Candy Cane Murder

by Joanne Fluke

“I think she was and who could blame her? Miss Peach was everything she wasn’t. She had a career as a trained secretary, she was independent, she could spend her salary any way she wanted. And what she wanted was to buy clothes. She always looked lovely, in beautiful suits and hats and high-heeled shoes with peep toes. And she went to the beauty salon every morning just to have her hair combed! Harriet and I were pretty impressed, you can be sure of that. Imagine! Going to the salon just to have your hair combed.”

  “That is pretty impressive,” said Lucy. She heard Toby stirring in the borning room and struggled awkwardly to her feet, belly first, and cracked the door to take a peek. He was sitting up in bed, sucking his thumb. She quickly changed his diaper, then he scrambled off the bed and ran out to the living room, stopping short when he saw Miss Tilley.

  “I think he forgot me,” she said.

  But Toby hadn’t forgotten. “Mmmm,” he said, remembering the game they’d played earlier.

  “Mmmm,” she went, right back at him, and he laughed.

  “I guess I better get this little fellow home for lunch,” said Lucy. “Come on Toby, let’s pick up your toys.”

  It was a slow process but eventually everything was packed up, including the cookies, and Toby and Lucy were zipped in their winter jackets, and muffled in hats, scarves, and mittens, ready to go.

  “Thanks for everything,” said Lucy. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without the cookies. And I haven’t forgotten about your mother. We’ve got a list of suspects and I’m going to see what I can dig up.”

  “Suspects?”

  “Your father, Emil Boott, Mrs. Sprout, Angela DeRosa, Katharine Kaiser, even the maids—any one of them could have given your mother a fatal push down the stairs.”

  “I never thought of it that way but I suppose you’re right. They’re all suspects.”

  But when Lucy had finally strapped Toby into the car seat and stowed everything in Auntie Granada’s enormous trunk, and was starting the car, she realized she had to add another suspect to her list: tuberculosis. As Miss Tilley had told her, the disease had ravaged families right up until World War II when lifesaving treatments were developed. It seemed a lot more probable that poor, ill Mrs. Tilley had fallen down the stairs as a result of a coughing fit or a fainting spell than at the hands of a household intimate.

  Chapter Four

  When Lucy got home she found Bill had heated up the pot of split pea soup they had been having for lunch for the past week. The soup never seemed to end, it just got thicker with each reheating even though they kept thinning it down with the vegetable cooking water Lucy always saved. The chunks of ham and carrot which had been plentiful in the beginning had become scarcer with each reheating, however.

  “‘Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,’” chanted Lucy, as she unzipped Toby. “‘Pease porridge in the pot nine days old,’ and that’s no lie. It’s lovely pea soup for lunch again.”

  Toby didn’t seem to mind. He kicked his feet in the high chair and spooned the stuff up eagerly, chasing down the little oyster crackers that Lucy sprinkled on top. She wasn’t quite as enthusiastic but reminded herself that homemade pea soup was nourishing and tasty and certainly helped stretch the food budget. She was trying to think of something new to do with a pound of hamburger for supper when Bill came in the kitchen to heat some water for tea.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” chortled Toby, flinging a spoonful of soup over his shoulder.

  “So how did the cookie baking go? I’d be happy to conduct a taste test,” he asked, automatically reaching for the sponge and wiping the soup spatter off the wall, where it had landed.

  Watching him, Lucy wondered why he bothered. Another stain on the wall would hardly matter. “Sorry,” she said, rousing herself. “Toby already did that. He said they were fine.”

  Hearing his name Toby laughed, then picked a cracker out of his soup with his fingers and stuck it on his nose.

  “I don’t know if he’s entirely reliable in matters of taste,” said Bill. “I’ve had a lot more experience when it comes to cookies.”

  “You mean you don’t wear them?” asked Lucy.

  “Exactly,” said Bill, plucking the cracker off Toby’s nose and popping it in his son’s little mouth. “I know that food goes in the mouth.”

  “Down!” ordered Toby, who had lost interest in lunch and was raring to go.

  The kettle shrieked as Lucy wiped his hands and face with a washcloth and set him on the floor, where he made a beeline for the wooden crate that served as a pot cupboard. She put tea bags in two mugs, filled them with hot water and arranged a half-dozen cookies on a plate and, stepping nimbly over the pots that Toby was scattering on the floor, carried it all back to the table.

  “Mmm,” said Bill, savoring a bite of cookie.

  “Mmm,” said Toby.

  Bill raised his eyebrows curiously. “Mmm?” he said

  “MMM,” hummed Toby, louder than before.

  “It’s a game Miss Tilley taught him. He loves it.”

  Bill’s next mmm was very soft, but Toby didn’t take the hint. His MMMM was louder and longer than ever.

  “Is there a way to stop it?” asked Bill, reaching for another cookie.

  “Don’t go mmm anymore,” said Lucy.

  “MMMMM!”

  “I will if you will,” said Bill. “So did you have an interesting morning?”

  “A lot more interesting than I bargained for. You know that cane I bought for Miss Tilley?” When Bill nodded she continued. “Well, she started to cry when I gave it to her. It seems her mother actually died on Christmas Eve many years ago, this must have been back in the thirties, and a red and white glass cane was found smashed beside her body.”

  “That’s quite a coincidence,” said Bill, taking a slurp of tea.

  “I know. And it gets weirder. She told me she’s always suspected her mother was killed by her father. He was a mean old character if ever there was one.”

  “She told you all this while you were baking cookies?”

  “Uh, well, Toby fell asleep and we drank some sherry,” admitted Lucy. “I only had a very small glass but Miss Tilley pretty much drained the bottle. I think it may have loosened her lips.”

  “I guess so,” said Bill. “It doesn’t seem the sort of conversation you have with a new friend.”

  “Not at all, but that’s the funny thing. It didn’t feel as if we were getting to know each other, it seemed as if we’d known each other forever. Like we were old friends, maybe in some earlier reincarnation or something.”

  Bill looked at her skeptically. “I think you need to get out more, Lucy.”

  “Well, I was thinking I might do a little investigating and see if I can’t find out how her mother really died. There were a lot of people in and out of the house and one of them might have been a murderer.”

  “How are you going to do that? They’ve probably all been dead for years.”

  Lucy looked down at her empty mug. “I don’t exactly know myself,” she admitted. “But people don’t live in a vacuum. There are bound to be records, newspaper accounts. After all, old cases do get solved from time to time. That’s what the mystery I’m reading is about.”

  “That’s a book, this is real life,” he said. “And besides, you’re already overlooking an obvious clue.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure, the cane.”

  “You’re right!” exclaimed Lucy, hopping up and running around the table to kiss him. “In fact, it just so happens that I bought the cane from some people named Boott, and the Tilley family had a handyman named Boott. And, get this, he was a trusty from the jail.”

  “Sounds like a prime suspect to me,” said Bill, scratching his chin. “I’m thinking of growing a beard. What do you think?”

  “I think you’d look like a real Mainer.”

  He pulled her into his lap. “It will be scratchy at first,” he said, giving her a long, lovely kiss.

  “Mmmm,” said Lucy. “I won’t mind.�
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  “MMMM!” hummed Toby, banging a pot with a wooden spoon.

  Surprised, they jumped apart, laughing. “I guess I better get back to work,” said Bill. “That sheetrock isn’t going to hang itself.”

  Lucy took the dirty dishes over to the sink and began washing them, looking out the window as she worked. She had a clear view of the rutted dirt driveway, the fence with its missing and broken pickets, and the road that nobody except the mailman ever seemed to use. And here he was now, in his little Jeep.

  Checking to see that Toby was busy with his pots she threw her coat over her shoulders and ran down the driveway, hoping the day’s mail included something good. A big fat check would be best, maybe they’d overpaid their income tax and the IRS was sending them a refund. But she’d settle for a card from a friend, or a Christmas gift.

  Opening the flap on the front of the box, she smiled to see a small package wrapped in brown paper and string along with the usual bills and junk mail. The return address indicated it came from her mother, which surprised her because she knew her mother was spending all her time at the hospital with her father.

  Back inside the kitchen, she found Toby was still busy arranging the pots so she threw the coat over a chair and sat down at the table to open the package. She slipped off the string and paper and found a slim little book, an old and worn copy of O. Henry’s famous story, “The Gift of the Magi.” It wasn’t wrapped and there was no card but she didn’t need one, she knew it came from her father. It was his tradition to read the story every Christmas.

  Now, she realized, he was sending it to her so she could carry on the tradition. It was his way of saying good-bye. She pressed the musty, brown volume to her chest and tears filled her eyes.

  “Book!” said Toby, attempting to climb into her lap.

  She wiped her eyes and hoisted him up onto her lap. Then she began reading aloud, expecting Toby to lose interest. But he didn’t. He was content to sit in her lap and listen as she read the familiar story of Della, who sold her beautiful hair to buy a gold chain for her husband’s pocket watch, and Jim, who sold his pocket watch to buy combs for Della’s hair. In the end, he had a watch chain and no watch and she had combs for her hair but no hair to hold them, but they had their love for each other which was the best gift of all.

  Finishing the story, she set Toby in his high chair with a sippy cup of juice and a handful of Cheerios and reached for the phone, dialing the number she had learned as a child. Her mother answered.

  “I got the book. Thank you so much.”

  “He insisted. I told him I didn’t have time, it’s a long bus ride to Montefiore you know, but he kept after me and kept after me. You’re wasting your strength I told him, you should be thinking about getting well instead of worrying about a Christmas present for Lucy, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Well I really appreciate it. I know how much Dad needs you.” She paused. “How is he?”

  “The same.”

  Lucy reached over and stroked Toby’s silky head. He popped a Cheerio in his mouth and smiled at her. “The same? What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s not getting better and he’s not getting worse.”

  “Can’t they try something different? Some new medication?”

  “He won’t let them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s refusing treatment.” Lucy heard the anger in her mother’s voice. “He’s giving up.”

  Lucy found herself slumping, as if a heavy blanket of sadness had dropped on her. “Do you want me to come?” she asked.

  “There’s no need.” Her mother’s voice was sharp.

  “But if he’s dying…,” Lucy paused, realizing it was the first time since her father became ill that she’d said the word, “if he’s dying I want to say good-bye.”

  “He isn’t going to die. I’m not letting him. I’m seeing a lawyer and I’m going to court and I’ll become his guardian and then I’ll tell the doctors to do whatever they can to keep him alive.”

  Lucy bit her lip. “Are you sure that’s the right…”

  “Of course it’s the right thing to do. I have to go now.” Then there was a click and the line went dead.

  Lucy wanted to tear her clothes and pull her hair, she wanted to yell at her mother, she wanted to feel her father’s strong arms around her one more time, but she couldn’t do those things so she lifted Toby onto his feet, standing him in the high chair, and gave him a big hug. Inside her, the baby seemed to do a somersault.

  Toby wasn’t interested in hugs and after his long morning nap he wasn’t interested in his usual after-lunch nap. He was interested in banging pots but Lucy was developing a headache, so she decided to take him outside for a walk around the yard. It wasn’t Central Park, with its zoo and merry-go-round, but it did offer fresh air and occasional sunshine.

  Toby needed a hand getting down the porch steps, but then he was off and running, heading down the driveway. Lucy ran after him, scooped him up and swung him around, pointing him in the opposite direction. He tried to dodge past her, determined to flirt with death in the road, but she blocked him and scooped him up again. “Let’s find a ball,” she said, and this time he ran for the safer territory of the backyard. As she followed she thought about her conversation with her mother and tried to sort out her feelings.

  It seemed to her that through the years she had played out this same scenario many times. She had always felt closer to her father than her mother, but whenever any real intimacy began to develop her mother would somehow intervene. It started when she was quite small. If Pop invited her to go for a walk down the street to the candy store, her mother would come up with some chore he had to do first and the little walk would be forgotten. Even when she was in college she could remember several instances when he called to say he would be in the area on a business trip and would take her out to dinner, just the two of them, but it never happened. A sudden crisis always seemed to arise—Mom suddenly developed a mysterious ailment or her car was making a suspicious noise—and he’d have to cut the trip short and return home.

  Toby had found the ball, a big playground ball, and was running with it. When he got about ten feet from her he threw it to her, making a great effort, and she laughed at the sight. He was so cute. She couldn’t imagine shutting him out or turning away from him, but that’s what her mother had done to her. She’d always felt like a third wheel, like an intruder in her parents’ life together, and she’d assumed that was the natural order of things. Now she knew differently. She caught the ball and threw it back, gently, so Toby could catch it.

  Back in the house she put a Care Bears tape in the VCR for Toby and set a pot of water to boil, planning to cook macaroni for American chop suey. It wasn’t fine cuisine, but it sure stretched a pound of hamburger. While she waited for it to boil she called Miss Tilley at the library. After thanking her for letting her bake the cookies and minding Toby and giving her sherry, Lucy got to the point of her call. “Do you know anything about the glass cane your mother had?” she asked. “Was it a family treasure?”

  “I’d never seen it before, nobody had,” replied Miss Tilley.

  “Perhaps it was a gift she was intending to give someone?”

  “I don’t know where she would have gotten it. She hadn’t been out of the house for months.”

  “Maybe someone gave it to her,” suggested Lucy.

  “She was too sick for visitors by then.”

  “I see,” said Lucy.

  “I’m afraid I’m not being very helpful,” said Miss Tilley.

  “On the contrary,” said Lucy, who was beginning to think she was on to something. She might not be Sherlock Holmes, but she could use his method. It was simple logic that if the glass cane wasn’t in the house before the murder, and if Mrs. Tilley had no way of obtaining it herself, then the killer must have brought it. Find the owner of the cane and she would find the murderer.

  She was explaining this to Miss Tilley when the p
ot began to steam and the lid rattled. “Oops, got to go,” she said, “before the pot boils over.”

  Next morning it was the diaper pail that was demanding attention. Now that Toby was becoming more interested in using the toilet, the pail filled more slowly and had plenty of time to ripen. She sniffed the familiar odor and decided something had to be done. Fortunately, the septic system hadn’t been giving much trouble lately, the sink and bathtub drained nicely, the toilet flushed properly without even a hiccup, so Lucy decided to risk running the washer. She filled it with hot water, added detergent and bleach, and dumped in the diapers. The machine chugged and swished and Lucy enjoyed the sense of virtue that came from knowing she wasn’t polluting the planet with disposable diapers. Not that she wouldn’t, of course, if she could have afforded them. But that didn’t lessen the fact that she had made the ecological choice.

  The cycle had almost finished and she was considering running a second load when she heard an ominous bubbling sound in the kitchen sink. She went into the bathroom and discovered the toilet was burping, a sure sign that the cesspool was nearing capacity and needed time to drain. That second load would have to be done at the Laundromat.

  Lucy put the diapers in the dryer and got it going, then she packed up the dirty laundry, zipped Toby into his snowsuit, and advised Bill not to flush unless absolutely necessary. She didn’t mind having to go to the Laundromat. It got her out of the house, and she planned to make a second stop at the Winchester College museum to inquire about the glass factory.

  A light snow was falling as she steered Auntie Granada toward Main Street, passing the large old sea captains’ houses that had been built in the town’s nineteenth-century heyday. Back then there were huge fortunes to be made at sea, taking ginseng to China, and bringing back tea, and porcelain, and furniture. Those days were gone but the substantial houses had endured and were decked in holiday greenery, with wreaths and swags and garlands. A few even had decorative arrangements of fruit—pineapples, and oranges, and apples—fixed above their doors. Continuing on past the Community Church she spotted the traditional creche on the lawn and decided to show it to Toby.