Well-Offed in Vermont: A Pret’ Near Perfect Mystery

by Amy Patricia Meade

  “Stalker?”

  “I was going to go with admirer, but I guess a guy who clogs his arteries with jelly doughnuts every morning just to see a woman he never asks on a date could qualify as a stalker too.”

  “Ya think?”

  “Does Bunny suspect Mills of pulling a Hank Reid?”

  “A what? Oh, shooting the boyfriend,” she shook her head and laughed. “She seemed undecided about that. At first she leaned toward no, but then she saw something that—”

  “Changed her mind?”

  “No, something that freaked her out.”

  “What did she see?”

  “I have no idea. That’s when she ran out of the store and headlong into you.”

  “Think it had something to do with Mills?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. All I can say with any degree of certainty is that although Bunny may be wary of Mills, she’s definitely frightened of Alice. When I asked her if she thought Alice could be the killer, she replied with a definite yes.”

  “How about you? Do you think Alice murdered Weston?”

  “I think it’s completely possible. In addition to having a strong motive, Alice knew that Weston would be working on our well yesterday. And she was actually at the house around the time Weston was shot.”

  Nick nodded and then zipped outside. He returned several seconds later with his car keys in hand. “The thing that bothers me is, for some reason, I can’t imagine Alice using a hunting rifle.”

  Stella flopped onto the sofa and pulled her cross-stitch supplies out of her handbag. “Why not?”

  “First off, where would she have gotten it from? It’s not like she has a gun rack in her car.” He took a multifunction knife from his pocket, extracted the corkscrew tool, and set to work opening the wine.

  “No, but if she knew Weston was going to be at our house, she could easily have taken a rifle from the house and put it in the trunk. Who knows? It’s hunting season. She or her husband might have had one in the trunk anyway.”

  Nick popped the cork. “Okay, so we’ll assume Alice had the rifle. She goes to the farmhouse, gets into it with Weston, and bang, she shoots him. What about the recoil? Alice is shorter than you and doesn’t appear to be in very good shape. I doubt she has tremendous upper body strength. Few women do.”

  Stella started stitching the letter E on a blank piece of ivory Aida cloth. “What’s your point?”

  “The point is that a hunting rifle can have a powerful recoil—powerful enough to injure a shoulder if you’re not careful or not used to firing rifles.” He retrieved two mismatched juice glasses from the kitchen cupboard. “Alice didn’t seem to be in pain when we saw her.”

  “For all we know, Alice goes hunting with her husband all the time. I’m sure lots of women around here do.”

  “Yeah, but she’d still be sore.”

  “A sore shoulder is easy enough to hide, Nick. It’s not like a leg injury, which would cause a limp.”

  Nick nodded and filled each glass with wine. “True enough. Still, it will be interesting to hear her side of things. You know, when the police talk to her.”

  Stella stitched another letter E three spaces to the right of the first one. “I’m not telling the police anything yet.”

  “What? Why? She could be the murderer.”

  “She very well could be, but she could also be innocent. I’m not sending the authorities breathing down Alice’s neck based on the story of some wire-haired woman we don’t even know. Although we may not be close personal friends, we’ve known Alice for six months now. I think we owe it to her to let her tell us her side of the story before we go calling the cops.”

  Nick placed the glasses of wine on the coffee table. “I suppose. I just hope we’re not getting in over our heads. I know you feel you have something to prove, but this is serious business, Stella.”

  Stella put down her cross-stitch piece and grabbed her glass of wine. “I realize that, but we’re already involved, Nick. I don’t see any other option but to move forward with our own investigation, particularly if Mills has a personal interest in keeping the identity of Weston’s killer under wraps.”

  “You mean if Mills murdered Weston.”

  “Or if Alma did. It was apparent from Alma’s comment that Weston had done something to hurt her. If Mills is protecting himself or her, this case could be open for a very long time.”

  Nick sat beside his wife. “Jeez, I didn’t even think of that. We could be out of our house for months.”

  “Not only that, but who would bring Mills and/or Alma to justice?”

  “Someone would have to report their suspicions to Mills’s superior.”

  “Exactly,” said Stella. “In order to do that, someone has to get to the bottom of things first. That someone is us.”

  “And to think just last week we were complaining about the stress of moving and buying a house. That seems like a cakewalk compared to this.”

  “I know. But if we devise a plan of attack, we should be able to put things together fairly quickly. Tomorrow, we start at the beginning of the alphabet, namely A as in Alice and Alma.”

  “Alma? You’re not talking to Mills first?” Nick asked.

  “Why would I? Given his remark this morning, it’s clear he knew something was going on between Alma and Weston. I want to know what that something was.”

  “Probably just a fling, because unless there’s a side to Alma I’m just not seeing, I can’t imagine why she’d go for a guy like Weston.”

  “Maybe Weston was a different person around Alma. Maybe she brought out the best in Weston, kind of the way I do for you.”

  Nick clinked his glass against hers. “I think you have that the wrong way around. If anyone brings out the best in anyone—” he finished the statement by pointing to himself and then his wife.

  “Dream on,” she teased and then took a sip of wine. “Mmm, speaking of dreaming, shouldn’t you start blowing up the air mattress?”

  Nick swallowed a mouthful of wine and chuckled. “I’m not using lung power, you know.”

  “I know that. But it takes a little while, doesn’t it?”

  “Nope,” he stood up and walked over to the kitchen table, where he had placed the folded mattress minutes earlier. “I got the mattress that comes with an air pump. Once we plug that baby in, it’ll only take a …” his voice trailed off.

  Stella stood up and joined him. “What? What’s the matter?”

  “The pump is electric. We don’t have electricity.”

  “Oh, no. Isn’t there some other way to power the pump?”

  “Sorry. I’m afraid I left my pocket generator in my other pair of pants.”

  “What about the car cigarette lighter?”

  “Only if you want to set it on fire. I don’t have a converter.”

  “So it’s …” She sighed and flopped back onto the sofa.

  Nick flopped beside her. “Yep. Another night in the Slinky factory.”

  Chapter

  11

  STELLA AWOKE TO the sound of the camp door slamming shut, followed by the intoxicating aroma of freshly brewed coffee. She opened her eyes to see Nick perched on the edge of the sofabed, a white paper bag in one hand and a disposable cardboard tray bearing two coffee cups in the other.

  He leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder and then her lips. “Morning.”

  Stella smiled and stretched. “Good morning. What’s all that?”

  “Alma’s to go.”

  “Wow, you’ve been busy. What time is it?”

  “Eight thirty. I got up and couldn’t go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t hear you.” Stella sat up and immediately felt an intense ache in her right shoulder. She grabbed at it with her left hand. “Owwww.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly why I didn’t go back to bed this morning. Felt like I slept on a picket fence. It gets better as you move around, though. Until then, I have just the thing to ease the pain.”

>   Shaking the white bakery bag as he went, Nick walked toward the front door.

  Mimicking a hungry dog, Stella threw back the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the inch-thick mattress. After donning a pair of plush mule slippers, she stood up and reached for an oversized hooded sweatshirt.

  “You won’t need that,” Nick informed her as he juggled the white bag between his fingers and turned the front doorknob.

  Stella obediently dropped her sweatshirt and, despite her rather scanty ensemble of boxer shorts and tank top, followed her husband outdoors.

  As she stepped into the summerlike air, Stella at once understood that Nick’s promise to ease the pain extended beyond mere coffee and baked goods to the scenery they were to enjoy while consuming them. Beyond the front porch and the skinning table, the patchy front lawn gave way to acres of deciduous trees in a sun-kissed palette of gold, scarlet, and ginger set against the cool azure of the cloudless sky and the dark purple of the distant mountains. It was a view so vibrant, so awe-inspiring, that upon gazing at it, one’s troubles seemed to melt away.

  “My god, it’s beautiful.”

  Nick stood behind Stella and slid an arm around her waist. “So are you.”

  As they watched the woods in contented silence, Stella reached up and rubbed the side of Nick’s face with her hand. This was the reason she had been looking forward to their move for so long. This wasn’t just an opportunity for Nick to live out a lifelong dream, it was a chance for both of them to shake off the stress, traffic, and hustle and bustle of city life and learn to appreciate the peace, quiet, and simpler things in life. “You know, we’ve been so preoccupied lately that I almost forgot that this was here, right outside our front door.”

  “And, once this whole murder thing blows over, we’ll get to enjoy it every day for the rest of our lives. Not this view, of course, but the one from the farmhouse isn’t half bad either.”

  “It’ll do. It’s not quite Mr. Yang’s chrysanthemum display, mind you, but I think I can learn to love it.” She kissed him and then sat down in one of the unfinished Adirondack chairs.

  “Would this help to win you over?” Nick stuck his hand into the white bag and produced a croissant slathered with raspberry preserves.

  “Okay, now you’re just showing off.” She took a bite and immediately began to moan. “Mmm, yeah, another one of these tomorrow morning and I might just forget about that outhouse.”

  “Doesn’t make up for that bed, though,” he complained as he passed his wife a cup of coffee.

  “Bed? I thought it was a torture device.”

  “No kidding. All night I kept kicking myself about that pump.” He unwrapped the paper from a roll laden with a combination of egg, onion, and red pepper.

  “Not your fault. We’re used to living in the electrified age.”

  “When I was at Alma’s, I asked Mills if he knew a place that sold AC car adapters.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Nope, no dice. He suggested we try Rutland, but I know you have other things on the agenda than driving for three hours.”

  “Yeah, but if we need the adapter …”

  “No, I’ll see if someone around here has one we can borrow.”

  “You didn’t mention anything to Mills about Bunny stopping me last night, did you?”

  Nick swallowed a bit of his breakfast sandwich. “He already knew. Seems the guy at the counter was Clyde Perkins.”

  “I kinda figured that by the way he was gossiping instead of working.”

  “Well, he stayed true to form. As soon as we left, he got Mills on the horn and told him that (a) we had bought the air mattress, and (b) Bunny had been chewing your ear off.”

  “Are you kidding me? Oh, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this small-town mentality.”

  “Don’t worry. He didn’t know what Bunny talked to you about, and I sure didn’t tell him. But even if I had, Mills seems to have branded her as an eccentric, so I doubt he would have believed me anyway.”

  Stella took a sip of coffee. “What about Alma and Weston? I hope that’s still a secret.”

  “My lips are sealed. But you want to hear something funny? The minute Mills started talking to me about Bunny, Alma interrupted us to say she was coming by the camp tonight to bring us dinner.”

  “You think she was prompted by your conversation?”

  “Almost positive. Why would she interrupt us to tell me that? Why not just wait until I was ready to go?” He took a large bite of the sandwich and then washed it down with a generous swig of coffee.

  Stella, meanwhile, picked pensively at her croissant. “Did she happen to invite Sheriff Mills to join us?”

  “Nope. She said she’d be here at six o’clock with dinner for the three of us.”

  “Hmmm. Not only didn’t she invite the sheriff, but she made certain he understood that it was dinner for three. Do you think she might want to talk to us alone?”

  “You’re a woman—you’d know better than I would. I have a tough enough time figuring you out.”

  Grinning ear to ear, she leaned back in her chair and pulled her knees to her chest. “You do all right.”

  “Meh … oh, hey, speaking of doing all right, I got hit on this morning.”

  “Nick,” Stella sighed, “you always think you’re getting hit on.”

  “No, I always say I get hit on, but I don’t actually believe it. This time I mean it, though. And guess who was doing the hitting.”

  “I don’t know. Alma?”

  “In front of Sheriff Mills? That’s cold.”

  “Then I don’t know. Who?”

  “Betsy Brunelle.”

  “In front of her husband, Jake? Now that’s cold.”

  “No, she was there by herself. I was standing by the counter, talking to Mills, waiting for Alma to fill our order, when in comes Betsy. She was in a hurry, kinda flustered. She gives a quick wave to Mills and then immediately walks right into me.”

  “And, naturally, that means she wants to sleep with you.”

  “Will you let me finish? After she bumps into me, she grabs my arm and apologizes, only she doesn’t let go right away. Instead she moves her hand down my arm, all slow and soft and sexy like, and lets her hand linger on mine before she finally turns away to order her coffee.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  Stella was silent for a few moments. “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating this?”

  “No, I’m not exaggerating. I’m a grown man. I should know by now when a woman has the hots for me.”

  “Yeah, but you could have misinterpreted it. You said she was flustered. Maybe she was having a rough morning and bumping into you made her realize she needed to slow down, so she did.”

  “Why do you find it so hard to believe that Betsy Brunelle was hitting on me?”

  “I don’t. After meeting Jake yesterday, it makes perfect sense that she’d find you attractive. Not that you’re unattractive, of course—on the contrary—but compared to Jake Brunelle … well, that’s like comparing me to Bunny.”

  “So she was coming on to me because her husband looks like Gimli from Lord of the Rings. Is that what you think?”

  “No … .well, maybe a little … um, I’m thinking it was probably part Gimli and part vulnerability.”

  “Uh-huh. Some of us know better.” Nick flexed his biceps. “Betsy Brunelle saw a fine male specimen and couldn’t help herself. So you stick to your theories, Miss Marple.”

  “Did you just call me Miss Marple? She was, like, a hundred years old.”

  “Um, how about that Angela Lansbury character? What was her name?”

  “Jessica Fletcher. Really? You think I look like Angela Lansbury?”

  “No, I just can’t think of any other female detectives. You’re too old for Nancy Drew.”

  “You’re just getting even with me for suggesting that Betsy might not have been hitting on you.”

  “No, not at all, sweetie. I
’d never think of doing that. Hey, were there any women in those Charlie Chan movies?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because that way I could call you Number One Wife.”

  “Keep it up and you’ll be looking for Number Two Wife.”

  “Hmmm … now you may be on to something.”

  Stella wadded the wax paper from her croissant and hurled it at Nick’s head.

  “Joking, joking,” he laughed as he shielded his face with his hand. “So what’s on tap for today?”

  “I thought we’d start by checking in on our new neighbor, then follow it up with a shower at Alma’s, a second visit with Alice, a chat with Jake Brunelle, and, finally, dinner.”

  “You think maybe we can fit a short hike in there somewhere?”

  “A hike?”

  “Yeah. I know you want to move this case along, but I didn’t sign up for the all-murder-all-the-time channel.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No buts. We’re doing more than solving a mystery here, we’re messing with people’s lives. I want to find Weston’s killer just as much as you do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to celebrate when we do.”

  Stella frowned. “You’re right. I woke up in the middle of the night hoping that Alice or Alma or Mills isn’t the killer. They’ve been so nice to us and … well, I’ve kinda grown to like them.”

  “Same here. Hell, given what we know about Weston, I’m pretty sure I’m going to feel bad no matter who gets arrested. Even crazy Hank Reid shouldn’t be spending his final years in jail.”

  “And Josh Middleton is just a kid.”

  “I agree. That said, we’re going to need a break. There’s a brook that runs on this property just a few yards downhill from here. I say we walk down there later, before Alma comes for dinner, and clear our heads.”

  “Sure. When in Vermont …”

  “You got it,” Nick smiled. “Hey, speaking of dinner with Alma, I just thought of something.”

  “What?”

  “If Alma’s the murderer, she might not be cooking us dinner. She might be coming here to poison us.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing she announced her dinner plans in front of the sheriff. That way, if we wind up dead, he’ll know who did it.”