

Delaware shook her head and looked around the restaurant to make sure people were listening. “Me and the other waitresses have been going over things. Myrtle’s even got a chart on the wall in the kitchen—where the bodies were found, where the little dog was found. Just added in that fairy statue somebody clobbered Abigail with. We’re making a list of all the people Adam didn’t get along with and nothing in our work points to you, Zoe. Except, maybe, that Adam was found in your backyard and your dog was found out in poor Aaron’s house, and you had a beef with Adam Cane, and we hear Ms. Cane was hit with one of your . . .”

She hesitated, pushing the creamer absent-mindedly toward Jenny. She seemed to be thinking hard. “Anyway, we don’t care
what it looks like, we know it wasn’t you who did that to those two men and their sister. Why, that’s like saying a mouse could bring down an elephant.”

***

Delaware wandered off, filling coffee cups along her way back to the kitchen.

“Help like that,” said Penelope, leaning forward in her seat, “and you’ll be in the electric chair before you know it.”

Jenny wanted to change the subject—any other subject would do. She was thinking about Tony but kept him to herself.

“Mom called the hospital this morning. They said Abigail’s resting comfortably. Think we can go over there in an hour or so.”

Penelope nodded. “As far as I can see, she’s the only one who can help us. Maybe she knows something about that box. And somehow we’ve got to get into Adam’s house—Aaron’s, too. See if we can find something the key fits.” She shook her head. “Without a warrant, we’re breaking the law. But they’re both empty houses. I think we can work it out. Bet anything Ed’ll be glad for some help.”

“Does Ed know about the key?” Jenny asked.

Penelope nodded. “I think Zoe finally mentioned it, but Ed didn’t think too much about it. He’s got two murders. A broken library. A woman attacked. The man’s doing his best, but with his limitations here—two deputies—well, I don’t think we need to worry if we want to take a look at those houses. Maybe not Zoe, though. Don’t think he’d understand.”

“Abigail has to know something,” Jenny said. “I can’t see her protecting whoever killed her brothers. She had to be coming to my house for a reason.”

“And somebody wanted to stop her.”

“Let’s pick up Zoe and get over to the hospital.”

Penelope got the check, giving Jenny a weighted look as she slapped a twenty-dollar tip on the table. She went to pay at the front counter where Delaware, once more, bent toward them to say how much she believed Zoe was innocent.

***

“Only two at a time,” the nurse told the trio of women. “And fifteen minutes is all you get. Ms. Cane’s having trouble . . . well, with her memory and all.”

Penelope said she had things to take care of. “I’ll be back,” she said and left as Zoe and Jenny went down the hall to see Abigail.

Abigail was in a private room. She looked like a roll of bandages with her head wrapped and white sheets tucked around her.

Machines pulsed—long breaths with a steady rhythm.

Abigail was sleeping. Her face was pale.

Jenny and Zoe brought chairs to the bedside to sit and wait. They only had fifteen minutes.

At five minutes, Jenny cleared her throat.

At ten minutes, Zoe scraped her chair across the floor.

Abigail stirred and made a little humming sound, then stretched and turned her head, wincing. She tried to raise a hand from the sheet, gave a startled sound and blinked, looking from Zoe to Jenny.

“Oh, yes.” she said. “What was I saying?” She tried to sit up but couldn’t.

“I need to talk to you both,” she said before the women could say a word. Instead of talking, she lay back and closed her eyes.

A loud voice boomed from the doorway: “What are you doing in here? Time’s up on that. You will leave my client alone or I will get a court order against you.”

Alfred Rudkers, Abigail’s attorney. He stood with his hands on his hips, eyes wide with anger. “You have a lot of nerve, Ms. Weston, forcing your way in here like this. And bringing this . . . this suspect with you. I, for one, think you both have a large role in what’s happened here. A very large role. You have to leave this minute.”

Abigail’s eyes fluttered, then opened at the noise in the room.

“Out! Out!” the man demanded when they didn’t move fast enough. His outrage settling into a firmer order.

“Alfred?” Abigail’s voice was weak. “Alfred,” she said again, searching from Jenny to the end of the bed where Alfred stood. “Who are you yelling at?”

“You see? You see?” He lowered his voice, hissing at Jenny and then moving around the bed to bend over Abigail.

“Nobody, Abigail. I’m so sorry you were disturbed. I shouldn’t have left. Go back to sleep. Don’t worry about a thing. I’m here and will stay to protect you. A terrible outrage’s been done . . .”

Abigail’s eyes were puzzled. “I know . . . something. I just don’t remember.”

“Your mind will clear when you’ve healed. You have a concussion. No one expects you to remember, Abigail. Carmen and I will take you home to rest.”

She lifted her head from the pillow, searching out her visitors’ faces, then settled back to the pillow.

“I’ll clear the room,” Alfred said. He turned a smug look on Jenny as he lifted his hands in a shooing motion.

“Thank you, Alfred.” The faint words came from Abigail. “I need to sleep.”

“I’m afraid for her,” Jenny said as she and Zoe drove home.

“Why isn’t there a police guard outside her door?” Zoe asked. “She was attacked, for goodness sakes. He could come back at any minute.”

“You’re right. Let’s go talk to Ed,” Jenny suggested, ready to turn the wheel in the other direction.

Zoe hesitated. “I promised Penelope I’d come to her motel so we can talk about the new book contract Christopher e-mailed me. He wants it back pretty fast. Do you mind seeing Ed alone?”

“Penelope’s your new arts attorney?”

Zoe shrugged. “Guess she’s my attorney for life. Can’t look a gift lawyer in the mouth, can I?”

“Not exactly a gift.”

Jenny dropped Zoe off at her house and then drove to the police station where she found Tony with the chief. They turned when she came through the door.

“Telling Tony here that he’s right about getting somebody over there to watch outside Abigail’s room. Zoe’s attorney, that Penelope, came in earlier, saying the same thing.”

Jenny laughed. “That’s what I’m here for, too.”

Tony smiled at her and she felt shy, even tingly: a milkmaid out in a farmer’s field, flirting with the goat boy.

Ed looked from face to face and shook his head. He scratched his nose. “I’m waiting to hear from my off-duty deputy now. If he doesn’t call in soon, I’ll get over there myself. Want her covered when she leaves ICU.”

The phone rang on Ed’s desk. When he was through talking, he gave them a thumbs up. “Officer Millard’s on his way to the hospital now.”

He chuckled. “My men don’t get much overtime. Seemed awfully eager to me.”

Business accomplished, Jenny and Tony left.

“Drive you home?” he asked, head tipped to look sideways at her.

“I’ve got my car.”

“Want to talk a minute?” he asked as he opened her door for her.

She hesitated. “I’m tired.” She thought of Dora home alone, fretting over Abigail.

He touched her arm. “It’s just . . . I want to talk. Not about babies, I promise.”

She took a deep breath before nodding. She’d regretted the baby talk of the day before, feeling she’d taken a steam shovel and started digging herself a hole that might cave in on her. “Just a few minutes, Tony. I should get home.”

He went around to the passenger side of her car and got in, pulling the door closed behind him. She rolled down the windows and looked out at the little town with tidy little streets radiating off from the front of the hospital. Lawns neat. Lives neat.

“Somebody doesn’t want Abigail talking to you or your mother. I wonder why.” Tony cleared his throat.

He nodded at nothing. “Let me bounce a couple of things off you.”

He leaned forward, hands together between his knees. “Must be something important somebody doesn’t want her talking to you about. Gotta be that box, don’t you think? I mean, Aaron hid that key on Fida before the killer shot him. Worried enough to tape it to her collar. So the key and the box are at the center of all of this. And that’s what the killer’s hunting for.”

Jenny listened, thought hard, then turned to him and almost laughed. “You know what, Tony? I feel like a puppet. Somebody’s pulling my strings and laughing. It’s got to be somebody here in town. Somebody who’s known the family a long time. Somebody who knows the rest of us. Don’t you think?”

“I’m stumped, and you’d think I could figure this thing out. Fifteen years on the force.”

Jenny’s cell rang. She dug it out of her bag and checked the caller ID. An Illinois call. Might be Ronald’s attorney. Or hers. Or somebody she used to know in Chicago. Or some Chicago charity that wouldn’t let her go.

She let it ring. Who it was felt insignificant. Too much old stuff hiding in the ring of a phone. It went to voice mail. Too curious, she pressed the button and listened.

“It’s Ronald, Jen. When you get this, call me back. We desperately need to talk.”

From Chicago, not Guatemala. “Desperately need to talk” meant something he was desperate about, not her. She wouldn’t call him back. There’d been too many times she’d fallen for his neediness. He was out of her life. Gone. Sailed off to greener pastures—a lot greener than her pastures at the moment. She stuck the phone back in her purse.

“The ex?” Tony looked at her.

She rolled her eyes.

“Figured, from your reaction, it wasn’t your mother.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Maybe you stole his favorite shot glass. I covered a case where a husband shot his wife over a set of souvenir shot glasses she broke deliberately. I think the glasses were from the Olympics or some wrestling match.”

“No shot glasses.” She had to smile. “I got an extra twenty dollars a month out of him in alimony. He probably wants it back.”

Tony laughed. “Then I’m on his side. My ex got the house, the car, and about as much of everything else as she could think to ask for.”

“Probably deserved every cent.”

Laughing cleared away the stuff in her head, all those spider webs of shame and anger and disgust.

Tony touched the door handle. “I’d better get going. Let’s talk later, okay? Between us, I know we can figure out who’s doing this.”

She nodded, then wanted to kick herself for letting him go.

***

Zoe was working in her front yard, cleaning out a garden, when Jenny drove in.

Her jeans were damp at the baggy knees. Her Spider-Man shirt was stained with dirt. Sweat circles ringed her underarms. The children’s gardening gloves she wore were long past pink. Fida, asleep on the grass, lifted her head, opened her blind eye, gave up, and took no further notice of Jenny.

“I was cleaning out Eugenia’s bed. Poor Eugenia. That was her name. A wonderful fairy who looked after all the others. Now she’s gone, like Liliana, the fairy who was smashed beneath Adam Cane’s head. She’s charged with attempted murder and
sitting in pieces on a shelf in the police department. The other fairies are inconsolable.” Her eyes glazed with tears.

Jenny gave a sound of halfhearted sympathy.

Zoe bent to pull a weed. “Remember that the Duchess said to Alice, ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’” Zoe was clearly downhearted.

Jenny pricked up her ears. The very chapter she’d been reading. She smiled her Cheshire Cat smile. “‘I quite agree with you and the moral of that is, “Be what you would seem to be”—or if you’d like it put more simply—“Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”’”

Zoe tipped her head and gave Jenny a one-eyed look. “‘I think I should understand that better. If I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.’”

They gave a happy hoot, even though Jenny couldn’t come up with the next line of the story.

“You are improving,” Zoe congratulated her. “But you will never be me”

“How could I hope for such heights?” Jenny teased.

Zoe’s face soon fell again. “How can I possibly find the moral here? The sweetest of the fairies taken up as a weapon. There’s not one good thing to say about an act like that.”

Jenny thought that Lilliana wasn’t the only thing at stake here and not the only being whose pieces might have to sit in the police station.

“We’ve got to talk about the key.” Jenny’s voice was firm.

“You must find me a very unpleasant character. I mean, I don’t seem to lay out the facts of life in rows as neat at carrots.”

“Don’t worry, I know the facts of life.” Jenny was impatient.

“Well then, I’ll change it to the facts of my own world.”

“Let me tell you the facts of your world as of right now,” Jenny said, taking a deep breath. “You’re in big trouble, Zoe. You know it as well as I do. You’re lucky that Johnny’s thrown Ed off the scent for a while.”

Zoe stared at her dirty tennis shoes. She toed the ground.

“If there’s anything you can think of . . . any reason someone would want to put this all on you, please tell me now.”

“I have my thoughts.”

“Like what?”

“Because I’m here. Because I lived next door to Adam. Because I didn’t get along with him and somebody heard of our trouble and his or her brain went, ‘Bam, now that’s who I’ll blame for the murders I’m about to commit.’ Then when Abigail said she was coming to talk to you, the killer then thought, ‘Why, what a great opportunity to get Zoe Zola, too. Just use one of those silly fairies to break Abigail’s skull.’ Presto! Zoe Zola’s guilty. How could she not be? But incredibly stupid, of course, killing people in her own yard the way she did, and with her own little friends.”

“Then whoever it is doesn’t know you, Zoe. And maybe that’s a good thing. If he doesn’t know what that brain of yours is capable of, maybe we can get ahead of him.”

Zoe peeled the small gloves from her hands. “I’ve been thinking that maybe the key goes to a box that holds documents. What kind of document would have stirred up all this trouble? I went back to imagining there has to be another will, but now that Abigail’s a victim too, I’ve pretty much ruled that one out.”

“Let’s go back to all that stuff in the letter.” Jenny pulled out one of the copies she’d brought with her and read through it. “‘You boys can’t cheat us anymore. I hear you’ve got what I’m after but you’re hiding it. All three of you are cheating us, just
like him. A pack of cheaters. Time’s up on that. You cheated her way too long, and now you’re cheating me.’”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Zoe stopped to yell at Fida, who, awake now, was making her way over to Adam’s front grass.

“Isn’t that closing the barn door after the horse is gone?” Jenny couldn’t help asking as Zoe hauled Fida back to her own property. “You might as well let her pee there now. Nobody’s going to come after her.”

Zoe shrugged. “It’s the principle of the matter.”

“And what principle is that?”

Zoe thought hard, then sighed. “I don’t have a single principle in my head at the moment to fit this particular occasion.” She flicked her hand at Fida, sending her over to Adam’s house. “No principle, Fida. Go do as you please.”

She turned back to Jenny. “What was I saying?”

“You were thinking about the box and the key.”

“Oh, yes. The brothers had the key and so probably had the box, too. They stole it or paid someone to get it for them. Maybe someone like Johnny.” She took a quick look at Jenny. “Maybe that’s what the ‘you didn’t get it fairly’ means.”

“The letter said there were three of them. We figured Abigail was in on it but I don’t think so now.”

“And that lets Johnny out of trying to get it back for her since she wasn’t in on it to begin with. Abigail being the only one who benefited from the old man’s will to begin with.” Zoe pushed her headband back.

Jenny thought as Zoe called to Fida, making her way back from Adam’s house, nose to the ground.

“We’ve got to get that key to a place safer than your house,” Jenny said. “You’ve already had one break-in.”

Zoe lifted her head. “It’s all I’ve got. I can’t let it go.”

She lifted the shirt she wore and showed Jenny the small key, taped just beneath her bra, again with duct tape. “Do you think this is safe enough”

Jenny’s eyes were huge. “Unless Christopher Morley ravishes you in New York.”

“Sure you don’t want Tony to keep it? After all, an ex-cop.”

Zoe frowned hard. Her eyes narrowed. “Right now, I don’t trust a soul on this earth. It’s the tale of three, you see. ‘Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, / Beneath such dreamy weather, / To beg a tale of breath too weak / To stir the tiniest feather! / Yet what can one poor voice avail / Against three tongues together?’ So you see? We’re up against the ‘cruel three,’ who aren’t the ‘cruel three’ at all. Victims. None of them the murderer. There they go!” She made a swishing movement with her hand. “Right out the window.”

“You scare me, Zoe.” Jenny said. “And even worse, I’m beginning to understand how you think.”

As an afterthought, Jenny threw in, “You’re coming to stay with us tonight?”

Zoe frowned, “And Fida, too?”

“And Fida, too,” Jenny nodded, heading back through the pines out of Oz, or Wonderland, or wherever this place was she’d landed.