I Only Read Murder, page 23
“The one who drove off the road?” Miranda remembered Ned mentioning it. It was written on her playbill somewhere, alongside Judy’s name: director – mean – husband died.
“That would be the one,” said Burt. “After the accident, Annette offered Judy much-needed succor. Provided a sympathetic shoulder on which to cry, and a handy scapegoat on which to focus her anger. Owen McCune. Annette launched a campaign of rumor and innuendo against him and his garage—the Great Eyesore, as she dubbed it—saying that the brake lines had failed due to Owen’s sloppy work, that he was really to blame. Damn near ruined him.”
“I always figured there was more to it,” said Finkel.
Burt peered through his glasses, looking more like a professor emeritus than he did a former spy. “A regular cocktail, isn’t it? Antidepressants, painkillers, alcohol. That’s a recipe for intracranial bleeding. Coroner doesn’t say for certain. They can’t, because of the head trauma from the accident, but this one time in the Khyber Pass, we took out a notorious arms dealer in just such a fashion. Lotta hairpin turns in the Khyber Pass. Just like here. Either way, this clears Owen of any mechanical neglect. I mean, he was never charged with anything, but the court of public opinion, especially in a small town like this, well, it can be just as brutal.”
A thought occurred to Miranda. First Edgar and the bookstore. Now this.
“If Annette sought to run Owen McCune out of business, to what end?” she asked, though she already had an inkling.
“That’s prime real estate,” said Burt. “A quaint street with a big ol’ garage at the end, taking up space and ruining the property values? Never mind that Owen’s granddad built that garage before any of those twee shops showed up. Annette figured, Owen’s garage goes under, she can swoop in, reap a windfall. You ever reel in a 52-pound king salmon? No? Well, if you did, you’d know how that feels. The excitement of it. The frenzy. McCune’s Garage was her 52-pound salmon.”
“And all it took was some well-placed rumors,” said Finkel.
Miranda’s mind began to whir anew, but before she could say anything, Burt cut her off.
“Don’t go getting any ideas about Owen, okay?”
“I know, I know. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, right?”
“Somethin’ like that,” said Burt. “So don’t go off on any new tangents, okay? They arrested the right person. Sadly.”
But as Miranda Abbott was about to discover, not everyone in Happy Rock agreed with Burt’s assessment.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cozies to the Rescue!
Miranda was sitting on the front veranda—which Bea still insisted on calling a “porch”—feeling defeated, a glass of SunnyD in hand (she had offered to make lemonade but Bea wouldn’t hear of it), wondering where she’d gone wrong. Not just with the investigation, but with everything.
Knights in shining armor don’t always arrive on horseback. Nor are they always men. Sometimes they are diminutive clerks driving a small blue hatchback.
Susan Lladdwraig pulled up in front of Bea’s cottage and lugged a canvas bag that was almost as big as she was up the steps. She faced Miranda and said those three words that Miranda had been waiting to hear from someone—anyone—in Happy Rock.
“I believe you.”
With that, Susan dumped her canvas bag onto the Adirondack chair next to Miranda’s. An avalanche of paperback mysteries tumbled out.
“Everything we need is in here. If we’re going to exonerate Edgar, if we’re going to solve this, the solution will be contained in these.”
Cozies to the rescue!
Miranda went through the pile. Mrs. Petunia, mainly, but also the Tic-Tac-Toe Lady, who fought crimes by solving a particularly demanding game of X’s and O’s every time. And The Ghost Detective, who solved crimes from the Great Beyond via a series of coded knocks during séances, not to be confused with The Ghostly Detective, who solved crimes on behalf of ghosts, The Knitting Circle ladies, who solved crimes while knitting, again not to be confused with The Crocheting Club, which was an entirely different concept altogether. Plus The Number Two Ladies Detectives Agency “which always seemed a bit of a knockoff to me,” Susan admitted. Their motto was: “We try harder.”
If Susan and Miranda were going to crack the case, they would have to try harder, as well.
“Edgar is in trouble, and he needs our help,” said Susan. “I will be the Watson to your Holmes.”
“No!” said Miranda. “Not Watson. Not a sidekick, but a co-star. With a lower billing, of course,” she hastened to add. “But a co-star still!”
“Like Jude and Carole!”
“Like Crockett and Tubbs!”
“Who?”
“Who?”
Susan retrieved a notebook and pen from her purse, and got down to business right away.
“Let’s start with the message that was slipped under your door.”
Miranda spread it out on the wooden table, moving her SunnyD to make space. The paper was now so creased that some of the letters were starting to come unglued, but the message remained, misspelling intact.
“Hmm,” said Susan authoritatively. (If anyone could “hmm” authoritatively, it was Susan.) “That’s odd. Why would someone spell should correctly but not have?”
“I asked myself the same thing. It was Edgar.”
“Edgar wrote this?”
Miranda could see the alarm on Susan’s face.
“The words. Not the actual message. They’re taken from an episode of—” And that was when she realized. “Susan, how often is recycling collected in Happy Rock?”
“Every two weeks, why?”
But by then Miranda was already gone, storming into the B&B with Susan hurrying to catch up.
And there it was by the back door: that infernal blue box that Bea kept reminding Miranda of. A stack of glossy magazines was piled neatly inside. Celebrity gossip, for the most part, plus some home décor and gardening magazines. Miranda picked up the top one, flipped through it, found a page with letters carefully excised.
Bea couldn’t even bring herself to throw out the evidence once she was done, thought Miranda. She just had to place it in recycling. Always was a conscientious member of the community, our Bea.
Next magazine, same thing. Certain letters had been painstakingly cut out. Miranda recognized the fonts and the missing bits that the note had been assembled from. Of course it was Bea! Who else would know Pastor Fran Investigates so well as to re-create a specific message from a specific episode?
They called Bea in, and when she saw the magazines, she blushed, deeply abashed.
“Oh my. I knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
They sat at the kitchen table with Bea wringing her hands.
“Why?” Miranda asked.
Bea couldn’t have been the killer—she was nowhere near the stage that night, eliminating both means and opportunity—so why the cryptic message?
“I thought you might investigate it, like in the show. And you did! It was so exciting. Like being in my very own episode. Like having Pastor Fran in my home. The real Pastor Fran. The one who tracks down criminals.”
“That was just a show,” Miranda said, and Bea had tears in her eyes.
“Not to me. It was more than that. Pastor Fran was about making sense of tragedy, about thwarting the badness in the world, about making sure that goodness prevailed.”
A widow, still grieving. VHS tapes and caramel popcorn and storylines that always featured a happy ending. This was what Pastor Fran provided.
“And don’t forget,” Bea said quickly, “I thought it might be good publicity for you. Pastor Fran returns!”
“But I’m not Pastor Fran. I’m Miranda Abbott. And my ex-husband is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Susan looked at her. “Ex?”
A nod from Miranda. “We signed the papers this morning.”
“Are you mad at me?” Bea asked with pleading eyes. “Please tell me you’re not mad at me. Tell me you’ll forgive me.”
Miranda smiled. “Pastor Fran always forgives.”
Reassured, Bea took her leave, feeling blessed.
Susan said, “I notice you referred to Pastor Fran, not Miranda Abbott.”
“Pastor Fran forgives her. Miranda Abbott is still pissed off as hell.”
“It does set us back quite a bit . . . Or does it?”
“How so?”
Susan mulled it over and said, “The menacing letter under your door wasn’t real. So there was no actual attempt at communicating with you after Annette died. No follow-up threats. No ominous warnings. Just days before, someone had wanted you dead. But then you switched the glasses and Annette died instead. And after that . . . silence. Why? Why did they give up so easily?”
This was making Miranda nervous. “You’re saying someone should have kept on trying to kill me?”
“They should have. But they didn’t. Lots of opportunity to, I’d say. Another dose of poison at the Cozy Café. Hit and run. Toxic tree-frog blow-dart. Okay, so I may have been reading too much Mrs. Petunia on that one. But the fact remains, they didn’t try again. Why?”
“Why am I still alive?” It was a strange question to ask.
“Precisely. They wanted you dead. Why would they settle for Annette?”
“Because Annette’s death had already served their purpose?” Miranda suggested.
Susan didn’t follow this. “How?”
“Well, for someone involved with the play, the effect was the same. For Teena. Hear me out. When Annette died, I was removed from my original role. Same as if it had actually been me who’d been killed. Teena steps up, takes my place. It would have been the same result if I had died.” This brought Miranda’s train of thought back around to Rodney. “It’s funny. I’d assumed that if it was Rodney, he acted alone. But what if he was being used, what if he was maneuvered and manipulated into it?”
The idea percolating in Miranda’s mind was this: Have I misread Teena all along? Is she playing Rodney for a fool? The perfect crime would be to have someone else do it for you, dropping hints without directly asking. Was Rodney a lovelorn patsy in all of this? And what exactly was going on with Teena and Graham?
“Susan, did Graham really go to Yale?”
“Absolutely.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told us.”
Now it was Miranda’s turn to go “Hmm.”
Susan didn’t like the sound of that. “I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Annette’s death,” she said.
“It casts doubt. We don’t know if Graham truly went to Yale. It’s just his word, isn’t it? And if he lied about that, what else is he lying about?”
“But it’s not just his word,” said Susan. “Yale was where he met Denise. She was in music, he was in theater. You know she’s from here, right? This is her hometown, so it was a big deal when she got accepted. The Pride of Happy Rock. Unfortunately, she’s struggled with anxiety since she was young, and Yale and the big city overwhelmed her. Graham gave it all up to come back here with her, and he never complained, never resented her for it. Quite the opposite. He tries to include her as much as he can, getting her out of her comfort zone, taking her to public events. And it’s working. Slowly, she’s getting better, becoming more comfortable with who she is.”
“But—”
“Graham Penty is a good man,” Susan said firmly, as though closing a door. Clearly, she did not approve of this line of inquiry. “Let’s stick to the evidence, rather than conjecture. The poison that Tanvir shipped to the bookstore.”
“Do you think Tanvir could have been mistaken or even lying? Or that maybe someone else ordered it under Edgar’s name, as a ruse?”
At this, Susan faltered. A worried look came over her. “I’m afraid it’s true. We do have silverfish and Edgar did order that pesticide, but”—Susan refused to concede even this evidence, damning though it was—“do you really think Tanvir’s Hardwares & Bait Shop is the only place in town that sells pesticides?” A look of inspiration came over her. “C’mon! Grab your bag!”
“Where are we going?” Miranda asked.
“To the smelliest place in Happy Rock.”
“Owen’s garage?”
“Even smellier.”
The S.J. Fertilizer Supply Company was located in a handsome brick building at the far end of the harbor, downwind from the genteel clientele of the Duchess Hotel, thankfully. The motto was: No one spreads manure like we do at S.J.’s!
A warm waft of odor washed over Miranda as she climbed out of Susan’s hatchback.
“Historic building,” Susan said, proudly.
Historic smell, too, thought Miranda.
The bakery next door to S.J.’s was going out of business, with ALL ITEMS HALF OFF!! posted in the window.
The odor of the ordure only grew stronger when they went inside. The interior was vast and as dark and dank as a mushroom farm. Mounds of different varieties of manure lined the shop the way a spice merchant or a tea peddler might display their wares. True, the store had a beautiful pressed-tin ceiling, long hardwood counters, and a vintage cash register, but the effect of this was lost to the deeply pervading smell, sickly sweet like sewage, that had been absorbed into the very walls themselves. Susan dinged the brass bell on the counter for help.
Who would work in such a place? Miranda wondered.
“Hey, guys!”
Of course. Melvin of the foam muscles.
There was a tray of sugar cookies next to the cash register. “Want some?” he asked.
Miranda could taste the smell of manure in her mouth. “I thank you, no.”
“Are ya sure? They’re really good.” He scarfed down a couple. “They’re from the shop next door. They’re shutting down, so everything’s on sale.” He frowned. “No one ever seems to stay there very long. The potpourri shop, the perfume store, even the fishmongers, they all close down almost as soon as they open, it seems to me. A real shame. Anyways. What can I do for you ladies? In the market for some manure, are ya? Because if you are, you came to the right place! No one spreads manure like we do at S.J.’s!”
Miranda’s eyes were beginning to water. Susan took the lead on this, flipping open her notebook like a regular Cagney and/or Lacey.
“S.J. sells all manner of farm and gardening supplies, correct?”
“For sure.”
“But it’s not just fertilizers, mulch, soil. You also sell weed control. And pesticides, correct?”
“Some. Mainly bulk. Tanvir’s has more choice.”
“Boric acid?”
“Sure.”
Trying not to wheeze, Miranda asked, “Did anyone in the cast or crew purchase chemicals here? Teena, say?”
“Teena? Nope. I would’ve remembered—she’s gorgeous!—and even if I wasn’t here when she came by, she would’ve mentioned it to me later, for sure. ‘Hey, Melvin! Wassup! I was in your shop the other day. Good selection of manures! Want to go out sometime?’ That sort of thing.”
“How about your classmate, Rodney? Or your drama teacher, Mr. Penty?”
“Rodney, I don’t think so, and Graham’s wife does all their gardening, so I don’t see much of him, but Pete stops by now and then, and Burt for sure. Not certain where Doc gets his from, and Judy used to come in all the time, but I don’t see her much now.”
“How well do you know Rodney?” Miranda asked.
“Rodney? He’s okay. Kinda quiet. A little sad. He’s been deliberately flunking out of his final math class because he doesn’t want to leave drama club. He’s, like, one credit short. But doesn’t want to graduate. Drama club is everything to him. So Mr. Penty—I mean Graham—he figured out a way to convince Rodney to finish high school. Deal is, if he does finish, Graham will make sure Rodney’s on every crew of every show at the Happy Rock theater. Worked out an arrangement with Burt to include him.”
“And you’re sure Rodney has never been in here, never purchased boric acid?”
“We don’t really keep receipts or records or anything. It’s kinda hard to say who bought what, or how much, or when.”
The bookkeeper in Susan winced at this. How hard was it to keep track of such things?
Well, thought Miranda, this has been no help. Her eyes were streaming and her throat was raw, and she was about to leave when Melvin said, “Huh.”
This would turn out to be a very crucial huh.
“I mean, if you’re asking about the cast and crew, there is someone else who used to come in here a lot, but I don’t think it helps you very much now.”
“Who?”
“Annette.”
“But she had a condo by the water,” said Susan. “Plus a penthouse in Portland. Hardly had a reason to buy manure in bulk. Why was she here?”
“Not to buy anything. Just to ‘inspect the premises,’ as she put it. Always real nice. Liked what she saw, said it had ‘structural integrity’ and ‘true architectural value.’”
“I’m surprised she didn’t try to shut it down,” muttered Miranda. “The way she tried to with McCune’s Garage. Not as an eyesore, perhaps, but certainly as a blight on the community. A nose-sore of sorts.”
“Oh no, like I said, she was really happy with it. Said it would go for a good price, once we aired it out a bit and, maybe, hung an air freshener or two. Or three. Maybe a spritz of Febreze. Said she’d cover the cost of a full steam cleaning. Would pull out the wall paneling, replace the floor.”
“Aha!” said Miranda. “Annette had designs on this place, as well!”
“She sure did. But heck, we weren’t complaining! She wasn’t trying to run us out of business or anything. My grandpa, he’s planning to sell the building. He’s in a seniors home in Gladstone. He’s, like, eighty-four now.”
“Your parents don’t want to maintain the family store?” Susan asked.
“Let me put it this way. My mom said she would take over S.J. Fertilizers when pigs fly, and even then, she’d have to see them doing loop-de-loops first. Nope. Mom works at the Duchess, Dad at the insurance office. Neither of ’em wants to carry on our family tradition. And I’m still in high school, so selling the place makes sense.”
