Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery) (15 page)

I backed away toward my friends, alarmed.

“She’s in Ridley Ridge,” Virgil said. “Mr. Channer, I can take—”

“Then I don’t (expletive) need you at all, do I? You try to manhandle me again, cop,” he said, jabbing his finger at Virgil, “and I will have a lawyer on the phone suing your ass so fast, you’ll have to ask my permission to fart.” He stalked away to his car, shouting at his chauffeur to find out where the hospital was and drive him to it. He got in and slammed the door as the chauffeur hopped in and gunned the motor, and they took off down my drive.

“What a
jerk
!” McGill said, and I think every person in earshot would have agreed with him.

Virgil was furious; I could tell by the way his jaw twitched. But his tone was even as he turned to me and said, “I’ll bet I know now the identity of a short, stocky Dracula seen arguing with Hooper. One of your out-of-town guests witnessed it and told me, but we didn’t have an ID on the man.” He shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. He glanced over at me and said, “I shouldn’t have said that; I’m just guessing.”

“It’s okay. I’ll keep it under my wig.”

He smiled. “I have to go.” He cupped my shoulder and moved closer, staring down into my eyes. “Merry, please stay out of this. It’s a vicious murder, and I don’t want you mixed up in it.”

My breath caught at his warm tone of voice. “I’ll be careful.”

“That’s not what I told you to do,” he murmured. “Stay
out
of it, Merry; I mean it. Let me do my job. I’ve got to go.” He jumped in his car and zoomed off after Channer.

I took a moment to compose myself before turning back to my friends, who were watching, wide-eyed. Just then I heard the roar of an engine and a celebratory hoot from Gordy and Zeke. “What’s going on?” I asked, heading that way.

Pish smiled slightly, creases bracketing his mobile mouth. “I think we could ask the same of you, but given that I’m assuming—thank heavens—that is
not
your blood smeared all over you, I will wait for my explanation until after our little surprise.” Shilo skipped over to me as Pish took my arm and started me strolling toward the old car. “Darling, I know you’ve been looking around for a mechanic, but I found Mr. Hayes, the best one in a fifty-mile radius, and invited him out to fix the Caddy. He came, hauled it out of the garage, and took a look at the engine. It needed a bit of work, but look . . . he’s got it going!”

“What
is
it?” I asked with trepidation, listening to the engine, which sounded pretty darn good, actually, given that it must not have been started for a long time. I circled it, which was a looong walk. “I mean, I know it’s a Cadillac, but . . . what is it?”

The mechanic, a skinny older fellow with gappy teeth and grease-covered hands, said, “Ma’am, she’s a beauty, that’s what she is.” He wiped his hands on a rag and caressed the smooth, dust-covered line of the cream-colored body. “A 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, good body, low mileage, gorgeous ride. Like a well-built woman,” he went on, looking me over with a grin and waggling straggly eyebrows.

I didn’t mind being compared to the Cadillac, except that it looked like it could use a good scrub. Actually, that described me at that moment, too, after the dustup with Juniper and Zoey. Did I have a lot to tell my friends!

“Mr. Lincoln, I’m gonna take it back to the shop and give it a good once-over. Gordy here is gonna drive it for me, since, miracle of miracles, it seems to be running all right. It’ll do it good to get out on the highway and have a run. Work all the kinks out. Just like a woman,” Hayes said, with a wink in my direction. “She gets a little rusty without good hands on her.”

“This is the surprise you guys were working on!” I exclaimed. For a week they had been whispering together and laughing, and yet wouldn’t tell me what it was about. I was relieved it was just this.

Pish turned to me and took my skinned and bloodied hands, the remnant of my scuffle with Juniper, in his own. “My gift, darling,” he said. “It’ll save us all from having to rent vehicles, or use Shilo’s . . .” He paused and looked around, a puzzled frown twisting his lips.

My friend also perked up and looked around, then down the lane, as if she expected her heap to materialize out of the woods. “Where’s my car, Merry?” Shilo asked. “Where’s Jezebel?”

“That is a long story,” I said. “Short version: the jalopy is broken down and still sitting in the town that decency forgot.”

“What were you doing in Ridley Ridge?” Pish asked. “And does it have anything to do with the blood on your clothes?”

“Like I said, long story. Mr. Hayes, could you do me a huge favor?” I asked him to help us out with Shilo’s car, and he agreed to go take a look. I handed him the keys.

“Anything for you,” he said with a slow wink and a toothy smile. “I live out that way anyway. Can take a look as I’m taking the girl home.” He patted the fender again.

“My poor baby!” Shilo mourned, and McGill pulled her to him and whispered that he’d take her to see her Jezebel the next day. She would probably take the car flowers and sing to it.
Kumbaya, my car, kumbaya
.

Zeke and Gordy got into the Caddy and pulled slowly down the lane, followed by Mr. Hayes in his tow truck. I had a car—or I would if the Caddy worked out; it was a strange feeling. I hadn’t owned a car in years.

I was exhausted and still had a lot to tell my friends, but a hot shower and food would come first.

As it turned out, Pish was the only one left by the time I got out of the shower and into yoga pants and a long T-shirt. He and I settled by the fireplace in the kitchen with a pot of tea on the low table between us, and a selection of Chopin nocturnes lilting through the castle from the sound system. Becket snoozed on the hearth, two inches from having his whiskers singed. I was breaking my own rules about a cat in the kitchen, but we were nowhere near the work area. I pondered what I had learned and experienced that day.

“So . . . how did you come to be covered in blood?” he asked, pouring me a cup.

I told him everything, from my stops in Autumn Vale to my impulse drive into Ridley Ridge and the resulting fracas. “I feel like there are a hundred threads in this thing, and not a one of them is woven in with the others.”

“Such as?”

I took a long drink of perfectly brewed tea, sighed, and sat back. “Such as . . . we have a whole lot of players here, all connected in some way: Zoey Channer, Percy Channer, Les Urquhart, Juniper Jones, Davey Hooper. And you.” I watched him. “I’ve been assuming Davey Hooper was here because this is close to where his brother died, but do you think Davey Hooper was perhaps here to track you down?”

Pish shook his head. “There is no reason to think that it’s anything more than a huge coincidence. How would he even know I was here? And why, if he was tracking me, did he not contact me?”

That was a good point, and it answered one of my other questions, which was if Hooper had contacted Pish. So, no. “And you didn’t arrive at Wynter Castle until the very moment his mother was being arrested, so your whereabouts certainly could not get back to him that way.” I thought about it, but I just couldn’t figure a way that Pish’s location could have gotten back to Davey Hooper. “So he was here at the castle for some other reason. Why?”

Pish stared into the fire. I watched his face and wondered: What kept him here? Why was he so determined to help me? Though I have never known his age, I have always known that he is old enough to be my father, if just barely. He treats me like an ideal father and worries over me. He and Miguel were so close, and . . . was that it?

“Pish, I have a completely unrelated question for you.”

“Yes, my darling child?” He smiled over at me, the flickering flames lighting up his eyes and highlighting the faint creases around them.

“Your whole life is in New York City . . . your friends, your family, the opera, the symphony . . . your
life
! Why did you decide to stay here with me?” The enormity of his sacrifice weighed on me suddenly, like something sitting on my chest. “Does it have anything to do with Miguel?”

He pondered that for a while. We sat enjoying the lovely piano music and the crackle of the fire. “Miguel and I both loved the opera, as you know. That is what drew us together as friends rather than just investor and advisor.”

I nodded. At first I had not understood their adoration of opera, or what Shilo calls “foreign folks in fancy dress screeching how much they hate each other in Italian.” But I have come to enjoy some bits and pieces of classical opera. I get the feeling that comes through, although I don’t understand the words.

“I knew him as well as anyone, and even more than his family, he once said. He called me his brother.” Pish glanced over at me, then back to the fire. “I had seen him with other women, but once he met you, there was no one else and never would be. When he introduced you to me, I understood.”

I was mystified, as I had long been. Miguel had been sophisticated and worldly, where I was not. Pish was deeply intelligent and just as sophisticated. What did these two men see in me? It was not false modesty that had me puzzled; I am a good person, and smart. I am attractive and compassionate. But I’m also deeply flawed, hasty, and impulsive at times; full of faults. They, both Miguel and Pish, had always seemed to be so much
more
.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Pish asked gently.

I shook my head.

“You were his rock, someone with whom to build a life. Miguel didn’t speak of it much, but his first wife cheated on him many times, and it wounded his soul. He was a passionate man, more sensitive than he let on. Besides the deep love he felt for you, he knew he could trust you, and so do I. Trust is a rare commodity.” He paused, his feelings too heartfelt for easy expression. “We were both so grateful for you being you.”

I reached out blindly and he took my hand, squeezing it. For a time I thought about Miguel and what we would have built if we’d had the time. He would have made me a better person, because he was so good himself. I had been jealous of what I perceived as his mother’s hold over him—she disliked me, and I found her difficult—instead of being grateful that he was so good to her and what that revealed about him. I hope I would have overcome those feelings and justified his faith in me, given time.

But thinking of Miguel, as painful as it was, was thinking about my past. There was no future with my beloved husband, and I was at peace with how our relationship had developed. I would have grown as a person, within our love, and become a better mate to him in time, if I had only been given that chance.

My heart hurt, though, for the relationship with which I was left. Though I would have trusted him with my life, there were still things Pish did not share with me. I was sure it was a habit born of his care for me and determination not to burden me, but still . . . He had subtly changed at the end of Virgil’s questioning, and that led me to wonder: had Pish Lincoln ever paid Davey Hooper off, and had that crook followed my friend to Wynter Castle looking for more? It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Pish, but he kept trying to shield me from the harsh realities of life, even though I didn’t need protection anymore. I was hurt that he had not told me about being sued in the first place. Was he protecting me again? Or still?

I could never ask him that because I didn’t want to imply doubt and I didn’t trust myself to be able to explain correctly how I felt. It didn’t matter anyway. Even if Hooper had come looking for money from Pish, my dear friend would never kill a human. Unless he was protecting someone he loved, someone like me. But no . . . he would
never
slash someone’s throat.

“Where were we?” I asked with false brightness, tired of the back-and-forth in my brain. “I think we can safely assume Percy Channer was here to try to get his daughter back.”

“But why was Zoey here?” Pish asked. “And why was she watching the house from the woods?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. She reminds me, though, of the kind of kid who belonged to that wannabe gang in LA who robbed people’s houses for fun.”

My friend nodded. “Maybe you’re on to something. Could that involve Les Urquhart, too? And Davey Hooper and maybe even Juniper Jones?”

It was an attractive theory; a falling-out among thieves with one of them as the murderer. Alternately, Percy Channer made a great suspect as the angry father determined to take his daughter away to keep her out of trouble. Had Davey Hooper had a confrontation with Channer? It sounded like Virgil had concluded that, from his statement, he now knew the identity of the fat vampire who’d argued with the cowboy.

We sat in silence for a long while, and I looked over to find Pish drowsing off. “I’m going to tell Virgil all we’ve talked about,” I said.

Pish opened his eyes and smiled over at me. “I think I nodded off. You do that, my dear, tomorrow. Right now I am getting these weary old bones to bed.”

Chapter Fourteen

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
,
I felt miles better. I’d had a good sleep and wonderful dreams, though I wasn’t going to tell
anyone
that those dreams had involved Virgil Grace and his throaty voice and marvelous hands and swirl of chest hair. Not a single person. Especially not him.

I hadn’t thought of Miguel all day the day before until Pish and I had spoken of him in the evening, and though a little guilt tugged at me, I had always known in my heart that my darling husband would
not
have wanted me to mourn as long as I had. Oddly enough, Wynter Castle and Autumn Vale were doing what New York had never been able to. If I was beginning to move ahead with life, beyond the pain of losing the most wonderful man I had ever known, Miguel would be happy for me.

After the gloom of the previous misty, rainy day, a bold and beautiful morning followed a foggy dawn. It was November 1, All Saints’ Day. Over breakfast, Pish and I told Shilo what had gone on the day before and what we had discussed. Shilo was going to see her darling wreck. McGill picked her up right after breakfast, and they headed out to confer with Mr. Hayes, the mechanic, who had towed Jezebel to his shop.

I called the sheriff’s office but was told Virgil was out of town. I left a message for him to contact me when he got back, and was told he had left a message for me: the “scene,” as the policewoman called it, had been released, and I could clean it up if I so desired.

Well, goody gumdrops for me.

How could Virgil leave town in the middle of a murder investigation? That only fueled my desperation to solve the murder of Davey Hooper and clear Pish of any involvement.

I had other things to do. Elwood Fitzhugh was coming out for lunch and to tell me what he knew about my mother, and before that, I was determined to make some headway in the turret bedroom. But first . . . oh, first I had to face my fear and go look at the scene of the crime, and I had to do it alone. For too long I had been leaning on Pish in every crisis. He was a good and loyal friend, but his reluctance to tell me anything sad or difficult revealed volumes about the amount of my life I had placed on his shoulders. I had come to Autumn Vale alone, knowing in my heart that I had to start facing my battles head-on; the crime scene was a battle I chose to
win
on my own.

Pish was ensconced in his suite working on his next book, the follow up to
Cons, Scams, and Flimflams
, this one specifically having to do with banking scams and the folks who create them using naïve insiders and employees. The situation at Autumn Vale Community Bank was tailor-made for the book, and he had the inside track. His first book had been a resounding success, and this one, with his trademark wit and drollery, would no doubt be the same. Somehow he could make a dull subject like banking fascinating.

And I was going to clean up a crime scene. I took a bucket of suds, a cloth, and a scouring brush, not knowing what to expect. I hadn’t seen the area since the night of the party. I opened one of the big terrace doors and stepped out into the cold, clear air, taking a deep breath first and staring off at the far forest, a solid edge of green pines and brown trees. Then, quivering slightly, I stepped along the terrace to my hastily constructed smoking pit.

There was a short bit of crime-scene tape left, fluttering from the stone wall, but nothing else beyond the tables and chairs, the propane outdoor heater, and the lantern. I had already been told that the police were confident that the murder had indeed been committed out on the terrace, but it took me a while to make any sense of that. The casket was gone, and there was no sign of the mannequin. In fact, it was hard to tell that anything at all untoward had happened.

But then I began to see the evidence of the crime: rusty splatters on the pea gravel, a rut where the coffin had been dragged, and there, on my castle wall, a brownish stain in the shape of a hand. I set down the bucket and wandered over and put my hand up against it. It was almost the same size as mine, and the breath was sucked right out of my chest.

I remembered the night, and crouching by the body, so vividly . . . Had I put my hands on him? Yes, I had, and I thought there had been a wetness. Was the handprint my own? I stared at it, but though I vaguely remembered wiping my hands on my dress, I did
not
remember putting my hand on the stone. I examined the stain more closely, but to my untrained eye it was just the shadowy outline of a palm and some fingers. I put my hand over it. Now, with my brain more in gear, I thought the handprint indicated a hand slightly smaller than mine. A woman, then, had been at the scene of the crime, but which woman? Zoey Channer? Juniper Jones?

I lost heart and decided to leave the cleanup to Zeke and Gordy. Baby steps to independence, I thought . . . baby steps. A half hour later, I was painting trim, my dark hair wrapped up in a scarf so it wouldn’t end up paint-flecked and my legs clad in an old pair of Miguel’s cargo pants. He’d loved cargo pants for the numerous pockets that he’d used to stow stuff in, even when he’d had his assistant doing all the filter and lens changes. He was a big man, so the pants sagged on me, but they were comfortable and comforting.

It took two more hours to finish the trim in the turret bedroom, and I finally worked my way up to the curved section of ceiling that had been coated with wallpaper, of all things. It was hard to describe: the wall curved up to the ceiling, but the curvature was bracketed by raised filigree all the way around the room, similar to the design in the great hall. The castle was so big that I felt like my eyes were only capable of seeing so much at a time. As a result, I kept discovering new design features, nuances and details I hadn’t the vision to see previously. Maybe it was just that I was putting new, stronger lighting in every room as we cleaned and painted.

I climbed the twelve-foot ladder feeling a little shaky and peeled back an edge of the wallpaper, seeing if it would come off intact. I was going to have to decide if this curved area should be painted like the wall, in the straw yellow, or the ceiling, a soft ivory.

I misted it with dishsoap and tepid water, let it soak in—I have stripped many an acre of wallpaper, and I have my methods—then peeled off a big hunk of the paper. I stared at the result, astounded. Maybe the frieze would not be painted at all. Under the wallpaper, I revealed a patch of peachy paint with some kind of design. I worked carefully and slowly, forgetting my fear of the ladder, and finally sat on the top, gazing up in awe at the treasure I had uncovered by pulling off a four-foot section of wallpaper. In one fell swoop I had changed my idea about the whole direction of the room’s color and décor.

What I had uncovered was a lovely painted border of celestial blue and peach, with puffy clouds and putti—classical representations of chubby children with wings, peeking out mischievously from behind clouds. The frieze was gorgeous, and the wall below and the ceiling above would need to be painted in complementary colors to offset it appropriately. Peach for the walls, I thought, and blue for the ceiling. Whoever had covered it up with wallpaper had probably done it a favor, preserving it. If I could get all the wallpaper off without damaging it, I’d have a gem. So far, so good.

Somewhere in my family’s past, someone—a wife, an owner, or a designer—had good taste and adequate resources, enough to hire a professional painter who had an awareness of classical painting. The frieze could not be original to the 1820s but had likely been done in the Victorian or the Edwardian era. Had my ancestors traveled and been inspired by the great houses of Europe? I was beginning to wish I could know them, understand them better.

I was sobered by my find, but time dictated that I stop. I cleaned up and prepared for my lunch with Elwood Fitzhugh in a thoughtful frame of mind. How could I bear to part with so much family history, undiscovered as of yet? My mother’s family had very little in the way of information. A couple of generations of only daughters had left a shallow maternal pool, and neither my grandmother nor my mother had talked about family much. They’d died when I was still a callow twenty-one-year-old, self-absorbed and uninterested in such things as family history. But the Wynter family . . . well. There was a history here.

I did my hair up in a French twist, fastening it at the side with a clip Miguel had found in a French antique store, and dressed in an Anna Scholz belted-tunic-and-pants outfit, then descended to make lunch: salad, soup, and savory herb muffins. I had found a straggly patch of herbs growing in the once-great garden; there was oregano, thyme, savory, tarragon . . . lots of hardy perennials. I used to grow them in little pots on my New York windowsill, and here they were growing practically wild! I had snipped and dried a lot, but even in early November the weather was mild enough that I was still able to pick fresh for the muffins.

I thought my new friend would appreciate being fed in the breakfast parlor rather than the kitchen, so I cleared the round rosewood table, put on a hand-tatted vintage lace tablecloth that I had found at Janice’s Crazy Lady Antiques and Collectibles, and laid it with my own china. I was such a romantic when I married Miguel; my china pattern was Royal Doulton’s Juliet, a lovely ornate pink-and-blue pattern that suited the lace tablecloth. I did not have the matching soup tureen, but I had found a beautiful vintage one at Janice’s. It was Blue Willow and had a small chip under the lip but looked magnificent in the center of the table filled with cauliflower and cheddar soup.

I stepped back to look it over, and tears filled my eyes. Miguel would have loved this place! Soaring gothic arched windows flooded the room with light on this bright, clear, chilly November day, and the big Eastlake sideboard, now filled with china and my beloved teapots—the very best of the best for this room—gave the place interest. There were a few old paintings on the gold-and-cream papered walls—landscapes, mostly—and comfortable chairs surrounding the table. I had never dressed it for a meal before, and the tears surprised me. I adored the castle.

Elwood was prompt, and Pish joined us. The two gentlemen kept the conversation light and varied. The former zoning commissioner shared the result of the meeting the day before, that he had been asked to come back to work for a time just to help Autumn Vale out. There was a mess left by Junior Bradley, who was now jobless and skulking about town in shame, and Elwood felt an obligation to assist. I thought the town would be in good hands, and I looked forward to working with him on the confusion over the zoning of my castle property.

After lunch we enjoyed a cup of coffee and piece of pie. Pish doesn’t cook much, but he is a genius with pies. He had made Dutch apple for our guest, and it was delicious.

“So,” Elwood said, sitting back and patting his small, rounded belly. “You want to know about your mother, eh?”

“I do.”

“Well, I remember her very well, and this is why: she called Melvyn Wynter a fascist reactionary reprobate. Your mama did not mince words.”