Bones & Boxes: a Hetty Fox Cozy Mystery (Hetty Fox Cozy Mysteries Book 1) (12 page)

The knitting group met at two the following afternoon at the home of Krista Raft across the river. The house was a lovely little bungalow probably dating back to the 1930s. It contained a good size living room with a lovely fireplace and glistening hardwood floors. Krista, who looked to be in her early forties, was a small woman with a pleasant smile who seemed to match her house well, being mostly neat and lovely. “May I refill your coffee?” she asked.

I was seated in a very comfortable chair and had been working for about a half hour. “Yes, thank you.”

Placing my project on my lap, I watched Krista pour the dark, rich brew into a small cup. After working steadily since my arrival, I found the thought of a cup of coffee especially welcome. And as soon as it was poured reached out for the cup and savored the wonderful first sip.

“Hetty, how are you settling in to our fair city?” Stella Adare was seated just to my right. She was a woman of around my age with a strong face and flyaway hair.

Apparently now that my nose was out of my knitting, I was fair game. “Well,” I answered. “I’ve managed to find homes for everything I brought with me, although I suspect some of it should have been left behind.” But I left out any mention of a ghost having moved into the house with me.

She laughed. “Ah, I have plenty of that kind of thing, too. But I can’t imagine having to sort through my stuff. I wouldn’t want to let go of it, but I can’t think of a single reason to keep it.

Diane Breach tugged at her yarn. “It’s a disease, holding onto old things. We’d be much better off getting  rid of it. Makes it easier to clean the house, too. All of that crap sitting all over. It’s unhealthy.”

I smiled. “Thankfully most of my stuff is tucked away somewhere. Not sitting out. Extra sheets and towels and dishes are all in drawers or cupboards. The things I can’t bare to part with from my children’s childhood are tucked up in boxes. But you’re right, I should get rid of some of it. It’s easier said than done, though.”

“I hope you like your house,” Diane said. “I’ve always admired it.”

I replaced the cup on the table next to my elbow. “I love it.”

“Are you planning to make many changes,” she pressed

“I’m going to put up fresh wallpaper in a couple of rooms.”

“Who’ll be hanging it for you?”

“A guy named George Pratt.”

“Ah, I’ve used him. He did excellent work.”

“Where did  you live originally,” Stella asked.

“Chicago.”

“Really, this must be a huge change for you then, living in a small town like this.”

“I love it. I have a gorgeous view of the river from my living room window. And I’ve met so many wonderfully kind people.  It’s the way I’ve wanted to live for most of my life.”

Stella glanced up at me from her knitting. “You were lucky to tumble onto that house. It hadn’t been on the market for decades,”

“Yes, I agree. I’m sure there are a lot of fine homes here, but I was thrilled to come across that one.”

“Tell me,” Diane asked. “How did you happen to discover Carrie Flynt’s body?”

I gulped. I hadn’t really talked about the event in detail, but I couldn’t see any way of stepping around the question. “I went as a favor for Rose Stark. She hadn’t been able to reach Carrie and asked if I’d tag along.” I drank another quick swallow of coffee.

“It must have been awful,” Stella said.

I resumed knitting. “It was.”

Diane’s brows drew together. “I always thought it was odd that Rose should be keeping watch on  Carrie.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I could see nothing unusual about it at all.

“Well, they’d never struck me as fast friends in the past.”

“Personally,” Diane said, “I assumed she was doing it for the money.”

“I doubt that,” I replied.

“Seriously, she couldn’t have been left very well off by that disaster of a man she married.”

“Who was he?”

“Arthur Flynt,” Stella said. “The most useless human being ever to grace God’s green earth.”

I leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“He couldn’t hold a job, could he?” She turned to Diane for support.

“I’ll say not. Thank God Rose worked. Otherwise, the two would have starved.”

I frowned. “But she was a sales clerk. That’s not usually a well-paid job, and her home is quite nice.”

“The house was her folks’ place. She and Arthur moved into it after her parents passed. Heavens knows that’s all they got. His folks didn’t have a dime to their name. But, she has a brother who farms. I heard he used to bring meat for them whenever he had an animal butchered. Somehow Rose and Arthur managed to cobble a living together.”

“And don’t forget they kept a garden. That was one thing Arthur was apparently good at.”

“And she canned,” someone else chimed in.

“And other than the house, Rose didn’t inherit a dime from her parents. They lost everything when her father’s candy store burned to the ground.”

“Oh, I remember. Dad always was stunned that they managed to hold on to the house.”

I struggled to keep from shaking my head. I could hardly believe the things people knew about each other in small towns. But it was all quite a revelation for a woman whom I’d considered a friend. Apparently, I’d known very little about Rose. And how had she managed to buy all of those pricey antiques of hers?

***

That night in my bedroom, memories of that conversation drifted about uncomfortably in my mind. The thought of a needful Rose taking care of a woman who’d inherited a fortune didn’t sit well with me. Especially since I’d seen the will and had known about the inheritance. Carrie should have died with a lot of money in the bank. But she hadn’t. That money had to have gone someplace. What if it had been into the bank account of Rose Stark?

I rolled onto my right side. Blackie, who’d been sleeping next to my elbow, got up, padded over me, and took up his position on my other side.

I wished my problems could be solved as easily as his.

If Rose’s husband hadn’t been a successful breadwinner, what was I to make of Rose’s obvious wealth. It was there on display in her furniture and the well-maintained house. Carpets were new, appliances up to date, Walls were painted. Window treatments were lovely
— and costly
. Where had the money come from?

“Maybe Carrie was paying Rose to check in on her,” I muttered. But Carrie barely had money enough to keep herself alive. How could she have afforded to pay Rose?

I rolled back onto my other side. Blackie was apparently offended by the many times I’d flipped over that he jumped off the bed and took himself elsewhere.

“Traitor,” I hissed. And while I enjoyed the distraction, it didn’t solve my main problem. How could I reconcile the two visions I had of Rose Stark?

***

“Good morning,” Andrew said. It was early. We were in the kitchen. The sun had just crawled over the horizon. I proceeded to the coffee maker. “You look like you had a rough night.”

I sighed. “Look, if you have nothing good to say, please don’t say anything at all. I’m not in the mood to be hassled this morning.”

“You know, my mother used to say something almost exactly like that to me.”

“Well, I’m old enough to be your mother, so there you go.” I scooped coffee grounds into a filter.

“Trust me, I don’t think of you as my mother.”

I scoffed as only a woman my age can and added water to the coffee machine. “Don’t kid a kidder.”

“You’re not a kidder. You’re one of the most earnest persons I know.”

I shuffled to the table.

“ So tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing.” I sat.

“How come Blackie left your bedroom last night?”

“You were watching?”

“I never sleep.”

“That must be difficult.”

He shrugged. “I don’t need sleep.”

“Assuming you’re real….” I began.

“Hetty, I’ve told you repeatedly…. I am real.”

I raised a hand. “Okay, but why are you a ghost? Why haven’t you moved on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you have no idea of what you’d need to do to cross over?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

My eyes filled with tears.

He apparently saw them. “Don’t pity me,” he snapped.  “I don’t feel sorry for myself. And now that I’ve teamed up with you, for the first time in all these years, I have found a purpose to this strange existence. That’s a major improvement to hanging around without any path ahead of me. Please, don’t mess this up for me.”

A
s I trudged up the stairs at the library later that morning, I wondered if I shouldn’t have come clean with Andrew? I could have easily told him of my dilemma with Rose, but I hadn’t. I needed to correct that. It was unfair of me to shut him out. Even if he only lived in my imagination, it would cost me nothing to treat him as real. And my doing so would make him feel better if he was indeed what he said he was.

A ghost.
I shook my head at the thought that I was even considering as real something that outlandish.

But the correction would have to wait until I returned home. For now, I continued to make my way to the microfilm stash. I hoped to find something in the pages of the old newspapers that might help me figure the truth behind Rose’s financial condition. I knew it was a long shot and would involve plowing through countless old newspaper stories, but the answer was too important to ignore. For if she had been poor, then there would have been only one path to her current wealth. And it led straight through her good friend, Carrie Flynt.

As I reached the microfilm reader, the librarian approached me. “Back again?” she asked. Doris Broom was a helpful woman, who’d always taken the time to ask the same question on my every visit.

I smiled. “Yes, by now, I’m afraid my car knows the way here on its own. I hope you can put up with me.”

She beamed back at me.  “What are you after this time?”

“More newspaper stories.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re researching? Perhaps I could direct you to the correct edition.”

I wished I could, but I hardly dare bandy Rose’s name about. I had no proof she was the killer. “That’s terribly kind. But I’m afraid this search isn’t that simple. It’s a story on a living person I’m after this time.”

“Anyone I know?” She asked brightly.

“I really can’t say.”

“Ah, so it’s something dark and mysterious you’re after.”

“I hope not.”

A puzzled look slipped across her sharp features. “Are you sure this isn’t something you’d like to share with me?”

“Sorry, I really can’t.”

“Suit yourself,” she said and walked away.

I smiled, nodded at  her retreating back, and pulled a microfilm roll from the storage bin. I hadn’t meant to insult her, but apparently she’d taken offense. I shrugged. I doubted I’d be making many more searches of back issues. But two hours later, after scrolling through a whole lot of newspapers covering a great many years, I finally  gave up in defeat. I had scanned pages and pages and found nothing which told me more about Rose and her husband beyond his obituary.

From it I’d learned about his death and birth and parentage, but it offered nothing about the state of the man’s finances.

I hadn’t thought the search would be easy. How many people leave a trail of  newspaper stories behind them? I grunted in frustration. The failed search had obviously cast  me into a very low humor.

And finding Andrew hovering in the middle of the living room when I reached home didn’t improve it any. I couldn’t help thinking I’d find him much less annoying if he would only sit down. Ugh.

“How was your morning?” he asked.

“Frustrating.”

“Aren’t you going to share?”

“Of course, I will.”

He smiled and nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

“Let me put together a pot of tea, and while it steeps, I’ll fill you in.”

“You’ve cracked it. Haven’t you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

I marched past him into the kitchen. The day’s gray skies made the room dark, and I switched on the overhead light. After the tea kettle sang and the pot was assembled, I sat down at the kitchen table and gazed up at Andrew.

“I went to the library,” I said, “I was looking for news stories on either Rose or her husband.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“How so?”

“Who else is left?”

I sank down into the nearest chair. “You’re not surprised?”

“Not really. But tell me that you found something to tie her to the murders, okay?”

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t. I went to look. You’re right about that. I wanted to know more about her husband. It’s just that Rose’s place is so nice. It takes money to keep things up to date and beautifully furnished. She couldn’t have put together all she has on a clerk’s salary.”

“Do you want me to go hang out with Rose?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. There’s  nothing more there to see. I’ve been in her house. You have, too. And I doubt she’s going to sit around babbling about killing people.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

Blackie marched into the kitchen. I got up and fetched three treats from the box in the cupboard and put them down on the floor.  Then, I poured myself a cup of fresh tea.

“I think you need to tell Detective Oberton about your suspicions.”

I sighed. Andrew was right, but it wasn’t a call I looked forward to making.

***

Detective Oberton arrived shortly before three that afternoon. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I’m swamped today,” he said. I waved him toward the couch.

“Thank you for coming, then.”

He smiled, but it was a small one. “You said you had important information to pass along. Something that couldn’t wait?”

“Yes. I’ve discovered a few facts I think you should know.”

“And they are?”

Andrew appeared over Oberton’s shoulder and gave me an encouraging nod. I took a deep breath and plunged in. “I’ve discovered that Rose Stark lives beyond her means.”

Oberton’s looked at me perplexed. “Most Americans do.”

“No, it’s not like that. According to members of the knitting club, Rose had a husband who was a loser.”

Oberton raised an eyebrow. “The knitting club again?”

I spread my hands on my lap. “Hear me out, please. They said Arthur Stark couldn’t hold down a job. But Rose’s house is well maintained and is crammed with expensive antiques. Everything she owns is of the best quality. And it’s not just that she inherited things from her parents. She’s been able to keep the place up. Her appliances are all modern and top of the line.”

“Now, Mrs. Fox, there could be a hundred reasons for that, none of which include murder. I assume that is what you’re pointing to here. Am I correct?”

“Yes. I think Rose wormed her way into Carrie’s life and drained her of her money.”

“And what evidence do you have of that?”

“None,” I said sadly. “But I know I’m right.”

Oberton smiled. “Mrs Fox….”

“Hetty,” I said.

He nodded. “Right. Hetty, I know you’ve been trying to figure this case out. And Rose has told me how you’re both avid fans of mystery novels. She stressed what a vivid imagination you have.”

“You think I’m making this up?”

“Not deliberately. I’m sure you believe every word you’re telling me. But this is a murder investigation, not a tale from a mystery novel. I need evidence to convict a killer, yet you say you haven’t any proof to back up your claims.”

I sagged back in my chair. I didn’t know when I’d felt more defeated. “If I could find evidence, then would you believe me?”

“Hetty, I’ve put a lot of hours into investigating Carrie Flynt’s death and the death of her nephew. Nothing. Not one shred of the evidence I’ve found has pointed toward your friend, Rose Stark.”

I felt my face flush. “She’s not my friend,” I protested. “Not any more. She has done nothing but play me for a fool from the first day we met.”