It's Marple, Dear

by L Mad Hildebrandt

  “Okay,” I said. “I give up. We’re waiting. Can you tell me what the confession was about?”

  Mother took a sip of tea, then began. “The woman I went to the river with last night? She wanted to talk to me about a murder. Not Mrs. Wilson, however, but an older one. With a dark story.”

  “Aren’t all murders dark?”

  She hushed me with a glance. She continued. “The woman held a jealous rage inside her. It appears, she wanted to be Tonya Romero. You will remember that she was murdered many years ago.”

  She turned her gaze upon me, and smiled a tiny curve of her lips. I listened, enrapt. “The young cheerleader had learned she was in the family way. She fought with her boyfriend. Joe, I believe his name was. He was a gallant youth and made an offer of marriage, but the girl was wicked and didn’t want to keep the child.” How very Victorian, I thought. It smacked of Marple.

  Mother continued. “Joe and Tonya left the party, at which a large number of their acquaintances were present. And they were involved in a crash, not far away. It appears that young Joe had imbibed a bit too freely, and they were victims of his revelry.” Holy Cow, Mother. If you could only bottle this.

  “Joe returned to the party for help, leaving Tonya in the auto. Unbeknownst to him, however, an unknown spectator witnessed the entire event… most importantly, the crash. This witness was the young woman with whom I spoke last evening. She shared with me this account of events. Then, went further into darkness.” Mother’s eyes squinted with emphasis, and she shook her head slowly from side to side.”

  Mother paused, her voice changed into an even better impression of Miss Marple. Geraldine McEwan, I thought. From the movie we’d finished watching the night before.

  “The young woman’s jealousy reached its peak after she’d helped Tonya from the auto. They walked abreast for some way down the road, not approaching the party, and the aid that could be found there. Instead, they walked away from the other youths. Tonya spoke on about her love for Joe, but also about her frustration with her pregnancy, unaware that death stalked her at that very moment, in the shape of her friend. In a fit of jealous rage, the young woman picked up a stone, and hit her friend from behind. And then she threw her body in the river, to be found the next morning.”

  Holy… was it Emma? Mother didn’t remember her as her daughter, so she wouldn’t be protective of her in the normal sense. Unless that’s what she was doing now? Giving her a chance to get away. Oh, what had I fallen into? Who else could it have been, but my sister? I’d seen that jealousy, and I’d witnessed her rage toward Anthony Sanders. Perhaps she didn’t want him in town because she thought he suspected her? But, was that last part true? After Mother’s voice changed so dramatically? Could I believe anything she said?

  “Wait,” I said. “Why is it too early to go to Lonnie about this?” The men who’d suffered, who had been blamed for years, needed to know the truth. Whether it was my sister, or not, a confession had been made. Or had it?

  Mother gazed deeply into my eyes. “Because I believe this woman may have killed, or been a party to, the death of Tammy Lynn Wilson.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Suddenly, my sister had become a suspect. Try as I might, I could not pry out of my mother the identity of the woman she’d spoken to at Lovers’ Lane. Nor had a body washed up along the bank. I feared calling Emma and finding out she had disappeared.

  “So, who are our suspects?” Mother’s Solitaire ladies had gathered around the game table at the noon hour. The words drew me out of my reverie. “Raymond? Somebody?” I recognized the tiny voice. Paisley. I shook myself mentally, and tried to address her question.

  “Obviously not Dee,” I said. I got murmured agreement all around the table. Even Football, as I’d begun calling Mother’s tiny creature, seemed to agree as he mewed his approval and rubbed my ankles.

  “Let me see,” I had to gather my thoughts. “We’re still looking at Mac. Mother thinks it’s a woman, but we have to keep all our options open. The killer didn’t necessarily act alone. Also, Mac’s been gone all night. I don’t think he knows his mother is in the jail, or he would probably be here. And if it is him, he’ll probably give himself up.”

  “When he finds out about his mother,” Maria added. Again, there were agreements all around.

  “Mac may be our most obvious suspect,” I said, “but there’s still this business about the missing money. Where did it go? And who was involved? I’m wondering whether Tammy Lynn was embezzling it, or if someone else was.”

  “I still vote for Doctor Wilson,” Donna said. “He just seems all around creepy to me.” I nodded my agreement on that one. But, he’d been removed from the suspect pool.

  I looked over at Mother and watched as she rewound yarn. “I just don’t understand,” she said. “I can’t seem to…”

  I turned to the ladies. “I didn’t know she could knit,” I whispered. “Have her mini-strokes made her forget how?”

  Paisley giggled, and everyone leaned close. It was getting to be a thing with us. “She never could,” she said.

  “Huh?” I turned back to Mother and watched her clicking the needles together, without producing anything.

  “It’s who she thinks she is,” Maria added. “She’s supposed to knit. Watch some of those movies your mom has. In every single one of them Miss Marple is sitting in a chair knitting.”

  “Like that,” Donna motioned with her eyes. We all turned to look.

  “Poor Mother,” I said.

  “Not really,” Maria said. “She gets to live her dream. And she’s forgotten all the baggage we all carry around.”

  “True.” I hadn’t thought of it that way. Mother might be Miss Marple, and I might be Raymond, but she’d set aside, or maybe forgotten, her mistakes. I guess that meant she’d considered herself a failure with Emma and Earl. Sad. They’d turned out pretty well.

  Unless Emma’s a murderer, I amended my thought.

  Gravel crunching under tires alerted us to the fact that someone had driven into our driveway. I pulled aside the curtain and looked out. Mac’s green car, the one Jennifer had driven on the last day of school, paused just outside their door. The engine stopped, and he got out, trotted around the hood, and stuck his key in the front door.

  “Go on out there, Raymond,” the ladies pushed me toward the door. “Find out where he’s been.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because he’s your neighbor,” Donna said.

  “Sure.” I put my hands on my hips, and spun to face them. “And you guys have known him, like, forever. I’ve only known him a week.”

  “No time like the present to get to know him,” Paisley shoved me to the door.

  As I stepped outside, I heard a window slide up in the sash behind me. “Hey, Mac,” I said as I stepped out onto the stoop.

  “Hey,” he said, and paused on his step. He grinned. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  I laughed, then quickly stifled it. “Where have you been? You’ve been gone all night.”

  His face dropped, anger replacing his grin. “That’s my business, I think.” Just as quickly, he schooled his features. “I had a gig,” he added. “Up in Santa Fe. I spent the night.”

  “Oh.” It made sense, his coming in this late in the morning. What was it, ten? Ten thirty?

  He started to go in, but I stopped him. “Jennifer’s not home, either.” I said.

  He sighed. “I’m going to have to get her in hand.”

  “Gently, I hope. After what she’s been through. With her friend Tinsel, I mean. And with the doctor.”

  His face twisted in anger that wasn’t directed at me. “That man is…” The words died in his mouth. “I can’t say what he is. Not in mixed company.”

  “I understand.” I could hear whispers in the window behind me, and knew the ladies were growing impatient. No time but the present, I thought, and dove in. “Your mother’s in trouble, Mac. Did you know?”

  “What do you mean
?” He pushed the door open. “Mom?” There wasn’t an answer.

  “She isn’t home. She’s in jail.”

  “Jail?” His jaw dropped. “Why? What did she do?”

  “She covered for you, I think. Where were you really, the night Tammy Lynn was killed?”

  “Oh, my God,” he said, and rubbed a hand over his eyes, then down his cheek. “I wasn’t here.”

  “I know.” I almost turned toward the window, triumphant. But I paused. That wasn’t triumph, not in the sense I wanted. I had to prove he wasn’t guilty. The problem with that was, it might leave my sister on the chopping block.

  “Tell me about it, Mac.” I sat on the stoop, and patted the space by my side. He came over, and sat.

  “I went to the Gringo,” he said.

  “I heard.”

  He looked at me, surprise registered in his eyes. Then he looked down, and his shoulders dropped. He sighed. “Of course. People saw me. How could they not?” He rubbed his eyes again, and pinched the bridge of his nose near where the tear ducts are. “That damned doctor. I went there to confront him. It was my day off, you know. Open mic night. Sundays always are. Anyway, he was there, as usual. His other woman, not Tammy Lynn, his nurse… Jeanine Pryor… she likes to sing. She’s not any good, but she’s not shy, either. Well, to make a long story short, I found out about Jennifer and him. I went there and I told him to leave my daughter alone. I said I’d kill him if he ever touched her again.”

  “Where did you go after? You didn’t come home.”

  Someone in the window drew in her breath, and he glanced sharply back at the window, then just shrugged. “The neighborhood watch?”

  “Something like that,” I said. I pulled my feet up a step, and wrapped my arms around my knees.

  “I went up to Santa Fe. Same place as last night. I went on stage with a band up there. You can check if you want.” He dug in his pocket and handed me a check for two nights’ pay. One the previous night, the other dated two weeks earlier. He’d either gotten himself a new fake alibi or this one was truly tight. It wouldn’t help his mother any, though. She would have to retract her confession, and the city cops would have to accept it. Maybe, with a little pressure from Lonnie, they would.

  The problem is it left me with only one suspect. My sister.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Getting Dee Garfield out of jail might not be as easy as it sounds. I didn’t think so, anyway. Maybe if Mac planned on saying he did it they’d just let her go. But, instead, he headed there to provide his alibi, and make sure the police realized his mom had confessed purely to cover his butt. The paycheck he showed me confirmed his alibi. Mostly. Calling to double check left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t have any other suspects, and no matter her guilt, I wasn’t going after my sister. Did that make me a bad person? Sin by omission type? Probably. But until someone came to me with irrefutable proof that Emma was a murderer, I wasn’t touching it. And, at this point, only one person had that proof. An old lady suffering from delusions brought on by illness… my mother.

  I called the Santa Fe club on the check and spoke with the owner. He confirmed that Mac had indeed, been present both last night and two weeks ago, Sunday. He’d even uploaded the session to his video account. They gave me the URL, and I logged in and watched it. So, Mac was officially wiped off my suspect list.

  I kicked around mother’s place all afternoon, not knowing what to do. I wrote a short piece for the local rag, and took it in, hoping the editor would print it. Of course, when he got wind of my Continental Geographic gig, he grabbed it.

  I looked around for any reporters, but only one man was sitting at a desk on the far side of the room. I figured I didn’t really need to interview any of them about Jennifer, but I’d hoped to touch base. Then I remembered Emma was my suspect. I ducked out the door and into the blazing sun.

  When I got back to our place, Mother had another manila envelope from our Fairy Godmother… or Godfather. Who was this person, I wondered? And how was he, or she, getting the information to feed us? I poured the contents of the envelope onto the kitchen table. This one had a copy of Tammy Lynn’s autopsy report, including a couple of photos. Yikes. Interestingly, she’d been hit over the head. From behind. Like Tonya Romero. That strengthened my proposition that Emma had killed both victims. First, her childhood buddy, on whom she’d been crushing. And second, Tammy Lynn Wilson. Motive yet to be determined.

  The similarities between the two murders made me feel sure that they were, in fact, related. Find one killer, and I’d probably have both. It made me sick to my stomach to even consider my sister. No, we weren’t close. But she’s blood. And that’s thicker than agua.

  Evening was fast approaching, and I hadn’t yet figured out how I intended to get into the school, except for the diamond ring suggestion. I would have to leave it to fate. But, with the elevation of my sister to the position of suspect numero uno, my motivation had suddenly grown exponentially. I was certain she wasn’t involved with anything at the school. More to the point, I didn’t believe she’d darkened a school room door since they day she graduated high school. Did she know how to keep books? Certainly. She kept them at the store. Did she know anything about nursing supplies? Highly unlikely. The two crimes might be completely unconnected, but then again, Tammy Lynn Wilson had undoubtedly known both the person embezzling school funds, and her killer. If they were one and the same, then my sister would drop off the suspect list.

  Would it be easier to simply ask Emma for her alibi? Absolutely. But, I was afraid what I might find. So, in this instance, the hard route was easier.

  Mother had gone to her room to lie down for a nap, so I headed back outside to confront the owner of a certain car, yet again parked down the block. Maybe the reporter was my mother’s manila envelope source? If so, I wanted to know why.

  Adela Ruiz glanced up from something she was looking at in her lap. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened in a surprised ‘O’ as I approached the passenger side of her car. I popped open the door and slid into the seat next to her.

  “Adela, Adela, Adela,” I said, in the most disappointed mother-type voice I could muster. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to lock your doors when you’re on a stakeout? No telling who might try to get in.” I glanced at the tablet she’d plugged into her car and balanced on her lap. Her fingers remained poised over the onscreen keyboard. “Working on a story are you? On a deadline?” I’d seen the schedule, pinned to a corkboard over the editor’s desk, when I’d taken my story over earlier in the day. She had maybe an hour left.

  She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from my face. “I… uh… I…” she stuttered. I smiled benevolently at her. She was younger than me by probably twenty years. That would make her mid twentyish. Short dark hair, with reddish-blonde chunky streaks. A pretty, yet slightly pinched face and tiny features. Kind of reminded me of a ferret. She’d look better without the ‘smoky eye’ thing going. She had pretty eyes. Almost black. Finally she broke her paralysis and glanced down at the tablet. “Yeah. I’m writing a piece on the grocery store closing down next month.”

  “Mmm,” I said. She knew that’s not what I was here about.

  She stared at the Garfield’s house, then mine, then back at me. “You’re Raymond? Mrs. M’s kid?”

  “That would be me.” I turned sideways in the seat, my back against the door. “So, tell me what you know.”

  “A… about what?”

  Pursing my lips, I slowly shook my head in another ‘mother’ imitation.

  “About Jennifer?”

  “About the murder.”

  She recited a few things I already knew, and a lot she surmised. But, she was definitely on a cold trail. “Listen,” I said, when she’d completed her litany. “You’re on the wrong trail. Jennifer didn’t do it. And you’ve already missed all of today’s excitement. Mrs. Garfield turned herself in over at the city, and Mac’s gone to get her out. Now, run over there like a good girl, and get the deta
ils, and then let the town know that there isn’t a story on this corner.”

  She looked both disappointed and happily excited. She wouldn’t be solving the murder mystery, but on the other hand, she had a feel-good piece to turn in. And she just might make tonight’s deadline.

  I started to get out of the car, and then remembered the manila envelopes. I now knew she couldn’t be the source. She didn’t know enough. But maybe she’d seen someone? “Um,” I began. I didn’t want to put her on the trail of another story. I searched for a boring sort of way to bring up our mysterious visitor. “My mother has a handyman who does some work on the house. I’ve got to pay him, but he hasn’t been here today. Have you seen him up by the front door?”

  “Oh, yeah! I’ve seen him. He’s kind of a short guy. Skinny. An old guy with short cropped gray hair and glasses. He likes to wear denim overalls. He does work over at the church, too. He was there earlier today.” She paused, and tipped her head in thought, raising her index finger to the corner of her lips. “I think he left her a package. He does that sometimes.”

  Paydirt! “Thanks,” I said mildly, trying my best to keep the triumph off my face. “I’ll go check at the church.”

  So, I thought as I strode back to the house. The handyman was the source of the manila envelopes. Did he also know what was in them? Or was he just the delivery boy? Adela Ruiz’s car roared to life. “Thanks Raymond,” she yelled as she passed. No, thank YOU, I thought. Now I had to figure out who the handyman was. And I still had to go to the school and check on those books.

  ❃ ❃ ❃

  As darkness fell, I climbed into the Jeep, and headed toward the school. First, I paused at Donna’s. She stepped out her front door in perfect style. Her hair had been tucked up inside a black, yet rhinestone encrusted, fashion ball cap. She wore a form fitting, black unitard, and black go-go style boots. I, of course, wore jeans, a t-shirt under a thin, long sleeve shirt, and a ball cap. All black. Together, we looked like characters out of Mission: Impossible. Or more like cosplayers. She left Pinky home, but she wore a big rock on her finger. She waggled it at me, wriggling her fingers prettily. “Beautiful,” I said, before the roar of the road made speech impossible. That’s the thing about antique Jeeps.