Stranded (16 page)

“No health problems for Hiram, then?” I remembered Kelli had taken blackberry balsam out for Norman, so maybe the iron in his stomach was rusting a bit. Or maybe he wasn’t getting enough salsa these days to keep it tuned up.

“His eyesight was slipping a little, and he was getting more forgetful and putting on a little weight. But basically, no, he wasn’t having any health problems.”

Would forgetfulness on Hiram’s part result in a misplacement of papers and explain why Kelli hadn’t found everything she thought should be there?

I leaned forward at the table. “Lucinda, I’m pretty sure you don’t think Kelli killed Hiram any more than I do. So who do you think did it?”

“I’ve spent many hours pondering that question.”

“Someone who didn’t want the mine reopened? Someone with an old grudge? Or a new grudge? A business matter? Or something personal?”

Lucinda drew check marks in the air with a finger. “Any of the above.”

“Norman?”

“I don’t like to think it, but the possibility has occurred to me. They were old friends, but that tequila is powerful stuff, and they both got pretty hot under the collar when they drank and argued.”

“But it was apparently a planned murder, not an impulse thing.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked with a sharpness that surprised me.

“For one thing, the fact that the murderer brought along a weapon rather than just using whatever was available to hit Hiram over the head with.” I assumed the police had noted that point as readily as I had, but probably they hadn’t stressed its importance when releasing information to the public.

“That’s true, I suppose,” she agreed. She sipped the coffee reflectively. “I’m inclined to think it must have been some outsider, someone who was bitter about some business deal with Hiram in the past and wanted to settle the score.”

That sounded reasonable, and Lucinda was certainly in a position to know as much about Hiram’s business affairs as anyone. “Someone such as that would most likely come prepared,” I agreed.

“Hiram was . . . shrewd, you know. He was never stingy. Never. But he could drive a hard bargain when he was making a deal. So that’s what I’m thinking, that it was someone who came, did the deed, and left as unnoticed as he came. And will probably never be caught.”

“What about an old wife?”

“There’s only one still around, number two, I think she was, and I have a hard time suspecting her of anything.” Lucinda chuckled, as if an inside joke were involved. “You can meet her tomorrow at the rehearsal. Doris Hammerstone. She’s prompter for the skits.”

Doris Hammerstone? Tiny, pink-scalped, bent-bodied Doris was one of Hiram’s old wives? No, I couldn’t see her whopping him over the head, at least not with anything more substantial than a celery stick. I couldn’t, in fact, even see her making it up to the third floor of the house. “Actually, I’ve already met her.”

Okay, cancel the old wives. Although I have to admit I did so reluctantly.

Lucinda left a few minutes later. I did some more vacuuming and dusting. Abilene got home just before dark, elated about her driving practice. “Dr. Sugarman says that I already drive well enough that after a little more practice next weekend I should be ready to take the test. The pickup is an automatic, which is a lot easier to drive than the stick shift on the old tractor.”

I noted that he was still Dr. Sugarman, not Mike, to her.

We spent the evening with me going through the driver’s license booklet and asking Abilene every question I could think might be on the test. Then I figured I’d better study that booklet myself, because she knew more than I did.

In the morning I used the cell phone to call the mail-forwarding outfit in Arkansas, give my password, and ask them to send my accumulated mail to general delivery in Hello. Mail wasn’t delivered to homes here. Everyone had a P.O. box, but I was reluctant to do that. I suspected the Braxtons had tracked me down once by using the resources of a family member in the postal service. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I figure too much caution is better than too little.

Right after lunch I walked down to the old hotel building on Main Street. A gloomy blanket of clouds cut off the top half of the mountains on both sides of town, and dirty gray slush ridged the streets. The hotel had no doubt been impressive in its day, and it still maintained a stolid dignity. Four stories, all brick, still the tallest building in town. A couple of windows were boarded up on the second story, but above that everything appeared in good shape.

Activity buzzed around the front door, cars coming and going and dropping people off, and I followed several ladies inside. A wide stairway led off to the right of a shabbily carpeted lobby, but the stairs were blocked by a tasseled cord and a “Keep Out” sign. A plywood barrier and a similar sign, with the addition of a red-lettered “Danger,” barred entrance to a single elevator on the left side. Ladies wrapped in a hum of busy chatter milled around the lobby.

The far side of the room opened onto what may once have been a large restaurant or even a ballroom. Now it held numerous rows of unpadded brown seats, the folding kind I remember from movie theaters when I was a girl. An impressively large stage covered the far end of the room, but the floor had been patched with plywood, and a crisscrossing of two-by-fours braced one end. The rod holding a gold curtain drifted downhill, and the floor felt uneven under my feet. To really refurbish the building, as Hiram had apparently promised to do, would surely take big bucks.

A slapstick skit was in progress on stage, three people shoving each other around. The actors were all women, but one of them yelled, “Soitenly!” in that old Three Stooges take on “certainly.” As I recalled, the Three Stooges hadn’t come along until later than the 1920s, but probably the Revue aimed for fun rather than fussy time details. Lucinda and another woman stood off to one side consulting a script. And there, right down front, was Doris Hammerstone, also a script in hand, her unexpectedly strong voice now bellowing out, “No, no, Emily, it’s not Mel, it’s Moe. Moe is one of the Stooges.”

Off to one side, the chorus line was getting lined up, a tall woman in the center, height graduating unevenly down to the shortest ladies on either end. Tight leggings had been out of style for some time now, but they were in prominence in the chorus line, along with all the unflattering lumps and bumps tight leggings reveal.

“Mrs. Malone, I thought that was you!” I turned and saw a slim, blond woman rushing toward me. “Remember me? Char Sterling, Chris Sterling’s mother. We met at the Historical Society the other day.”

“Yes, of course.” The ladies there had called her Charlotte, but apparently she preferred Char.

“How nice of you to come and watch our little production! So, what do you think?”

Charlotte was more casually dressed today, dark slacks and a ski sweater, but her oversized purse with the enigmatic letter was the same as before. Today her blond hair was in a sleek ponytail tied at the nape of her neck, casual but still elegant.

“Very interesting. You’re not in the chorus line?” I asked, since she looked in better shape for it than most of the ladies in the lineup.

“I’m handling costumes again this year. And wigs.” She held up a dark wig that looked as if it had been cut with a bowl as a pattern. “Moe’s, I think. For the Three Stooges skit.” She surprised me by draping the wig over her own elegant hairdo. It covered half her face. “What do you think?” she asked from beneath it. “Could I sell more real estate in this? Things are slow now.”

We both laughed as she took the wig off, and I liked her better for being able to make a bit of fun of herself. Not nearly as stuffy and pretentious as I’d thought at our first meeting.

“Did someone at the Historical Society find information on the house you asked about? The Randolph house, I think you called it.”

“Actually, I had to go back over there and do it myself.” She wrinkled her nose with an air of exasperation, and I wondered if she also called this the “Ladies Hysterical Society.” “Perhaps you’d like to see the house sometime? And some of the town’s other historic old houses as well?”

“I would indeed. But I’m afraid I’m not in the market for real estate of any age at the moment.”

She put a hand on my arm and laughed again. “Oh, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I just thought you might be interested. Although none of the other houses have the mystique of having a murder attached as Hiram’s place does, of course. Do you really think you can uncover anything about his death?”

“The police apparently did a very thorough examination of the house and didn’t find anything. There was fingerprint powder all over the third floor tower room, from where he was pushed.”

Charlotte shuddered lightly. “I wouldn’t want to live there.”

“Really?” A thought occurred to me. “What about selling the place?”

She looked momentarily nonplussed. Then, assuming a polished real estate saleslady air, as if she were addressing prospective buyers, she said, “Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I have just the place for you! It’s this marvelous old Victorian home that belonged to one of our town’s most illustrious citizens. Three stories, with enough bedrooms for all your guests, fantastic views of the city and mountains, especially from your very own ballroom on the third floor! Plus a mysterious history that no other house in town can claim. A murder once happened there! I know you’ll love it, and you won’t believe the reasonable price they’re asking for it.”

She was laughing by the time she finished, and so was I. “Am I good, or what?” she asked.

“You’re good.”

Going more serious, she added, “Anyway, for a small town, we have a really competent police force. We had another murder three or four years ago, some drug-related thing, and they had the killer nailed within a week. So I’d guess they didn’t leave anything undone on this one. Although I’m personally inclined to think Hiram was killed by some outsider who may be very difficult to track down.”

An opinion that matched Lucinda’s. “Not Kelli?”

She looked surprised that I’d even ask. “Definitely not Kelli. And I’d believe that even if she weren’t my son’s girlfriend. Kelli is no killer, and it just makes me furious how people have jumped to unfair conclusions about her.” An apologetic smile erased the deep frown lines that had momentarily cut into her smooth complexion. “Sorry. I just get kind of worked up on this subject.”

I changed the subject. “This is quite an impressive old building too.”

She glanced overhead, as if suspecting something might come tumbling down. “As you may have heard, Hiram was planning to buy and renovate it, and then donate it to the Historical Society. But that won’t happen now, of course, so this may be the last year for the Revue. The fire department has been warning for the last couple years that the building is unsafe and threatening to shut us down.”

“That would be too bad. But I suppose officials have to be cautious about safety.”

“Personally, I think it’s a big to-do about nothing. This old building will still be standing when that young fire marshal is gray-haired and doddering.”

“The stairs and elevator must be dangerous.” I gestured toward the signs.

“I don’t know that I’d call the elevator dangerous. It certainly isn’t going anywhere. It’s been stuck in the basement since last year. And the stairs might not support a crowd of people, but we use the third floor for storage for costumes and props, so someone is always running up or down the stairs, and we’ve never had any problems. We have to use the third floor because the second was vandalized years ago.” She hesitated, one hand absentmindedly stroking the wig as if it were a pet. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ve sometimes wondered if there wasn’t some collusion going on.”

“Collusion? Between whom?”

“Well, for starters, maybe between Hiram and the fire department officials? Threats to condemn the building would certainly lower the value and might convince the elderly woman in Denver who owns it to sell cheap.”

I was surprised at her suggestion of a shady business practice on Hiram’s part, since her son had been his lawyer and presumably advising him. Although I realized I probably shouldn’t be surprised. I’d already heard about Hiram’s shrewdness, which might merely be a euphemism for any number of less complimentary adjectives.

She laughed and touched my arm again. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to me. Probably just my imagination running amuck. Chris says I read way too many mystery novels, and he may be right.”

“Mysteries are my favorite reading material too.”

“Really? Maybe you won’t think my suspicions completely weird, then.” She stepped closer, her voice dipping confidentially low when she added, “Chris always thought so highly of Hiram, but I had my doubts. Before my husband passed away, he also handled Hiram’s legal affairs. He never actually told me anything specific, confidentiality between lawyer and client, you know. But I got the definite impression that it wasn’t easy to keep Hiram on the up-and-up, that he often wanted to do things that weren’t necessarily illegal but were definitely—” She broke off and made a little side-to-side wiggle with her hand.