A Most Curious Murder (6 page)

She went to open her driver’s side door, put a hand up to her eyes, and looked back at him.

Johnny Arlen waved, then pushed slowly off from the truck as if he intended to walk over.

Jenny didn’t return Johnny’s wave. She didn’t wait. She got in her car, started the motor, and pulled out of the parking lot before her strangling emotions got the best of her.

A man looked up from the kitchen table when Jenny got back with the groceries. Maybe early forties, stocky, with curly black hair. Jenny guessed he was Mom’s new carpenter.

A scar on his left cheek gave him a kind of worn look. The same with the narrow, dark beard outlining his chin and cheeks. Not your ordinary Bear Falls man with the usual open face and friendly eyes. The man stood when she walked in, leaning slightly against the table edge. He held out his rough hand to take hers when Dora introduced them.

“Glad to know you,” Tony Ralenti said in a husky voice hovering between a whisper and a growl. A firm shake. A long shake. He gave her a smile that spread into a charming grin.

Jenny, flustered by the man, said she was happy to meet him, too, and turned away to hide her flushed face. She set the grocery bag on the counter.

Mom was at the stove. “I called Mr. Ralenti while you were gone. It’s been so hectic. People from everywhere offering help—most with books to donate, a lot wanting to know what was happening over here. I’ll be getting more books than I can ever put into one library box—unless we make the box a
lot bigger. Some even offered money to get it built again. Of course . . .” Mom smiled at Tony, “I wouldn’t take money. My husband would be appalled. I wrote down the names of all the books I could remember on the sign-out sheet. I want to pull everything together fast.”

She turned to look over her shoulder at Jenny. “I feel so bad about Adam, then here I am, all excited about a new library. Ordinarily, I’d be too tired to think about starting over, but I’m not. Truly, I think I want to get it going again.”

Her face was bright as she chattered too fast for Jenny to keep up.

“I guess she’s changed her mind,” Jenny said to the man sitting at the edge of his chair, hands between his knees. “When I left, she wasn’t so sure about rebuilding.”

He looked at her directly, his eyes seeming to know her. She felt the tiniest buzz of electricity run down her back.

“I was sitting on the porch.” Dora wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “Feeling sorry for myself, I’ll have to say. And sad about poor Adam. Louise Dyer called to say she couldn’t live without my library. It’s so far to Traverse City.” Dora clucked and shook her head. “Minnie Moon called. Poor thing was crying. Everybody’s just distraught. No one should be deprived of books. That’s what Louise said, and that’s what I believe. And my husband, Jim—wished you’d known him, Tony. He would’ve liked you. I just know he’d be saying, ‘Full speed ahead.’”

Tony nodded and looked down at his hands. “I’ve been by here. Saw the house. Nice job. It’s too bad about what happened. Think I’ve got an idea of how the book box should look.”

“Jim wanted it so much for me. I guess I’d feel like a traitor if I just shut up shop without trying.”

Mom chuckled to herself and went back to making coffee, measuring grounds and water into her machine, flicking a
switch, then standing back to see if she’d got it right. When the machine began to bubble, perk, and drip into the carafe, Dora clapped her hands and turned to the two at the table.

“That’s when I called Tony.” She smiled at Jenny. “We were just talking about things. I thought maybe we could add a children’s wing—or another whole house, as I said before. Tony, here, says that’s no problem. He’s going to do a drawing for me. I’m happy you’re back, Jenny. Maybe the three of us can come up with something splendid.”

With the mugs filled, Dora fussed over the sugar bowl, knocked a hunk of dried sugar from the rim, then pushed the milk carton toward Tony.

She busied herself examining the groceries Jenny bought and then put things into the refrigerator and the pantry. “Did you get bread, dear? I don’t see it.”

Jenny had to shake her head. “Forgot the bread.”

“And dish soap?”

Jenny shook her head again and searched for excuses. “So many people there. You know what Draper’s is like. Everybody wanted to know what was happening over here. I . . . just . . . wanted to leave.”

The last, at least, wasn’t a lie.

Dora frowned, looking as if she suspected something could be up. “No bagels?”

“Oh, Mom. I forgot . . .”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m a dolt.” Jenny smiled from Dora to Tony, then pulled her mug to her, making a big deal of blowing at the hot coffee, tasting it, then blowing at it again and again.

Tony Ralenti got busy drawing on a large pad of paper in front of him, then stopped to take a sip of his coffee—which didn’t require a lot of embarrassed puffs the way Jenny’s had.

When he turned the pad, Dora and Jenny leaned close, squinting. Both of the sketched houses were bigger than the old, single house—or seemed to be. Both looked very close to the house Jim Weston built, but somehow not quite.

“They’re not . . .” she started to say.

“Two so close together? Looks crowded,” Jenny said.

“How about two posts? Two platforms?” Tony thought fast. He smiled at Jenny. “I could make one post shorter than the other.”

She looked away from those dark eyes. The rough hands spread wide on the paper were easier to stare at. Work worn with purple veins—and that scar. She had a crazy urge to run a finger over that scar. She held her breath and turned away. When she got up to get a glass of water, she kept her back to Tony. First handsome man to look at her in months and she was turning to jelly.

Ovaries, she told herself. Womb. Ticking biological clock. Another trick of dumb Mother Nature. She was thirty-six, a lot smarter than she’d been at eighteen. Or even at twenty-eight.
Stay on guard
, she warned herself.

She turned back to him with a calm and disinterested face.

“Yes.” Dora thought hard. “One of them has to look exactly like the house Jim built. The other can be fantastical, maybe covered with fairies.”

“Your boy readers won’t go for the fairies.”

“Then fairies and superheroes.” Dora clapped her hands.

Tony dipped his dark head. “I’ll come up with something. I’m taking a couple of photos of your house before I go. Make sure I’ve got the one just right.”

“Talk to Zoe about the other one,” Dora suggested, then looked distressed. “But remember, I don’t have a lot of money. I can’t . . .”

“The whole thing’s not going to cost you much, Mrs. Weston. Maybe materials, that’s all. You do plenty for everybody. Zoe’s filled me in.”

“I’m not a charity case, either.” Dora lifted her chin.

“Not charity, ma’am.”

“Dora,” she corrected, smiling.

He nodded as he closed the sketchpad and tucked it under his arm. “I’m going to give you exactly what you want . . . eh . . . Dora. Not just for you, but for Jim Weston.”

Dora teared up, and their agreement was set.

Jenny noticed that he limped as he walked toward the door. It wasn’t pity she felt for the man, more interest in the way he wore his past.

With his hand on the door handle, Tony Ralenti turned and caught Jenny watching. “Shot in the knee when I was a cop,” he said. “Nothing I can’t do, though. Just do it a little slower.”

He shrugged, smiled, and was gone.

Dora looked at her daughter. “Well!” was all she said and turned to cover a smile.

***

Zoe came in after dinner with a big “Yoo-hoo! It’s me!”

She sat down, plunked her elbows up on the table, and set her face into her cupped hands. “Chief Warner thinks I killed Adam Cane.”

“Heavens, Zoe. He wouldn’t think that. Why, lifting a hoe over a man’s head—it would take strength. More a man, I’d say.” Dora nodded to prove the rightness of her words.

Zoe pushed up the sleeves of her billowy blouse. She flexed one arm to show a prodigious muscle. “I’m always working in my garden. I’ve got muscles on top of muscles. I saw the chief’s face . . . he thinks I did it, all right. First because I had trouble
with Adam over Fida—who still isn’t back.” There was a catch in her throat. “Then Adam was found dead in my garden. ‘It would be so nice if something made sense for a change,’ as Alice said.”

When she turned to face Jenny, her little face was drawn and sad. There were dark circles under her eyes. “I can’t think straight. Not with Fida gone. Where is she? What’d he do to her? You know, with Adam coming over to my house like that, he had to have done something to her.”

Zoe shook her head. “But then, who killed Adam? Who set that tripwire? Maybe the killer took her. Maybe he couldn’t resist a perfect little dog.”

Nobody knew what to say. Jenny got up to fill a bowl with leftover chicken soup and set it in front of Zoe.

She looked down into the bowl, at the couple of pasty noodles floating in it, then picked up her spoon and ate without a single snide remark.

When she’d finished, she set the empty bowl back on the table, nodded to Jenny, and sat back. “I’ve been thinking one awful thought,” she said.

Jenny and Dora waited, expecting a quote straight from Alice’s mouth. Jenny swore she would faint—keel over and hit the floor—at even one more.

“Maybe he killed Fida earlier. She was out from about three on. If he did, she’s probably buried in his yard. But I don’t dare go over there and search. If they caught me . . .”

The straightforward, sensible comment unsettled Jenny.

“Why would he come back later? How would someone know he would be there?” she asked.

“Maybe he forgot something. Maybe he did Fida in with that . . .” Zoe couldn’t say the word.

“Hoe?” Jenny filled in.

Zoe nodded. “And came back to get it. I wish I could go over there. Maybe look in his shed or see if anything’s disturbed in his yard. You know, like something’s been recently buried there.”

They sat and thought a while.

“Guess I could go,” Jenny finally said. “But not until morning. The police should be gone—they keep going in and out. If somebody catches me, I’ll give some wild excuse.”

“You could be over there looking for a book we’re still missing,” Dora offered, followed by a devilish grin and a nod at her most acceptable idea.

“I don’t know.” Zoe sat up straighter. “They might throw you in prison for trespass. Or,” her face wrinkled, “for stepping on weeds that don’t belong to you . . .”

“As I was saying,” Dora went on, giving her daughter a sly little smile, “we don’t know where all the books from the library got to. I mean, there were more books out to readers than I can remember. Books were thrown everywhere. Maybe some were even blown into his backyard. Personally, I think those are fine reasons to search Adam’s yard.” She thought a moment. “But are those just lies?”

Jenny shook her head vehemently.

Zoe spouted, “‘The Dodo says the Hunter tells lies, but who believes a Dodo? Dodos don’t exist. So the Hunter says the March Hare tells lies. We know
he’s
barking mad. The March Hare says both of them are lying so who can ever figure out the truth?’ I wouldn’t worry, Jenny. If anyone should ask you what you’re doing, just give them a blank look, think of the poor March Hare, and demand your rights.”

“What rights?”

“Oh, the right to stick your nose in wherever it can go. The right to look for buried books in anyone’s backyard.” She
thought hard. “The right to be a sleepwalker and go wherever your dream takes you. All of those and so much more.”

Jenny laughed. “I plan to do that, Zoe, exercise my rights. And if I find a little bottle, I’ll drink it down, and then I’ll either hide in the policeman’s socks or I will lift one foot and step on him—depending on the direction of the drink.”

Zoe beamed, her face settling into a happy moon. “Now you’re getting the idea. That’s wonderful, Jenny. You’re learning how the world really works.” Zoe clapped her hands. “Maybe a little bit of magic after all.”

Jenny grinned and went off to her room, stepping high as, behind her, Zoe’s happy face fell back to sadness.

She saw the yellow notice on the back door and decided she’d better read it—in case her basket of lies wasn’t protection enough from the law.

She climbed the back steps cautiously, hoping a policeman in full uniform—flat hat and all, nightstick at his side, gun drawn—wouldn’t open the door and jump out at her.

The yellow paper said no one was to enter the premises without permission of the Bear Falls Police Department. She frowned and wondered what the word “premises” covered. Only the house? The yard and all surrounding territories? She chose to exercise her right to look for buried books in anyone’s backyard and hurried to part the weeds at the back of the property, searching the ground, hoping for anything but the body of a little dog.

She moved to the leaning shed at the very back of his overgrown yard. The old building hadn’t seen a coat of paint since she was a little girl. She pushed the half-opened door with her shoulder. Inside, the air smelled of musk and raw earth. Packed straw from old birds’ nests and leaves blown in a dozen autumns ago littered the shadowed dirt floor. On top of a crooked workbench
lay a dusty array of rusted hand tools: a saw, an awl, two trowels, and a set of wrenches—all fated for the place old tools go to die.

Beside the tools stood a crooked oil lamp with a dust-covered glass shade in what looked to be an intricately set mosaic pattern.
Tiffany
, she thought, then got her mind back to what she’d come for.

Everything was beaten down, dead looking, and undisturbed. No new grave in there.

Jenny shut the door the best she could behind her and started a slow walk back and forth, across the center of the yard. She stepped hard as she walked, testing for soft ground underfoot. She made her way over the furrows of an abandoned vegetable garden and then out to what must have once been a well-kept lawn.

“Hey, there!” a voice called from the back porch of the house on the other side of Adam’s. “Whatcha doing? You from the newspaper?”

The large man in a T-shirt with a big, red heart on it leaned over the railing of his slightly crooked back porch. Jenny choked her panic back and smiled as he gestured at her with the beer bottle he held. “I can help ya.”

“No,” she said. “Not from a newspaper. I’m just looking for something.”

“Oh.” His face fell. “I could have given you a quote or two about my neighbor there, Adam Cane. Knew him. Didn’t like him. If you’re not a reporter, then whatcha looking for?” The man took a long swig of the beer, set it on the railing, and waited for an answer.

“I’m looking for books.”

“Books? You kiddin’ me? The old guy who lived there was murdered yesterday. What in hell you doin’ looking for books at a time like this? Don’t seem right, you ask me. Instead of doing
that, we should all be out chasing that little lady over there.” He pointed around Adam’s house. “There’s your killer. I’d say let’s get this over with and take that lady off to prison.”

She could tell he wasn’t a man she’d be able to talk to sensibly but didn’t want to say out loud how ignorant he was.

“I’m here because my mother asked me to search. Dora Weston? Your neighbor?”

“You’re Jenny, I bet. I remember you. You were a hellion. Warren Schuler—remember me? Heard about what happened to that library of your mother’s. Is this about that?”

Relieved he was distracted, Jenny nodded, agreeing that “this” was about “that.”

She nodded again, wondering how much time the man had to kill.

“You know who the old guy was?”

“What do you mean?”

“Adam Cane.” He sniffed and rolled his eyes as if she was too dense to bother with. “One of the Cane family—that mansion over on Oak Street. Can you imagine him living the way he did? Coulda used help with that yard. Got that old car. What I heard was his sister cheated him outta the family money. You know about that?”

She nodded. “But I don’t believe everything I hear.”

“You ask me, we should chase all the rich people right outta this country. Get rid of ’em. Nothing but a bunch of bloodsuckers. Along with politicians. Get one big boat—”

“If you chase all the rich away, who would pay your salary?” She couldn’t help herself.

“I don’t work. Got a disability.”

She wished he’d go back inside his house. Maybe if she didn’t answer too many of his questions . . .

“Don’t you have to look for books on the inside of a house?” The man burped in one hand. He looked embarrassed and grinned, saying he was sorry.

“We thought maybe the people who tore the Little Library apart might have run through here. You know, throwing books away.”

The man nodded. “Yeah. I can see that, I guess. Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Got to get ready for court. I got jury duty in Traverse City today. Hope you find your books. I’d help your mother out, but I don’t think she’d much like the kind of books I read.”

The man snickered and went back inside his house.

***

Jenny walked faster through the rest of the yard—outer edges to center. One foot after the other. Nowhere was the weedy ground upturned. No mounds of dirt. She got down on her knees to check for soft spots, places where puddles stood, not draining after the rain.

The yard hadn’t been touched this spring. Weeds and grasses grew thick, strangling what might once have been flowerbeds. She neared the center of her search grid and found nothing—a relief. She could tell Zoe not to worry. Fida was not buried in Adam’s backyard.

As she turned to leave, her toe caught on something beneath a section of bent grass. When she knelt to look, clumps of weeds appeared to have been dug up, then pushed back in place. She ran her fingers along the edges of the clumps—around a line of raised and dying vegetation.

She closed her eyes and dropped her head. This wasn’t what she’d hoped to find and not something she wanted to dig up. She didn’t want to unearth a mangled white dog with a red collar.
She closed her eyes and thought of leaving it all untouched. It would be easy to say she’d found nothing.

But she couldn’t.

It didn’t take much to pull at the edges of the separated clumps. Sticking her fingers into the spaces and pulling hard brought up the first one, and then another—two squares with disturbed dirt beneath. The ground was wet and soft. With only her fingers to dig with, she scrabbled at the ground until she felt something and sat back to gulp her breakfast back down her throat.

She couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t. Another wave of revulsion swept over her.
Not the little, one-eyed, feminist dog
.

She wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans then dug some more until her fingers hit something hard.

She felt along the length of it—not fur—and harder than she imagined a little dog could be—stiff or not.

More like metal.

She pulled the thing from its burial site. A tool. A hatchet, but not rusty. Barely dirty—the soil cleared away easily.

Jenny took the hatchet in both of her hands and stared at it—end to end.