by Anne Canadeo
“She has to have a lawyer with her. You can’t talk to her without a lawyer there,” Edie insisted.
“That’s Mrs. Gordon’s right and her choice,” Detective Ruiz replied evenly.
Nora had come to her feet, her head bowed. She grabbed her purse and knitting bag and Edie walked alongside her as she approached the police officer and detective.
“Don’t worry, hon. I’m calling the lawyer right now,” Edie said. “Can I come?” she asked the detective.
“You can follow and stay in the waiting room. You won’t be admitted inside,” Detective Ruiz replied.
“It’s all right. It won’t help by waiting there all night, Auntie,” Nora murmured to Edie. “Call Richard. He’ll know what to do.”
Nora walked toward the door with the police officer on one side and Detective Ruiz on the other. Edie staggered behind. “Don’t you make a peep until the lawyer gets there, Nora,” she called after her. “And for God’s sake, don’t sign anything.”
Nora tried to turn around, but the police officers kept her at a steady pace. Finally, the trio walked out, into the quiet night.
Edie stood in the middle of the empty shop, staring at the door. No one spoke. Or even breathed, it seemed to Lucy.
When Edie finally turned, tears streamed down her face, tracing lines in the pressed powder on her saggy cheeks.
“Dear Lord, I knew this was coming. My sweet Nora. Who’s going to help her now? The police will get her in one of those rooms and start pummeling her with questions . . . who knows what she’s liable to say?”
Chapter Eleven
On Friday morning, Lucy rode her bike straight to the knitting shop. A short distance down Main Street, she saw police vehicles parked around the Gilded Age; yellow tape and orange traffic cones were blocking the sidewalk.
Police officers walked in and out of the building, some in uniform, some in plain clothes, a few wearing hazmat suits.
One cruiser pulled away as Lucy stood there. She wondered if the search team had been there all night and was already finishing up their assignment.
As she balanced her bike against the building, she saw Maggie’s Subaru coming down the street, but instead of parking in front of her store, as she usually did, Maggie pulled up in front of the Schooner. She quickly got out of the car and walked into the diner before Lucy could catch her attention.
Of course, Maggie wanted to see Edie right away and hear how Nora was faring. Lucy ran across the street to join her.
She found Maggie sitting at the counter on a swivel stool. Edie was not in her usual spot behind the register, but Lucy saw her at the back of the café, pouring coffee for a customer.
Lucy took the empty seat next to Maggie. “I saw you come in. I was already at the shop.”
“You were? I didn’t even see you, sorry,” Maggie said. “Too distracted by that swarm of police at the antique store. They’re all over that place.”
“I wonder if they found anything,” Lucy asked quietly.
Everyone in town was probably talking about Nora Gordon this morning, but it seemed insensitive to gossip about her situation in earshot of Edie.
Maggie sighed; she seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Here comes Edie . . . I guess we can ask her.”
Lucy turned also to see Edie’s impressive, apron-covered form squeeze in behind the counter and head their way. Edie was a brave soul to carry on, business as usual. Despite her ailing heart and all her professed ills, she had a pioneer woman’s constitution, Lucy thought. Or maybe just a thick skin and strong will.
“I guess you saw the news this morning: the police still have Nora and they’re searching her house, the shop, and everything. I don’t know what they think they’re going to find.”
“They haven’t found anything significant, tying her to the crime scene, have they?” Maggie asked.
Edie shook her head and dried a thick white soup bowl with urgent force. “Not a crumb. Her lawyer says they can’t hold her any longer unless they do, and he’s getting her out in an hour or two.”
“That’s a relief,” Lucy said.
“I knew this was a big bluff. But they had to pick on somebody, to make it look like they’re not just sitting on their big donut-stuffed duffs. Nora’s the unfortunate victim of circumstances . . . again,” she said with a sigh.
“I’m just afraid of what she might have said to them. Even with that lawyer sitting there.” Edie set the bowl down and began working on a spot on the counter. “Putting words in her mouth, I’ll bet. My poor niece, she’s confused enough as it is. All the drugs she takes just to get up out of bed every day and have a life. She ought to get a doctor’s note or something. She’s not fit to be questioned this way. I’ve asked the lawyer about that,” she added. “I hope he works on that angle.”
Nora had looked a bit dazed and drugged the other night, Lucy recalled. But who could blame her?
“Don’t the police take that into account? Her physical condition? Why, she doesn’t look strong enough to have attacked anyone,” Maggie pointed out.
“You don’t have to tell me that. You’re preaching to the choir. Weak as a kitten,” Edie asserted. “But she’s had . . . episodes, I guess you’d have to say. It’s all on record. Richard once had to call the police to help him.”
“Episodes . . . what do you mean?” Lucy didn’t understand, though she guessed it had something to do with Nora’s emotional instability.
Edie set her wiping cloth aside and leaned closer, her voice barely audible. “I guess you’d call them fits. She’d get sad and wild and angry. Angry at the world, no one in particular,” she quickly clarified. “There was this one time she took a kitchen knife out and threatened to kill herself. Then threatened to hurt Richard when he tried to take it away from her. She was half out of her mind with grief, over Kyle. . . . She doesn’t even remember it. Now they’re using that against her, too.”
“Oh . . . I see,” Maggie said quietly.
“That’s not fair,” Lucy added.
“Of course it’s not. Go tell the cops, though they don’t care what they say once they get you in one of those little rooms. They can say anything they like, too. I heard that once on a true-crime show I watch.”
Lucy knew that was true as well. “I don’t think they would be allowed to talk about that incident in court, though, Edie.”
Edie looked suddenly alarmed. “Heaven forbid. I’d confess myself before I see it get that far. If they’re so gung ho to blame Nora they obviously don’t care who they put on trial. Everybody knows she didn’t do it. She wasn’t physically capable of it, and had zero motivation. At that time,” she added.
“What do the police think was her motive?” Lucy asked.
“They’re saying that somehow, Nora found out that Cassandra had been deceiving her all this time, making up all those messages from Kyle’s spirit. They think she must have gone back to the cottage, confronted that evil creature, and flew into a rage.”
Unfortunately, Lucy got a vivid picture of this actually happening. But only owing to the heartless scheming of Cassandra, which could definitely elicit that reaction from most anyone . . . not because of Nora, she reminded herself. Even with Nora’s history of emotional episodes, Lucy still didn’t believe she was capable of this gruesome act.
“Nora denies that, of course,” Maggie said.
“Absolutely. But they keep going at her, trying to break down her story, trying to confuse her about when she heard this or that. Or knew what Richard did or didn’t do. Those tricky suckers even ask her if she hears voices in her head, telling her to do things. Bad things . . .” Edie looked up at them, her expression somewhere between murderous rage and more tears. “Can you believe that? Baiting a poor, confused, grief-stricken person that way? Why, it shouldn’t be legal, I tell you.”
Unfortunately, Lucy knew all that Edie said was true. And that it was legal. Once the police focused on a suspect, they used every trick in the book to break down a story and get t
heir confessions. She saw Edie sigh and shake her head, using both hands to brace herself on the ledge of the chrome cooler.
“How is Richard doing?” Lucy asked. “He must be awfully upset.”
Despite the hoax he’d been involved in, Lucy couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, too. She did believe he loved Nora.
“He’s been up all night. Sounds like a zombie on the phone, but I guess he won’t rest until she’s out. He keeps calling me with updates. He’s trying to take care of her, as always. Even though things between them are rough. You can just imagine.”
Lucy nodded, feeling a warm rush of color in her cheeks. She felt so guilty, remembering how she’d confronted Richard in his shop, just because she’d seen him at Cassandra’s house. She’d forced his hand, making him tell the police why he was really there. And causing Nora to find out, as well. If only I’d kept my mouth shut, she scolded herself. The police would have no reason to suspect Nora.
But Edie was still talking and Lucy focused again.
“The police have put a bug in Nora’s head with all these questions. Telling her that maybe Richard and Cassandra were having an affair. Nothing he says can convince her otherwise. Even if the police leave her alone and find the person who really did it, their marriage is still one big train wreck. A smoking, steaming, twisted pile of metal,” Edie told them. “If it wasn’t for Dale, I doubt they’d stick together at all,” she added in a hushed tone.
Lucy and Maggie shared a quick glance. There was nothing Lucy could think of to say. Neither could Maggie, it seemed.
She heard a cell phone ring and Edie whipped hers from a pocket. “It’s Richard,” she said, glancing at the caller’s name.
She greeted him and listened intently. Lucy watched her grim expression suddenly brighten. She held the phone away from her ear for a moment. “They’re letting her go. She’ll be home in an hour,” she reported.
Maggie released a breath. “Good news.”
“Very good,” Lucy agreed. She had also been holding her breath without even realizing it.
Edie concluded the call and looked back at them. “The lawyer made them release her. They couldn’t charge her with a thing. All they found was a fingernail. On the floor of the shop or something. They say it was one of Cassandra’s tips. You know, those long, blue stick-on nails she always wore?”
Lucy remembered them well. They looked like extraterrestrial claws, Lucy thought.
Maggie shrugged. “That could have fallen off when Cassandra was in the shop. Or it could have even gotten caught on a piece of Nora’s clothes, anytime that Nora was with Cassandra. It doesn’t prove a thing.”
Edie shrugged. “Exactly. Richard says they were badgering her, trying to make her remember when Cassandra was in the shop. How is Nora supposed to know where, when, and how the woman lost a nail tip? Give me a break.”
Lucy agreed. But she didn’t want to distract Edie and send her spinning off on another diatribe about the police department.
“Was there anything else?” Maggie asked.
Edie shook her head. “That’s all Richard said. They were also badgering Richard, about a car mat missing from Nora’s Prius. Richard said he got some paint on it and it wouldn’t come off, so he threw it out. He was planning on ordering a new one but never got around to it.”
“A car mat? On what side of the car, did he say?”
Edie thought a moment. “Passenger, I think.” She shrugged. “What’s the difference. It doesn’t add up to an empty cup of nothing.”
Lucy admired Edie’s poetic use of the double negative.
“If that’s all the police can come up with against my niece . . . well, that says it all,” she concluded. “Can you imagine, some DA tells a jury, well . . . she was missing a car mat and we found this fake fingernail.” She laughed, sounding a bit tired and almost hysterical, Lucy thought. But at least her spirits had lifted. “That ain’t happening anytime soon,” Edie concluded.
“Not very likely,” Lucy said. She felt relieved to hear this news. For more reasons than one.
“On that happy note, I’d better go.” Maggie slipped off her stool and Lucy did the same.
“I’m glad it worked out, Edie. Let’s hope this is the end of it,” Lucy said.
“I’ll drink to that.” Edie nodded deeply, her double chin multiplying exponentially. “That reminds me, the barbecue is officially on again for tomorrow. We’ll be stoking the grills at six. Drop by any time.”
Lucy had wondered, but it had not seemed the right time to ask about a party. Maggie seemed surprised, too. “Are you sure, Edie? I’m sure everyone would understand if you wanted to postpone it.”
Edie paused a moment before she answered, lining up the salt shakers, ketchup bottle, and napkin dispenser, which to Lucy already looked to be in perfect order. “I’d rather have a double root canal than have this barbecue,” she said bluntly. “But all things considered, I think it would be worse not to have it. Like admitting the family has something to hide and we don’t think this is the last of it. Or that we take these bumbling police idiots seriously.”
Lucy saw Maggie wince a bit at that last phrase, on Charles’s account most likely. He was anything but a bumbling idiot. But Maggie didn’t debate, just smiled gently.
“In that case, what can I bring? How does guacamole sound?” Maggie asked, answering her own question.
“Sounds perfect. My favorite. That’s one thing I don’t serve here, so it will come in handy.”
“I’ll make a big batch and bring chips,” Maggie said, smiling. “The Steibers come from hardy stock. I have to say that for you.”
“That we are. Don’t let anybody forget it, either.”
Lucy crossed the street with Maggie and walked toward the knitting shop to pick up her bike. It was time for her to head home, too.
“I was so relieved to hear that the police are releasing Nora. While Edie was talking, I kept thinking it was partly my fault she was there in the first place.”
Maggie stopped and turned to her. “Your fault? Why do you say that?”
“If I hadn’t made such a big deal about seeing Richard at Cassandra’s house that night, and then told the police, the investigators wouldn’t have been able to come up with any motive for Nora. Maybe I should have let that go. They would have seen Nora for what she is—another innocent victim of Cassandra’s wiles. And they would have moved on to the next possibility.”
“Which they will do now,” Maggie said with certainty. “But I don’t think you can blame yourself for this. You did what you thought was right. Holding back information in a police interview would have been a form of perjury. You had to tell the truth.”
Lucy nodded. “I know. I’m just glad it all worked out . . . except for the Gordons’ marriage.”
Edie’s train wreck metaphor quickly came to mind.
Maggie sighed. “Maybe they’ll be able to patch it up. They’ve been through so much together. That must count for something. And they have Dale to think about.”
Lucy thought that was true. She wondered how Dale was holding up through this crisis. She hadn’t seen him at the diner this morning. Understandably. He must have been either helping Richard or at home waiting to see what would happen to his mother.
But Nora would be home soon. Maybe she was even on her way already. The Gordons needed time to put this dark episode behind them. Lots of time. But maybe they could work things out.
Especially if the police started searching in some fresh direction and found the person who actually did bash Cassandra’s head in with one of the psychic’s own giant crystals.
As Maggie disappeared into her shop, Lucy pulled the helmet off her bike and prepared to ride away. But a small green compact driving slowly down Main Street and then parking in front of the diner snagged her attention.
She had only caught a glimpse of the driver as the car passed by, but instantly recognized Daphne Mullens, Cassandra’s daughter.
Lucy stood fiddling with h
er helmet, trying not to be too obvious. She watched Daphne get out, slip a few coins into the parking meter, and then walk toward the Schooner and go inside.
Lucy stood staring at the diner, wondering what the young woman was up to.
Eating food maybe? a little voice chided. Very suspicious, Lucy . . .
Yes, she could have been going in the diner to grab breakfast. Definitely a possibility. Still, Lucy didn’t trust that obvious reason. Mainly because Daphne shared Cassandra’s genetic material. And perhaps, her mother’s scruples, too. Or lack of them.
And if Edie found out the young woman’s identity, there was no telling what could happen. Edie might jump the counter in her orthopedic shoes and strangle Daphne Mullens with a dishcloth. Not to mention all the sharp kitchen utensils that were handy. Lucy set the bike and helmet aside and walked straight back to the diner.
She opened the heavy glass door and looked around for Daphne. The dark-haired beauty sat at the counter, twirling a straw in a tall iced coffee, her gaze fixed on a book.
Lucy looked around for Edie. No longer stationed behind the counter, thank goodness. And not sitting behind the register, either. In the kitchen maybe? Lucy took a few steps inside and peered through the swinging doors as a waitress walked out with an order.
“Lucy . . . what are you doing here? Forget something?”
Lucy spun around to find herself facing Edie. She blinked, not knowing what to say. “Um . . . yeah. I can’t find my phone. Did I leave it here? On the counter maybe?” she improvised.
Edie frowned and shook her head. “I didn’t see it. Gee, that’s annoying. Did it fall out of your pocket somewhere?”
“I don’t think so,” Lucy said.
Edie pulled her purse out from behind the counter and took out her car keys. “Why don’t you call the number and see if you hear any ringing? That’s what I do when I lose mine. Maybe the busboys found it and stuck it somewhere,” she suggested. “I’m just on my way over to Nora’s. She’s exhausted. But Richard said it was all right if I stopped by. I will feel better just seeing her. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
