An Anniversary to Die For (24 page)

“That’s probably smart.” Jinx reached over and touched his hand.

“Well, I have to get going.” Susan stood up.

“Don’t you have anything to ask Sam?” Jinx protested.

“You know what I’m looking for. And I really should get going,” Susan repeated.

“Well, I’ll call you this evening,” Jinx said, jumping to her feet.

“That’s great. Bye, Sam. Thanks for helping out.”

“No problem.” Sam said the words to Susan’s back.

She knew she was being rather abrupt. But she had just seen Alvena Twigg in the hallway. She hoped Alvena had answers to some of the questions that were beginning to crowd her mind. And the first question she was going to ask was about Sam Redman’s character.

Alvena was sitting in the bar, a large frosted glass of lemonade on the table before her. “Why, Mrs. Henshaw, I guess you just can’t stay away from our wonderful inn.”

“It is beautiful here, and I was . . . in the area,” Susan explained. “Are you . . . Do you have a few minutes to talk to me?”

“Yes, of course. I’m just enjoying a nice tart homemade lemonade. So difficult to get properly made, and I’m afraid the chef at the inn stops making them after Labor Day. I sometimes think his quest to be seasonal is carried to an extreme. Last year he was offering mulled cranberry juice when the temperature was in the eighties. It was October, but still. I shouldn’t bore you with my babbling. My sister is always complaining about that. And dear Constance just mentioned that you still have some questions about our most recent tragedy. Perhaps that’s why you were so anxious to see me that you interrupted your lunch.”

“I . . . I was finished with lunch.” Susan, as always, was confused by Alvena’s combination of old-world manners and directness.

“But you do have some questions.”

“Yes . . .”

Alvena leaned closer to Susan and lowered her voice. “I promised Constance that no one would overhear any talk about the murder. Perhaps you would accompany me to the housekeeping room. I don’t believe anyone will be there this time of the day.” She stood up.

“That’s very nice of you.”

“Do you know anything about the running of an inn, Mrs. Henshaw?” Alvena asked, leaving her frosted glass on the table and heading toward the back stairway Susan and Kathleen had used a few days ago.

“No, I don’t. I used to think I’d like to own an inn—or a bed-and-breakfast, actually—but the opportunity never came up.”

“Many people think that and a few of them actually do it, but I don’t believe most of them have any idea how much work is involved.”

Susan felt as though she had offended Alvena. “Certainly providing all the meals as you do . . .”

“Oh, anyone can run an excellent restaurant. Just hire an excellent chef and a competent kitchen manager. It’s the rest of the inn that is so difficult to get under control. So many rooms to clean, linens to launder, pillows to fluff. It’s the little things like the bottles of Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries that our guests have come to expect. Constance doesn’t always realize just how important these things are.”

“So you two divide up the work?” Susan guessed.

“We have since my retirement from the school district. While I was working, I could only do my part in the summertime. The rest of the year, Constance struggled on with only local help. Things were not always as one would have wished,” Alvena explained, looking over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being overheard—by Constance rather than a guest, was Susan’s guess.

“It’s in here.” Alvena opened a door on their right, and Susan followed her inside. The housekeeper’s room appeared to have been a guest room at one time. But now, instead of a bed, two large tables dominated the center of the room. They were piled high with laundered sheets and towels. Raw pine shelves lined the walls, providing storage for blankets, cases of tissues, toilet paper, and those little bottles of shampoo and cream rinse that Alvena thought so important. The spicy scent of carnations emanated from a large box of soap tablets. Susan breathed deeply.

“Wonderful, isn’t it, dear? I do so love my potpourri. I make it up fresh each summer.”

Susan realized Alvena was pointing to a large bowl of blue-and-white export china sitting on a table in the small bay window. “You make it? I didn’t know.” Susan remembered that the bowl in her room had smelled like a mixture of sage, cloves, and old socks; she had stashed it in an unused drawer in the dresser and prayed no fumes would escape.

“Yes.” Alvena smiled the wan smile of those who believe themselves to be chronically unappreciated. “I wanted to sell little packets of potpourri at the front desk, but . . . alas.”

“One of those ideas that your sister vetoed?”

“Yes. But I could sell you some—privately, so to speak.”

“That would be very nice,” Susan lied.

“But before business—pleasure. That’s what my dear father always said.” And slipping a hand under a pile of fluffy white Egyptian cotton towels, Alvena pulled out a bottle of dark amber liquid. “There are glasses in the bathroom, ” she explained, her eyes widening at the coming treat.

“It’s a little early. . . . Well, just a small glass,” Susan said, hoping the alcohol would make Alvena indiscreet. But there were only standard water glasses in the bathroom, and Alvena filled both to the rim and handed Susan one. “Chin. Chin. Drink up.”

Susan put her lips to the rim of the glass expecting sweet sherry or possibly a homemade concoction of elderberry wine, so the explosion of eighty-proof alcohol came as a shock. “Oh. You didn’t make this, did you?”

“Not unless my name is Jack Daniels, dear.” Alvena beamed and sat down on a straight-backed chair by the window. “Now sit down.” She pointed to an equally uncomfortable perch for Susan. “And tell me what you want to know.”

Susan coughed a few times. “Sam Redman . . . Did you know him when you were young? I was just wondering.”

“Of course, the young lad who runs the
Oxford Democrat
. He grew up in Oxford Landing, but I’m afraid his parents sent him away to a private school somewhere in New Hampshire. So unfortunate I thought at the time. Our school would have benefited from the ink in his blood. The newspaper is an inherited business, you know. His father ran it before Sam. And I suppose Sam’s son will run it after Sam is gone.”

“I thought . . . Didn’t he say . . . Isn’t he single?”

“Divorced. His wife lives in New York City. She’s a decorator. Her name comes up in those fancy shelter magazines from time to time. But Sam’s kids—he has two, a boy and a girl—visit their father from time to time. He sometimes brings them here for dinner.”

“Oh.”

“What were you wondering about him, dear?” Alvena asked, taking another delicate sip of whiskey.

Susan decided the direct approach was best. “Is he honest?”

“As the day is long. Mind you, he’s a little bit odd. He uses the profits from that sporting goods place to keep his paper running because he says every town in the country deserves something better than CNN and Fox News. I believe that’s become a minority view in this day and age. My dear father would call Sam Redman a crackpot, but he’s honest. Yes, he’s honest.”

“Oh.” Well, that was one theory shot to hell. “I was wondering . . . also wondering . . . about Doug and Ashley. I hadn’t realized they both grew up around here. I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy.”

“Please, Mrs. Henshaw, don’t apologize. I’m thrilled that you would ask for my help in your investigations.”

Susan smiled. “Then tell me everything you remember about Ashley . . . or I guess I should say Ann.”

Alvena smiled. “So you learned that already, did you? She always hated it that anyone knew she didn’t have a fancy name. Ann Hurley she was born. Only daughter of the owners of the local gas station. Her parents were lovely people. Hardworking. Intelligent. Members of the Methodist church. They must have been real surprised to wake up one day and discover that they’d created Ann. She was a little spitfire right from the first. Cute as a button. Bright as a pin. And determined to get her own way in the world. Unfortunately, her parents adored her; and sensible as they were about most things, they spoiled their daughter. By the time she was eight or nine, Ann ruled her family. And she went on from there. Power,” Alvena advised Susan ominously, “corrupts.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that. So, tell me what happened as Ashley—or Ann—got older.”

“Just what any sensible person would expect. She got her own way at home, and she expected to get it everywhere else. By the time she arrived at our school, she’d learned to wrap the teachers and the students around her manicured fingers. She was the most popular girl in her class, starred in all our little theatrical productions, got excellent grades, and cared about nothing and no one except herself. Dreadful girl. Of course, I’m afraid that was something of a minority opinion.”

“But that’s what you thought.”

The habitual smile on Alvena’s face had disappeared. “I disliked her from the moment she walked in the door of my office.”

“Why?”

“She always wanted something. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Teenagers are frequently self-absorbed and self-centered. But Ann was different. She actually thought she could boss me around! I put a stop to that immediately, I can assure you.”

“How did she feel about that?” Susan leaned forward.

“She didn’t like it at all. But I had never had a student lord it over me, and I assure you, little Ann Hurley wasn’t going to be the first. I cannot be ordered about, and I cannot be manipulated.”

Susan thought of Constance and made an effort to resist smiling. “What did you do?”

“I chose to ignore her. I didn’t give her the time of day. Ann was accustomed to a lot of attention, but I can tell you that she didn’t get it from me. Oh, she acted as though she didn’t mind, but I believe she was hiding the hurt. She would come into my office, giggling and chattering like a magpie with one of her friends, and she would make the most outrageous requests. I felt it behooved me to nip this sort of thing in the bud. I would refuse to comply with her requests, and then she and her cohorts would scream with laughter and run out of the office. I have always thought that I made my point.”

Susan doubted it. “Was she friendly with Doug back then?”

“Not in school. They must have been over four years apart. My memory is that Doug graduated before Ann came on the scene. They were as different as night and day. I can’t imagine how they ever came to get married. Although there were rumors,” she added darkly. “I would prefer not to pass them on, though.”

“What was Doug like?”

“A very nice young man. He caused no trouble at all. He cared deeply about his science classes and immersed himself in the labs. We had a very able science teacher in those days, Mr. Daviet, who was pleased to take young Doug under his wing. You may not know this, but Doug won the state science fair two years in a row. Unheard of! We were all pleased as punch, I can tell you. His parents rented the inn and gave Doug the most incredible graduation party. And then he went off to someplace in California, and we thought we might never see him in Oxford Landing again. And wouldn’t it have been better if that had been true.”

“Why?”

“Hitching up with Ann—or Ashley as she was calling herself by then—was the worst thing he could have done.”

“Why?”

“Well, just think about it. If he hadn’t married her, he wouldn’t have killed her now, would he?”

Susan reached for her glass and took a rather too large sip of the liquor. “How do you know he killed her? Did you see something at the inn that night?”

“Oh, please. How could anyone doubt it? He lived for years with that awful woman. Of course he killed her. I can’t imagine that the police even have any other suspects.”

“I think . . .” Susan decided she wasn’t going to get the information she needed unless she leveled with Alvena. “I think the police are convinced Signe did it,” she continued.

“Signe? How could she possibly have done it? She had left the inn long before her mother died.”

“You saw Signe at the inn that night? At the party the night her mother died?”

“Not at the party itself. I gather you didn’t invite her. But I know I spied her earlier in the day. It was almost evening, but you and your guests hadn’t arrived. She was delivering one of your gifts from that fancy shop in Hancock.”

“Twigs and Stems?” Susan asked weakly.

“The very place. I saw her put the package on the buffet in the foyer. She just came in and dropped it off and dashed out the back door. She didn’t say anything to anyone. I just happened to be passing by and saw her. I assure you, Mrs. Hancock, Signe Marks was far away from the inn when her mother was poisoned.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

SUSAN HAD RETURNED HOME AND FOUND KATHLEEN AND Erika sitting in her living room, having been welcomed— then abandoned—by Chrissy and Stephen.

“Signe was at the inn right before your party?” Kathleen asked, putting down her knitting.

“Yes.”

“And she came and went through the back door? By the kitchen? Right by the area where the food was set up waiting to be served?” Erika asked.

“Yes.”

“And she didn’t say anything to anyone?” Kathleen followed up.

“Not that I know of. Alvena told me she scooted along— that’s the phrase she used—into the foyer after Signe left, and read the envelope of the attached card; otherwise she wouldn’t have realized the gift was for us.”

“But she said Signe came and went through the back entrance—that she was near the kitchen where much of the food must have already been laid out for the party.”

“Yes,” Susan agreed. “And, of course, that’s the significant thing, because poison, as we all know, is an excellent way to kill someone without actually being present at the time of death.” Susan looked from Kathleen to Erika. They were both frowning. “I’ve really screwed things up, haven’t I?”

“Well . . .” Kathleen answered slowly. “It does sound as though you’ve done a better job of proving that Signe might be guilty than proving her to be innocent.”