Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 02 - Rekindling Motives (24 page)

“Oh, there’s more to it than that.
You don’t know about her bastard baby.” Sophie had a look of something close to hatred.

“Actually, I do.
We do.” I tilted my head toward Scoobie. “She left a letter with one of her good friends, to be opened after her death.”

That seemed to truly shock her.
She reached to what was left of the old mahogany bar to steady herself, then looked down at her dirty gloved hand. “Then you know what I have to protect.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The family money. We had a lot, but it’s dwindled over time as everyone’s heirs got a piece. Those damn Milners will want a share now. And we’ll all have to give some to them.” Sophie had a hard, angry look now. “That money’s for
my
grandchildren, not Mary Doris Milner’s.”

My sense was that if she were a man she would have spit on the floor.

“So,” she pulled something from her pocket. “I’m not going to ruin our name, and I’m not going to give a dime to Matt Milner and his wife and daughter.”

I looked at her hand.
She held one of the smallest guns I’ve ever seen.

Scoobie started to laugh.
“That’s a 22. You wouldn’t be able to hit us.” He started backing up.

Sophie’s expression looked like a mad woman’s and she raised her arm to shoulder height.
“Watch me, I can…”

There was a humongous blast.
I jumped and landed on my knees. Scoobie darted forward. He picked up the small gun from where Sophie had dropped it when she sat down hard.

I looked at Sophie.
She was sitting on the floor, her hands at each side, balancing herself, looking around. Together our eyes traveled to a hole in the wall above her head. There was still sawdust swirling.

I looked behind me for the source of the noise.
Aunt Madge was lowering Uncle Gordon’s old hunting rifle. “I might have let you get away with aiming at Jolie, but no one hurts my dogs.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I stopped by Annie Milner’s office later the same day, to apologize. She didn’t know the evil things I’d thought about her, so I didn’t really have to. But, it seemed right. She took it pretty well. I didn’t say anything about Mary Doris being her great grandmother rather than a great aunt, but she brought it up.

“My dad was mad at Mary Doris one time, I was maybe fourteen.
He thought she spent way too much on me at Christmas, it was a lot more than she spent on my brother.”

I didn’t even know Annie had a brother.
And why would I?

She looked at my puzzled expression.
“My brother wasn’t her grandchild. Technically he was my half-brother, mom’s son from when she was married before.” She gave a small wave. “We never thought about “half brother and sister” stuff.”

“Anyway, Dad didn’t know I could hear what he said.
I was at the top of the steps. I’d gone to bed, but I heard them arguing. Mary Doris started to say something about me, and he told her to leave her granddaughter out of it.”

“It took me awhile to understand, but I eventually worked it out.
I realized my grandfather was born a couple months after my great grandparents got married. We had those wedding photos. Great Grandpa John’s wife, Irene was her name, wasn’t pregnant.” Annie stopped.

I wasn’t sure what to say.
But, being me, I plowed on. “Was Mary Doris happy that you knew?”

Annie shook her head.
“I never told her. My parents were furious when I asked them about it, and they said I had no business talking to her about it, that it was her secret to keep.” Annie paused for a moment. “I never really understood her thinking, but I eventually accepted it.”

“You know a single woman with a baby would have been a pariah in the late 1920s,” I said.

Annie nodded. “For her, she did the right thing. I was furious with my parents for not telling me, for telling me I shouldn’t talk to Mary Doris about it. That’s why I came here at the end of my junior year of high school.” She gave a small smile. “I wanted to get to know her better.”

I smiled slightly.
“Did your parents get any smarter as you got older?”

She returned the smile.
“I got over being mad, if that’s what you mean. The more I learned about Mary Doris’ life, the more I realized my grandfather was better off in some ways with her brother John and my grandmother. Not,” she said quickly, “that I think she wouldn’t have been a good parent. But she worked; she lived in small apartments until she was maybe forty.” Annie shrugged. “By the time I knew her she had plenty of money, but she would have had a horrible time raising a child on her own back then. And Grandfather Brian would have suffered, too.”

“Kids can be mean.”
We both nodded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LUCKILY THE OCEAN ALLEY police chose not to prosecute Aunt Madge for firing a gun within city limits, a pretty serious crime. Sgt. Morehouse gave her a heck of a lecture though, told her she was “taking a page out of Jolie’s book” and it should be the other way around. She sat calmly at her kitchen table, and when he was done she offered him some tea. He accepted.

If Sophie Tillotson Morgan had let things be, no one would have paid much attention to how Richard died.
Peter Fisher probably had not meant to kill him. But killing Mary Doris was unforgivable in the eyes of everyone in town. What was most mentioned was the sheer malice that went into Sophie’s plans, including trying to burn Scoobie alive.

She’ll never get out of prison.
The judge denied pretrial release, citing her wealth and lack of remorse. He thought she would do whatever she could to flee.

Annie told me they hope
d to reach a plea deal so the prosecuting attorney’s office didn’t have to use all its resources on one mega-trial. Annie, of course, cannot work on the case. Conflict of interest.

They’ll probably never prove she started the fire.
It turns out Sophie was perfectly capable of driving herself, and she came to Ocean Alley at least three times. Her grandson drove her when she poisoned Mary Doris. She drove herself to take some of the ledgers from the attic trunk and again when she tried to burn the old Bakery at the Shore — neither of which she would admit to.

Her daughter said that Sophie said she was going Christmas shopping the day of the fire, insisting that Sophie wanted to finish her shopping on her own.
Sophie, of course, was smart enough to have bought a bunch of presents that day, and had the receipts to prove it. As Aunt Madge said, Sophie was perfectly capable of shopping and trying to murder Scoobie in the same day.

Sophie was more than just strong-willed.
To hit Scoobie and drag him into the closet took more strength than most people decades younger have. Perhaps we should all walk two miles a day when we’re her age.

We guessed that Sophie worked out that Peter Fisher must have hidden Richard’s body in the closet.
We figured he moved the remains to the attic about the time he sold the building, and she wanted to be sure there was no evidence in the closet.

Scoobie maintained that if Sophie had watched
CSI she’d know there wouldn’t be anything left to implicate Peter Fisher. That was his only comment on the whole affair, and he went back to his rooming house as soon as Sgt. Morehouse questioned us the morning after Sophie would have killed us.

It still gives me the willies to think t
hat Peter must have had to scrub the remains to make the skeleton so clean.
Yuck
.

George
Winters did a decent article that linked the death decades ago to the current murder and fire. He titled it “Rekindling Motives.” He had a detailed sidebar on Prohibition and the dangers of methyl alcohol, which was cheap to make back then but as deadly as arsenic. More so, actually. If the conversations in Java Jolt were any indication, everyone read both articles.

SCOOBIE CAN BE WITHDRAWN, but I thought he was burrowing in way too much, even for him.
Aunt Madge reminded me that his parents were “severe alcoholics” and perhaps that was part of Scoobie’s need for solitude. He didn’t even go to the library.

Finally, Ramona and I went together to his rooming house.
Sgt. Morehouse told us which room was Scoobie’s, and we had to knock for two minutes before he came to the door.

“Have you heard of the right to privacy?” he asked, blocking the door so we couldn’t go in.

I didn’t want to go in, I wanted him out.

“Yes, we have,” Ramona responded.

“We just don’t respect it,” I threw in.

I saw the beginning of a smile, but it left quickly. “You know I like time to myself,” he said. “Everything that went on, it’s a lot to process.”

“You’re isolating,” I said.

He looked astonished. “Since when did you get familiar with danger signs in recovery?”

“Gambling is an addiction, you know.
I read all that stuff when Robby got in trouble.” I stared at him, not flinching.

“The question is, did it sink in?
” He looked at us for another couple or seconds. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll meet you at Newhart’s in a half-hour. You,” he pointed at me, “are buying.”

WE HAD THAT LUNCH, and at
seven o’clock that evening Scoobie, Aunt Madge, Ramona, Harry, and I went to the memorial service for Mary Doris Milner. Annie held it in the ballroom at the hotel because no one thought that St. Anthony’s Catholic Church could hold everyone. It was a good decision; even at the hotel it was standing room only. Lance Wilson sat next to Annie.

I studied the faces I could see without craning my neck too far.
I recognized the mayor, several high school teachers, a couple dozen people who’d been at the reunion, everyone I’d ever met through Aunt Madge, and a lot of faces that I’d seen around town but couldn’t associate with a name. George Winters caught my eye and winked. I actually smiled at him.

Mary Doris Milner’s life turned out a lot different
ly than she expected when she was Richard Tillotson’s girlfriend, and I’m sure there was a lot of sadness for a time. But her life after Richard seemed to have taken some happy turns. If the number of people at the memorial service was any indication, she had a lot of friends.

I take heart from her life.

*
  *  *  *  *

Read all the
books in the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series —.

Appraisal for Murder
(first of the series)

Rekindling Motives
(second of the series)

When the Carny Comes to Town
(third in the series)

Any Port in a Storm
(fourth in the series)

Trouble on the Doorstep
(fifth in the series)

Behind the Walls – coming in Fall 2013

Elaine L. Orr has written fiction and nonfiction for many years and recently introduced the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series.
She grew up in Maryland and moved to the Midwest in 1994. After working for public and private sector employers, she now writes full-time.

www.elaineorr.com

www.elaineorr.blogspot.com