The Spring Cleaning Murders (16 page)

“That’s sad,” I said. “For him and for Mrs. Large.”

“But not for Trina McKinnley. Talk about landing in the gravy! Her only problem will be if this Winifred Smalley woman refuses to dish out the money with a large spoon.”

“I wonder why Mrs. Large set things up that way?” I mused. “Why the need for a trustee?”

“She didn’t explain that to Lionel.” Bunty wandered over to the sink and returned with a glass of water. “But I happen to have a pretty shrewd idea what was in Mrs. Large’s noggin, because you see I’m in the know about Joe.”

“Trina’s boyfriend. She introduced me to him at the funeral. What exactly do you know about him?”

“Only that he’s married and”—Bunty looked just a little guilty—"he’s also seeing me on the side. Now don’t look at me like that, Ellie! As it is, I have whole minutes when I’m thoroughly disgusted with myself. But honestly, I only started with Joe to make Lionel jealous, and you know how much he deserves to suffer after what he put me through.”

“And Joe’s wife?”

“Ellie, I hate it when you turn all Victorian.” Bunty pouted adorably, which is not hard to do when one is blonde and cute.

“Joe is a thug.”

“Only on the outside.”

“Right! On the inside he’s merely a creep. Bunty, you need to have your noggin examined!” I removed the plate of cheese and crackers—the only punishment I could come up with on the spur of the moment. Then I put the kettle on so I wouldn’t be the only thing steaming. “Men like Joe are only out for one thing.”

“Not true,” came the equable reply, “in Trina’s case, Joe’s also after the money. Why else didn’t he ditch her when I came along? I know it sounds vain, Ellie, but she doesn’t have half my sizzle.”

“But Mrs. Large might have lived for years.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I stood, teapot in hand, eyes locked on Bunty’s face.

“Only that there are no guarantees in life. Why? What did you think I meant?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, I get it! You’re wondering if Joe decided to hurry things along. But he wasn’t at Tall Chimneys that day, was he?”

“Not that I know of,” I conceded.

“But you’re thinking maybe he got into the house when nobody was looking and gave Mrs. Large a shove into eternity.” Bunty sat thinking this over for a few moments before saying, “Ellie, you’re such a spoilsport. Can’t I have a fling without you suggesting I’ve hooked up with a murderer?”

Before I could reassure Bunty that I didn’t seriously think anything of the sort, a thump came at the garden door and I yanked the steaming kettle off the cooker before crossing the kitchen to see who was out there. Freddy wouldn’t have knocked. Or would he? It might be a game he was playing to amuse Abbey and Tam. Pretending that they were Jehovah’s Witnesses or a band of lost explorers needing directions to the North Pole. It was almost an hour early for him to have brought the children home from play school. But my cousin did tend to make his own schedule.

Another thump made the door shake, and when I yanked it open, I found myself nose to nose with Trina McKinnley’s and Bunty Wiseman’s . . . Joe. Speak of letches and leeches! I was so taken back I blinked twice before realizing he was in a foul temper—if he had any other kind.

“Trina here?” He elbowed past me.

“Yes, she’s upstairs, I believe. She’s not due to leave for another half hour.” This response didn’t appear to go down well with Joe Cool, and Bunty didn’t look happy.

“Ellie! Why didn’t you tell me?”

A good question.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here, Bunty?” Joe snarled. If looks could kill, she would have keeled over on the spot. “Trying to muck things up between me and Trina, is that your game? Better get it through your dumb skull, girl, you and me is through. I ain’t about to risk Trina giving me the shove, not now when everything’s coming up right for a bloody change.”

“I didn’t know your other girlfriend was here,” responded Bunty with commendable dignity. “But don’t sweat it, Joey boy. I was going to tell you to get lost. I noticed the last time we were out”—giving him a lush-lipped smile—”that your hair’s getting thin on top.”

Joe, whatever his other shortcomings, had a fine head of well-greased black hair, but Bunty obviously knew just where to stick the knife. Clutching at his temples, he swung around in search of a mirror. Of course, there being no mirror in the kitchen, he was reduced to the materials at hand. He grabbed up a metal spatula lying by the cooker, shifting it this way and that in a frantic attempt to get an overhead view. The faces he made were not pretty, even before Bunty suggested he also check out the bags under his eyes. I almost felt sorry for him when Trina came into the room.

“Joe?” She stood, a model of efficient household help in her crisp white uniform—curls vibrant, black eyes snapping. “Just what’s going on here?”

“Doesn’t he always hop about looking at himself in pretend mirrors?” Bunty asked kindly.

“You shut your bloody mouth!” Joe rounded on her.

“Why, you rude man! Call me a nosey parker, Ellie”--turning   sweetly   to   me—”but   I   feel   you   should discourage Miss McKinnley from having him pick her up here in future.”

“Hey, Trina don’t work no place without my say-so! And I’ve decided I don’t want her coming here no more.” Joe was working himself back up into a comfortable state of belligerence. “Besides, she don’t need to. So we’re outta here. Right, Trine?” Casting the spatula into the sink, he thumbed for his woman to come to heel. To my surprise Trina nodded and followed him to the door.

“But I haven’t paid you,” I protested.

“Forget it.” She turned around and shrugged. “You don’t seem to be having much luck keeping help, do you, Mrs. Haskell?” She was looking at Bunty as Joe jerked on her hand and dragged her out the door.

“Here, hit me with this if you like.” My friend picked up the discarded spatula. “I’ve properly mucked things up for you, Ellie, and I am sorry. What are you going to do?”

“Find someone else, I suppose.”

“Will that be easy?”

“Oh, I expect so.” Actually, I did have someone in mind. Me.

“You have to be wondering what I ever saw in Joe,” Bunty smoothed out a crease in her tight skirt. “I suppose I was off my loaf. But what does that make Trina?”

“She didn’t strike me as a woman who could be ordered about,” I said, “but life is full of surprises, isn’t it?” Lending substance to this vacuous statement, the garden door opened and in came Ben with the children. He said he’d decided to take the afternoon off so we could go for a picnic.

“Come on, Mummy!” Tam pleaded as Abbey tugged on my hand. “We got food in the car. A whole basket. Daddy made sangriches”—my son always had trouble with this word—”and there’s cake and biscuits and everything.”

“It was a fairly slow morning at the restaurant,” Ben said. “Tam’s right. There’s plenty to eat, as well as a bottle of wine on ice. Why don’t you join us, Bunty?” He’d always liked her.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Bunty tiptoed up on her high heels to kiss his cheek. “I have to get back to work, and anyway I’m in disgrace. No treats for bad girls like me for at least a week.”

“What’s that about?” Ben asked as the door closed behind her. “Or would you rather”—eyeing the twins—“tell me later?”

I picked up Abbey, who blew fairy kisses into my neck. “The gist is that Trina McKinnley threw in the tea towel without even finishing her half day.”

“Are we under a curse, Ellie? She and that bloke were heading out onto The Cliff Road as I pulled into the driveway. It sounded to me as though Trina and her boyfriend were having a blazing row.”

So Trina hadn’t gone meekly down the garden path. But would she make a complete break with Joe? I wondered. All depended, I supposed, on just how dotty she was about the creep.

“Where’s Jonas?” Abbey peered around the room as if suspecting he was hiding under the table or behind the pantry door. “He’s got to come, too, Mummy.”

“‘Course he has.” Tam scampered out into the hall, the rest of us following more sedately at his heels. “Daddy made egg sangriches ‘cause he knows Jonas likes them best. And a chocolate cake, with lots of icing. But I think that’s for me.”

“No, it’s not.” Abbey poked him in the back. “It’s got my name wroted on it.”

“I put both your names on it.” Ben separated the children, who had gone nose to nose and were growling like an angry pair of puppies. “But I can always scrape them off if you don’t behave.”

The threat instantly brought them to heel, although both still looked cross until they heard footsteps overhead and raced across the hall to wait for Jonas to come stomping down the stairs. It made my heart ache to see him try to straighten his back when he saw us watching his progress. But sympathy wasn’t likely to do him as much good as getting outdoors in the sunshine. So when he drew down his bushy eyebrows at the idea of accompanying us on the picnic, I told him I wasn’t having any nonsense from him. I bundled him into an old jacket and got him out the door without listening to his string of protests.

“We’ve all got things we should be doing,” I scolded as we headed for the car. “Ben should be at work, the children should be getting a jump start on learning algebra, and I should be doing aerobics to build up my stamina to finish the spring cleaning on my own, now that Trina McKinnley has given me the boot. But there’s more to life, Jonas, than being productive.”

Hearing that Trina had flown the coop wiped the sour expression off his face. Like me, he didn’t relish the idea of anyone replacing Mrs. Malloy. A sacrilege was what he called it. And he got into the car without any more grumbles to sit with Ben in the front while I got in the back with Abbey and Tam.

“Miss McKinnley find the job too much?” he asked as Ben started the engine.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said, making sure the twins’ safety belts were secure. “Let’s just have fun. Where are you taking us, Ben?”

“I thought we’d go to that little cove you’re so fond of.” He was driving through the gates as he spoke, turning left away from the village in the direction of Bellkiek, our closest market town. I had always loved the area from my visits to Merlin’s Court as a child, and the hint that we were getting close had always been that first tantalizing whiff of the sea. Living here, I’d grown used to it except on occasions such as this when my childlike enthusiasm for magical sunny days and picnics reasserted itself. Rolling the window down, I breathed deeply, savoring the salty tang blown in by the breeze, and the sun on my nose.

The cliffs sheared down to our right, a climber’s delight, but a problem for normal people wishing to get down to the ribbon of beach below. Ben told the children we would have to put them in the picnic basket and lower them by rope, which made them giggle. Jonas didn’t think much of that idea because they’d squash his egg sandwiches, so I looked for the spot where we always parked the car when going to our special cove. When we came within sight of the house Tom Tingle had recently bought, I knew we were close.

There were only three or four houses on that stretch of road. Tom’s was built of red brick and dated from the turn of the century. It was a lovely place, with ivied walls, mullioned windows, and lots of gables. It stood well back from the road, surrounded by rock gardens that I envied.

I wondered if Tom would host a Hearthside Guild meeting in the coming months, or if he had been too put off by what had happened at the last one to even attend in future. Ben stopped the car at a grassy circle shaded by a couple of trees that looked as though they knew their job, having done it for years. Here the cliffs became considerably less steep. There was a path that Ben and I sometimes walked down, but since it was overgrown in parts and there was a waterfall to negotiate, we always took the children down by way of a flight of steps leading down to the sea.

Ben now led the way, with me taking up the rear. The beach was deserted but for ourselves. It was shaped like an armchair, with seaweed-covered rocks scattered about like large cushions. Today the sea spilled towards us in gentle ripples of white-edged foam. Gulls wheeled overhead, uttering their hoarse-throated cries. The sun smiled down as if pleased to see us. And Abbey and Tam were already tugging at their sandals, eager to wiggle their toes in the biscuit-colored sand.

I handed them their buckets and spades, promising to help them build a castle after we had eaten, and told them they couldn’t go paddling until Daddy or I had tested the water. Then I watched them scamper off to position themselves beside their favorite rock. It was always rimmed with a couple of inches of water, making it easy for them to damp down the sides of the sand they emptied out of their buckets and decorate these little edifices with seaweed. Their happy voices floated our way as I unfolded the chair for Jonas to sit in before spreading out the old plaid rug and anchoring its corners with stones gathered from the cliff bottom. Ben got busy setting out our picnic.

And a delicious-looking feast it was. In addition to the egg sandwiches made especially for Jonas, there were ham and cheese ones on wonderful crusty brown bread, a spinach and walnut salad, mushroom pasties, savory eggs, a tray of sliced fruit, and the chocolate cake with Abbey’s and Tam’s names on it. There was lemonade for the children and coffee, along with the bottle of wine, for the grown-ups. Even Jonas admitted that he wasn’t sorry he had come.

“We should do this more often,” I said. “Irresponsibility is good for the soul. I feel a bit like Mole in
The Wind in the Willows
when he said, ‘Hang spring cleaning’ or something of the sort and went scurrying out of his dark little house into the sunlight.”

Ben adjusted a final sprig of parsley on the egg plate. “Before we call the children over to eat, I want to hear all about Trina McKinnley—and don’t leave out the part about how Bunty fits into the picture, because it was clear to me, Ellie, your friend was up to her pretty neck in whatever was going on.” He set out plastic plates and cups and I told him and Jonas, who actually leaned forward in his chair to catch every word about Bunty and Joe.

“The two-timing scumbag!” Ben said of Leather Jacket.