Murder by Christmas (Edna Davies mysteries) (18 page)

Chapter 20

“Where have you been?” Edna nearly hissed at Mary, not certain whether to shake her or hug her.

They had collapsed side-by-side onto the sofa while Charlie arranged with the officers to take Kevin to the station where the detective would join them as soon as he’d spoken to Mary. One policeman was instructed to drive Kevin’s pickup to the station.

Mary put her gun on the cushion beside her, but before she could turn to Edna, Charlie walked back into the room, distracting them for the moment.

“I’m so glad you showed up when you did,” Edna greeted and motioned for him to sit in Albert’s chair across the coffee table from the couch. “How did you know not to ring the bell?”

“The black Humvee’s out front, the one with the tinted windows that you told me about. When I saw it in your driveway, I thought I’d better let myself in quietly. Since we both thought that car might belong to whoever’s been trolling the neighborhood, I thought I’d first better make sure you were okay.”

Edna’s heart skipped a beat at this news, but before she could react, Mary spoke up.

“Kevin’s truck was out there, too,” she pointed out. “Did you consider that he might be the dangerous one and not the driver of the Humvee?” Her tone was challenging.

Charlie shook his head. “His behavior’s been a little odd, but I figured the bigger threat might come from Edna’s other visitor.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “In any case, not knowing what to expect, I thought it might be better to apologize after than announce myself too soon.”

Edna was still shaken over the image of the huge dark vehicle in her driveway, when Mary spoke again. “It’s my car.” She looked pleased with herself, as if she’d put one over on the detective. “Actually, it’s not really mine. I borrowed it from a friend ‘cause I didn’t want Kevin to spot me.” 

“You’re the one who nearly drove me off the road?” Edna’s relief at seeing her friend alive and well was changing to annoyance that Mary had not only made her worry, but had frightened her half to death with that monster of a vehicle. Curiosity got the best of her. “Why did you keep squirting washer fluid on the windshield?”

Mary’s face reddened. “I was trying to flash the lights, so you’d know it was me.” In her own defense, she added quickly, “I’m not used to that car. I kept hitting the wrong lever.”

The mental image of the looming hulk of a vehicle returned to Edna’s mind, along with a fresh picture of Mary behind the wheel, turning on the wipers instead of the headlights. At the image, Edna began to laugh. “I’m not certain I would have guessed it was you even if I’d seen headlights instead of wipers.” The release of tension that had gripped her for the last hour was like a dam breaking, and she couldn’t control her fit of giggles. As she laughed, first Charlie then a reluctant Mary joined in, until they were clutching their sides with the pain.

When she was finally able to control herself, Edna pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped tears from her eyes. “I think Mary needs to explain where she’s been for the past two days, but first I could use a drink. Mary, put that gun up somewhere, out of sight. Charlie, build up the fire, if you would. It’s gotten cold in here.”

Leaving her guests to do her biding, she went to the kitchen for a bottle of wine and two glasses. Knowing Charlie wouldn’t drink alcohol before going back to work, she heated a mug of coffee, left over from breakfast. Mary followed her into the kitchen and went through to the mudroom to stow the gun in her down jacket. When she returned to help Edna carry drinks into the other room, she’d also released her hair from the tightly wound scarf and looked more herself.

Once they were resettled comfortably by the blazing fire Charlie had stoked, Edna took a sip of her cabernet and began to feel warmer and more relaxed. Mary and Charlie were now sitting in opposite corners of the sofa across the coffee table from where Edna sat in her favored chair.

Charlie was the first to speak after taking a gulp of coffee and setting the mug on the table. He laid an arm across the back of the couch and half turned to Mary. “I need to get to the station to interview Kevin, but first I want to hear what you have to say. Did you see him enter Laurel Taylor’s house, the afternoon she died?”

Mary shook her head. “I went back to the shelter that afternoon to talk to her about Bethany. I drove up toward the garage in case someone else wanted to pull in behind my Jeep. That’s when I noticed a man in the back yard. Didn’t know it was Kevin at that point. He was crouched, like he was trying to duck out of sight. He was acting so suspicious, I stopped and got out of the car. I pulled out my cell in case I needed to call for help and then moved as quietly as I could, up along the side of the house. I wanted to see what he was doing.” Mary paused to stare into her glass, and Edna suspected her friend’s mind had drifted to the events of that fateful afternoon.

“Is that when you recognized Kevin?” Charlie prompted.

His voice seemed to bring Mary back to her story, and she raised her head to look at him. “I still didn’t know who it was. When I got to the corner of the house and peeked into the yard, he was running toward the back fence. I only saw his back, so I shouted at him. I think I said ‘hey’ or ‘stop’ or something like that. He didn’t even slow down. I figured I could catch him on the next block, so I ran back to my Jeep. All I could think was to get around to the next street to see who it was.”

“That’s when he saw you,” Edna guessed, remembering the earlier bits of conversation between Kevin and Mary.

She nodded. “I got around the corner and up the side street as fast as I could. There’s a four-way stop at the intersection. He was going straight through when I got there. Guess my car must have surprised him ‘cause he turned and stared straight at me. I knew he recognized me, but he didn’t stop or slow down. That made me wonder what he’d been up to.”

“Did you go back to the shelter?” Charlie asked.

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I took off after him. Wanted to talk to him, find out why he’d been lurking around Laurel’s back door. I mean, he acted like he knew he shouldn’t be there.”

“Why did you disappear?” It was Edna’s turn to ask the question uppermost on her mind. “I’ve been so worried about you. Why didn’t you call?”

“First off, I couldn’t find my phone. Don’t know where I might have left it.”

Charlie dropped his arm from the back of the sofa and straightened his left leg. He paused while his hand disappeared into his trouser pocket and reappeared with a cell phone that he handed to her. “Edna found it beside the driveway at CATS. Keep it safe for the next few days, will you? Once this case is closed, you can toss it back into the snow if you’d like.” He resumed his half-turned position with a twinkle in his eyes.

Mary grinned, looking slightly embarrassed. “I thought I’d put it back in my jacket pocket when I was running back to the Jeep. Guess not, huh?”

Edna interrupted their exchange, not quite ready to forgive her friend. “You could have called from another phone. It’s been two days.”

“I didn’t want to get you involved. You might’ve gotten hurt. Besides, if you didn’t know where I was, nobody could get it out of you.”

Mary’s eyes asked forgiveness, but Edna knew her friend’s hound-dog personality. Once she caught a scent, Mary was apt to forget about everything else.

“Where did you go? Where have you been all this time?” Edna wasn’t going to let Mary off the hook without further explanation.

“I lost Kevin in town when he ran a red light.” She looked sideways at Charlie and muttered just loud enough to be understood. “Where are the cops when you need them?”

Charlie snorted a laugh as he slid his hand from the back of the sofa to slap playfully at Mary’s shoulder.

“Children,” Edna said sternly before smiling affectionately at both of her friends. Her manner sobered as she said, “What about your pets? Where are they?”

“I’m getting to that,” Mary said. She took an agonizingly slow sip of her wine. “When I lost Kevin, I was so close to home, I decided not to go back to Laurel’s. I had to feed Hank and Spot and get ready for your tree-trimming party.” Her smile looked both lopsided and woeful. “It was about an hour later, I found out Laurel was dead.”

“How did you hear?” Charlie asked, sitting up.

“Got a call from someone,” Mary said.

“Who? Someone at the station? Was it the dispatcher?” he asked.

“You know I don’t give up my sources,” Mary said, a determined set to her jaw.

“Work that out later,” Edna said to Charlie. “I don’t care how she found out. I want to know why she disappeared and why she didn’t call us.”

“I got to thinkin’,” Mary said. “Kevin knew I’d seen him at the house. He sure acted weird, but I couldn’t say for sure he killed anyone. I didn’t get that kind of reading from his actions, but just in case, I thought I’d better play it safe and get lost for a while. If I guessed wrong and he had killed Laurel, he wouldn’t stop at doing something to me … or to Hank or Spot.” Edna thought she detected a slight catch in Mary’s voice when she mentioned her dog and cat. “I wanted to watch him, see what he was up to. If he tried to run, I could tell Charlie where he was. He knows my Jeep, though, so I needed a different car.”

“Whose car are you driving? You nearly drove me off the road with that thing, you know.” Edna glowered at Mary, but couldn’t be angry. Nothing had happened except a momentary fright that she and Gran would end up in a ditch. All “water under the bridge” now.

“Belongs to a friend of mine. Sorry if I scared you, but I’m not used to driving something that big. I did try to flash the headlights, you know.”

Before they dissolved into fits of laughter again, Charlie spoke up. “Who’s this friend?”

Mary switched her gaze to him before looking down at the wine glass she was twirling between her fingers. “She’s a psychologist. Works part-time at the hospital. She and her husband spend Christmas with their daughter in Maine. I look after the house whenever they go away, water her plants and stuff, so I thought it’d be a good place to hide out. Hank and Spot are there now, watching the place, making sure it’s safe.” She slid her eyes sideways at Charlie, smirked and dodged another playful swipe of his hand.

“What did you find out when you tailed Kevin?” Edna asked to interrupt the horseplay.

“Nothing much,” Mary admitted. “The storm hit, so he spent most of the time plowing out driveways. Even did mine and yours, which surprised me. I don’t think Norm would approve of his employee spending time on someone who wasn’t a payin’ customer.” She grinned, probably delighted at the thought of the meanest man in town doing anyone an unwitting favor.

“Sounds like he wanted an excuse to hang out in this neighborhood, waiting for you to show up,” Charlie said to Mary.

Edna briefly studied the detective. “Do you think he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t kill his wife?”

Charlie held up a finger, indicating he’d answer in a minute, before he turned back to Mary. “When you saw him in the backyard at CATS, did you notice if he was wearing gloves?”

She shook her head, but didn’t speak, having just taken a sip of wine.

He looked at Edna. “We took prints the afternoon the body was found, before the break-in that night. Next morning, when I saw the place had been ransacked, we got prints again. Unless he was wearing gloves that afternoon, he hadn’t been in the house. His prints showed up only in the second set, indicating he was probably our burglar.” He turned again to look at Mary with raised eyebrows.

She spoke firmly, sounding confident of her facts. “I’m sure he wasn’t wearing gloves. I notice things like that.”

“Is it true what he said about breaking into his own house?” Edna asked. “If he’s Laurel’s heir, you can’t charge him with breaking and entering?”

“I let the lawyers work those things out,” Charlie said, looking at his watch and getting to his feet. “Mary, I need you to make a statement. I’ll let it go for tonight, but I’ll expect you at the station around nine tomorrow morning.” He motioned to the cell phone she’d laid on the coffee table. “Keep that handy, will you?” Before she could retort, he backed away toward the hall and raised a hand in salute. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have to interview a suspect.”

Once he was gone, Edna felt drained after the tension of the evening, but she wasn’t quite ready to let Mary out of her sight. She asked her to put another log on the fire while she poured them each another half glass of wine. They had just settled back in their chairs when the doorbell rang. They frowned at each other, silently curious as to who would be calling at nine o’clock in the evening, before they both got up and went through to the hall.

Edna opened the door to find Bethany standing on the stoop, hunched into her coat and shivering with cold while falling snow turned the top of her head and shoulders to white.

“I t-t-thought he was never going to l-l-leave,” she said through chattering teeth. “C-c-can I come in?”

Chapter 21

Bethany slipped past them into the house. Before Edna closed the door, she noticed with some dismay that the snow was falling as steadily as ever. Even the lights on the sleigh and reindeer in the middle of the circular driveway wore little caps of snow.

“What are you doing here?” Mary’s tone held both surprise and concern.

“L-l-looking for you.” Bethany stopped a few feet into the hallway, hugging herself and trembling with cold. She seemed as startled to see Mary as the red-head to see her.

“Did you just drive down from Boston?” Edna was also wondering why the young woman was back in Rhode Island when she’d so recently gone home for the holidays, and in such a rush, too. When Bethany nodded in reply, Edna asked, “How are the roads?” She was thinking about the trains, buses and airplanes, as well, hoping her children would get through from Colorado and not be stranded in some strange and faraway place for Christmas.

“S-s-slow,” Bethany looked miserable. “T-t-took me th-th-three hours to g-g-get here.”

“You drove down in this weather looking for me?” Mary’s brow creased in puzzlement.

“We shouldn’t keep her standing in the hall,” Edna said. “She needs to warm up. Help her off with her coat and take her in by the fire. I’ll make some hot chocolate.”

“You didn’t hitch, did you?” With narrowed eyes, Mary was grilling Bethany when Edna entered the living room carrying a tray with a steaming mug of cocoa, a plate of sugar cookies and another of crackers and cheese.

Bethany shook her head and smiled at Mary who had reseated herself on the couch. “No I didn’t hitch. I’m not that crazy. I borrowed my brother’s car.” Standing with her back to the stoked up fire, Bethany seemed to have warmed up enough that her teeth were no longer chattering. She took the steaming chocolate that Edna handed her and drew it into her chest, clutching the mug with both hands. “Thanks.”

“Doesn’t his car have a heater?” Mary sounded harsh, almost angry.

Edna sat back in her recliner and mentally began to formulate questions while she waited for Bethany to answer Mary first.

The young woman explained that she’d parked in Mary’s driveway, but had pulled in behind the bushes, hoping her car wouldn’t be seen from the road. She’d turned off the lights and the engine for the same reason. She hadn’t wanted the police to spot her. Once she’d seen them leave, she left the car and walked over to Edna’s. She’d been looking for Mary, but when she saw the house was dark and nobody answered the door, Bethany thought Edna would know where Mary was.

“Why didn’t you just call me?” Obviously, Mary had forgotten that nobody had been able to reach her for the past two days.

“I did, but when I called your cell, some guy answered. I hung up.” Bethany’s eyes widened. “A policeman came to my parents’ house, wanting to talk to me. I figured you know the cops, you have friends at the station, so you’d know what I should do. When I couldn’t get you on the phone, I had to come see you. I don’t want to talk to them alone.”

“Why not?” Mary lifted one shoulder as if being interviewed by the police were no big deal, but Edna sensed she was flattered. “You gotta go talk to them. They’re not going to leave you alone until you do.”

Edna smiled, hoping to reassure Bethany. “Charlie’s a good guy. It’s part of his investigation into Laurel Taylor’s death to question anyone who was at the shelter the day …” she hesitated before ending faintly, “the day it happened.”

“You didn’t kill Laurel, did you?”

Even though Mary asked the question as if the thought were ridiculous, Bethany nearly choked on the sip of chocolate she’d just taken. “Of course not.”

“Then why are you hiding from the police?” Edna asked in a quieter tone than Mary had used.

“I’m not hiding,” Bethany looked at Edna, her jaw set in defiance. “I’ll talk to them, but first I want to know what’s going on. I thought Mary could tell me what she’d heard from her friends--you know, what the police found out about how Laurel died and all that. Then, I figured she’d go to the station with me.” She gazed at Mary. “When that cop showed up at the house last night, my parents freaked.”

“Didn’t he question you, the Boston officer?” Edna asked.

“No way,” Bethany shook her head emphatically. “I wasn’t home. When he told my dad that he wanted to talk to me about a murder, my mother went hysterical. My brother called me at my girlfriend’s and told me about it. Said the cop was coming back this morning, and I should probably stay where I was.”

Edna was beginning to get annoyed at the young woman’s immature attitude and behavior. “If you haven’t done anything, why don’t you just meet with the police and tell them what you know.”

Again, Bethany’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “I don’t want to be hauled into some police station and grilled for hours.” She moved away from the fire and sat on the sofa next to Mary. “I thought if you went with me, they’d be nice and not keep me waiting forever.”

Edna swallowed her laughter and shook her head at the misconceptions people get from television shows. Mary did laugh. “That’s rubbish. You know better than that.”

“Charlie’s the one who wants to talk to you, and I’ve already told you that he’s a good person,” Edna said, taking a sip of wine before continuing. “He asked a friend of his in Boston to go by your home and ask what you might have seen at CATS the afternoon Laurel died. That’s all. He asked his friend a favor, so he wouldn’t have to drive up to Boston to see you himself.” She leaned toward Bethany, hoping to impress upon the young woman the importance of any contribution she could make. “He thinks you may have seen something or someone. He only wants a statement from you, as he does from Mary. They’re not accusing you of anything. If you did nothing, you have nothing to worry about.”

The three women fell silent. Mary picked up a piece of cheese and popped it into her mouth as she turned to look at the fire, now burned down to glowing embers. A minute later, she looked around at Bethany who was leaning over the coffee table to select a cookie. “Tell us about that afternoon. Why did you go to see Laurel, after you sent us to talk to her for you?”

When the young woman seemed not about to answer, Edna prompted, “Vinnie said you saw the Perrys’ car in Laurel’s driveway. What time was that?”

Bethany shrugged, still studying the plate of cookies. “Three-thirty, four. Somewhere around then.”

“Did you go into the house?” Mary asked.

Finally, Bethany sat back on the sofa and looked at Mary with wide eyes. She shook her head vigorously. “No. No way.” She relaxed then, but only slightly. “It was probably a good thing someone else was in the house. I had time to think about what I was doing. I don’t know why I thought I could stand up to her.”

Edna wanted to pin down the vehicle Bethany had seen. “It was definitely the Perrys’ car you saw and not their van?” she asked.

“That’s right. It was that old Volvo station wagon Roselyn drives.”

The image of the mistletoe she’d seen on the floor of the passenger’s side formed in Edna’s mind. “But you didn’t see anyone and you didn’t go into Laurel’s house?” she asked.

Bethany shook her head again. “No. When I saw that Roselyn was there, I rode around the block a couple of times. By then it was getting really cold. I was thinking about what I’d say to Laurel. Then I realized she’d just kick me out of the house like she did before.” She scowled. “It just wasn’t worth it.”

“Are you certain it was Roselyn in the house?” Edna asked.

Bethany shrugged and took a bite of cookie. “I didn’t actually see her, but I’m sure it was her Volvo.”

“Did you see anyone else in the neighborhood when you were riding around?” Mary asked.

“There was a guy installing a cable TV dish on someone’s house down the block, and a Honeydew Home Repairs truck on the next street over. That was sort of weird. The truck wasn’t parked in front of any house or anything. It didn’t look like he was working. He was just sitting there. I saw him staring at me when I rode up the street toward him. I crossed over so I wouldn’t pass close to his truck. I think he’s another reason I decided to head back to town. He scared me a little, just sitting there and staring.”

Mary nodded at Edna. “Must’ve been not long before I got there.” Then she frowned. “I didn’t see the Perrys’ car, though. I think you’re right that it must have been Roselyn, but I didn’t see her if she went back toward town when she left. We would have passed each other, I’m sure.”

Edna thought they’d exhausted all that Bethany knew about the afternoon at the cat shelter. The talk about bicycles, though, made Edna remember Charlie’s mysterious rider. “Did you bike out to this neighborhood the other evening? It would have been the night after we met in Mary’s kitchen?” she said to Bethany.

“Eew. No way I’d ride a bike way out here in the dark.” She hugged herself and settled back in the corner of the sofa as she frowned at Edna. “Why?”

Edna explained about Charlie’s bicycle thief and the tracks he’d seen in the snow the morning he came to help hang Christmas lights around the house and the yew trees.

Bethany laughed, seeming to enjoy a private joke. “That must have been Codfish. He told me this story about how he was in town one night after lending me Vinnie’s bike. He was walking around town, killing time, when he spotted this bike leaning against a building. He said the temptation was too much. He hopped on and rode up and down a few side streets. He probably didn’t remember exactly where the bike had been by the time he finished with it.” This time when she chuckled, Mary and Edna joined her. “He said he did that a couple of times, mainly just practicing. I gave him his bike back the afternoon I left Mary’s. Went right to the Kitchen and left it behind the diner so he could put it in his truck.”

“Do you think he would have peddled all the way out here?” Edna asked, still amused at the story and thinking Charlie would be, too.

Bethany nodded and smiled mischievously. “I betcha anything he was checking on Miz Cravendorf. He’s got a thing for her, you know. He heard her granddaughter was going to be out of town for a few days, and he wanted to make sure she was okay. His truck makes one heck of a noise, so I bet he rode the bike so she wouldn’t know he was watching out for her. Guess the snow put a stop to that.”

“Or he decided the two-mile trip was harder than he thought, particularly in the cold.” Mary laughed.

“That would explain the footprints on the deck, too,” Edna said, and told them the rest of what she and Charlie had seen, but not what she and the detective had speculated.

The women all fell silent again, each lost in her own thoughts for a minute or two as they stared at the dying embers in the hearth. Edna remembered how she and Charlie had worried about someone lurking around the neighborhood. That thought led her to wonder about Kevin and his odd behavior. “Do you think Kevin might have pushed Laurel down the stairs?” she asked Mary, breaking the silence.

Mary shook her head. “If he was going to kill someone, it would have been Jake. You saw the way Laurel threw herself at our handsome young vet. If Kevin had seen that, he’d ‘ve been jealous as all get-out.”

Edna thought again of the crumpled mistletoe on the floor of the Perrys’ Volvo. Maybe Kevin wasn’t the only jealous one. She told Mary and Bethany what she had seen through the car window. “Do you think Roselyn could have killed Laurel? Or, at least if she was at CATS that afternoon, maybe she saw something. Maybe Laurel was already dead by the time Roselyn got to the shelter.”

Bethany shivered, but not from the cold this time. “You mean Laurel might have been getting murdered right when I was there?” 

“Of course not. Roselyn wouldn’t’ve done a thing like that.” Mary shook her and turned to Edna. “We could go ask her what she saw, though. She’s at the clinic every morning to feed the animals in the back kennel. We can go see her first, then go to the grocery store before half the town is up. That Humvee is great in the snow. If it gets much deeper, you won’t be able to budge that Buick of yours.”

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Won’t the clinic be closed?” Edna asked. She’d be glad for the lift to Stop and Shop, but wasn’t sure about wasting precious time to satisfy Mary’s obsession over criminal matters.

Mary set her empty goblet on the coffee table. “Doesn’t matter if they’re closed or not. She still has to go in to tend to the animals. Whadda ya say? I’ll pick you up at eight.” She grinned. “You’ll like riding in the Humvee. I’m thinking of getting one.”

“You two can get up early, but I’m sleeping in.” Bethany pushed herself to her feet. “After you finish talking to Roselyn and buying groceries, will you go to the police station with me?” she asked Mary.

“What about your party? It’s tomorrow night, and you’re expecting quite a crowd,” Edna said, thinking of her own last-minute chores.

Mary shrugged and stood up. “If this storm continues, half the people won’t show up for my party. Besides, we already did the baking. Priscilla and Faye are catering the rest of the food. We’ll have time to go ask Roselyn a few questions in the morning. It won’t take long.” She glanced up at the grandfather clock in a corner of the room. “Right now, Hank and Spot are probably worried about me. Come on, Bethany. My friend’s house has an extra room you can use. I’ll drive you to your brother’s car, and you can follow me. That way, I’ll know where you are, and we can both go talk to Charlie tomorrow.”