Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) (24 page)

“Not right now, thanks, Vern.”

I had been standing transfixed through all this. What should I do? Would Judith actually have the audacity to try to harm him? In an Agatha Christie novel, I remembered, a murderer used a hypodermic needle to inject poison into soft chocolates. Judith would certainly have access to syringes.

“Mrs. Dee? I hate to eat alone,” he said, holding out the box,. “Oh, and, er—Ms. Swanson?”

“Hm?” Hester, who had wandered in from the kitchen, was leafing through a new magazine from the stack of mail on a side table. “No thanks.”

“Well, maybe this little coated almond,” Judith said, reaching for her selection and popping it into her mouth. “I just wanted to thank you,” she said, picking up her purse and heading for the door.

Why was she so anxious to leave? Did she want to be gone before anything happened?

Vern followed her, holding the huge open box on one arm. “It was awful nice of you,” he said, his hand poised over a large coconut-filled confection.

“Go ahead,” said Judith. “Take one. Don’t mind me.”

I had to do something.
Think fast, Amelia!

“Was that Sam out there on the porch?” I said. “Here, kitty, kitty!”

Rushing past Vern toward the door, I elbowed his arm and knocked the candy box into the air. Chocolates, jellies, and sugared nuts flew through the air, rained on our heads, then rolled to inconvenient places all over the floor and the lower steps of the staircase.

“Oops!” I said insincerely.

The four of us, including a highly amused Hester, scrambled after the candies, piling them willy-nilly into the box. As I repeated polite apologies, I caught Vern shooting me an injured glare. Judith promised to replace the box with a brand-new one.

By that time,
I thought,
he will have been warned.

Judith left hastily, still dusting powdered sugar off her shoes.

“Why did you do that?” Vern whispered angrily, crawling after a peanut cluster that had lodged itself under a piano leg in the parlor. “You practically slugged me!” He dropped the candy in the box. “Are you some kind of health food nut or something?”

“Look, folks,” Hester said, her hand on the front door knob, “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.” Pulling the heavy door open, she scurried across the front porch and was gone.

“What was all that about?” Vern stood in the open doorway, his hands full of dusty chocolates, as cold gusts swirled around him.

“Never mind.” I pulled him inside and closed and locked the front door. “Just listen—”

While Vern discarded the candy, I explained my theory about UDJ. By the time I’d finished and he’d washed his hands, I’d obtained his complete forgiveness.

“Remember, I don’t have any concrete proof of this,” I cautioned, handing him a paper towel.

“But you told Detective O’Brien, right?”

“Yes, though I’m not sure he took me very seriously.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll follow every lead they get. At least, that’s what they do on
NCIS,
” he added sheepishly. He glanced out a front window. “Oh, no! Another one!”

I looked out. Sure enough, reenacting the scene in which Gaston realizes he loves Gigi, Steve Trechere was bounding up the porch steps. Almost jauntily, he knocked.

“Miss Prentice,” he said as I opened the door, “I see you have disposed of the broken swing.”

I looked out the door. Sure enough, it was gone.

Vern tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “I took care of it. Back porch.”

I stepped back to make way for him. “Won’t you come in?”

“
Merci
. I wanted to talk with you one more time about what we discussed the other night.” Strolling forward, he gazed up the staircase and gestured. “Can’t you see it? Wouldn’t it be marvelous? Guests occupying all those charming rooms upstairs. Perhaps a bride, descending here . . . ”

For a second, we were all three caught up in Steve Trechere’s vision. I hated to break the spell.

“But Mr. Trechere, it’s still not for sale.”

“Ah!” He held up a finger. “That’s true! But perhaps, and you understand that I say perhaps—no pressure, of course—perhaps we could become business partners! You provide the facility, I provide the capital!”

He’d done it again: come up with a fascinating idea and sprung it on me out of nowhere. Why, I wondered, did I find this trait so enchanting in Steve Trechere and so irritating in Gil Dickensen?

“Well,” I said, “if you’ll just let me think it over . . . ”

“Of course! Take your time! We can discuss it another time. I will check back with you later, eh?”

“What do you know about that?” Vern said as we stood on the porch and watched Steve Trechere drive away.

“I don’t know, Vern.” I looked at my watch. “Hey! It’s quarter to five! Better get to the post office, or we’ll have to wait another day to get the journal.”

“Right. Let’s get going. The slip is right here on the table.” He walked into the entrance hall and stood looking at the table. “Uh, oh.”

“What uh, oh? I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I don’t like saying it. It was right here—that slip!” A panicky tone, not unlike that of last night, crept into Vern’s voice. “I swear! I saw it there when you came in the door!” He crawled around on his hands and knees. “Maybe it fell down under here . . . ” He found another chocolate, which he tossed aside with an annoyed grunt.

“Don’t worry, we’ll just run over to the post office and I can show them my driver’s license. Hurry! They close in a half hour.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re real busy,” the man at the post office window protested, gesturing at the long line behind us. “Like I told you, the package was already picked up. See? Signed for and everything.” He held out the slip, containing an illegible scrawl that in no way resembled my own. “There’s so many people come through here, I can’t remember everybody picking up a package.”

There was nothing we could do but leave.

“Which one of them was it?” Vern said as he started the car.

“You’re thinking the same thing I am?”

“Sure. That slip didn’t just walk away. One of them took it.”

“It could have gotten blown away somewhere. There was a lot of activity in that hall.”

“Okay, then—who picked up the package?”

“Good point.”

“And we both know who it was.”

We spoke together, “UDJ!”

I felt sick. This one simple thing to accomplish, and I had failed. “I better call the police station and let Dennis know.”

I didn’t want to call Dennis. I wanted someone to hold me and tell me things were going to be all right. I wanted it to be Gil.

He couldn’t have read my mind, yet Vern said, “How about we check in with Gil first?”

“Sure,” I agreed casually.

They were as busy at the newspaper as at the post office. Gil stepped into the newspaper’s minuscule reception area just long enough to inform us of that fact and to give me a chaste peck on the cheek.

“Was that too randy?” he whispered in my ear.

“It was borderline, but acceptable,” I whispered back.

Vern’s eyes were enormous. “Wow! It’s like that, is it?”

“Amelia, you tell him what it’s like, please. Run along now, kids.” Gil fairly pushed us out the door.

“Call you later,” he said to me, closing his office door.

Vern blocked my exit. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I pushed past him and descended the stairs. “There’s not that much to tell. We’re just going to, um, date for a while and see what happens.”

Vern was beaming as he held the car door open for me. “Works for me!” He looked at the car clock. “Can you call O’Brien from home? I gotta run.”

“You’re not going to stay another night?”

“No thanks. I’ve got to go to class tomorrow, and I promised to make up the time I missed over the weekend by driving for Marcel tonight.”

The atmosphere on the way home was considerably cheerier than before. I attributed it to Gil’s kiss.

“Got just enough time to grab a burger and punch in,” Vern said to me at the curb. He patted my hand. “We’ll get to the bottom of this thing, Amelia, don’t worry. And just to be on the safe side, why don’t you throw those chocolates away for me.” He winked and sped off.

I called Dennis O’Brien. The officer who answered told me he was gone again, so I left a message: “Someone else picked up the journal. Call me for details. Amelia.”

It was a good thing Vern hadn’t stayed longer. I made a quick inventory. In addition to bed linens, the boy had used seven towels, three washcloths, five plates, eight spoons, a fork, three table knives, a coffee cup, two saucepans, numerous slices of bread and half a jar of mayonnaise. Most of these items or their remains were still sitting in the kitchen sink. I had no idea where he found the onion.

Not that I begrudged him. In fact, I enjoyed his company. But it had taken me this long to get used to living alone, and I rather liked it.

The telephone rang. “Amelia,” said Sally Jennings, “I’m glad I caught you.”

“Steve Trechere came by again after you did, Sally. I told him I’d think about his idea.”

“Isn’t it fabulous?” she gushed. “But that’s not the only thing I wanted to talk about. It’s Gil.”

“Gil who?”

“Don’t be coy with me. I’ve known you since fifth grade. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that you and Gil have become an item.”

“Apparently it doesn’t,” I said dryly.

The sarcastic implication was lost on her. “He’s been looking at the Fields’ place on the lake.”

“You’re handling that sale too? You’re some busy lady, Sally.”

“You have to be in this market. Did you know closings have decreased by fifty percent in the last two years alone?”

Whatever that meant, it sounded bad, so I said, “That’s a shame.”

“Anyway, you can do me a favor.”

This sounded interesting. The Super Sally I remembered from our high school days was so self-contained she didn’t need favors from anybody, least of all me.

“What is it?”

“Would you come take a look at the Fields’ house and see if you like it? Gil is still undecided about it.”

“I heard he made a down payment.”

“No such luck. He’s just considering it. But if he knew you liked it, well . . . ”

I could feel my face getting hot. It was embarrassing to be so transparent in front of the entire town. My first impulse was to turn Sally down flat, coolly and with poise. My second, however, was quite the opposite. I had always wanted to see the inside of that place.

“Sure. When?”

“Why, right now!”

I was surprised, but it was only six-thirty and it couldn’t hurt to check out what Gil considered a dream house. “I’ll be ready in five minutes,” I said.

It occurred to me that Lily would enjoy coming along, but when I called her, I got the answering machine. “This is just to let you know that you’re about to miss a little trip with Sally Jennings and me to see the Fields place,” I told it. “Pick up if you’re there, Lily.”

There was no answer.

“Well, I’ve got to run. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I was waiting on the porch when Sally pulled up.

“You’re driving a different car,” I observed as I climbed inside the dark van.

“Company vehicle,” she said, waving at the rows of seats behind us. “It’ll carry nine people in a pinch. Air conditioning vents on each row, duplicate speakers. I like to listen to oldies. Do you mind?” She punched a button on the radio.

“ . . . sorry now?” whined Connie Francis. “Whose heart is achin’ . . .

“Of course not.” I buckled my seat belt firmly.

What I did mind was if she’d had a couple of martinis with Barry before picking me up. I’d seldom seen her this nervous.

“All righty! We’re off!” Sally said brightly. She pulled out into the street without a hitch and I began to relax.

“Exactly how far is this house from town, Sally?”

“A little over seven miles, but it’s good road all the way and it has that gorgeous view across the lake. If it’s not foggy, you can see the Green Mountains.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“I know you’re going to love it. Speaking of love, how did this thing with Gil Dickensen get started?”

Her blonde hair had fallen over one eye. She turned the other on me, brow arched.

I felt my face heating up, but I kept my voice casual. “Oh, you know, he was an old beau—”

“A beau! Isn’t that cute?” She shook back her hair and returned her attention to the road.

“Yeah, well, that’s what people are saying about me these days,” I said, remembering Vern. “Supposedly, I’m cute.”

“ . . . goin’ to the chapel and we’re gonna get married . . . ” sang the radio.

Sally patted my arm with her kid glove. “But you are, Amelia. Cute, I mean. You still have a nice figure and almost no gray hair. And everybody in high school always envied that wonderful clear complexion.”

Nice of her to admit that we went to high school in the same decade. Too bad there was no witness to this. “Fat lot of good my complexion did me at the prom,” I thought, then realized that I had spoken aloud.

“But everybody loved your cousin,” Sally said, repeating the ancient, well-meaning litany that had so humiliated me as a teenager. “He was such a good dancer.”

“Yes, well—” I began, but Sally put her hand back on my arm.

“Shhh! Listen.”

It was a news bulletin. “ . . . in the murder of 19-year-old Marguerite LeBow. Police have arrested Judith Dee, 60, of 488 Mason Street. Dee’s house is the site of a recent shooting incident in which 16-year-old Derek Standish was gravely injured. Reports indicate that while conducting a search of the Dee house, police found an unknown quantity of illegal drugs. Stay tuned to this station for more information as it becomes available.”

Then Jay and the Americans resumed singing about what could happen only in America.

“Wow! Judith Dee! Who’d’ve thought? You know her from school, don’t you, Amelia? Did you have any idea?”

“Derek Standish did. He said that Judith was UDJ. Then she shot him.”

“She was what?” Sally seemed surprised.

“It was a kind of clue that Marguerite left. UDJ—pig Latin for Judy, see?”