Doing It at the Dixie Dew (7 page)

“The situation is different,” Ethan said. “There's not competition of chain hotels and motels.”

“Which we don't have in Littleboro.”

“Because we don't need them in Littleboro. If a need for them existed here, somebody would have built one years ago.”

“But that doesn't mean a B and B can't make it … once I get known in the trade.” Now I knew why most lawyers and businessmen did well financially. They weren't in the least romantics. Their hearts didn't move a muscle in their heads. In fact, they probably went out of their way not to communicate with each other.

“Miss Lavinia came to Littleboro to visit friends,” I told Ossie DelGardo. It's a coincidence she died in my B and B.

“Poison is no coincidence.” Ossie DelGardo went to the window, pulled the blind, then turned to look at me. “Was Father Roderick a coincidence, too? There was no one in the chapel but you.”

“I called you,” I said. “Would I have done that if I had killed him?” I wished Ethan would get here. He probably had to dress. At least put on his shoes this time of night, find his car keys.

“Women's weapons,” Ossie mused. “Poison. And silk underwear. Teddy, my wife calls it. Fanciest one I've ever seen, French label and all that … makes me wonder.” He turned to look at me. Stared as though he wanted to see right through my clothes. His stare … him … it all made my skin crawl!

“I'm wearing my own underwear, not a teddy. Thank you very much,” I said as huffily as I could. I fully expected him to ask my size, come over to me as if he'd like to check for himself. I glanced at the door, wondered if I could beat him to it if he even
tried
to touch me.

Ossie tapped his glass desktop with his ring again. “When I find the owner of all that silk and lace, I'll have my murderer, Miss Beth … and it might be you.” He smiled a quirky little fat-cat Cheshire grin.

At that I sprang from the chair and slammed out his door. I couldn't wait any longer for Ethan Drummond's shoes and car keys. As it was, Ethan came rumbling up just as I opened the door to Scott's truck.

“There was nothing he could hold you on,” Ethan said, stuffing his pajama top in his pants. “You go on now. I'll take care of Mr. Ossie myself.”

Though it was only three blocks to the B and B, too much had gone on in Littleboro this week for anyone to go walking in the dark. Scott didn't say a word driving home; he just drove while I sat there and steamed like a summer storm.

When I got home, I headed straight upstairs. “I want a bath. I want to wash this day and some of the looks I've gotten from some people … wash them off and send them down the drain.” Then I filled Mama Alice's old footed cast-iron tub with the hottest water I could stand, poured in some lemon bath salts and climbed in. I soaked and steamed and steamed some more. I was so mad. The nerve of Ossie DelGardo thinking I had anything to do with either death. He made me feel dirty with all his accusations, his insinuations, sly looks and mumblings under his breath. The way he kept playing with his desk drawer as if I laid the right amount of cash in it he'd look down, close the drawer and dismiss me with a wave of his hand. He'd close the case and not even look up as I went out. Why did I have that feeling? Because he was not “native Littleboro”? An “outsider?” Acted “big-city crime stoppers, gangbusters, TV cop, tough stuff?” He just seemed oily, that's all. Oily and slick, as if he could slide through anything he wanted or shove anything he didn't want under the table and look away.

I had loved the way Scott's truck smelled of leather and soap and oil. The kind of oil Mama Alice used on her sewing machine, a light golden and pleasant fragrance that made me nostalgic. Made me want more than ever the Littleboro of my childhood, where you could walk anywhere any time of day or night and be perfectly safe doing so. The kind of town where no one ever locked their doors, just hooked the latches on the screen doors at night and slept unafraid. There was nothing to fear. Crime and robbery were things that happened in big cities. And murder? Murder only happened in books and on the movie screens. Or television. It wasn't a real thing. Not until this week and Miss Lavinia, though it still felt unreal.

I was out of the tub, wrapping a thick, white terry robe around me, when Scott tapped on the bathroom door. “I've made hot toddies. You'll need something. Oh, and Mr. Lucas checked in. He was late.”

“Ohmygosh. I forgot him. Thank God he was late.” I scooted into furry red slippers that were scuffed from all those New England winters but warm as old friends.

Scott had made cinnamon toast. I smelled it before I got to the kitchen, where he had laid place mats and napkins and wrapped the toast in a blue-checked tea towel.

“Preserves?” he asked. “I checked in the fridge, a couple of places I thought you might be holding some, and no luck.”

I stepped into the pantry and came out with a jar of fig preserves. “Ta-da! How's this? Mama Alice made these last year.” As I said it my throat filled up and tightened. Last summer my grandmother had bustled about this house doing a dozen things like making fig preserves and catering a wedding reception for two hundred, making the cake, ice rings for the punch bowl, cheese straws and homemade mints. Last year Mama Alice was not only alive; she was also operating at full capacity, amazing for someone heading hard toward eighty. But age was something Mama Alice didn't think about. She didn't have time. Until time stopped.

My hands shook opening the preserves and Scott took the jar, twisted it slightly, then handed it back. I took a tablespoonful and spread preserves with my knife. I tasted my childhood and summer and this kitchen and it was so good I wanted to cry.

Scott spread preserves on his toast, took a bite and beamed a satisfied smile. “God, these are good. Your grandmother knew food.”

“Yes,” I said. “She believed in food. Not just party foods, but fresh vegetables. Balanced meals. When I was little I thought she had scales and balanced things in each hand, I heard the phrase so much. Catering was her business and her joy. Maybe that's why she was so good.”

I drank my toddy, which surprised me by being absolutely delicious. I tasted honey, lemon, whiskey, nutmeg and cream. Maybe I did need it. Though it was April and the weather was warm, I'd had a shock and a hell of a day. The toddy warmed me inside, then all over. I even felt my toes tingle, they felt so warm.

“Ida Plum told you about Miss Lavinia,” I said between sips of the golden brew.

“She didn't take the time.” Scott pushed the last piece of toast toward me. “But I already knew.”

“When?” I asked.

“I saw Bruce Bechner at the service station. He told me.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“I didn't think it would help,” he said. “You were upset already. And somebody who's thinking of opening a tearoom doesn't need a dead body in their house in the first place. Especially one who's been poisoned.”

“Something like that.”

He ate the toast I'd pushed back to his side of the table. “There's an auction in Cameron tomorrow. You need more chairs out there”—he indicated the sunporch—“and a worktable in here.”

“Optimist,” I said. “You're on if this toddy doesn't put me out until noon.” Then I embarrassed myself by yawning a yawn big enough to swallow the room.

“You'll wake at eight feeling great.” He collected the plates for the dishwasher and kissed me on the nose. I felt myself instinctively tilt back my head in case there was more to come, but he left. “Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite,” he said at the door. Scott checked the lock inside, shut the door and checked again from the outside. Then he tapped the glass, wiggled his fingers good-bye and was gone.

I sat feeling almost contented for a moment, wondering if that butterfly of a kiss counted as brotherly affection, a friendship buzz or an appetizer for something more. Whatever it meant, I only knew I was sleepy and so relaxed, limp as a rag doll. Ossie DelGardo and the rest of the world could go to hell. I was going to bed.

Chapter Six

I did wake up feeling good, much better than I thought I would. There had been no nightmares, no reliving over again the moment of finding Father Roderick or hearing again in my mind Ossie DelGardo's hooded threats.

I didn't know what all Scott put in the toddy, but it was what I needed. Sherman was a nice way to wake up. He'd climbed on my bed, licked my cheek. Then Ida Plum. What would we do without her? Funny, in a small town like Littleboro, where everybody knew everybody else, I didn't know all that much about Ida Plum Duckett. Just that she'd worked for Mama Alice, cooking and serving, the last several years. Years I'd been away when I should have been in Littleboro, making up to my grandmother for all she'd done for me. Instead I'd gone my selfish way, sometimes not even coming back to Littleboro for a few weeks in the summer. Ben had been my life. And then one day he wasn't.

Funny, though, Ida Plum seemed to know something about everybody and more than a lot about some people. She wasn't a gossip, or didn't seem to be, worked hard and was more than dependable. She read situations, like this morning, and stayed two jumps ahead of them.

“If you're going to that auction,” Ida Plum said, “eat a big breakfast first.”

“Sounds like you're mothering me,” I teased, and refilled my own coffee cup.

“Somebody's got to. You go running around in the dark, finding dead people and getting hauled into the police station in the middle of the night.”

So I ate and dressed and was brushing my teeth when I heard Scott's truck, and his two-note whistle, at the back door.

“Ida Plum Dumpling.” He circled her waist as she stood at the stove. “How come you never got married again?”

“Well, it wasn't because I wasn't asked,” she said. “Maybe they never said it in the right way. And with the right jewelry.” She laughed.

Scott poured himself juice. “Oh, I see. Mr. Right has to say it the right way at the right time in the right place.”

“I didn't say that,” Ida Plum said as I came in the kitchen. She set a place on the sunporch for Mr. Lucas. One end was straightened up and he'd have a view of the back garden. Maybe he wouldn't notice the screen I had hiding my small collection of unpainted tables and chairs. They sat stacked in an assortment of styles and finishes.

On the way to the auction Scott drove down country roads in a part of the county I didn't know or, if I did, had long ago forgotten. Dust stormed up behind him and James Galway played flute on the tape deck. Somehow I expected guitar or ballads or Willie Nelson, something in bluegrass. This was a paradox. There was a lot I didn't know about Scott, a whole book, a lifetime.

That gap of years when I had been away in that foreign land “up North.” Where had he been? What had he been doing?

But the way he steered me through the crowd he seemed to know auctions and people. The auctioneer tipped his white straw hat as Scott and I walked past the crowd already seated under the trees.

We inspected chairs in a row beside the barn. There were two sets of four that matched, plus some odd ones missing rungs and seats. “I can't afford to have the seats caned,” I said.

“Not to worry,” Scott said. “I know the county's best caner and he's reasonable. Plus he takes MasterCard.”

“You're kidding,” I said, trying to check out the condition of some tables heaped high with glassware. One table had a tin top and turned legs.

I straightened up and stepped back into someone walking past. “Oops, sorry,” I said. The woman in black slacks pushed past the crowd. A beefy-type fellow in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt followed close behind her, holding her elbow. He brushed past so close I felt the hair on his arms and got a whiff of yesterday's sweat. Somewhere I'd seen the woman before. But where? I hadn't been that many places lately in Littleboro.

Scott had gone to register for a bidding number and I tried not to stare at the couple, who stood away from the crowd in the shade of the barn.

Father Roderick. I remembered suddenly. That woman was with Father Roderick in the vestibule after Miss Lavinia's funeral. She was the one brushing lint off his jacket in that strange wifely intimate way.

“What?” Scott came up beside me. He poked his bidding card in his shirt pocket, left the number showing.

“That woman by the barn,” I said out loud. “Don't look now, but in a minute.”

“The one in black?” Scott said. “That's Father Roderick's housekeeper, Debbie. Debbie Delinger.”

“Oh,” I said, as if that explained something. Maybe even half of something. When I looked again, they were gone.

Scott got the bid on the chairs. Ten dollars each, but the long tin-covered table was $250.

“It wasn't worth fifty,” I said. “You're nuts to pay that much.”

“Those things are considered primitive pieces,” Scott said. “And the only way you can get a buy is if nobody at an auction knows what it is.”

“Wonder what Father Roderick's housekeeper thought she'd find at the auction?” I asked as Scott and I unloaded chairs in the backyard. The first thing we'd do was scrub and hose down years of accumulated crud off the chairs, then sand and mend and tighten legs and rungs, and finally the chairs would be ready for paint.

“Some people go to auctions just to be going,” Scott said. “It's entertainment.”

“That housekeeper and her sidekick didn't look like the type on the prowl for
that
type of entertainment,” I said, remembering the housekeeper's tight pants and top, her long ropes of limp and greasy hair, the blue bruised-looking tattoos on her companion's arms.

Scott laughed. “Who knows what goes on in this town?” he asked as he hooked up the water hose.

Ida Plum swept up the walk. “You been spied on,” she said.