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

by Amy Patricia Meade

  “Okay. But did you happen to think that the police might have taken everything pertinent to the case out of the house?”

  “Yes.” She stopped along the breezeway that ran between the house and, suddenly bending down, emptied a two-foot square blue recycling bin of its contents and placed it, upside down, beneath a small first-story window on the side of the house. “But what they think is pertinent and what I think is pertinent might be two different things.”

  “Of course.” He rolled his eyes.

  Stella stepped onto the recycling bin and pushed in on the metal frame of the window screen. The entire unit popped out and fell onto the blacktop driveway, spurring her to swivel her hips in a victory dance and laugh maniacally. “Maybe I missed my calling! Maybe I should have been a cat burglar!”

  “Yep, you’re a regular Grace Kelly.”

  “Grace Kelly wasn’t the thief, Cary Grant was,” Stella corrected as she opened the bottom sash of the window. “Okay, keep watch. I’m going in.”

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this. You have seriously lost your mind.”

  Stella stuck her head through the open window and found herself peering into a futuristically styled powder room. Gleaming with stainless-steel fixtures and industrial gray tile, the only concession to traditional design was an enormous vanity mirror encased in an intricately carved silver-leaf frame.

  After shimmying her hips through the narrow space, Stella sat on the window ledge, swung her legs inside, and jumped to the ground with a proud grin.

  Let’s see Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher do that, she thought to herself before heading out of the powder room and into the pristine whiteness of the main foyer. There, much to her surprise, she discovered Nick, arms folded across his chest, waiting for her.

  “What the—? How did you get in?”

  Nick hiked a thumb toward the heavy, six-paneled front door. “It was unlocked. Apparently not even the cops bolt their doors around here.”

  “Are you serious? It was open the whole time?”

  “Yep. Gotta love crime in rural areas, don’t you? Some hunter could mistake us for turkeys, shoot us in the chest, and leave us to die, but, hey, at least our DVD player is safe.”

  “Fabulous. I know I’m relieved. I’m also ecstatic to learn that I crawled through a bathroom window for nothing.”

  “Eh, I don’t know. You were kinda like Catherine Zeta-Jones in that thief movie—only blond, of course.”

  “Finally, a reference I can get behind.”

  “So can I—the view was quite nice. So, where are we headed?”

  “Upstairs. Weston’s bedroom. I figure if Weston was hiding anything, that’s where we’d find it.”

  “No argument there, but may I remind you that Weston was a bachelor. It could be scary.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” she asserted before leading the way up the bare wooden staircase. At the top, she turned right, into a medium-sized bedroom with beige walls and clean white furnishings that felt altogether too feminine and small in scale to be the lair of such a dominant personality as Allen Weston.

  Turning on one heel, Stella went back into the hallway and examined the bedroom to the left of the stairs. With its imposing size, dark walls, black padded leather headboard, and graphite-colored comforter, this space could most certainly be dubbed a man cave. But possibly the biggest clue to the gender of the room’s primary inhabitant was the number and quantity of technological gadgets that occupied every visible surface: satellite clock radio with an iPod docking station, a white-noise generator, flat-screen television with surround sound, and a Bose audio system.

  “Sweet,” Nick exclaimed.

  “I’ll have our bedroom hooked up like this just as soon as we can move into it.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Just as soon as I can hire a full-time manicurist, masseuse, and refrigerator cleaner.”

  “Refrigerator cleaner?”

  “Why not? I don’t mind vacuuming, dusting, and all the other stuff, but I truly hate cleaning the refrigerator.”

  “Aim high, honey.”

  Stella ignored him and went directly to the master bathroom’s medicine cabinet. “Hmmm …” she said aloud while taking mental inventory.

  “What? Something interesting in there?”

  “Oh, the usual: Tylenol, toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss …”

  “There you go. You were looking for something positive to say about Weston, and now you have it. The guy might have been a jerk, but he was a jerk with great dental hygiene.”

  “Retinol cream, minoxidil, personal trimmer …”

  “He was also getting wrinkles and fighting male pattern baldness while, ironically, combating nose and ear hair.” Nick’s eyebrows furrowed. “Damn, how old was this guy?”

  “Tums, Rolaids, Mylanta, lorazepam …”

  “Stress. And for obvious reasons: he was losing his hair, youth, hair, good looks, hair …”

  “Male enhancement cream, Viagra …”

  “No, seriously, hon. How old was this guy?”

  “Forty-eight,” she replied without missing a beat. “Condoms …”

  “Ah, okay, so he was hitting something younger. Good … good.”

  Stella glared from around the corner of the bathroom door.

  “No, no, I don’t mean it that way. It was just getting kind of depressing there for a while, that’s all.”

  “And, finally, Axe deodorant and Axe body spray.”

  “Axe? Maybe I should get some of that.”

  Stella lifted the cap of the deodorant and inhaled. “No. No, you shouldn’t.”

  Nick took the can from Stella’s hand and sniffed it. “Whew. You’re right, I shouldn’t.”

  Meanwhile, Stella had moved to Weston’s closet. “Look at this. Do you see anything strange?”

  “Yeah, it’s all suits, dress shirts, and khakis.”

  “Meaning … ?”

  “Uh, Weston was a metrosexual?”

  “That was a gimme considering the medicine cabinet. Apart from that?”

  “He had a bigger wardrobe budget than you do?”

  “Again, yes, but not the answer I was looking for. My first observation was that everything here is either a suit, dress shirt, or khaki. My second observation? Everything here has a designer label.”

  “So?”

  “So, why was Weston’s body found wearing a no-name flannel shirt and jeans?”

  Chapter

  14

  THEIR SEARCH FOR the painting having turned up empty, Stella and Nick replaced the bathroom window screen at Weston’s home and drove directly to Perkins in search of an AC car adapter.

  The elderly clerk was once again on duty. “A what?”

  “An adapter that fits into a car cigarette lighter,” Nick explained.

  “Nope. Can’t say I have one of those.”

  “Can you think of anyplace else I could check?”

  “There’s a small electrical shop twenty miles from here.”

  “Great.”

  “But they’re closed on the weekends.”

  Nick ran a hand through his short-cropped dark hair and sighed. “Okay, here’s the deal. My wife and I bought the old Colton place—”

  “Yup, I know.”

  “But, since we can’t stay there—”

  “Yup.”

  “We bought an air mattress and pump here, in your store—”

  “Yup.”

  “Only to discover that—”

  “Ray Johnson’s place don’t have electricity!” The clerk completed the sentence with a boisterous laugh.

  “You knew that all along and yet you didn’t say anything?”

  “If I had, you wouldn’t have bought the mattress.”

  “How neighborly of you.”

  “I’m not in business to solve problems. I’m in business to sell things. But I’ll tell ya what. Since there’s nothing wrong with the mattress or the pump, I can’t refund your purchase, but I can
let you plug in the pump and blow up the thing here.”

  “You want me to inflate an air mattress in your shop?”

  “Yup.”

  “And then take it back to the camp … somehow.”

  “Yup.”

  “You’re not going to charge me, are you? You know, since you’re in business to sell things.”

  “Nope, it’s on the house. If you spring a leak and need to re-inflate though, that’s a different story.”

  “Naturally.” Nick looked at his wife. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, just do it,” Stella replied.

  Twenty minutes later, the Smart car crept out of the Perkins parking lot, hazard lights flashing, the inflated air mattress balanced on the roof. Stella, her right arm through the passenger-side window, held the front right corner, and Nick, his arm through the driver’s-side window, held the left.

  “Why couldn’t we have gotten the moving truck?” Stella asked as they turned slowly onto Route 4.

  “We can’t fit another thing in that truck. Besides, I didn’t want Grandpa Walton in there to change his mind about using the pump.”

  “A gas station air compressor would have worked, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but the gas station is on the other side of town. Do you feel like driving another five miles with this thing on the roof?”

  “Considering we’re traveling at fifteen miles an hour, no thanks. I’d like to get back to camp before nightfall.”

  Their trip having taken three times longer than usual, Nick and Stella arrived back at camp and pulled beside a familiar pickup truck.

  Alma, her dark hair twisted into its usual plait, sat on the front porch between a large plastic cooler and a hibachi. She had traded the previous day’s Country Living look and the morning’s “Mel’s Diner” garb in favor of a Gap-inspired ensemble of beige chinos, a white T-shirt, and a lightweight denim jacket. As Nick and Stella stepped out onto the makeshift parking area, she rose from her Adirondack chair to greet them.

  “You two won’t soon die from boredom. Why didn’t you tell me you needed to inflate that thing? We could have brought it back in my truck.”

  Stella and Nick stared at each other, their mouths in the shape of large Os.

  “Well, at least it isn’t raining,” Alma laughed. “Come on. I’ll help you get that in the house, and then we can start our barbecue.”

  Grabbing hold of the corners and side, the trio carried the unwieldy mattress indoors and returned to the front porch where, as the rays of the setting sun seemed to set the forest ablaze, Alma set about retrieving cold beers from the cooler. “Got some steaks and potatoes to grill up, and I threw together a salad from what’s left in my garden. Nothing fancy, but I’m sure you’ve heard about our New England frugality.”

  “I have, but it doesn’t seem accurate. You and everyone else have been very generous,” Stella said.

  “Well, I admit to pinching my pennies ’til they bleed at times, but that’s just plain practicality. It doesn’t make us mean or stingy, but add it to the list of misconceptions. When you mention Vermont, everyone thinks of those rubes on that Bob Newhart show. I admit, there are some folks up here who look like that, but they’re not dumb—not dumb by a long shot. And if another person asks me if I’ve met Ben or Jerry, I might just scream. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream might have originated in Vermont, but it’s not the ice cream Vermonters eat.”

  “What is?”

  “Everyone has their favorites, depending on which part of the state you live in, but for my money, Wilcox is the best. They sell it in store freezer cases now, but if you head south to the Wilcox Dairy Farm, you can have your cone in the middle of the cow fields. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  “Makes me want to grab one right now.”

  “Better hurry: they close after this weekend; most outdoor things do. Might seem like summer now, but once this passes it’ll get cold fast. Then town will be overrun with skiers and snowboarders.”

  Nick withdrew his pocketknife and set about opening the bottle caps. “How long does this weather usually last?”

  “If we’re lucky, a couple of days, but typically five minutes,” Alma joked and raised her beer bottle. “Welcome to Vermont.”

  The three of them swigged back the ice-cold beer before settling into the trio of Adirondack chairs.

  “So, what did you folks do today?” Alma asked, the tone of her voice making it seem like more than just a casual question.

  “Oh, this, that, and the other,” Stella replied vaguely.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’ve been out stirring up trouble?”

  “Guess that depends on who you ask,” Nick answered.

  “No, I’m pretty sure that’s everyone you ask. Whole town’s talking about you being some kind of undercover detectives.”

  Stella laughed and wondered who might have started such a rumor. Middleton, perhaps? “No, we’re, um, we’re definitely not detectives.”

  “Then why are you so interested in this whole Weston business?”

  “We just want it all cleared up so we can move into house and get on with our lives. And, as much as we admire and respect your police force—”

  “I know. They’re not as fast as in the city; nothing here is. But they do a good, thorough job.”

  “We don’t doubt it,” Nick stated. “But when you’re waiting to empty your moving truck, it’s tough to sit back idly and watch.”

  “So you swear you’re not working for the police at all?”

  “I swear.”

  “So anything I tell you won’t go back to Sheriff Mills?”

  “We can’t promise that. If you’re passing along a piece of information, fine. But if you’re confessing to a crime …”

  “Hell no, the only crime I’ve ever been guilty of is lack of judgment.”

  “Then go ahead. Your secret’s safe with us.”

  Alma took a swig of beer and then sighed. “I guess there’s no other way to say it than to just come out with it: I was seeing Allen Weston.”

  “Romantically?”

  Alma nodded.

  “How come you haven’t mentioned it before?” Stella asked.

  “He and I had agreed to keep it quiet. I had been through a rotten time in my marriage, and Allen was seven years younger than I am. I didn’t want people to know about our relationship in case it didn’t work out.”

  “Judging from your description of Weston yesterday morning, I’d say it didn’t.”

  “Nope. I tell ya, of all the times in my life to pick to be right—Allen Weston turned out to be a weasel, just like everyone said. I was just too stupid to see it.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were okay for the first little while. Like I said at the bakery, Allen could be a charming man. Wasn’t bad-looking either; most men his age are losing their hair or have a beer gut. Not Allen. He looked great for his age.”

  Nick opened his mouth to comment on the minoxidil they had found in Weston’s medicine cabinet.

  Stella shot him a warning glance. “Not to interrupt you, Alma, but would you say that Weston—er, Allen—was a sharp dresser?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Everything he wore was just so. Even his casual pants had a sharp crease to them.”

  “So he wasn’t a flannel-and-jeans sort of guy?”

  “I don’t think he even owned a pair of jeans. And flannel, to him, was for rednecks.”

  “Thanks. Go ahead with your story. You and Allen began seeing each other …”

  “Yes, and everything was good until about a month or so into the relationship. That’s when he started talking about how successful my Sweet Shop was and asking if there was a way he could buy a partnership in it. I told him no. I didn’t need a business partner, and if I did, it sure wouldn’t be someone I was dating.

  “Well, Allen wouldn’t take no for an answer. Every time we got together he’d propose another deal. At first it didn’t bother me. He was a businessman; he enjoy
ed wheeling and dealing. But after a while, I started to think that the only reason he started seeing me was so that he could get hold of my business.”

  “Did you confront him about it?”

  “Oh yeah, he’d deny it and go out and do something to make me feel foolish for even mentioning it, like send me roses or surprise me with dinner. Then I’d drop the subject. It wasn’t like I had any proof that he was trying to scam me. He was always doting on me when we were together, and the sex was great”—again Nick opened his mouth, only to have Stella glare at him—“but it seemed fake. It felt fake. It felt like it was all a big front. Like he was acting that way to get close to me and then act out his true intentions. Things went on like that for a few months until, a week ago, my neighbor, Bunny, came over for coffee. She got to gossiping, as she usually does, and mentioned that she saw Weston outside of town with a woman in his car.”

  Nick spoke up. “So? It could have been a client.”

  “Normally I’d agree with you, but Allen was supposed to be out of town on vacation at the time. When he ‘got back,’ I asked him how his vacation had gone. He said it was fine and that he had missed me, but he mentioned nothing about being in town.”

  “Bunny could have been mistaken,” Stella suggested. “Lots of men around here have beards.”

  “No. Bunny’s a snoop, but she’s a reliable snoop. Eyes like an eagle and ears like a bat. If she said she saw Allen, then she saw Allen.”

  “Might she have said what she did to be vindictive?”

  “She had no idea I was seeing Weston. I always arranged to meet him at his house, and it was never on the same day or at the same time.”

  “You’re positive she had no clue of your relationship? Because she told us that she had seen you and Weston flirting with each other.”

  “You spoke to her, then? Ha, she wastes no time, does she? I’m positive she had no clue about the relationship. Flirting, sure, but as far as she was aware, that was the extent of it. If she thought otherwise, she would have said something. She can’t keep a lid on that mouth of hers to save her soul.”

  “Did she tell you who the woman in the car was?” Stella asked.

  “She didn’t get a good look at her. Allen was driving in the opposite direction as Bunny. When they passed each other on the road, Allen looked right at her, but the woman hunched down in her seat.”