Edna’s curiosity would have to wait. “You go ahead. I’ll clean up here and take Hank out before I go.”
“Thanks. See you this afternoon. I get off at three-thirty.”
After the sound of Mary’s Jeep had faded down the drive, Edna decided to take advantage of the break in the storm and go for a walk. Once outside, Hank ran circles around her, nose to the ground, as she followed the grassy ruts of a narrow track across the field behind the old house. The morning air was crisp and invigorating, helping to clear her head and renew her usual optimism. As her spirits lifted, Edna knew she was wrong to think Mary might have had anything to do with Tom’s death. Lack of sleep can really make you paranoid, she thought.
Wandering along the wooded edge of the property, she stopped to pick up a stick and toss it to Hank. Benjamin walked behind her, gingerly picking his way though the wet grass. When she turned and headed back to the house, her mind drifted once more to the appointment book, and she wondered where Tom might have gone after he drove away last Thursday.
Maybe Mary was right. If the book had been in Tom’s truck or in his house, the police probably would have found it by now. But, if Nancy didn’t have it, where was it?
Okay, Edna, she scolded herself, forget the book. It might not have an entry for that afternoon. But I bet anything Norm Wilkins knows where Tom was. That man spends more time and energy keeping tabs on his employees than running his business. If anyone knew Tom’s whereabouts, Norm did. She knew as sure as she was standing there that he’d made up the story about Tom working at her place all day, but why would he do that? Was he the killer? No, Edna couldn’t imagine Norm using poisoned tea as his weapon. Was he protecting the killer? What would he gain? Money was the only answer that came to her. Would Norm stoop that low?
She shuddered at the thought of confronting Tom’s cousin, but she had to do it. He was the only solid lead she had, and if she couldn’t get him to tell her what he knew, she was doomed. She might as well give up and wait for the police to come and arrest her, just as they had Aleda Sharp.
Stop it. Edna shook off the self-pity that threatened to overwhelm her. Leaving the two animals in the house, she grabbed her tote bag and hurried next door to get her car.
Nineteen
As she drove the short distance into town, Edna rehashed the possibility that Norm knew where Tom had been on Thursday afternoon. Her mind refused to accept that he would hide his cousin’s murderer. But why had he insisted Tom had been at our house the entire day? she wondered. Norm’s making it look as if I were lying, and therefore guilty of poisoning his cousin. According to Tom, Norm worshipped the almighty dollar. Was Norm sticking to his story simply to collect a day’s worth of labor?
And who is Davy? Apparently, Danny is obsessed with this Davy person. Could Davy be Beverly’s brother David? But they call him Shoes, not Davy. What if Tom met with Shoes about going to work for him? Would that be motive enough for Norm to kill Tom, because he was jumping ship?
According to Beverly, Shoes was planning to start a handyman business in town. Maybe he was scheming to lure Tom away from Honeydew. If Tom had refused to desert his cousin, would Shoes kill Tom to eliminate the competition? Murder would be a pretty drastic measure in either case, she thought, rubbing a temple. Her head ached.
Why couldn’t the police find Shoes? Was he with Beverly and she just wasn’t admitting it to the police? She’d said she’d be out of town for the weekend. Nothing unusual there, unless …Was she coming back?
Now I really am being paranoid, Edna scolded herself. I’m beginning to sound like an amateur detective like Mary, she thought. Edna laughed aloud at the mental image of the two of them dressed in belted London Fog raincoats and holding large, round magnifying glasses in front of their noses.
It was nearly ten o’clock when she reached the office of Honeydew Home Repairs. Norm lived alone in his family’s two-story clapboard house a block off Main Street in the middle of town. The two front rooms on the ground floor were reserved for his business.
The street was crowded, but Edna found a parking space on the next block. She hurried through the rain that had begun again. As she neared the house, she saw a large green utility van pull away from the curb. Drat, she thought, two minutes later and I could have parked right in front.
Cursing her luck and following the instruction on a small sign above the doorbell to “walk in,” she pushed open the unlocked door and found herself in a wide hallway. An old wood and brass coat rack stood on a large rubber mat to her left. She removed her sodden coat and hung it up, not wanting to drip water across the floor.
A closed door to her left had the word Office painted on its frosted glass top, while the room to her right was open to the hall through a wide, square frame that may have held double sliding doors at one time. It looked like a waiting room with a few straight-backed chairs and two old sofas. The bare parquet floor needed waxing. A cluster of toy cars and trucks lay in front of one of the couches, but nobody seemed to be around. She knocked hesitantly on the office door and heard a gruff voice yell, “What is it?”
Clutching her tote bag against her stomach, she turned the knob and poked her head in. No wonder the door was closed. The room was a mess. Piles of magazines and newspapers were stacked on the floor and covered two folding chairs. Boxes of all different sizes, advertising everything from a space heater to screws and nails, were strewn about, the lids open or partially open to reveal that many of them were empty. Piled high with more junk and paper in no discernable order, a desk stood to her right. Above the debris, Norm’s head appeared as if separated from his body and left on top of the heap with his eyes open and the chewed stub of a cigar sticking out of his mouth.
Edna stared at the head, waiting for some sign of life.
“What are you doin’ here?”
Taken aback by his rudeness and the abruptness of the question, she hesitated before saying, “I’ve come to speak with you about Tom.”
“I’ve nothin’ to say.” Norm’s eyes narrowed. “Saaay,” he drawled. “You’re after the boy, aren’t you?” It was more of an accusation than a question. He rose and maneuvered his bulk around the desk, moving quickly for a big man. Taking Edna by the shoulders, he turned her around and roughly propelled her back into the hallway. After they had cleared the office door, he let go of her and strode across to the waiting room.
When he reached the middle of the big empty room, he turned and eyed her. “Where is he? What have you done with him?” He took a menacing step forward.
“Who? What are you talking about?” Edna felt her temper rising. She resented being manhandled and yelled at.
“Don’t look so innocent. You know who. Where’s Danny?”
“What are you talking about?” she repeated, more confused than angry now as she entered the room and looked around. “Danny was here?”
“You know damned well he was. I left him in this room an hour ago, playing with his trucks. Can’t watch him all the time, you know. Got work to do.” Now he sounded defensive.
“Where’s Nancy?”
“None of your business. Where’s Danny?”
A small object on the far sofa caught Edna’s eye. She moved around Norm and went to pick it up. “This is Danny’s hearing aid,” she said, holding the object up for him to see.
“Yeah, so what? Kid’s always taking that thing out and leaving it somewhere.”
She looked down at the toys near her feet. In the back of a Tonka dump truck was a pint-sized Ziploc baggie with a wrinkled picture of Tom inside. She bent to pick it up.
“He doesn’t leave this lying around, I’ll bet.”
For a minute, Norm looked bewildered. “He never lets go of that.” His eyes narrowed again, and his glance went from the photo to Edna’s face. “Say … don’t change the subject. Somehow you found out that Nancy left him with me while she talks to the undertaker. She told me to make sure you don’t get near her boy.”
“Don’t be such an id
iot. I didn’t know Danny would be here. I came to see you, not him.” She held her arms wide, her tote bag suspended from one hand. “Just where do you think I’ve hidden him?” Lowering her arms, she added, “If I had him, why would I walk into your office? All I’d have to do is take him out to my car. With your door closed, you would never have known.”
As she spoke, Edna’s stomach roiled. The words brought to mind an image of the green van pulling away from the house. Don’t panic, she thought. First, make certain he’s not in the house. “Maybe he’s in the bathroom or upstairs. Instead of standing here accusing me, why don’t you go look for him? You go upstairs. I’ll check down here. If he’s not here, we must call the police.”
The expression on Norm’s face turned from outrage to suspicion, and the quickness of his action took her by surprise. Before she knew it, he’d grabbed her upper arms. She felt like she had been clamped into a vise. “I don’t know what you’ve done with him, but by God …” With those words, he shook her once, hard. Whatever else he had been about to say was forgotten as his action tore the tote from Edna grasp. The bag hit the floor with a thud, and its contents spewed across the room with clanks and clatters.
“Get away from me.” She twisted free of his grasp and knelt to pick up her belongings, fighting back tears. The tops of her arms burned where he had held her.
He walked around the floor, kicking the furthest-flung objects toward her with the side of his black boot. “Hurry up. Get your things, and get out of here,” he snarled. “You’re not to go near that boy. Understand?”
“You’ve got to look for him. We’ve got to find him.” Trying to contain her anger and fighting back tears of frustration, Edna picked up the last item, a small coin purse, and dropped it into her bag.
“This is none of your concern. I’m telling you to stay out of it and keep away from Danny.” Striding toward the open doorframe, Norm bent to snatch a small penlight from the floor. Edna grabbed for it as she sidled past him and hurried into the hall. As she tugged to pull it from between his fingers, he growled, “I don’t want to see you around here again.”
When he opened his fingers, releasing his tight hold on the tiny flashlight, Edna stumbled backwards. Shoving the object into her pants pocket, she almost ran to the front door, stopping only long enough to grab her coat. By the time she had jammed her arms into the sleeves, Norm had the outside door open and stood aside, watching her closely as she ran out into the storm, her coattails flapping.
The driving rain felt good on her hot cheeks. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so frustrated, humiliated or defeated.
Twenty
Edna rushed to her car, fumbled the key into the ignition, and peeled away from the curb without looking. Only after driving several blocks did she stop to think what might have happened if another car had come by or someone had been crossing the street. She felt her stomach churn at the idea, as the picture of Aleda’s bowed head burst into her mind. “That’s all I’d need on top of everything else,” she moaned, “arrested for running someone down.”
The rain pounding on the roof did nothing to calm her nerves. She could see barely two feet in front of the hood, and after turning into Mary’s driveway, she finally decided that brooding about Danny or fanning the flames of her anger at Norm weren’t doing her any good. She had to be able to think clearly, and her emotions were getting in the way. Easier said than done, she thought, getting out of the car and racing toward the house.
Hank greeted her at the back door, tail wagging. Benjamin, lying nearby on the radiator cover, lifted his sleepy head and blinked at her. Despite her resolve, Edna couldn’t keep her mind off Danny’s disappearance and the image of the green van driving away from Norm’s office. She went into the dining room and sank onto a chair, thinking she might light a small fire in the hearth and warm herself, but at the moment, she didn’t have the energy.
As she sat, her eyes strayed to the yearbooks. Reaching over, she opened the one for Tom’s senior year, idly flipping pages until she came to the shots of the Thanksgiving rally. She studied the picture of the boys climbing the bronze statue and the waiflike face of the young girl who looked so familiar. Daisy, Mary had said her name was, Daisy Farwell. Where have I seen you before?
Curiosity got the better of her, and she roused herself to get a notepad and pencil from beside the phone on one of the divider shelves between kitchen and dining room. Returning to her seat, she pulled over the open book and began to sketch. First some eyes … make them large, thin out the lids, slant the sides, not too much. A nose … a shorter one, skinny and upturned. Sketch another nose and slope it down. Cheeks, chin. She drew a few variations of each facial feature, as she would as an exercise in art class. The ear, she copied exactly as it appeared in the photo. People don’t usually change the shape or size of their ears.
As she doodled, what had been merely an impression became firmer in Edna’s mind. Ripping off the top sheet of the small telephone pad, she put the rounder eyes together with a small straight nose, added fuller cheeks, and surrounded the face with a curly, more modern hair style. When she’d finished, she held the small scrap of paper next to the yearbook photo, comparing what she’d drawn with the face in the picture. What she saw made her gasp.
It didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t she said anything? I must be mistaken, Edna thought. Maybe I’m sketching what I want to see instead of what’s there. She examined her drawing again. No, she didn’t think she’d made a mistake. It was Dee Tolkheim.
Edna tried to remember what Mary had told her about Dee as a girl. Shunned by her classmates, no father, raised by a mother who, apparently, had more than her share of boyfriends. Her mother’s funeral had been the same day as Tom’s graduation. She was the one who had run away with Tom’s friend, Bobby.
Had Tom recognized her? Edna looked at the photo in the yearbook and could understand if he hadn’t. She thought back to Thursday when she had come out of the house and found Dee standing beside Tom. What had they been talking about? All Edna could remember was that Dee had flirted outrageously with him. Had they recognized each other as high school classmates? No, I would have remembered that, she thought.
Dee may have said something when Edna had gone off to get the rue. Maybe she told him then who she was. Is that why he had driven off without saying goodbye to me? Edna wondered. At the thought, she brightened. Dee had to have remembered his mentioning an appointment book. Maybe he had gotten it out after all, after Edna had left the two of them alone. He could have told her where he was going to be Thursday afternoon. It would be natural if he was looking for an available time to fit Dee into his schedule.
Here was another connection to Tom, another lead to follow. Edna hurried to the phone, hope lightening her step. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that Dee would know where Tom had been going when he’d left on Thursday. Picking up the receiver, she pressed buttons for local information, then raised the instrument to her ear. No dial tone.
“Not again,” she wailed. The storm must have knocked out the lines a second time.
Returning to the table, she watched the rain lashing the windows and listened to the wind rattle the shutters while she fiddled absently with the small sketch. I can’t sit here and do nothing, she thought. Shoving the small portrait into the pocket of her slacks, she hurried to get her coat, snatched up the tote bag, and dashed back out to her car.
After a long, harrowing drive through the blinding rain, Edna reached Watch Hill and turned in through the gates of a large white house with a widow’s walk at the top. A tall iron fence separated the property from the road, and just inside it were laurel bushes that provided a noise and privacy barrier. The tarred driveway slanted down toward the house and curved gracefully off to a four-car, detached garage with what looked like a horse stable beyond. She knew from having seen the estate on a clear day that in back of the buildings a gentle slope of lawn continued for several hundred yards down to meet the sea.
“Nonsense,” she muttered, getting out of the car. “If she doesn’t want to bring up her past, that’s her decision. All I need to find out is what she knows about last Thursday and Tom’s appointment book.” Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what Dee was hiding—or hiding from, perhaps.
There was no porch or overhang at the front door, but the house itself provided a bit of shelter from the wind. Edna lifted the heavy brass knocker in the middle of the door and pounded it three times against the companion metal plate. While she waited, she huddled close to the door, trying unsuccessfully to keep out of the rain. She was about to knock again when the latch clicked, and Dee peered out through a three-inch crack. When she saw Edna, her eyes widened in amazement, then delight. If Edna hadn’t just scolded herself for being overly suspicious, she would have said the look on Dee’s face was almost mischievous.
“What a surprise. Come on in.” Dee swung the door wide and pulled Edna into the foyer.
Once inside, Edna threw back her hood as water dripped off her slicker and puddled on the black and white tile.
“You’d better take that off.” Dee held out a hand for Edna’s coat. Shoving her car keys into a pocket, Edna shrugged off the sodden wrap. “What are you doing out in this weather?” Dee helped her with the sleeves, then held the dripping garment at arm’s length.
Edna snorted a laugh, half in embarrassment. “It wasn’t this bad when I left home. I think the storm is getting worse.”
Murder by Yew (Edna Davies Mysteries) Page 17
