Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (14 page)

Etienne shrugged again. “I don’t know, but I would think so.”

“Where is this place?”

“I’ll show you if you’ll give me a lift to the newspaper office afterwards,” I told the nuns. “I want to get a couple of Michigans for my husband.” Surely it would soften Gil up before I dropped my little baby bomb on him.

Sister Margaret turned to Mrs. Daye. “Won’t you join us?”

She accepted, but without any particular good grace.

We pulled on our coats and headed for the front door. As we were about to leave the kitchen, the elder nun turned back to Etienne.

“Mr. LeBow, why do they call them Michigans?”

Etienne’s response was an elaborate Gallic shrug. He tilted back in his kitchen chair.

“No one knows,” he said in bass tones, “It’s a great mystery.”

Marie rolled her eyes at me.

“Isn’t this nice?” Sister Margaret commented as we pulled into Fritzi’s parking lot. “It looks like a bunkhouse in an old cowboy movie.”

“Now that you mention it,” I said, “I can definitely see a resemblance.” There was an upturned horseshoe over the door and bandana-patterned cafe curtains at the windows.

Sister Priscilla was driving. She pulled into a vacant slot, turned off the ignition, and we all four scrambled out, driven, no doubt, by our collective hunger.

The three other women watched as I ordered the special, a Michigan red hot, accompanied by a gigantic cup of cola, which I changed to a chocolate milkshake, and French fries.

Everyone ordered and paid for their respective meals. We surveyed the dining room for a table.

“There’s a booth!” Sister Margaret said, pointing.

As we headed across the room, Mrs. Daye’s pocketbook buzzed stridently.

“Excuse me,” she said, digging in her purse and walking at the same time. She extracted an old-style folding cell phone and turned away to answer. As the rest of us sat at the table, she drifted over next to a rolling metal tray bearing yellow and red squeeze bottles.

Her conversation wasn’t audible, I noticed with relief. I didn’t want to indulge in eavesdropping again. The sisters and I exchanged light pleasantries as we waited for our order number to be called. We spoke of hometowns and colleges attended, mutual local acquaintances and the weather outlook.

I was just about to suggest that the sisters would enjoy a trip on the Lake Champlain ferryboat when over in her corner, Mrs. Daye seemed to explode.

“What? Do you want to kill yourself?” she barked into the cell phone. She gestured with her free hand, causing the light plastic catsup and mustard bottles to keel over, domino-style.

Some landed on the floor. Suddenly aware that the entire room was watching her, she murmured sharply into the phone and snapped it shut. “Sorry,” she said with a sheepish expression as she gathered up the fallen condiment bottles and replaced them on the tray. She repeated her apology as she slid into the booth.

The elder sister leaned forward, concern on her broad and wrinkled face. “Dear, is there anything we can do?”

Mrs. Daye stiffened. “Oh, no. No. Thank you so much, but no. You know how husbands are.” She looked across the table at the nuns and gave a little, mirthless laugh. “Or maybe you don’t. Anyway, it’s okay. It’s fine.” She looked around. “I’m hungry. When is that food getting here? Aren’t you hungry?”

A server bearing a loaded tray came to her rescue. After sorting out our orders, the elder sister blessed the food, and we fell to, punctuating the silence with humming nods of approval.

Finally I polished off my last French fry and followed it by a satisfying rattle at the bottom of my extra-thick milkshake. I couldn’t believe how ravenous pregnancy made me. Goodbye to the Lady of the Saltines, Gil’s sardonic reference to my sparse kitchen skills.

I had devoured the huge mound of French fries with amazing speed. My Michigan, however, I had quickly put aside. It tasted and smelled strange to me, though Mrs. Daye and the sisters apparently enjoyed theirs.

A quiet fell over the group as we sat back, satisfied.

Mrs. Daye gazed into her soft drink. She hadn’t said a word during the entire meal. Then, “You know, don’t you, that we’ve been consuming poison?”

Sister Priscilla started. “I beg your pardon?”

“Poison; this kind of food. Do you have any idea what junk like this can do to a person’s kidneys? Put a drop of this cola on an old penny, and it burns off the tarnish, not to mention what the salt they put on those French fries can do.” She punctuated her comment by fretfully crumpling her paper napkin.

I exchanged quizzical glances with the nuns.

Sister Margaret smiled. “Salt is pretty hard on slugs and snails too, I hear,” she said and started to giggle.

“It’s not funny!” Mrs. Daye said sharply.

“I beg your pardon. You’re right, of course. We should all eat more healthily.”

Mrs. Daye, who had seemed to expand with outrage, suddenly deflated. “Yes, we certainly should.” She lapsed into silence.

“Excuse me a minute.” I went to the counter and ordered some takeout for Gil.

By the time the sisters dropped me off at the front entrance of the newspaper office, orange grease was seeping through the paper bag containing Gil’s two Michigans. Inside, the receptionist Wendy was pulling on her coat.

“He’s still at it,” she told me, jerking a thumb toward the door. “I hate to bail, but my kids are in a concert at school tonight.” She took the bag from me, opened it and sniffed. “Michigans! Ohhh, yum! Wish I could stay!” She returned it to me and patted my shoulder. “You’re a good wife, Amelia,” she said, and left.

“You bet I am,” I muttered, holding the bag at arm’s length.

Gil didn’t look away from his computer screen when I entered. “Just put the cup down on the desk, Wendy. Thanks.” His hair was rumpled and his shirtsleeves rolled up. His office was in a state, with stacks of paper on every available surface.
Don’t let the turkeys get you down
, the little sign Vern had given him, occupied a precarious but prominent spot on top of his computer monitor. Moodily, he moved the mouse a fraction of an inch, then tapped briskly on the keyboard.

I tore open the paper bag and set the two paper-wrapped Michigans on the desk next to him. It took a minute for the fragrance to reach his nostrils. He blinked rapidly and looked around.

“Oh,” he said, and his face softened at the sight of me, “it’s not coffee, it’s you.”

I leaned down and kissed him. The little acrobat in my chest did a flip. It was good to know the honeymoon wasn’t over yet. At least not until I told him my news.

“And Michigans! You’re an angel of mercy.”

“Can you take a break?”

“For you? Of course.” Gil slid his reading glasses to the top of his head, and held a hand out. “Gimme.”

He peeled back the paper at one end of a hot dog and took a huge bite. “Ambrosia! I was going to offer to share, but you’ve already had some, haven’t you?” he said, his words muffled by the bread in his mouth. “Onions on your breath.” He pointed to his own mouth.

“I only had one bite. I’ve lost my taste for them. By the way, I have something to—” I began hesitantly.

“Come, have a seat,” he directed, pulling an empty desk chair forward, and I complied. He reached out with his free hand and pushed a hair off my forehead. “You look tired.”

“I am. But I think I know why.” I tried again to broach The Subject.

He took another bite. The first Michigan was two-thirds consumed. Gil misread me. “I know, all that business with the Rousseau boys. You can’t just fix this, Amelia, try as you might.”

He had successfully diverted my attention. “I’m not trying to fix anything. I just want them to get a fair shake.”

He popped the remainder of the first hot dog in his mouth and reached for the second. “Don’t worry, honey, we can trust Dennis O’Brien to get to the bottom of this business.”

“I trust Dennis, of course,” I stipulated, “but I’m not sure about the rest of the police. The Rousseau boys have been such a nuisance these past few years that it probably looks like a golden opportunity to send them away.”

“Amelia, do you think you can drop that for a second and let me tell you about my day?”

I sighed and folded my hands. “Consider it dropped for the time being.”

“Good enough. Question: Aren’t you folks teaching English grammar any more?”

“Of course! I mean, I am. Some of the new textbooks are pretty lax about it. That’s why I’ve insisted on using the old ones. The school board wanted to make an issue out of it, but Mr. Berghauser pointed out that it saves money. I have them use the books in the classroom and any material they take home is on worksheets.”

“Well, somebody must not have been paying attention. And unfortunately, they work here.” He swiveled back to the monitor. “Take a look at this.” He fiddled with the mouse and clicked through several different screens before stopping at a body of text. He highlighted a sentence under the heading, “Storms of the Past.”

“This is a piece I assigned for a sidebar.” He read aloud, “’Decimated by the storm, the mayor of the neighboring town called out the National Guard.’”

I sighed and nodded. “The dreaded dangling participle. Even Mr. Berghauser has a problem with it. And decimated, a kind of pet peeve of mine. It originally meant reduced by ten percent, but the erroneous meaning—total destruction—was used so often, it became standard usage.”

“Well, I can let that little one pass, but it takes me all day to weed out about three dozen other boo-boos, even with the help of spell check.”

“You’ll get no sympathy from me, my friend,” I said, remembering pretty young Courtney’s fractured grammar, “It’s no more than I see and hear every day of the week.”

He scratched his head petulantly. “Yes, but you’re not getting out a newspaper, where all the mistakes become public record.” He reached for the last bite of hot dog and popped it in his mouth.

I was glad he was finished and the smell was fading. I didn’t know how he could eat that thing. Well, time to tell him.

I took a breath and began, “Uh, Gil? I—”

He balled up the paper and tossed it in the wastepaper basket. “Whew! That was wonderful, but I better get back to work.” He took a sip from a water bottle.” I’ll be about another hour here. Oh, sorry, I interrupted you. What were you going to say?”

“You need to work. It’ll keep,” I added with relief. I’d been dreading the moment.

“Is it too late for you to catch a ride home with Vern?”

I consulted my watch. “Probably. I think I’ll stick around and correct my test papers.” I’d have to wait until we got home to tell him The News.

We spent the time in a companionable working silence, punctuated by an occasional snort of disgust from Gil.

As for my work, I was pleased with the results of the Robert Frost exam. Two students actually scored 100 percent, and there were four nicely-worded poems. I smiled as I read Spencer Gonyea’s:

The gym is empty, dark, and fun,

But I must see my homework’s done

Before I play some one-on-one.

Yeah, right, Spencer
, I thought, and
that’s a lovely dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Cleaver
. But despite the smarmy content, it was a nice effort, and he deserved every point of the ten extra credits I’d promised.

Serendipity Shea’s paper, on the other hand, was abysmal. Try as I might, I couldn’t wring out more than a very generous 39 points. “Oh, child,” I murmured to the absent girl, “don’t you understand that you never leave a true-false question blank?”

“What is it?” Gil swiveled away from his computer screen and rolled his chair over to mine.

“The turkeys,” I sighed, nodding toward Vern’s sign. “They’re getting me down.”

“Come here.” Knee to knee with me, he put his hands on the arms of my chair and leaned in to give me a kiss, and another.

“Thanks,” I said with a sigh. “I needed that.”

He pushed off, rolled over to his computer, and turned it off. “Finished?”

“Just about.” I scribbled the score on Serendipity’s paper and set it on top of the stack.

Gil picked it up and looked at it. “F? Ouch!”

“Ouch is right. To coin a phrase, it really does hurt me more than it does her.”

Gil brought me my coat. “Trouble with you is, you’re just too nice. Always were. It’s an irritating habit.”

“Well then,” I said, leaning up against him, “what’s a nice girl like me doing with a wicked fellow like you?”

Later that evening at home, just after we slipped into something more comfortable and Gil settled on his side of the bed with a book, I slid in alongside and said, “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

He put down his book, leaving his finger in the place. “You sound serious.”

“I am.”

He put a bookmark in his place and set the book on the side table. “Shoot.”

The telephone rang.

“Hold that thought.” Gil reached for the receiver. “Hello? Yes . . . no, he’s not. Does it have to do with work? Is there a problem I can help with?” He listened. “All right. You’re welcome.” He hung up.

“Who was that?”

“Fleur LaBombard.” Gil had a thoughtful look on his face. “She asked if Vern was home. When I said no, she said thanks and she didn’t need any help and goodbye.”

“Oh, dear, what do you think—”

The telephone rang again. I answered this time.

“Mrs. Dickensen? This is Fleur again. Is Vern coming home soon, y’think? I mean, if there’s a place I could call him at . . . ”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where he is. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Oh, gosh, I dunno.”

“Just give me a second to get something to write with.” I rummaged around in the drawer of the bedside table and unearthed a pencil stub and scrap of paper. “Fleur? Go ahead.”

I saw Gil smile at me and reach for his book, so I took the telephone into the other room.

“Look, Miss—Mrs.—um . . . ”

“Call me Amelia, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, Amelia, listen, if Vern’s not gonna get there soon, I’ll just have to think of something else.”

“Can I be of help?”