Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (29 page)

“I know you did. I was busy at the time.”

Even at a distance, I could make out Alec’s stern expression. “Please try not allow distractions to make your eye stray from the goal. Need I remind you, Amelia, of the seriousness of our mission?”

I laughed. “No, you needn’t remind me, Alec but as I said in the phone message, there’ve been a number of developments. Just enjoy the parade. I’ll fill you in later.”

Alec gave me a puzzled look as he was carried past us in the parade car. “Will do,” he said into the telephone and hung up.

Gil and I didn’t go to the ice dance. We had too much to talk about, too much planning to do, so we headed home.

“Have you thought about any names?” Gil asked as we drove.

“A little. It’s a rather awe-inspiring task, giving someone a name that he’ll carry for a lifetime.”

“When you put it that way, yeah. But I already came up with some.”

“You have?”

Gil grinned. “Margaret Bourke White Dickensen if it’s a girl and Edward R. Morrow Dickensen if it’s a boy.”

I laughed. “I see a theme forming, but I’m not sure I can go along with it.”

“Oh, really? Tell me you haven’t thought about something from literature, like Charles Dickens or Scarlett O’ Hara or maybe Edgar Allen Dickensen. Am I right; huh, am I?”

I was spared further kidding by the buzz of Gil’s cell phone.

“Dickensen. Yes, she’s with me. We’re headed home. Oh, you did?” Gil glanced over at me. “She’s pretty worn out. How about tomorrow at the B&B? All right, she’ll be there.” He snapped the phone shut. “You are to meet Dennis at Chez Prentice right after lunch tomorrow, no ifs, ands or buts.”

“Oh, I forgot all about him!”

“They say you get a little soft in the head when you’re pregnant.”

I answered that with a good, juicy Bronx cheer, a conversational tool that Lily Burns had taught me years ago.

~~~

Dennis ran his fingers through his hair for the fourth time. “And that’s everything you know? Absolutely everything?”

His tone was annoying. “Yes, Dennis, I haven’t held anything back. Now I have a few questions for you.”

We were in the office at Chez Prentice with a plate of Hester’s oatmeal raisin cookies between us. Dennis had only partially consumed a cup of coffee, and I had just drained my glass of milk. The environment was cozy, even if the subject wasn’t.

Dennis certainly lacked his usual congeniality. He snapped his memo pad, clicked his pen and pocketed them both. He took another sip of his coffee.

“I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer, but fire away.”

“What happens to J.T. and Dustin?”

Dennis sighed. “Amelia, things are very, very complicated.”

My mouth dropped open. “You mean they’re still suspects?”

“I’m afraid so. The DA thinks they may have been part of the CD scheme with Matthew Ramsey.”

“But he fired on them! You found Matt’s gun in the tent. Wouldn’t that prove they weren’t in on it if they found the bullet?”

“Maybe, maybe not, but Amelia, there’s no evidence of a bullet. We searched the car.”

“But what about Blakely? I just told you what happened, what he said!”

“Both Knight and Mrs. Shea have lawyered up. We don’t have a lot of evidence that implicates them in this CD thing.”

“It’s just my word against theirs,” I said resignedly.

Dennis sounded slightly more sympathetic. “That’s right, but cheer up. Knight’s definitely going to be indicted for kidnapping and maybe attempted murder.”

“And Vern?”

“Since he’s cooperating and agreed to testify about how he got that lunchbox, he’s pretty much in the clear.”

I took a deep breath. “Well, that’s a relief, at least. Thanks, Dennis.”

He stood, and I did, too. He pulled on his coat and I walked him to the front door.

“Don’t go throwing any more suspect brunches, please,” he told me with a hint of his old twinkle.

He reached for the doorknob, but suddenly, I remembered another thing.

“Dennis, yesterday as I was walking through the Old Episcopal graveyard, I found something strange.” I told him about seeing the tombstone of little Matthew Revere Ramsey and concluded by saying, “He died in 1781, at the age of 12 days.”

Dennis nodded. “A stolen identity; makes sense. It was his stock in trade. So this dead man is the one calling himself Matthew Ramsey, after all, as well as being—well, a certain rather important name that came up on our AFIS search. We’ll have to talk to the girlfriend, maybe get her to ID the body. We may be calling in Homeland Security on this.”

He jotted Yvonne’s name and her parents’ address in his notebook. “Thanks, Amelia.”

I leaned against the door for some time after Dennis left.
Poor Yvonne. Her nightmare with Matt isn’t quite over yet.
It was a blessing that she had her parents for support.

Though Gil and I had tried to keep this Sunday as normal as possible by attending church and having lunch in town, things still seemed out of joint.

Vern was still rooming at the B&B and keeping his distance, Lily was still on the outs with me, I hadn’t seen the professor since the parade, and with all the new information coming out about the crime on the lake, Gil was swamped at the newspaper.

I wandered into the kitchen in search of company. “May I help you with that?” I asked Hester. She was sorting and folding clean towels on the kitchen table.

“Sure thing. Sit here and do the washcloths. You look kind of dragged out, if you don’t mind my saying so. Of course, it’s easy to understand, what with the baby and this church tower thing and all.”

I pulled several cloths from the overloaded laundry basket. “I guess so.”

Hester’s face brightened. “Say, d’you want to hear something?”

I gazed at her warily and put a folded washcloth on the stack. “Maybe.”

“That poor woman! Blakely was a wretch to lead her on like that.”

“Sure he was, but listen: somebody else volunteered to be tested!”

“For the kidney? Really? Who?”

She folded another towel into thirds vertically, then in half and half again. “Don’t you mean whom? I mean the grammar and all?” She plopped it on the stack of towels.

I shook my head and laughed for the first time that day. “No, Hester, who is correct in this case.”

She rose and gathered the tower of towels into her arms. “Well, if you’re sure. Excuse me, I gotta get these upstairs. I’ll be heading home as soon as I’m done.” She moved toward the hall.

“But Hester, who was it?”

She stopped and turned around. “Oh, yeah. I don’t know. This Mrs. Daye, Knight, whatever; she didn’t say.”

I was folding the last washcloth when I head the front door open and the professor’s voice say, “Come on, now. Don’t be a ninny. You promised you’d do this.”

I hurried into the drafty hallway. “Alec? And, um, Lily?” This was a real surprise.

Lily Burns was carrying some kind of luggage and seemed hesitant to meet my gaze.

Alec nudged her with his elbow. “Go on, dear, tell her.”

“Tell me what?”

Abruptly, Lily put the case she was carrying in my arms. “Here. Be careful there; hold it level. He’s skittish in that thing. Hates it, actually.” Her tone was sullen.

“He?”

I took a closer look at the case. There was a little window in the side and small round holes in the top.

“Sam? Is that you?” I hurried over to a table in the front sitting room, set the case down carefully and stroked the cat’s soft fur through one of the holes with my finger. “Oh, Lily, you found him! How can I thank you?”

Alec said again, “Go on, dear, tell her.”

Lily heaved a huge sigh. “I didn’t find him, Amelia. I mean, I did find him, but it was in December, right after you left on your honeymoon.”

I sat down, frowning. I was having trouble processing this information.

“He came to me, Amelia. He turned up on my back doorstep one night, shivering and hungry. You were out of town, so of course, I took him in.”

“Of course,” I repeated vaguely. Something was nagging at my memory, a tuft of gray.

“Well, I was going to tell you about him when I, you know, called you that time, but we argued and, well, I—didn’t.” She clamped her mouth closed and her pretty face took on that stubborn look with which I was so familiar, “and it was Sam I was wrestling with, while we were on the phone, not Blakely.”

“So Sam’s been with you all this time?”

Sam made a chirruping sound in his throat, his version of pleading. He wanted to be released.

Lily looked away, her expression petulant.

Alec cocked his head and folded his arms. He gave her an articulate stare from under his bushy eyebrows and Lily shrugged.

“Yes, he has. And he’s been really happy, too. I took him to the vet and put him on a diet and got him a scratching tree and gave him the run of my house. He’s in the best health of his life; the vet says so. I’ve got all his supplies at the house, and I’ll get them to you tomorrow.” She shot a questioning glance at Alec, who arched an eyebrow at her. “And . . . and I’m . . . I’m sorry, Amelia. I deceived you.”

Alec put in, “And?”

Sam began frantically scratching the inside of the case. He was trying to tunnel his way out.

Lily sighed. “I sort of . . . stole your cat. Alec brought me here to, um, confess and ask your forgiveness.” She gave a short, sharp nod as a child does at the end of a recitation.

Alec stepped forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I told her you were a forgiving woman, Amelia,” he said with a warm smile.

I stood and reached out my arms. “Of course I forgive you, Lily.”

Lily accepted my hug and returned it listlessly. “Thanks. Well, bye.” She bent down and gently tapped the cat carrier, which had begun bouncing on the tabletop. “Good-bye, Sam.” She headed out of the room and toward the exit with Alec close behind her.

From within the cat carrier, Sam began a plaintive, high-pitched moan.

“Lily, wait!” I called.

She paused in the foyer and I caught up with her. I put my hand on her shoulder. She didn’t meet my eyes, but she didn’t shake off my grip either.

“You love that crazy old cat, don’t you? You always have.”

“Well, yes, I am fond of him.”

“Well then, Lily, I think he ought to stay with you. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. He loves you. He proved it by leaving my house and coming to you.”

I was laying it on a little thick, rather like the sour cream Lily had often given Sam when she thought I wasn’t looking. And even when she knew I was. That, plus his old cat door had been boarded over at Chez Prentice.

I went on, “Pretty soon I’ll be too busy to devote very much time to a pet.”

“You will?” Lily smiled a little.

I hadn’t prepared any graceful announcement phrase, so I just blurted it out. “Gil and I are having a baby!”

Alec’s face lit up like a Hollywood marquee. “I knew it was something like that! That glow!” He gave me a gentle bear hug.

“Oh, I see. You need the room.” Lily’s reaction was considerably more reserved. “Well, if you really need somewhere for Sam to stay, I guess I can help you out.” She headed for the front parlor. “I’ll just go get him.”

As she left the room, Alec leaned down and whispered, “So very kind of you, Amelia. She was terrified, poor mite, that you’d be furious with her. Thought perhaps you’d call the police on her, silly lass.”

“Alec,” I whispered back, “are you two an item again?”

He twinkled down at me. “Looks that way, since I understand that—among other considerations—Mr. Blakely Knight can’t stand cats!” He opened the Chez Prentice front door as Lily emerged from the parlor carrying Sam. “Ready, my dear?”

As they left, I thought I heard Alec whistling “Love Lifted Me” faintly between his teeth.

I had expected things to seem a little strange at school on Monday, and I was right. Though I had no outward physical signs of my adventures, the gossip mill had been on overdrive, and it was widely speculated that not only had I been involved with some sort of altercation in the Old Episcopal bell tower, but I was pregnant and probably “had” to get married. I knew this, because I once again eavesdropped in the girls’ restroom.

But I wasn’t Cruel Gossip’s only victim.

“That Serry Shea,” Micki Davenport told Brenda Bordeau, “she’s always been so full of herself. Says her dad’s gonna be mayor? I don’t
think
so!”

Brenda chimed in, to the sound of running water. “Yeah, her mother’s going to jail. Did ya hear that?”

Giggling, they left the room, leaving me to emerge from the stall, muttering, “Kick her while she’s down, would you?”

Again, my protective instincts had emerged and dispelled the well-buried resentments I’d carried with me. I glanced at the ceiling and smiled.

Are you working on me, Lord? Is that it?

I was surprised. I hadn’t realized how very much I’d despised Brigid and her daughter until I stopped despising them. The class bell rang. I whispered a quick prayer for them and plunged into the class-changing melee.

As I called the roll for the next class, Serendipity entered, late. I glanced at her, then looked again. If someone had taken the old Serendipity, plunged her into a large washing machine, then into a capacious dryer, the result might have looked much as this girl did: pale blonde hair, tangled and matted flat, eye makeup smudged, and no lipstick at all. Her tight pullover had a stain on the shoulder and her jeans were at least a size too big and badly wrinkled.

She slumped into her chair with an insolent air, and for a moment she seemed her old, defiant self. But when she looked me in the eye and registered no expression at all, only vagueness, I knew something was terribly wrong with Serry.

Instead of pointing out her tardiness as I might have done the week before, I simply made note of her presence and began class.

Today the first order of business was the discussion of the short homework essays to be entitled My Vision of the Future. It had stemmed from a magazine article published some seventy years ago that predicted that by the year 2000 there would be helicopters on every roof and a form of humanity that evolved into huge, bodiless heads, because of increased brain activity. We had all laughed at the incongruity of it, and I thought it would to fun for the students to make their own speculations on the coming century.