Eine Kleine Murder (23 page)

I pulled over at the top of the hill, waiting to see if the blue car would appear. Feeling like a fool, my heart pounding all the same, I opened my car door, left it open so it wouldn't make a noise, then crept down the road. No blue convertible.
Must not be him.
I puffed a long breath of relief and climbed back to my cabin. Didn't the threat of a jilted lover pale in comparison to death and murder, anyway?

As I yanked up spent flowers and planted new ones in my window boxes, I dug my bare hands into the moist dirt, wallowed in the feel of the warm earth, and inhaled the fresh, sharp smell of the geraniums. I tossed the shriveled discards into the wild vegetation beside the cabin, knowing they would fertilize something in there. I was replacing the ugliness of violent death with the beauty of these blossoms.

I had a solitary supper in my cabin and watched a few mindless TV shows during the evening. I didn't want to think about anything. The night was warm and it grew so stuffy I cracked one of the front windows, but only a half an inch. I had every right to be paranoid.

Pat had stopped by my front yard after she returned from the hospital and we spoke briefly. She said her children were expected to make a full recovery and she and Freddie were discussing whether or not to press charges against Eve.

I mentioned I had eaten one of Eve's cookies and hadn't felt very well the next day, but Hayley's girls hadn't touched them, and hadn't been ill.

“Speaking of Hayley's girls,” I began.

“Um,” Pat interrupted me, “I know what you're going to say.” Pain flitted across her soft face. “That stupid story I started.” She reached out and fingered a daisy petal in my newly planted window box. “It was an idiotic thing to do.”

“So Toombs didn't really sexually abuse his granddaughters?”

Her shoulders hunched forward as she held her elbows. It was, by bizarre coincidence, the same gesture Hayley made when discomforted. “I don't know if he did or not, Cressa.” There was pain in her voice. “I mean, I wasn't sure, but some of the signs were there. I guess I started that horrid story in retaliation for the way he was treating Freddie.”

“Which, you know, is the way he treated everybody.”

“I know that now, and I've wished a million times I could take back what I said. Freddie was slaving away working for him, doing everything he asked, and Toombs was refusing to pay him more than a few dollars. He kept stalling us and we needed the money. Desperately. I'll never do anything like that again.”

Shortly after nine-thirty a knock sounded on my door.

I peeked out and saw Daryl Johannson. My heart gave a little leap. I opened the door wide.

“You missed the funeral today,” I said. I wasn't really accusing him. I had genuinely missed him, and wished he'd been there when Len confronted me.

“I know.” His hair was a mess and his freckles stood out in his stark, pale face. “Have you heard about Martha?”

“No, what about Martha? She wasn't at the funeral. Come on in. Would you like a Coke?”

He sat mute on one of the couches while I splashed Coke over ice into two glasses and brought them into the front half of the cabin.

“I've been at the county building all afternoon,” he said. “Seems I'm a suspect.”

“In Toombs's death?” I handed him a glass and took a stool at the counter.

“Martha's.”

Chapter 40

Espandendosi: Growing broader and fuller; with growing intensity (Ital.)

Daryl blew at the foam on his drink, then leveled his green eyes at me. They looked dark today. “Martha was murdered sometime this morning.” A chill shot through me.
Another murder. Another freakin' murder.
My glass jerked in my hand and a couple drops of pop leapt onto the floor.

“That's why you didn't see her at the funeral,” he said. “She called me last night and asked if I'd drive her to Grace's funeral today. Mo is missing. When I stopped by to pick her up, the place was crawling with cops and they hauled me in.”

Gulp!
Am I entertaining a murderer?

“Don't look at me like that,” he groaned.

“Like what?”

“Like I'm Ted Bundy.” He swigged his Coke as if he hadn't had anything to drink for hours. Maybe he hadn't.

“I figure, from how they questioned me, she died early today. I worked at home by myself all morning but I also made a couple of phone calls, which the police were finally able to verify. One to my dad and one to an art supplier. After they got confirmation of my phone records they let me go, but I'm still under suspicion.”

I breathed out.
I'm not serving Coke to a killer.
I told myself that they would still be holding him if they had anything to go on, but was only seventy percent convinced.

“Is Mo clear? Does he have an alibi?” I asked.

“Why would Mo kill his own mother?”

“Well, because she killed his father. Or tried to.”

“Huh? You think Martha killed her old man?”

“I saw her hiding something under one of their stepping stones night before last. I went back later and dug it up, and it was poisonous mushrooms. I took some to Sheriff Dobson because it was such a suspicious thing to do, burying them under a rock at night like that.”

I traced the path of a drip trickling down the outside of my sweating glass, glad the chill had left my spine.

It was so good to have someone I could talk to about all this. Someone I could unburden myself to about my feelings of guilt over the mushrooms.

Should I tell him about Hayley's confession?

I continued, “I guess the sheriff agreed, even though he gave me a hard time about ‘disturbing evidence' because, right after that, some sheriff's deputies came out, picked up the rest of the mushrooms, and she was pulled in for questioning the same day.”

Yes, I would tell him. I decided I trusted Daryl, if no one else. How could Daryl have killed anyone?

“Hayley told me yesterday her mother did serve him poisonous mushrooms the night he died, so I thought maybe Martha killed him. But now someone's killed her?”

“Yep. But I thought Toombs was stabbed.”

“One news report said he was both stabbed and poisoned, but they haven't figured out the cause of death yet.”

“Jesus! Poisoned and stabbed.” He jumped up and slammed his drink onto the counter, then started pacing. “He did have a lot of enemies, didn't he? I never thought his enemies were that violent, though. I didn't think the people here in my own town were like that.”

“He was a violent man, from what his wife and his stepdaughter said. Mo says he hits people, too, although—how does he put it?—he never hit anyone unless they deserved it. Something like that.”

“Mo said that? Sounds like Mo. He's the same way, as you know. He was always getting into fights all through school. He could never see what the big deal was. If he wanted to punch somebody, he punched them.”

“How did Martha die?” My voice sounded weak.

“That's kind of odd. You say she hid the mushrooms under a stepping stone?”

“That's right. The one nearest the door.”

Daryl stopped pacing and looked directly at me. “Yep, that's the one. Captain Palmer said her head was bashed in with it.”

Chapter 41

Romance: Originally, a ballad, or popular tale in verse, in the Romance dialect; now, a title for epicoChapter lyrical songs, or of short instrumental pieces of sentimental or romantic cast, and without special form (Eng.)

Daryl's revelation took a minute to sink in. He took the stool next to mine, picked up his glass, and rattled the ice cubes while I wrapped my thoughts around that. “She was killed right there?” I stammered. “In front of her house?”

“No, Palmer says it happened inside.”

“Palmer? Is he that short one with the piggy eyes?”

“I guess you could call them piggy.” He shrugged. “Yeah, that's him. He said the county got an anonymous phone call telling them to check on Martha. The door was standing open and the rock was lying beside her when Palmer got there.”

“Wow. Poor Martha.” Harboring no warm feelings for Mo, it surprised me to find that I felt sad for him; he had lost both his parents to murder.

“Have you talked to Mo?” I asked.

“He hasn't shown up. I've seen Hayley, though. She and the girls are pretty broken up.”

“I didn't tell you, but Martha let on to me, before she was taken in for questioning, that she's always known her husband killed my grandmother—and Grace.”

Daryl whistled softly. “What a mess! Does Al Harmon know that? You think he did Toombs in, taking revenge for his wife?”

“No, I don't think Al knows about what Martha told me. I got the impression Martha didn't tell anyone else.”

“I wonder if Mo knows, though.”

“Could be. Speaking of Mo, since you live beside him, you're in a position to do me a big favor.”

“Okay.” He sounded cautious. “What?”

“It's a small thing, but it means a lot to me. If you get a chance, when Mo's not around, could you go through his things and see if my locket is there? I think I saw him wearing the chain from it the day he attacked me.” I rubbed my neck where the chain should be.

“You think he took it from you? And then wore it in front of you? What a jerk!”

A whiff of wood smoke came through my front window, despite only being opened a crack. Al Harmon must be making a fire with his grandchildren, I thought. Good for him.

“Do you smell the fire?” I asked, thinking maybe we could go join Al.

Daryl rose quickly, knocking the stool over. “Fire?” He ran to the door and threw it open.

“What's the matter, Daryl? It's just Al's campfire.”

“You're sure?” He hesitated, then closed the door. His eyes were wild, so wide open they showed white all around.

I walked over to him and laid my hand on his arm, trying to calm him. His skin jumped underneath my touch.

“What is it with you and this fire thing?”

He set the stool back up and perched uneasily on it. I sat on the couch, at a distance from him, to give him room.

“It's been bothering me for years, Cressa. I had a bad experience when I was younger.” At last he was going to open up to me.

“My folks had a cabin out here, the one next to the Harmons', closest to the playground. The Greys had the one that used to be between Toombs's and Hayley's.”
Ah, where the empty, burnt foundation was. I was finally going to learn its story.
“Of course, Hayley didn't have that one then, she wasn't grown up and she lived with her mom and stepdad, but the Toombses have had that yellow one for a long time.” He struggled a moment, then went on.

“One night, the Greys' cabin, a really big, nice one, burned to the ground. Norah Grey died in the fire. I was eleven years old.”

The same age I was when my parents both died.

“I learned, years later, that she took sleeping pills. She never had a chance, probably didn't even know her house was on fire until the last moment.”

Daryl closed his eyes briefly, then went on. “My mother had died the year before and I was going through a hard stretch. I'd been caught a couple of times playing with matches. Lighting piles of leaves and stuff, but nothing really dangerous.”

He gave another glance toward the window where the smoky smell was coming in, then gave a smile full of sorrow.

“But Mrs. Grey was like a mother to me after mine was gone. She made sure I had homemade cookies to put in my school lunch and gave me gifts for my birthday and Christmas. I was always welcome in their house.”

He scratched at the condensation on his glass. The cabin was too hot. It needed more windows open, but I wasn't about to move an inch.

“Toombs had called the cops on me once already and, when the Greys' cabin burned, a lot of people assumed I set the fire. The police grilled me for hours—an eleven-year-old kid. I was exhausted and somehow admitted I did it. I guess ‘cause I thought I'd get to go home? I don't even remember saying it. Like I would ever do anything to hurt Mrs. Grey.” He swallowed melted ice water with an audible gulp and continued. “Then I had to have a trial and the whole bit. My lawyer convinced the court my confession wasn't real, and I was set free. Toombs got on the stand and claimed he saw me set the fire, but his testimony was thrown out after he contradicted himself about a dozen times. It was a total lie. I never knew why he did that. Plus my father testified I was at home at the time.”

“No wonder you couldn't stand Toombs.”

“But most people here still believe I did it. I was teased at school a lot.” Daryl wasn't seeing my cabin. His eyes were focused on a memory, his head tilted back, toward the wagon wheel light fixture hanging in the center of the room.

“I'll never forget the night of the fire. Dad and I ran down and stood across the road watching it go up. He had called the fire department on his ham radio. I can still see those brilliant flames, red, white. Those awful flames. I can hear her screaming, too. I woke up at night for years hearing her and seeing those flames in the night.”

We were both silent for a few minutes. A cricket chirped somewhere near the window and locusts buzzed in the trees beyond. His sad eyes haunted me, and my heart ached for him. We stared into each other's eyes for a moment. Something else developed in our gaze. My heart quickened.

“And the fire was definitely set deliberately?”

“That's what the fire chief said.”

“Then someone else set the fire.”

He looked at me gratefully. “But nobody else was ever accused.”

“What happened to Mrs. Grey's husband? Did he die, too?”

“He moved into town with his daughter. But he had a heart attack and died a few years later.”

“Do you think he could have done it?”

“I don't know, but I don't think so. He was a gentle soul. Everyone liked him.” Daryl set his glass on the counter with a firm hand, back in the present. “Do you know the reason I came to see you tonight, Cressa?”

“I guess not.”

“I knew being with you would make me feel better after what I went through at the station. I can't get you out of my mind.”

I don't think I'll be able to get you out of mine, either.

Our eyes caught again.

“I'm really glad you came by, Daryl. I don't want to be alone this evening. I had a shock at Grace's funeral. My old boyfriend was there.”

“That was a shock?”

“Maybe that's too mild a word. He scares me to death lately.”

“How come?”

“When I broke up with him, he started calling me a dozen times a day. I stopped answering his calls and he started slipping notes under my apartment door.”

“Threatening notes?” The alarm in his voice comforted me.
He's concerned about me.
My toes curled and my heart gave a skip.

“Not at first, but he got more and more angry when I kept avoiding him. The last one scared me the most. In the letters before that, he threatened to kill himself. The last one said he didn't want anyone else to have me.
Have
me, like I'm his possession.”

“And he was at Grace's funeral? All the way from Chicago?”

“He saw my name in the paper and knew he would see me there. He's been to Alpha once before, too. In fact, the reason I got into the car with Mo at the drugstore was because Len was across the street. He knows I'm in the vicinity, but not where I'm staying. I'm afraid he might find me here, though. I thought I saw him follow me after the funeral, but I was mistaken.”

“It does sound like he's dangerous. How did you ever get involved with someone like that?”

“I don't know. I'm not the best judge of people, I guess. I was mostly raised by my grandmother and, since she was a generation older than the other kids' parents, I grew up feeling out of step with my peers. They always knew something I didn't. I was unhappy for most of junior high and high school. And shy.”

I tucked some hair behind my ear. “Most of my boyfriends were losers, but Len was older and, well, I guess Len paid attention to me and made me feel special for awhile.”

“It's understandable, though, that a person who pays attention to you is attractive. I've had some loser girlfriends myself. Did he ever hurt you, physically?”

“Just once. I can see, now, the whole thing was unhealthy. I'm glad it's over and I never want to see him again.”

Daryl moved to the couch to sit next to me. “Do you want me to stay awhile?”

I did. Yes, I did. My old fear fell away. I felt safer than I had in years.

I nodded, then touched Daryl's hand, and this time he held mine back. So I laid my head on his chest. He stroked my hair and sent shivers up my back. Good shivers.

The television was running softly in the background. The theme music for the ten o'clock news interrupted our tête-à-tête.

“Look,” said Daryl. “It's the main story again.”

I picked my head up. After the lead-ins and ads, the attractive female talking head, dressed in a vibrant striped top that strobed on the screen, spoke over the same pictures of the lake they had run previously. I wondered if she had shorts on under her desk.

“More developments at Crescent Lake. In the brutal murder reported Tuesday, an autopsy has revealed the victim had a large amount of poison in his body. But, in a startling twist, the coroner has released a report indicating he actually died from the stabbing he received that night. The poison had been recently ingested and wouldn't have had time to take effect before he was stabbed to death. The stab wounds killed him instantly. Time of death has been estimated at between eight-thirty, when he was last seen alive by his wife and family, and approximately midnight that same evening. There are no suspects in his death.”

But I knew Al's knife was missing. What could that mean?

“And, in an even more bizarre twist, the victim's wife was found murdered today in her home at the lake. No details are available yet on this latest death.”

I shuddered. “Should I be staying here?” I asked.

Daryl put his strong, secure arm tight around me. The hair on his arms was thick and sandy-colored. I nuzzled my cheek against it. He smelled faintly of paint and thinner, a good, clean smell.

“Isn't that strange?” I murmured. “First they arrested Eve Evans for poisoning people. She didn't poison Toombs, but put those rhubarb leaves in the cookies for Freddie and Pat's kids. Then they took Martha in, but she didn't do it either, although she tried. Then she was murdered.”

I snapped up upright. “Oh my god! I know why Martha was killed. She said her husband killed Grace and Ida. And she knew who killed her husband. She told me that. Whoever killed him wanted to shut her up. Does that make sense?”

He frowned. “I think so.” He looked at me. “Yeah, it makes perfect sense.”

“This place is lousy with murderers.” I shivered in his arms. A bad shiver.

“I won't go if you don't want me to,” said Daryl. His grip tightened and his eyes darkened.

I nodded and tipped my face up.

For a breathless moment, we explored the depths of each other's eyes. His face lowered, his lips slowly approached mine. They parted slightly. I could feel a tingle just before we touched.