Bernadine Fagan - Nora Lassiter 02 - Murder in the Maine Woods (13 page)

I could have picked up the mail when the snow stopped, or after my father plowed, but I was a kid who had just finished reading
The Long Winter
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I needed to trudge.

I was not a kid any more. I’d be gone before this winter set in, that was for sure. Good. I didn’t want to be here for all that snow. I stepped back out of the w
ind, snuggled into the collar of my wool jacket, and hit Nick’s number on the top of my Favorites list. He answered immediately. I smiled at the sound of his deep voice, and yes, his sexy voice, if I do say so.

“Can’t talk now. I’m handling another burglary investigation.”

“Something big?”

“One of the cabins near the lake.”

“Just tell me whether you cleared Uncle Walter yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s holding you up?”

“He’s reluctant to talk about Buster. More specifically, his argument with him.”

“How about Lenny and the laptop?”

“He has the case and admitted it belonged to Buster, but the laptop inside belongs to him.”

“You believe him?”

“Didn’t have to. I saw the proof. It’s his computer. He showed me the receipt for it.
Brand new.”

SIX
TEEN

With all the chores
Great-Aunt Ida and I did the next morning, I didn’t get to visit the former jailbird until late in the afternoon. After the horrendous experiences I’d endured at Vivian’s place when I fed the Pomeranian pack, I dressed appropriately. In rags.

I discovered suitable stuff in a black plastic garbage bag in the back of the closet—huge canvas overalls that could not have belonged to petit
e Great-Grandma Evie, whose room I occupied. I could have done without the mothball smell. When I finally had the guts to check myself in the mirror, I wished I hadn’t. Add a little straw and I was a scarecrow come to life, a woman in search of a yellow brick road.

Vivian’s dogs greeted me like their long lost pal, yipping and scrambling, vying for position around the L.L. Bean duck hunting boots that I’d purchased in a bin of used shoes at a tag sale. That I would even stop at a tag sale, let alone look in such a bin, shows a side of me I wish had never surfaced. If anyone asks, of course I will deny everything.

I wasn’t about to wear the nice boots I’d bought from the L.L. Bean catalogue a few weeks ago. Well, nice is stretching it. All I can say is they were serviceable and didn’t look overly hideous. My Uggs were stashed safely in my suitcase, out of harm’s way. I’d managed to repair most of the stream damage, but I wasn’t taking any more chances with them. I’d ordered Ugg cleaner on the Internet. When it arrived, I’d complete the job, if it wasn’t too late.

Vivian hadn’t cleaned much. I smelled cat litter. Evidence of the gas-blaster lurked in the kitchen. She did not offer me coffee for which I was grateful, and believe me, I love my coffee. I should buy stock in Starbucks. If I had money to spend on stocks, maybe I would.

“What’s going on, Vivian?” I asked as I sat across from her on a cracked vinyl kitchen chair, careful not to touch anything with exposed body parts. Next time I’d wear gloves. Life is a learning process. “You look awful.”

Her solid gold hair was greasy and not so solid at the roots, a fitting complement to her stained white sweatshirt and baggy jeans.

“I don’t care how I look and neither do my dogs,” she fired back, then shook her head sadly. “My life is in the toilet and I don’t know what to do about it. Which is where you come in.”

Uh-oh. Sinking feeling, the kind that carried the weight of a pounding sledgehammer.

“Me? How? I just came by to check on you. See if you needed anything, see if the lawyer was working out,” I said with a brightness that belied my true feelings.

“I originally hired you to find who poisoned one of my Poms, right?”

“Yes, the poms,” I said, the sinking feeling sledgehammering its way farther down as my imagination took wing and I considered several horrible things that might have happened.

“Well, consider yourself still on the job.”

More Poms? I almost closed my eyes to block what I knew was coming.

“Another dog?” I asked weakly.

“No. Not a dog. Me.”

I actually gasped. “You’ve been poisoned?”

“Sort of. The whole town thinks I’m guilty. I go to church and get strange looks, go into the Country Store and the old geezers in the back room stop talking so they can glare. I even heard a few snickers in the library.”

My heart did a little lurch. Snickering
in the library? That was over the top.

But at least she hadn’t been poisoned, literally. Small comfort.

“As soon as the killer is caught, they’ll all be apologizing and trying to make it up to you,” I said, unable to keep the anxiety from my voice. Going for a positive attitude, I added in a stronger voice, “Soon. That will be soon.”

She brightened. “I don’t want to pressure you, but can you speed things along? I’ll pay extra.”

Extra
. I felt a little flutter. Visions of tax bills and apartment rent and American Express danced in my head. I could use extra. But I said the decent thing. “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

I waited for the expected protest.

“If that’s the way you feel,” Vivian said, “we’ll keep it at the amount we agreed upon.”

My expression didn’t change. I had a lot to learn about the financial end of this detective business.
I wanted to get out of here, so I asked what I’d come to ask.

“Vivian, tell me the truth about your relationship with Buster. I need to know. I can’t be operating blind.

She stiffened. “He wanted to have an affair. I refused. It’s as simple as that.”

“So you turned him down?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t interested in some cheap fling with Buster Verney. He wasn’t my type.”

I yanked the wheel left at the bottom of Vivian’s driveway and passed Buster’s house, slowly, very slowly, noting the vehicles in the driveway—Buster’s red truck, Lenny’s snappy black number with the flame detailing, a dumpy dark green SUV that looked like it should be sold
for parts. Not that I claim to be a parts expert, but some things are obvious. The SUV probably belonged to Stan.

Nick said he and Trimble
searched this house and found nothing incriminating. Big deal. A six-year-old would know enough to hide something if the police were coming to search. Lenny could stash Buster’s laptop at the pharmacy, the Wilderness Camp, the dentist’s office, or any place on Buster’s land.

Glaring in the Country Store
.

How awful. A dog lover like Vivian could not have killed Buster. The woman had a hard time killing the fleas that populated her house. You’d think people would know that.

Strange looks in church.

Vivian was being subjected to a form of bullying. Nothing overt, of course. Subtle. Very subtle.

More than ever I wanted to see the real murderer in jail, but at the moment I didn’t see how I could hurry this up.

I considered the possibilities—Lenny, Stan, Rhonda’s husband Ray, or someone else. I wouldn’t even consider Uncle Walter.

It’s good to narrow these things down. I needed to know more about all of them. I’d start with Ray. Another visit to Rhonda at the All-Season Wilderness Lodge and Campground was on my to-do list. This time I would dodge the potholes, but I would not dodge questions I needed to ask.

I had mentally crossed Uncle Walter off the list of suspects but decided to be thorough and put him back on until Nick cleared him. I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss anyone.

As soon as I got home I called Mary Fran and told her to meet me at Aunt Ida’s in the morning after her daughter left for school.

“We’re going to Rhonda’s Camp,” I said.

“Rhonda? Again? She’s fine, Nora. You’re obsessing about a little bump on the head.”

Instead of rushing to explain, I let the silence hang in
the air. I can be dramatic when the occasion calls for it.

“Nora?”

“Yes?”

“Am I missing something?”

“You are.”

“Detective stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Secret stuff?”

“Correct.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mary Fran?”

“Yes, boss.”

The following morning when Mary Fran finally signaled the last turn off the paved road, we headed down the bumpy, tooth-jarring, filling-popping trail that led to the camp. Good thing I wasn’t alone. It’s only a guess, but I believe the best GPS on the market would have a problem in these woods. I should have a compass. Maybe I should carry flares. If I were staying in Maine forever, which I am not, I’d get both. I wondered how flares worked. I’d never used a flare. Did you need a match to get them flaring?

Unwilling to tempt the fates, I did not open my mouth until the road leveled out for a stretch. “You really know your way around here,” I said.

“I’ve lived in Silver Stream all my life.”

“Yes, and I was ten when Dad took the family to a foreign country called New York City.”

“Humph. You going to the pumpkin boat races?” Mary Fran asked, ignoring my comment about the city.

“The aunts mentioned a bus ride,” I said as Ce-Ce rattled along.

“Yeah. Stan drives. There’s almost no parking by that section of the lake. The pumpkin people get the good spots.”

Stan. One of my suspects. I could observe him. Something might come to mind.

“Maybe I’ll go.”

“Oh, good. You’ll have to bring a box lunch, ya know.
I make a wicked basket. This year I’m doing a pumpkin hazelnut bisque, a chef salad and pumpkin cookies.

“Sounds wonderful. What do you know about Rhonda’s relationship with Buster?”

“I don’t believe it!” Mary Fran leaned forward and grabbed the dashboard with such force the glove compartment door fell on the floor. “You think Ray or Rhonda killed Buster, don’t you?” she said, picking up the door and trying to jam it back into place.

“Not Rhonda.”

“Ray.” Mary Fran sucked in her breath, dropped the door on her foot, and let out a shriek that almost startled Ce-Ce into a tree.

Once I regained control, I continued without commenting on the histrionics. Sometimes, I am a saint.

“I wondered when you’d tell me what you were thinking. I knew taking a second trip here had to be important to the case. Being the ace detective you are, I figured you had something up your sleeve.”

She removed her chartreuse and hot pink running shoe and rubbed her injured foot.

“But I digress. Let’s see. Rhonda and Buster. Well, they were an item years back, before I was born. I heard that when they were young, close to nineteen or twenty, they were supposed to get married, but then Buster up and joined the Marines and no one saw him for a couple of years. I don’t know who broke it off, probably Rhonda since she married Ray soon after Buster left.”

“How soon?” I asked, glancing at her Pippi Longstocking striped socks.

“Don’t remember. It was a long time ago. Why’re you asking about this? What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking”—I hesitated, then decided to repeat a caveat. “You know that you can not talk about any of this in the beauty parlor. Absolutely none of it.”

“You’ve said that before. Believe me, my lips are sealed about my assistant detective career when I’m at Hot Heads Heaven and every place else. S-E-A-L-E-D.”

“I’m thinking Rhonda was having an affair with Buster, and Ray may have found out. He’s a pharmacist, has a knowledge of poisons.” I shrugged. “It’s a possibility, but I may be on the wrong track.”

“So you’re going to ask Rhonda?”

“That’s my plan.”

“That’s kind of personal. What will you say?”

“I’ll know when I speak to her.” I hopeIhopeIhope.

SEVEN
TEEN

Rhonda stood on the long porch beneath the campground sign, arms folded against the chill, loose curls blowing every which way in the breeze.

She seemed happy to see us, but as I walked toward her I thought I detected something more in her expression. It was a fleeting thing, hard to pin down, but I thought it was a sense of relief. In the next instant I decided I must be wrong.

“You didn’t have to come all this way just to check up on me again,” she said, nothing but an honest smile lighting her face.

“We came for coffee,” I said. And to ask some probing questions you’d probably prefer not to answer, I didn’t say, giving her a hug, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with this detecting business.

“There’s a pot on. Let’s go up to the kitchen. Ray’s still here. Cooking.”

“Don’t have to tell me, Rhonda. I knew it as soon as we walked in the door,” Mary Fran said, head up, sniffing the air. “It’s not one of my favorites. I don’t eat anything that lives in water.”

Ray? Here? That ruined everything. How could I manage this with him around? I couldn’t, plain and simple. I’d have to come back.

But it was obvious that Rhonda suffered no ill effects from the book-on-the-head incident, so coming back a third time would look suspicious. Hell, coming back today must look a little suspicious. Regardless, I was here and I’d get what I came for.

“Cooking?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the fishy smell.

“He’s been at it since early this morning,” Rhonda said, opening the kitchen door. “All fired up about getting his famous trout chowder made so’s he can freeze it up for winter. It’s a big favorite. Guests love it.”

“Not all guests,” Mary Fran said.

“Fish is not one of my favorite things to eat, either. I know I should acquire a taste for it. Lean protein and all that.”

No one cared about my protein input.

When Rhonda opened the kitchen door, all the scented candles in Maine couldn’t disguise the smell that attacked me. It was a nasal disaster on the level of the New York City Garbage Dump on a hot damp day. I gagged, but covered it well by fussing with my jacket, raising the collar so it covered my nose.

Ray stood by the stove stirring a huge pot, wearing a white bib apron splattered with stuff I didn’t want to think about. At the sink an older woman with white hair, a white full bib-length apron and a nose that was a mirror image of Ray’s Florida nose, Brillo-ed a large pot.

Ray gave us a hardy hello. “No more fishing for me, so it’s time to make my
chowdah
,” he said as he plopped a section of fish into the fish pot.

“Too chilly to fish?” I asked, smiling, trying to ignore the fish innards that sat off to the side on a chopping block.

The old woman at the sink paused in mid-scrub; Rhonda froze by the coffee mugs; Ray stopped stirring; Mary Fran just stared at me.

Oh, geeze. Another Maine mistake.

“What?” I asked, looking at each in turn.

“I go ice fishing in winter,” Ray said with an attitude approaching huffy. “I’m a Mainer. I’m certainly not afraid of a little cold weather.”

“Everybody knows that most rivers and streams with wild brook trout close to fishing after September thirtieth. We have to protect spawning fish,” Rhonda said.

N
ot everyone knows, obviously. I was going to ask a follow-up spawning fish question, but decided against it.

Nora, Nora, Nora. Keep quiet.

“Right. Good idea,” I said instead.

Rhonda in
troduced Ray’s pot-scrubbing mother Beverly who gave me a cool nod. I was tempted to ask if she were friends with Arianna Renzo, but opted for a cheery hello instead.

“Maybe you prefer tea?” Rhonda asked
, holding the coffee pot. “Beverly makes wonderful teas. She and Ray are big tea drinkers.”

“Coffee is fine,” I said, eyeing Beverly
, who had already turned back to the sink. “Does Ray make teas, too?”

“Yes,” Beverly said without turning around.

Oh, geeze. Another tea person.

Ray
made eye contact with me for long seconds. I figured he knew that Buster died from a digitalis-foxglove tea concoction and I suspected he was trying to figure out whether I suspected him or not. Especially since I’d noted his tub of rat poison.

Rhonda, Mary Fran and I sat in the malodorous kitchen
drinking coffee and chatting about inconsequential things while Ray whistled. I think it was that seven dwarfs’ tune, “Whistle While You Work.” Or maybe the mice sang it in Cinderella. Who could keep these things straight?

Ray was making me crazy with his chop-chop, whistle-whistle, plop-plop.
I needed to talk to Rhonda privately and I didn’t know how to do it without raising suspicion. I wasn’t sure of what to say either.

When
Rhonda started in on the weather, I became aware that I was tapping my OPI lacquered nails against the white mug in rhythm with the dwarfs’ tune. I’d chosen Dim Sum Plum, not on my color palette, true, but I take chances now and again. A woman needs to stay current and this polish choice was definitely avant-garde. Very deep pink with a purple undertone. For my next color I’d have to decide between I Eat Mainly Lobster, a nice shimmer from their fall collection, definitely a more conventional red-pink, and the riskier Orange Delight from the OPI Burst Crackle Collection. Decisions, decisions.

Would he ever stop whistling!

I poured a second cup of Rhonda’s excellent coffee. Ida made good coffee, but this topped that. Memories of Starbuck’s
flitted in my head. It didn’t help. Rhonda was sounding more and more like she was auditioning for the Weather Channel, Ray was whistling louder, and at the sink the whistler’s mother was scrubbing like a maniac, her strokes matching the rhythm of the whistler’s tune. Or was I imagining all this because I was tense?

Whatever.

Wrap the scenario in the smell of dead fish and you have a woman ready to bolt. That would be me.

If I heard one more bit of trivia about the stupid cold front moving down from Canada
…

“Rhonda, much as I’d like to stay and chat,” I interrupted when she began to explain how cooling the air to the dew point might cause fog tomorrow morning, “we have to get going.”

As I was zipping my jacket, I whispered to Mary Fran, “Go ahead of me and get in the truck. I have to talk to Rhonda alone.”

At the front door I paused. “Rhonda, can we talk privately for a few minutes?”

She smiled sadly. “Will that help you discover who murdered Buster?”

“
Possibly.”

“I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I figured you came out here a second time because you wanted to know something. About Buster and me? Right?”

I nodded, feeling awkward, intrusive.

“You working for Vivian?” she asked.

“I am.”

“So you don’t think she poisoned him?”