A Groom With a View jj-11 Page 11

  “What will he do when the lodge is torn down this summer?" Mel asked.

  “I asked him that when I ran into him at Wanda's a week or two ago," John said. "It was a mistake. He told me to mind my own business and he'd go wherever he damn well pleased.”

  Ambler nodded. "Pretty much the same reaction I got when I tried to talk to him about it."

  “So it's possible he does have the means of setting himself up someplace else?" Mel asked.

  “So he says," Ambler said, looking around for the waitress. "Where's that pie, honey?" he yelled across the room when he caught her eye.

  “I think he does have something hidden," John Smith volunteered. "We get a lot of calls from him. Prowlers, peeping Toms, trespassers. Could be his imagination, since we never find anyone. Or it could be that he's protecting something valuable."

  “Or something he reckons is valuable," Ambler added.

  “What do you mean?" Mel asked.

  “Well, toward the end of O. W.'s days, he got real ambitious. Had some builders in. Out-of-town builders, mind you. So they couldn't gossip about what they were doing. Had a couple rooms painted and fixed up. A wall torn out and another put up. Changed the locks. Sent out a couple of those moth-eaten old animal heads to a taxidermist. Replaced the doorknobs so they were all the same, had some kind of work done on the old well. Again, by outsiders. Patched up the roof and I don't know what all…"

  “Your wife reported this?" Mel said with a grin.

  "She watched like a hawk. Thought it was out

  of character. Anyway, the work was almost done

  when O. W. had the first stroke. It was a pretty

  bad one. Twisted up his face, made him lame, and got him pretty nutsy. He'd wander off at night. Only thing that saved him was that he made such a racket with his walker that Joe always heard him. Anyhow, the thing I've always wondered was this: if he was having this work done to hide something, and he had the first stroke before he could tell Joe what he was up to, he might have forgotten it. He forgot that he needed to go in a bathroom to pee indoors and even forgot his own name half the time.”

  The pie finally arrived and was every bit as good as the chicken fried steak. Gus Ambler ate with relish for a few minutes, then asked Mel, "So how do you figure this has anything to do with that woman being murdered?"

  “I doubt that it does," Mel said honestly. He turned to John Smith and asked, "How are you getting along on finding out about the rest of the people who were there?"

  “Finding out a lot," Smith said. "But none of it seems especially relevant. That Dwayne guy that Livvy's marrying has a teenage shoplifting record. It should have been expunged years ago, but was still on the books by accident. His mother is clean as a whistle and the brother had a speeding ticket two years ago."

  “Where's he work? Dwayne, I mean?" Mel asked.

  “He's the junior-most vice president in a little branch of a big mortgage company. Paid with a title instead of money like those outfits do people," Smith said.

  “No financial hanky-panky?" Gus Ambler asked.

  “Can't be sure exactly. His boss didn't have much to say about him," Smith replied. "I got the impression he didn't much like the boy, but had no specific criticism he wanted to talk about. The boss is a pretty small cog himself and wouldn't risk causing trouble for himself. He did say that Dwayne was winding up his work and moving to his new wife's company after the wedding."

  “What about the victim?" Ambler asked. "That's the place to start."

  “Harmless, annoying old woman. The local police where she lived found paperwork about some kind of fight she was having with the I.R.S. and the Social Security people. Apparently there's a discrepancy between what she paid in her self-employment taxes and what she was trying to get from Social Security. Wads of paperwork from both agencies and her accountant. But I can't see that it has anything to do with her death. We talked to the accountant. The only thing that came out of it is that he's also the accountant for one of the bridesmaids' fathers. Eden Matthews. The curvy one."

  “I know which one she is," Mel said with a grin.

  “It seems like simple coincidence," Smith said. "I can't see a way it would be connected. The accountant also said that a couple of years ago Mrs. Crossthwait tried to start some sewing classes. Rented sewing machines and a room at a community center. It didn't fly and that's when hertax troubles started. His wife, out of compassion, signed up and said Crossthwait was so critical and nasty to the students that half of them never came back. He had deposit slips showing those who had signed up and one of them was a Hessling, possibly the groom's mother, though the deposit slip didn't give a first name."

  “Did she stick out the course?" Mel asked.

  “No way the accountant could tell. Only two of them tried, unsuccessfully, to get their money back. The rest just didn't come back," Smith said.

  “Seems unlikely that Mrs. Hessling would harbor a grudge for years over a sewing class. Enough of a grudge to kill the teacher," Mel said. "Not to mention that it might not even be the same person.”

  Smith shrugged. "Closer to impossible. Mrs. Crossthwait also kept a big old scrapbook of wedding pictures of all the brides she'd sewed for. One of the earliest was Jack Thatcher's sister Marguerite. But it was eons ago."

  “What about the other people who were in the house the night she died?" Ambler asked.

  “Nothing much. No police or legal records on the bridesmaids. The florist is weird as hell, but hasn't stepped outside the law as far as we know. The caterer had to sue someone two years ago to get his bill paid, otherwise nothing else on him.”

  Mel asked, "And Uncle Joe, who often sees or imagines prowlers, didn't report any that night?"

  “Not a peep from him that night," Smith confirmed.

  “Sounds to me like you've got a mess on your hands," Ambler said gruffly. "Any chance the woman who died wasn't the intended victim?"

  “Anything's possible, but it doesn't seem very likely," Smith said. "Want the last of my pie? I'm stuffed.”

  As Mel and Smith headed back to the police station, Mel said, "I'm glad you asked Gus Ambler along. He's a good of boy, isn't he?"

  “He was… tonight," Smith said, smiling.

  “What do you mean?" Mel asked, loosening his belt a notch and wondering how he'd ever be able to eat again after his massive dinner.

  “Just that he was doing his 'country cop' act. After he retired and his wife had passed away, he got bored. So he got himself into Harvard and took a law degree."

  “You're kidding!"

  “Not a bit. And get this — he drives a hundred miles once a week to teach art appreciation to some little college he's got a soft spot for. Doesn't even charge them.”

  Mel was quiet for a couple miles, brooding unhappily over his misperception of the man. Finally, he said, "I think I've been had."

  “Everybody who's run into Gus feels that way. Eventually.”

  Fourteen

  when Jane and Shelley had finished their din- ner, they went to Mrs. Crossthwait's room and started the sad job of gathering up and packing her things. She had, it appeared, come with everything she could possibly have needed and much more besides. There were tidy boxes of bobbins, buttons, needles, and a large, well-organized case with thread of every weight and color imaginable. There was a full kit of tiny repair tools, belts, and screws for the sewing machine.

  “I've always wanted to have an entire collection of… something," Shelley said. "This comes as close as anything I've ever seen. What's this thing?" she asked, holding up a little gadget.

  Jane glanced at it. "I think it goes with the sewing machine. A thing for making ruffles, maybe? I'll bet there's a case that holds all those things. Here. This green plastic carton. See? Little compartments everything fits into."

  “She really knew her stuff, didn't she?" Shelley said. "At least she had all the equipment. Poor old thing. I wonder who'll get all this."

  “I hope it's somebody who appreciat
es it. I guess her church friends will have to decide what to do with her things if she doesn't have family. Shelley, what do you suppose she was doing anywhere near the stairs in the middle of the night?"

  “Going down for a midnight snack?"

  “I don't think she had a flashlight," Jane said. "At least, I didn't notice one on the steps or the floor. Of course, it might have rolled under a sofa or chair."

  “She might have been meeting someone," Shelley suggested.

  Jane shook her head. "Not in her jammies. Not a woman of her generation. She'd have stayed dressed if she had plans to see someone, I think."

  “Maybe she just heard an alarming noise and went to investigate."

  “Last night was nothing but alarming noises, Shelley. All that lightning and thunder. And being as she was already spooked about auras, and a tad deaf on top of it, I don't think she'd have willingly gone prowling around without a flashlight and probably a weapon like some sharp scissors."

  “Okay, I'm out of suggestions. Have you got any?"

  “Nope," Jane said, looking for the box where the packet of cherry pink seam binding must have belonged. "What if someone told her there was something wrong and we had to get out of the house?"

  “Like a fire?"

  “Yes. A fire. Exactly. As slowly as she moved, she'd have probably been terrified of being in a burning building. Well, so would I, come to that. Or maybe somebody told her there was a big limb hanging over her room that could crash down on the house at any moment.”

  Shelley sat down on the edge of the bed. "You may have something there. Scaring her about some danger is about the only reason I can imagine that would get her out of her room, in the dark, in her nightwear.”

  Jane had found the box of hem tapes and seam bindings and put the leftover packet into it. She had another one she'd found on the floor as well. "Shelley, remember in the attic there was a wad of black seam binding?"

  “Vaguely."

  “I just remembered something. It wasn't old and dusty. And here's another packet of black that's only got a few inches left.”

  Jane crossed the landing to the attic, opened the door, and glanced around. After tripping over the box of doorknobs, she found the tape. "Here it is," she said as Shelley trailed in behind her. "And look at the end of the tape in the packet and this end of the stuff on the floor."

  “They match. It's a jagged cut. But why would Mrs. Crossthwait have cut off a huge section and thrown it away in here? She had a big wastebasket in her room."

  “Because she didn't do it. Someone else did.”

  “I don't get it, Jane. What are you talking about?"

  “My guess is that somebody lifted the packet during the evening, strung it across one of the steps after the lights went out, and slipped what remained back into Mrs. Crossthwait's belongings sometime later.”

  Shelley's eyes widened. "To make quite certain she tripped on the stairs, even if the push didn't do it!"

  “Right. And then the person untied the seam binding — see where it's crinkled from being tied? And pitched it in the attic, thinking nobody would go in there, and if they did, it would just be more junk if it were noticed at all."

  “That's really diabolical," Shelley said. "But how does it help?"

  “I don't know. Except it proves that Mrs. Crossthwait's death was planned. It wasn't a spur of the moment thing.”

  Shelley shivered. "Euwww. I don't like this at all. What a horrible scenario!”

  Jane looked down at the tangle of binding. "I don't imagine this stuff would hold fingerprints, would it?"

  “Jane, it's getting dark and I don't like us being up here alone. Leave the seam binding here and let's finish packing things up and we can go sit in the kitchen until Mel comes back. I suddenly don'tmuch enjoy our solitude. I wish there were someone else around. Preferably a man. With a gun.”

  They went back to Mrs. Crossthwait's room. "Speaking of men, I haven't seen Larkspur for ages," Jane said, picking up an armload of boxes full of sewing notions. "He didn't say anything about leaving, did he?"

  “Not to me. Where are we going with this stuff?"

  “To her car. If we load everything into it, whoever comes to fetch it will have all her belongings.”

  It took a couple trips, but they got everything except the sewing machine into the car; Jane planned to ask one of the strong young men to carry it out later. Jane put Mrs. Crossthwait's purse out of sight under the front seat, locked the Jeep, and pocketed the keys.

  They headed for the kitchen to make some fresh coffee and found Larkspur leaning into the fridge, rummaging for sustenance.

  “Where have you been?" Jane asked. "I was starting to worry about you.”

  He continued to search the fridge. "Just here and there. I found some fabulous columbines back behind Uncle Joe's rabbit hutch of a house. They're not in bloom and might get really doggy flowers, but the foliage is magnificent. And there's a fern there that I can't identify."

  “But no treasure?" Jane asked.

  He whirled around, bumping his head smartly on the egg tray on the door. "Treasure?" he asked with exaggerated innocence.

  “That's what you're really looking for, isn't it?" Shelley said. "How did you happen to hear about it?”

  Larkspur took Mel's dinner plate out of the refrigerator. "May I have this, my dears?" At Jane's nod, he sat down at the table and took the foil off the plate. "Oh, lovely chicken salad. Divine. How did I hear about the treasure? Oh, yes. I mentioned to a customer that I was doing a wedding at a hunting lodge and was rather wondering what would complement deer antlers. The customer asked where the lodge was and he said he'd once lived somewhere nearby and told me about the treasure."

  “Did he say what the nature of it was?"

  “No, just that everybody in town believed there was something hidden in the lodge or the grounds that was extremely valuable."

  “Who was this person?" Jane asked.

  Larkspur made a flapping motion with both hands. "My dear, how could I possibly remember? I have absolute flocks of people in and out of the shop and it was months and months ago. Why? Does it matter who it was?"

  “I guess not," Jane said. "Since it seems to be such a common rumor."

  “Rumor? Are you really sure of that?" Larkspur asked.

  “I'm not sure of anything except that I want this wedding to be over," Jane said. "So I can go home and sink back into being an antisocial slob."

  “Testy, testy, my dear. And I'm absolutely certain you're never a slob. Antisocial perhaps on occasion, everybody's entitled to that, but not a slob. Where has your handsome detective friend gone?"

  “Out to dinner. That's his that you're eating."

  “Will he mind?" Larkspur asked, tucking into the chicken salad as if afraid someone might take it away from him.

  “No, he's gone out and gotten a social life. Well, a professional social life," Jane said. "Maybe that's him now," she said at the sound of a door opening.

  But it was Mr. Willis with a vast tray of ham and egg rolls, which he popped into the oven, but didn't turn the heat on yet. He was back in a moment with grocery bags full of beer, pretzels, chips, and dips.

  “You shouldn't have," Larkspur simpered.

  Mr. Willis looked down his stubby nose. "They're not for you. They're for the bachelor party. The young men won't care that it's not gourmet food."

  “The wedding party isn't back from dinner yet, are they?" Jane said, glancing at her watch. "Not yet. But the beer has to chill."

  “Mr. Willis, have you heard anything about a treasure hidden in the lodge?" Shelley asked as he started stacking beer cans in the refrigerator.

  “Who hasn't?" he asked over his shoulder. "It's not in the pantry. That's all I can tell you."

  “You searched?" Jane asked.

  “Who wouldn't?" he asked. "But I think it's foolish. I've worked in two restaurants that were in old houses that were supposed to have hidden treasures. I was there when one of them was discovere
d."

  “What was it?" Larkspur inquired.

  “A stack of old stock certificates for a defunct mining company. Hidden in the wall of an old pocket door. The owner had them framed as decorations for the walls and renamed the restaurant the Miner's Dream."

  “What's a pocket door?" Shelley asked.

  “The kind of door that slides into a thick wall," Jane said.

  “Are there any here?"

  “No," Larkspur answered with certainty. "And there's nothing in or around the well or the crawl space under the house."

  “You grubbed around under the house?" Jane asked.

  “Just by poking a flashlight into holes in the foundation. If there's anything here, I imagine the wrecking crew will get it."

  “Is that how it works when something's torn down?" Shelley asked.

  “I think so. That's how those pricey salvage companies get all the plaster and marble ornamentation to sell to suburbanites with more money than taste.”

  Shelley bridled. "I just happen to have a section of egg and dart molding from the outside of an old office building in my front garden.”

  Larkspur wasn't embarrassed. "But you, my darling, are the exception that proves the rule. I must go set up the flowers for the bachelor party.”

  As he left, Shelley whispered, "Aren't flowers for a bachelor party a bit much?"

  “They're very macho flower arrangements," Jane replied. "Yucca leaves and those big obscene red plastic-looking flowers with the white thing sticking up out of them. He's tossing them in for free as a bit of a vulgar joke.”

  Jane was desperately eager for Mel to return so she and Shelley could pick his brain about anything he might have learned. But he came back to the lodge looking a bit green around the gills and was only moments ahead of the minibus with the wedding party coming back from dinner in Chicago. Jane reluctantly let him go to his room to nap off his dinner and threw herself back into her "hired hostess" role. Mr. Willis rushed the beer and grocery store snacks to the room where the bridal shower had been held earlier in the day, and Jane helped him put out wines, sherries, and elegant little nibbles in the main room for any guests who might be settling in there.

  Shelley breezed through with an armload of coats she'd relieved the aunts and the bridesmaids of, and whispered, "Just think, Jane, it's eleven o'clock. By this time tomorrow, we'll all be home and this will be but a pleasant memory."