The Devil's Puzzle (35 page)

Jesse grabbed my arm. “No one is going to jail. I just wanted Molly to be somewhere that I can keep an eye on her. So that’s here right now.”

“Fine. She can stay here,” I said, “but Jesse, we have to talk to Eleanor.”

He nodded. “Any idea what this is about?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.” I turned to Molly. “Just stay out here and stay out of trouble.”

I closed the store and pointed Jesse toward the classroom, where Eleanor was sitting, drinking a glass of water.

“Hi, Eleanor.” Jesse’s voice was soft, as if he were addressing someone on their deathbed. I thought it an overreaction until I saw Eleanor’s face, white and stricken.

“Hello, Jesse. It’s good of you to come over.”

Jesse took a chair and moved it directly opposite Eleanor, then sat facing her. “I understand that you have something you want to talk to me about.”

Eleanor smiled slightly. “You have a nice interrogation technique. Gentle, kind. It makes a person want to talk.”

“I’m not interrogating you, Eleanor. Unless I have a reason to.” Jesse looked back to me. I shrugged, hoping my panic didn’t show. It was impossible, of course, but a small part of me worried that my dear grandmother was about to confess to murder.

“What is it, Grandma?” I asked.

She looked at me. “I promised myself I would never speak of this again, but I need to tell you both in case it has something to do with everything that’s happened. There’s something in my past that I’m deeply ashamed of.”

Eleanor swallowed more water, emptying the glass. Jesse and I waited. She seemed as if she were struggling for the words. As we waited, I noticed Molly inching toward us until she was hovering near the entrance to the classroom, standing just behind me.

“Is it something to do with Winston?” I asked my grandmother.

“Yes. Obviously.” A hint of annoyance in her voice. Whatever had shaken her, my curmudgeonly Eleanor had not been entirely lost.

“So,” Jesse prompted. “What is it?”

“As you know, Winston was Grace’s son. He spent his time in South America, and his sister was in California by then. Grace had been widowed in ’62, and a few years later she sold the family’s home in New York and moved up to their summer home in Archers Rest. Winston hired me to be his mother’s caretaker.”

“How did he meet you?” I asked.

“He put an ad in the paper. ‘Looking for live-in companion.’ That kind of thing. He wasn’t comfortable with the fact that I had two small children. He thought it would distract me. But Grace was very taken with the idea. She loved the life they brought to the house. And her own grandchildren lived so far away.”

“And you and Winston became friends?” Jesse asked. I knew he was trying to move the story along, but it didn’t seem as though Eleanor was interested in doing that.

“He was gone most of the time. It was just Grace and me and the children. It was lovely, really. We had many happy years. Then Grace’s health, which had never been good, took a turn for the worse. Winston came back to make sure Grace’s affairs were in order.”

“And he found that they weren’t,” Molly said. “He found that someone was cheating Grace.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. Then she looked at me. “I don’t, Nell.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Jesse put his hand on Eleanor’s. “You went to Nova Scotia and Winston stayed in Archers Rest,” Jesse said. He was so calm and patient. I stood back, admiring his quiet authority.

“Yes.”

“Is that all you know about Winston’s disappearance and death?” Jesse asked.

“That’s all I know.”

“Why would you be ashamed of that?” I asked.

“There’s something else,” she said, her eyes darting up toward mine, then back at the floor. “I didn’t know him very well. Not really. But he and I, we . . .”

“You slept with him?” It popped out of my mouth.

Eleanor blushed. “No. I married him.”

CHAPTER 56

T
he words hung there. Jesse, Molly, and I glanced at each other, then looked away, uncertain of how to react. Eleanor just sat there, for the first time looking old and tired. We waited.

“I didn’t have a lot of money saved up,” she said finally. “With the kids and old debts, I was just getting by. And once Grace died, I wouldn’t just lose a job, I’d lose a home, too.”

“But you had Grandpa’s life insurance, right?”

“It was just enough to bury him,” she said. “He was only twenty-seven. He wasn’t expecting to die, so he bought the smallest policy the company had. I know I misled you about that, Nell. It’s just you kept asking questions, and I didn’t want to . . .”

I could feel myself turning red. I’d pushed her into a corner, forced her to lie. I don’t think I’d ever been so ashamed of myself.

“So what did you do, Eleanor?” Jesse asked.

“Grace was dying and she was concerned about Winston,” Eleanor continued, “about what would happen after she was gone. She worried about putting so much of the family fortune in his hands, but it was more than that. She thought he had spent too much of his life feeling superior to others. She wanted him to get a job, live an ordinary life. To understand what the rest of us go through.”

“How did you fit into it?”

“She thought I would stabilize him, and he would be an answer to my financial worries. We got along all right, Winston and I. And things were different then for a woman like me, with children to take care of. I wasn’t the self-reliant woman you think I was, Nell.”

She looked up at me with watery eyes.

“You were very strong,” I said. “And you still are.”

“I was very foolish,” she said. “I’d been going around with Ed. Nothing serious, but when Grace came to me with her idea, I went to talk to him. I didn’t tell him the details, I just asked where he thought our relationship was going.”

“And he broke up with you.”

“Yes. So, very quietly, right before Grace and I went to Nova Scotia, Winston and I were married. We got married in New York by a justice of the peace. There was no honeymoon.”

She was firm as she spoke. “Grace wanted to throw a big party at Bryant’s Cinema to celebrate our wedding, but Winston was offended by the idea. We had agreed with Grace that we would stay married for a year after her death. And at that time, the trust would pass to him. But only if we stayed married. By then, I guess she figured he would have tasted the kind of life she wanted him to live. And maybe he would have liked it. And maybe he and I would grow into a real marriage, instead of the sham it was.”

“So you were the blackmail,” I said. “Grace blackmailed her son into marrying you by threatening to keep the family fortune from him?”

“I believe so,” she said. “I think that may have been why Winston was so intent on finding out exactly what the fortune was, and if it was possible for his mother to disinherit him.”

“But he found out something else—that someone was taking advantage of Grace,” I said.

“I suppose.”

“Who knew about the agreement?”

“As far as I know, only Grace, Winston’s sister, Elizabeth, Maggie, and of course, Glad’s father. As president of the bank, he was in charge of the trust. But I don’t know if Grace or the others told anyone else.”

“Did you tell Ed?” I asked.

“No. I was too embarrassed to tell him then. I only told him recently, after Winston’s body was found and these old memories came back in a way they hadn’t in years. I’d hurt him back then. When he wanted to get back together I turned him away, with no explanation. I wanted him to have one now.”

“Does Oliver know?” I asked.

“Yes.” She smiled for a moment. “After all your talk about engagements, I thought Oliver and I should be clear about a few things. The day he asked me to go to Paris, I told him about Winston. He was very understanding.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“No one other than the few who knew about it at the time. And Mary Shipman.”

“Why Mary?” Jesse asked.

“Mary is good at helping everyone but herself.”

“And Winston wanted you to leave right away after the wedding?” Jesse asked.

“I’ve always wondered if he wanted to hasten his mother’s death by sending her on a long trip,” Eleanor said. “And I was so ashamed of myself that I’d married for financial security. That I’d done it to be put in Grace’s will . . .”

“It wasn’t for you,” I said, “it was for the kids.”

“Still. It’s not something to be proud of. It’s not something I ever wanted you, or even my own children, to know.”

“And when you came back from Canada?” Jesse leaned toward Eleanor.

“He was gone. And I was relieved he was gone. Relieved he didn’t come back,” she said. “After Grace passed away, Elizabeth took control of the trust. She sold me the house for a dollar, and I lived off the small amount that I’d saved up until the shop got going. I felt so guilty about the money Grace left me that I gave it away the first chance I had.”

“To Ed’s father,” I said.

She nodded. “At first I expected Winston to show up again, but as the years passed and he wasn’t heard from, I assumed what Elizabeth assumed: that he’d died somewhere in South America. But I didn’t think about it too much, I’m embarrassed to say. I wanted to put it behind me and forget about it.”

Tears rolled down Eleanor’s face. “I’m sorry to be such a disappointment to you, Nell. Here you have Jesse with a ring in his pocket and you would rather be an independent woman than marry too quickly, but I jumped at the first chance for security.”

I sat next to her. “You could never be a disappointment to me, Grandma. And I think you were right about Winston. He had a one-way ticket to Lima. If he was coming back, he wasn’t planning on doing it before the year was up and he could get the marriage annulled.”

We sat quietly for a moment and let Eleanor collect herself. As we waited, I heard a knock on the door.

“Looks like you have customers,” I said.

“Let them in.” Eleanor seemed relieved at the intrusion.

It wasn’t a customer. It was Greg.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he said. “I’m just looking for the police chief.”

“He’s in the classroom.”

I pointed toward the semi-enclosed room at the far end of the shop and watched as Greg walked to it. I lingered near the door. Eleanor married Winston? My mind couldn’t put them together—the arrogant man who felt he was better than the residents of Archers Rest, and my grandmother, who would never accept such snobbishness.

Jesse emerged from the classroom while I was still at the door. Greg trailed behind him looking worried.

“There’s a disturbance at Jitters,” he said. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“This never stops,” I said to myself. I walked back to Eleanor. “Are you okay, Grandma?”

“Fine. I just need to sprinkle some water on my face and get myself together. Go with Jesse. Make sure everything’s okay across the street.”

CHAPTER 57

I
ran out the door and across the street, with Molly only steps behind me. We arrived at Jitters just in time to see Jesse breaking up the most ridiculous skirmish I’d ever seen. Glad had spilled Ed’s coffee on his lap and apparently had thrown his apple spice muffin on the ground and stepped on it.

“What’s going on?” I asked Carrie as we watched Jesse move Ed to the back of the coffeehouse.

“Ed said it was a fine day for a walk, and then she dumped his coffee on him.” She giggled. “I tell you, this place is a front-row seat to every interesting thing that happens in this town.”

“This is stupid,” Jesse said. “You’re too old for this, the both of you.”

“He is a cruel man,” Glad said. “And he’s been doing terrible things around town. You ask him.”

“Ask me?” Ed stood up, the coffee still dripping down his pants.

“Ask her what she and Winston were doing the summer he died. She’s your killer, Chief.”

“That’s the most insane accusation,” Glad said, walking toward the door. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to it.”

“Yes, you are.” Jesse’s voice boomed with authority, and the whole place came to a standstill. “You sit down, Glad Warren, or I will arrest you, handcuffs and all. Ed, you sit at the table on the other side of the shop. And everyone else, buy coffee or get out.”

He let go of Ed and looked over at Glad, who sniffed a little but sat where she was told.

Jesse sat first with Glad. “Okay, tell me what happened.”

“He insulted me.”

“Without editorializing, Glad. What happened?”

“He made a remark that was intended to insult me . . .”

Ed waved his hands. “I said it was a nice day for a walk.”

“He knows what that means.”

Jesse took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know what it means, Glad, so why don’t you tell me.”

“It was a remark about my sister. About her issues with being outdoors. Ed and Mary were an item for a few years, but he broke up with her because of her agoraphobia.”

“I said it was a nice day for a walk,” Ed said again. “And she dumped coffee on me.”

“Why do you think, Glad,” Jesse continued, ignoring Ed’s outburst, “that Ed has been doing terrible things around town?”

“Because he’s the type.”

“That’s your evidence?”

“Considering who I am, that should be enough.”

“Who are you? A boring stick-in-the-mud, that’s who you are,” Ed yelled. “Determined to ruin your sister’s life.”

“Me ruin Mary’s life?” she yelled back. “That’s a laugh. I’m protecting her. I’ve always protected her.”

“The only person she ever needed protection from was you.”

At that Glad got up. “You can arrest me if you want, Chief, but I’m not going to stay and listen to this.”

We all watched her leave, including Jesse, who didn’t make a move to arrest her. Instead he turned to Ed. “What about her and Winston?”