Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) (9 page)

“Amelia, I said—” Her expression was blank, then the light dawned. “Oh fiddlesticks!” she exploded, “I forgot.”

“How long has been?” I asked.

“Eight days,” Lily glanced at her watch, “eleven hours and twenty minutes, give or take, gloriously smoke free,” she concluded with a grimace.

“Trust me, Lily, you’ll be glad about this eventually.” I rummaged in my purse. “Your food will taste better, your clothes won’t smell, you’ll be able to—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spoken like a true never-smoker. You and my doctor sing the same dreary song. Put a sock in it, will you? I’m doing this thing, but if I gain as much as an ounce, so help me, I’ll—oh, thanks,” she said as I handed her a stick of gum. “But back to the subject at hand: Mr. Dickensen’s car.” Deftly unwrapping the gum, she folded it into her mouth and slid her eyes over at me.

“Oh, that,” I said glibly. “He just came over to work out a program of newspaper subscriptions for my students. They use them for research papers.”

Lily looked doubtful, so I played my trump card. “For instance, did you see that article on the Lake Champlain monster last week? There’s been another possible sighting. It was fascinating.”

“Hmpf!” The rhythm of her gum chewing speeded up abruptly. “I’m telling you, Amelia, it’s a hoax!”

I peeled a stick of gum and relaxed. Lily was off and running and would be good for a five-minute soliloquy.

“I’ve lived here for—well, all my life, anyway—and not once in all those years did I ever hear a single word about that stupid monster!”

“But the scientists say—” I put in wickedly.

“Scientists, my Aunt Fanny! Snake oil salesmen, all of them! Especially that nut, what’s-his-name Alexander. Now there’s a scientist for you—about ten ants shy of a picnic, parading around everywhere in that yellow slicker, looking like an ad for frozen fish sticks!”

Really, this was too easy. I decided to pour a little more fuel on the fire. “I don’t know, Lily. I’ve read his articles in the newspaper. It was fascinating stuff. He has doctoral degrees in marine biology and—”

“Don’t give me degrees! Some of the stupidest people I ever knew were up to here in degrees.” She indicated how high on her forehead. “All I know is my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather fished every inch of the lake, winter and summer, since before the Depression. They could tell you all about it—all the history, all the Indian legends—and never, not once, did any of them ever mention one word about any old monster.”

I looked at my watch. It hadn’t been five minutes, but as the Bard said, “ ’Twill do, ’twill serve.” Her mind was off Gil.

“Well, Lily, you’re probably right,” I said soothingly.

“You bet your bippy I am!” Lily took a tighter grip on the steering wheel and glared at the road ahead.

“Bippy? Does anybody even know what that is? My dad used to say that.”

She answered with a sniff.

Ever mindful of highway safety, and fearful of elevating Lily’s blood pressure any further, I kept my mouth shut for the last few minutes of the drive and enjoyed the gorgeous view. People paid big money for bus trips just to see beautiful leaves like these: red, orange, and shimmering gold in a glorious symphony of eye music, breathtaking even under overcast skies.

“Speaking of being right,” Lily began after a few more miles of riotous foliage slipped past, “wasn’t I right about that Abbott woman and the mailman? Didn’t I tell you—”

For the next few miles, she filled the time with choice bits of information and speculation about the personal lives of various friends, enemies, and distant acquaintances. I let most of it float over my head until I heard a familiar name.

“ . . . and sure enough, it was Sally Jennings,” she said, reaching for the pack of gum and sliding out a fresh stick.

“Wait, explain that again. Sally Jennings what?”

Lily sighed and spit the chewed wad into a wrapper. “I told you, Amelia, it’s not that complicated. They want to turn the houses into specialty shops and restaurants. You know, antiques, crafts, ye olde tea shoppe.” she said, pronouncing the last e’s. She handed me the little paper-wrapped gum pellet. “Here, stick this in the ashtray for me, would you?”

“What houses?”

“Amelia! Pay attention! Some of those big old mausoleums on your street. It was supposed to be a deep, dark secret, but Barry Jennings got to drinking over at the Elks Club the other night and it all came out. I swear I’ve never seen that husband of Sally’s lift a finger except to hold a cocktail. I bet he hasn’t shown one house in ten years, while you see her everywhere. She runs that whole company, poor girl. Anyway, it seems some millionaire from Montreal is bankrolling this Jury Street deal.” Lily knew nothing about real estate and less about banking and finance, but she was remarkably adept at picking up jargon.

“So that’s it,” I said, remembering Sally’s enthusiasm and her very eager buyer.

“That’s it all right. Sally’s going to want to kill Barry. The rest of those places are gonna go for top dollar now. And of course Nate Meconi’s going to be steaming when he hears.”

“Why?” Nate and his wife, Sophia, lived at the other end of my block.

“Because he’s already gone and sold his place, that’s why,” said Lily with firm assurance. Her sources were nothing if not reliable. “And Sally had Nate believing she was doing him a favor! Of course,” she said, tilting her head significantly, “I did hear that Nate’s place was simply falling apart.”

Lily signaled for the turnoff to the ferry dock. “You might say it served him right, though, telling everybody how anxious he was to move to Oregon.”

Leaving our hometown for greener pastures was a cardinal sin to Lily. She had never really forgiven my sister Barbara for moving to Tampa.

I shivered. The car was warm enough, but this information gave me a sense of foreboding. I tried to assess what it could mean. Surely they couldn’t force me to sell my house. Or could they? There was such a thing as eminent domain. I had seen the state university condemn whole neighborhoods as it expanded.

Lots of people wanted my house too. “You live at the old Prentice place?” they would say. “How lucky you are!” And I would smile and nod and keep silent about the property taxes, the antique plumbing and prehistoric wiring I was going to have fixed just as soon as I could afford it, never mind the shortage of teenage boys willing to mow lawns and shovel snow. But those things didn’t matter, any more than it mattered that Dad had stuttered occasionally, or that Aunt Beatrice wore a wig to hide her thinning hair. You excused these things in someone you loved.

And I loved that place. It was more than a house. It was a part of my identity. My birthright. Why couldn’t people understand that? My family had lived there. My parents had died there, and, as I was in the habit of saying lately, I would probably die there too.

Gil had said as much in the heat of our last big argument all those years ago. “You’re wasting your life in this place. You’ll end up like that miserable, shriveled-up woman—Miss what’s-her-name—in
David Copperfield!
”

“Shh, keep your voice down!” My parents were upstairs. “And if you mean Miss Havisham, that was
Great Expectations
,” I said coldly and turned away from him.

“Whatever you say. But when I come back—”

“
If
you come back,” I snapped over my shoulder, though tears were filling my eyes. Gil’s unit was shipping out to Iraq within the week. “Look, Gil, this is not the time to get married. I’ll be in college next year. Mother and Dad need me here now that Barbara’s married. Besides, if we were married, and you were—” I broke off.

“All right. Have it your own way.
If
. I’m warning you
if
you don’t marry me now and
if
I come back, things just won’t be the same!”

We had both been right, in a sense.

The earnest young man I loved died in the deserts of the Middle East, and a hardened cynic had returned in his place. Things were certainly not the same. Since he hadn’t answered any of my letters, and apparently had no interest in reestablishing any old ties, we had settled into an uneasy truce.

Until recently.

“That’ll be nineteen dollars, for car and passenger,” said the man in the window.

I blinked and snapped out of my trance. We had arrived at the ferryboat dock.

While Lily fumbled in her purse for her half of the fare, I reached across and handed the man mine.

The sky above Lake Champlain was overcast, a common occurrence in October, and a wind was whipping up little whitecaps, but a good crowd of cars had gathered for the first crossing of the day.

Lily pulled her car into line behind the last vehicle and turned off the engine. She waved a hand at the gray expanse of lake. Our destination, the Vermont shore, was easily visible from where we sat. Near the dock, seagulls bobbed patiently among the waves.

“Look at that, Amelia. You’ve lived near that lake all your life. Can you tell me you ever heard one single tale about any dumb sea monster until the last few years?”

I had more important issues on my mind, but I obediently searched my memory. “I guess you’re right, Lily.”

“Oh no!” Lily grabbed my arm and squeezed hard. “Speak of the devil,” she whispered through teeth clenched in a rigid grin.

A wide, smiling face, bristling with salt-and-pepper whiskers and topped with a battered tweed fedora, appeared in her open car window.

“Why, ladies, what an unexpected pleasure!” said a cheerful tenor voice.

Lily cringed. She always had the same reaction to Professor Alexander Alexander, marine biologist, historian, and monster hunter.

Lily and I held diverse opinions of the Professor. While she found him irritating, even repulsive, I harbored an amused affection for him. It seemed to me he was a cross between Don Quixote and Captain Ahab, with a touch of Mr. Rogers thrown in for good measure.

“Dr. Alexander,” I cried delightedly.

“Please, Miss Amelia, you agreed to call me Alec, remember?”

“Of course—Alec.”

He beamed at us. For the past decade, with the aid of an apparently limitless foundation grant, he had been conducting field research on his all-consuming life’s work: the Lake Champlain Monster.

Depending on who was doing the talking, the monster was either a mysterious aquatic dinosaur occupying the darkest depths of North America’s own version of Loch Ness or a shameless fake, dreamed up to promote tourism and dupe empty-headed dreamers such as the amiable, hymn-whistling Professor Alexander.

I was squarely and fearlessly on the fence on this issue, though I couldn’t help but appreciate Alec’s chivalrous friendliness and good-natured persistence in the face of frequent ridicule. No matter how much one might doubt the existence of the monster, no one ever questioned Alec’s sincerity, so his efforts were tolerated in our community, however loony they might appear.

“What brings you to the lake, ladies?” he asked as a pair of binoculars and a camera suspended from his neck bumped against the side of Lily’s car.

“We’re going shopping in Burlington,” I answered. “How about you?”

Lily turned her face toward me and widened her eyes in exasperation.

Alec tugged his beard thoughtfully. “Oh, the usual, y’know. Weekdays, I’m in m’boat using the sonar, weekends, on the ferryboat. Not much luck, though last week I did get a wonderful shot of a significant row of ripples.” His face brightened and he held up his camera. “I have it here somewhere. Would ye like to see?” He patted his slicker pockets.

I had never been sure if it was just my imagination, or if the Professor did indeed have a faint Scots burr, but after hearing him roll the r’s in “row of ripples,” there was no doubt. I tried hard not to picture all that hairy bulk dressed in a kilt.

“Oh,” he said sorrowfully, “I must’ve left it in m’other coat.” He sneezed loudly, several times. “Forgive me, ladies,” he said, repairing the damage with a ragged handkerchief. “It’s allergy. Never know when it’ll hit. Got some dandy capsules for it, though,” he added, smiling. His good spirits seemed indomitable.

“Well!” said Lily suddenly, turning back toward the open window and Alec. “We mustn’t keep you, must we? There’s probably a lake full of ripples out there today.” She accompanied her statement with a tinkling laugh that had a hysterical edge to it.

“Oh, right you are,” murmured Alec, trying to untangle his camera cord from Lily’s side mirror. He succeeded at last and straightened up. “
Bon voyage, Mesdames
,” he concluded with a surprisingly good French accent. “Good shopping!” He lumbered away, whistling “Amazing Grace” under his breath and rearranging his gear.

“And good riddance,” said Lily, pressing the button that automatically locked all four doors, then the one that raised the windows.

“I don’t see why you dislike him so much,” I commented as we watched his distinctive yellow form move through the maze of cars toward the ferry. “He’s just colorful. He brings in tourists, you know.”

“Maybe,” she sniffed, “but what kind of tourists? Tabloid readers and curiosity seekers, that’s what! Used to be, people would come here to go swimming or fishing or to see museums and learn about the history of the place. It was dignified. Now it’s like a circus side show. ‘Pay your quarter and see the freak.’ We may have lost the Air Force base,” she said, referring to the stringent defense cutbacks that had set our town’s economy reeling, “but we’re not as desperate as all that.”

Just then, I glanced over my right shoulder where a grotesque visage, its features distorted, was pressed against the glass of my window. Even as I jumped in fright, I recognized the face.

“Vern!” I opened the window. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry. It was immature of me. Gotta be careful with people your age,” he added with a wink.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Gil—” I stopped, remembering who was with me.

“Who’s this?” Lily interrupted.

“Lily Burns, meet Vern Thomas,” I said, as he thrust his long arm past my face for a hearty handshake. “He’s Gil Dickensen’s nephew. Carol’s son.”