Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery) (11 page)

The result was that when Pish went back to the city for a couple of days at the end of September to retrieve some belongings from the condo he shared with his mother, he helped our mutual designer friend box up some samples and paints suitable for the space and brought them back with him. The designer had come through so magnificently that I had paint and fabric enough for at least a couple of rooms. I had stroked several different colors on the wall in bars to see how the light affected it, and the winner for the turret room was a pale yellow called “straw,” a delicate but rich tone that accepted the afternoon light and filled the room with a gorgeous glow. I would have loved to pair it with natural wood trim, but it would take forever to strip the baseboards and other woodwork, and I didn’t have that kind of time. We were taking the easy road.

Shilo and I spent the rest of the afternoon painting trim and finished late that night. The next morning was going to be busy, so no more painting for the day. I tumbled into bed exhausted but had trouble sleeping for worrying. Was Pish in trouble? He had avoided me for the rest of the day by working first on his book, then on the bank’s problems. He then went with his federal agent friend to the Grovers’ home for dinner and an evening of talking opera with Janice. He wasn’t home when I went to bed.

The next day was going to be a busy one. They were having a Halloween party at Golden Acres, and I was supplying treats for it, as was Binny. I was also supplying some cookie-and-square platters to a meeting at the Brotherhood of the Falcon meeting hall, which was going to be a new client for me. I awoke early and baked a few dozen muffins as well as several batches of cookies, chocolate chip and peanut butter. I made lemon squares, too, a simple and delicious addition for those strange beasts who don’t like chocolate or peanut butter.

I actually had a new muffin recipe that was so good, it was sinful. I worked it out to honor Hubert Dread, one of the old guys at Golden Acres who had told me a long story about his meeting with “the King” in some kind of undercover operation. He claimed that Elvis was actually an undercover agent for the FBI. It was clearly one of Hubert’s highly embroidered and fanciful tales, but fun. My own knowledge of Elvis, which was sketchy, related mostly to his food preferences; I knew he loved peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. So I baked a couple dozen Fit for the King muffins, which were peanut butter, banana, and chocolate chip. Delectable! I also made a batch of Pecan Pie muffins and, while I was at it, a couple of batches of bran and carrot.

That took a couple of hours, but it was still only midmorning when I arranged a few baskets of muffins and platters of cookies and squares, then loaded the rest in plasticware. I had a couple of stops to make, and the first one was going to be interesting. The Brotherhood of the Falcon Hall was on the outskirts of town, but the meeting was not a Falcon meeting. It was kind of a town hall deal, with a few local politicians and interested townsfolk. I piled the stuff in Shilo’s rust bucket—she was still sleeping and would be for the foreseeable future, given how much and how late we had worked the day before—and headed down the lane.

I had driven past Brotherhood of the Falcon Hall, as the Falcons’ boy fort was called, so I knew where it was, on a side road off Butler Lane/Wynter Line, whichever you wanted to call it, or depending on the day of the week and which local body of government had the upper hand. The Brotherhood members may as well have posted a sign that said
No Gurlz Aloud
, because they were a very cliquey bunch, every last one of them frightened to death of his wife, I’d be willing to bet, judging from the couple of members I knew. Simon Grover, bank manager and brotherhood member, was completely cowed by Janice, and I suspected that lawyer Silvio was the same. Mrs. Silvio was a Latina with exotic looks, long red fingernails, and ferocious clothing tastes. I had only seen her in passing, and I didn’t want to stereotype her based on her heritage or appearance, but she certainly interested me.

I had learned that on the agenda that day was a discussion of the mess left by Junior Bradley, the former zoning commissioner, and what was to be done about every single bit of business he had conducted in the two and a half years since he had taken over the job from the retiring zoning commissioner. This concerned me, since some of those zoning decisions had been made about my uncle’s plans for the Wynter Castle property.

However, I knew I was barking up the wrong tree if I thought to bust in on the meeting that day. There was a strict “no girls allowed” policy at the Brotherhood Hall, clearly unconstitutional and certainly out of bounds if they were holding town council meetings there. Normally I’d be up to fight that, but I wasn’t going to be in Autumn Vale long enough to worry about it, and if they didn’t want to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current century, or even past the middle of the last one, that was not my business. It was a job for other local ladies.

If I was completely honest, I hoped that the zoning problems with the castle were not a worry, because
past
zoning was not an issue. Melvyn and Rusty Turner had been working on zoning for creating a development of homes on the Wynter property, but I didn’t see that as a viable option. I felt we had a strong case for asking them to clean the slate of past requests and to propose rezoning the castle to include its possible future use as a hotel or resort. I could handle that by speaking to whomever took over Junior Bradley’s position or possibly to someone at the town clerk’s office.

I pulled up at the Brotherhood of the Falcon Hall, where several cars were already parked in haphazard disarray in the gravel parking area. The hall was a bland box of a building on a parcel of land set in the middle of the woods. As I already noted, it was located on the Wynter Line, now Butler Lane. I was beginning to get used to the dual nature of road naming in Abenaki County, since the county, the township, and the town were constantly at war and made changes whenever they felt like it. If they ever hoped to have any kind of tourism industry, that could become a problem, but they seemed blithely unconcerned that they were shooting themselves in multiple feet while they do-si-doed among themselves.

I eased into a spot next to a big black car I recognized as the Grovers’ vehicle and grabbed the platters of treats and tubs of muffins from the seat next to me. I found the back door and entered, balancing the food awkwardly in my arms, to find Janice arguing with another woman.

“You and I need to get together and put those men in their places, Sonora, or they’ll keep running things in the same boneheaded way they’ve been doing for the twenty years I’ve lived here!” She was talking to the woman I recognized as Mrs. Silvio, Andrew’s wife. Janice turned and said, “Back me up on this, Merry. Town Council should not be meeting at the Brotherhood Hall, not when they have a discriminatory policy against women!”

“Okay,” I said, trying to pull the door closed behind me with my foot. “So, burning bras at dawn? Or we march on the hall with salad forks and brûlée torches?” I had imagined Janice was the kind of woman who didn’t give a rat’s patootie about such stuff, and here she was advocating social action. She was my mother redux.

Janice gave me a look, but Sonora laughed gaily, her head thrown back, her dark, glossy hair a wild tumble of curls. She was dressed, however, in a sober skirt suit of taupe, with plain black pumps . . . very conservative as befit, I supposed, a lawyer’s wife. The bank manager’s wife, on the other hand, was gowned in a fuchsia muumuu, one of her hundred or so such dresses. Janice grabbed a platter from me and slammed it down on the counter as I set another beside it. I put the stack of muffin tubs and the other platters down, too, and glanced around the room. We were in a barren-looking kitchen fitted with commercial-grade ovens, two refrigerators, and little else. Pitiful.

I refocused on my friend. “Don’t look at me like that, Janice,” I protested. “As a matter of fact, on my way here I was just thinking it was extremely weird that Town Council would be meeting here, where women are not welcome. Why is that?”

“The Town Council building was condemned; black mold. Had to be torn down, it was so bad,” Janice said, rolling her eyes. “And nobody since has had the cojones to make a decision on a new town hall.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not really an Autumn Valer, so I wish you luck, but I don’t see what I have to say about it.”

The two women exchanged looks. The lawyer’s wife shrugged and turned to get milk out of one refrigerator.

“Merry, this is Sonora Silvio, Andrew’s wife,” Janice said huffily. “She’s helping me get these sorry dopes organized, and I’m staying for the meeting whether they like it or not. I was just trying to convince Sonora to stay, too.”

“I’m sorry, Janice,” Sonora said, her voice colored with a faint accent, probably Cuban. She poured milk into a couple of pitchers and put them on a tray that already held sugar bowls, sweetener packets, and cutlery. “I have to go to my son’s school for pizza day. Petruchio likes me to be there.”

“Merry?” Janice said, turning to me. “What about you?”

I considered it; I really did. For a few seconds, at least. “I just can’t, Janice. I’m sorry. I have a million things to do, among them dropping off muffins at the café and some other baked goods at Golden Acres.” I smiled at her as I unpacked my tubs, then tried to change the subject. “Did you have fun the other night at the costume ball?”

“Sure,” she said as she scooped coffee into the huge coffeemaker, then set it to percolate. “Dumber and I had a grand time.”

“Did Pish have anything to say last night at your place?”

“You mean about Virgil accusing him of killing that idiot who got his throat slashed, as if Pish Lincoln would do anything of the kind?”

I was happy Pish had staunch support in Autumn Vale other than from Shilo and me, but Sonora was frowning over at Janice, then at me. I shouldn’t have brought up the subject. I mentally shrugged; pretty soon it would be all over the place anyway, so better to present it in the best light, as something patently ridiculous. I briefly described what was going on with the murder investigation but did not get into the specifics of my friend being under suspicion. She had already heard much of it.

“My daughter Giuletta heard from a girl in her class that the dead man was dressed like a cowboy. Is that true?”

I nodded, wondering if her daughter’s school friend was Lizzie.

“I wondered,” she said. “That explains a lot.”

“What do you mean? Did you see the guy?”

She nodded. “I saw him, I think, along with two others on his way to Autumn Vale from Ridley Ridge. I was coming back from doing some shopping, and they cut me off. I followed them to give them a piece of my mind, but I couldn’t get them to stop.”

“Your lucky day,” I said. “Given what happened later, I mean. I believe he was killed by someone he knew, maybe even someone he came with. Who else was in the car?”

She frowned and tilted her head, staring up at the stained ceiling as she pondered. “I did not get a perfect look, you understand, but there was someone with what looked like a black wig and someone else in the backseat.”

“Hullo, hullo, what are you little ladies doing here?” a voice boomed.

A tall gentleman, probably in his mid-seventies, stalked into the room and rubbed his hands together. “Gabbing, huh? Gossiping? Ah, gotta love the ladies.”

“I have to go,” Sonora said, and hopped toward the door, waving good-bye. “Talk to you all later!”

Darn! I wanted to ask her more questions and tell her to let Virgil know what she’d seen. I would have to be sure to pass her name and story on to him myself; I made a mental note . . . a car with three people in it, one with a black wig. Now, who was this fellow? I observed with interest.

Janice smiled up at the man. “Elwood Fitzhugh, just the fellow I wanted to see.”

He sidled up to her and put his arm over her plump shoulders and squeezed. “You finally ready to leave that old tub o’ lard for me, sweet missy?”

I thought she’d deck him for talking to her that way, but instead she smirked up at him. “Poor Simon. You’re too hard on him, El. No, I wanted you to meet Melvyn’s great niece, the one who inherited the castle! Merry, this is Mr. Elwood Fitzhugh, the zoning commissioner before Junior Bradley was hired.”

“Well, now, aren’t you just the spittin’ image of your mama!” he said, staring at me and nodding.

“You saw the picture Melvyn kept,” I acknowledged.

“Not at all, not at
all,
” he said. “I met your mama!”

“You met my mother,” I said, stupidly repeating that startling statement.

“I surely did. Don’t you remember me? I guess you were such a wee scrap of a child, and pretty tuckered. I was heading to Rochester to get some information on a builder who had done some work in Autumn Vale. I was about to head out of town when the cab driver from Ridley Ridge—the one who your mama called, you know—flagged me down.”

He turned his long, lined face up to the ceiling, squinting, then looked back down at me. “If I remember right,” he said, waggling his finger, “his cab blew a tire and he needed someone to take you and your mama to the train station in Rochester. Would I do it? he asked. I said sure, didn’t mind the company, and so I took you both to the train station, and your mama and I, we chattered the whole way, hour and a quarter—or more, the way I drive. She was a fumin’ the whole time over Melvyn and how bullheaded he was.”

I stood for a long moment staring at him, stunned. When I was very young, not long after my father died, my mother and I had made a trip to Wynter Castle, but the visit lasted only overnight. My mother and Melvyn argued, and we left abruptly. But it seemed that Mr. Fitzhugh had talked to my mother just after the fight. I had a vague memory of being moved from the cab to another car, which must have been his.

What had she said to him, I wondered? In the heat of the moment, had she spoken of issues she never would talk about later? I wanted to talk to him at length, but there was one burning question that, if answered, would give me some perspective on all that came after. “Mr. Fitzhugh, did my mom say why she and my uncle fought?”