Grace Against the Clock (A Manor House Mystery)

by Julie Hyzy

  “Oh?” She stared pointedly out her side window. “That’s not what I heard.”

  She wanted more, clearly. She wanted details. I wasn’t about to oblige. It had been hard enough explaining Adam’s departure to Scott and Bruce. They’d been supportive in that if-you-really-think-this-is-the-right-move-for-you-then-we’re-behind-you sort of way. But I could tell that they’d both been disappointed. Who was I kidding? I was disappointed. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a terrible mistake. More than once over the weekend, I’d been tempted to call Adam. I’d wanted to apologize; I’d wanted to ask him if we could remain friends.

  But I knew that in this case, it was all or nothing. Anything less than “all” would be cruel and unfair. I knew that my wanting to call him was more about assuaging my own sadness than anything else. Calling him would be selfish. I had to steel myself to fight the urge to try to make things better. While doing so might temporarily ease my conscience, I knew in my heart that it would only make things worse for him. I couldn’t do that. He deserved better.

  I’d done a great deal of thinking all day Sunday and I’d come to the conclusion that Adam was right. I needed to find closure with Jack. Until I did, I was in limbo, unable to move or make decisions. I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Want some advice?” Frances asked.

  “No.”

  “You have to get Jack out of your system, one way or another.”

  I pulled my lips in so tight they hurt.

  “Oh, figured that out for yourself, did you?” She gave a self-satisfied nod. “He knows about your breakup, by the way.”

  I gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  In my peripheral vision I watched her study me again, give a shrug like nothing mattered, and then turn her attention back out the window. “My ‘gremlins,’ as you so affectionately call them, made sure he got the update. I thought you ought to know.”

  * * *

  Tooney lived in a cottage about five miles away from Emberstowne’s busiest area, across the railroad tracks that, as in many towns, separated the haves from the have-nots. I was fortunate to live in an area that featured painted-lady mansions and manicured lawns—not because I was wealthy, but because my mother had left the house to me.

  Here, down a rural road, among ramshackle houses that barely seemed storm-worthy, Tooney’s home sat deep on a lightly wooded lot. His house was about the size of a large two-car garage, with a cement block foundation and faded siding. We pulled up onto the adjacent gravel driveway and got out of the car.

  “This looks like him,” Frances said. “Old, rumpled, and ready for the bulldozer.”

  “Frances,” I snapped. “Cut it out.”

  We stepped onto his porch, an eight-by-sixteen-foot platform made up of warped plywood boards nailed onto uneven two-by-fours. It didn’t creak so much as moan as we made our way to his front door.

  “What? You want me to say something nice about the place?” She looked at the cottage, gave it a quick once-over, taking in the battered screen door, the windowless front façade, the folded lawn chairs leaning against the wall next to the door, and the black bags of garbage around the near corner. Smooshing her lips to the side, she said, “Sorry. Can’t.”

  There was no doorbell, so I opened the shaky screen and knocked at the heavier door inside. It swung open.

  “Izzat you?” Tooney’s voice bellowed. “C’mon in.”

  I clapped a hand to my mouth as we entered. The hot stench of sick, sweet liquor mingled with sweat was overwhelming. It propelled me back, with sharp stinging memory, to Dr. Keay’s last moments before he died.

  There was one piece of furniture in the room, a low red couch, shoved up against the far wall, which was also painted red. Tooney sprawled sideways across the sofa, one arm draped to the floor, the other raised in the air, waving hello. His shirt was open to the middle of his chest, his pants were rolled up to his knees, and his hairy feet were bare.

  Frances pulled a handkerchief from her purse and held it to her nose. She stormed up to Tooney, demanding, “When did you last bathe?”

  He looked up at her with drooping basset hound eyes, shook his head, and burped.

  “Heavens,” Frances said, and turned away.

  “Hiya, Grace,” he said, slurring the end of my name. “Iss so good to see you.” He pointed at Frances with effort. “But why’d’ja have to bring that one along?”

  Frances pulled the hanky away from her mouth. “Oh, were you hoping to be alone with her? Is that it, Mr. Tooney?”

  His face smashed in on itself, like he wanted to frown as hard as he possibly could. Slapping the air with his hand, he said, “Nah, nothing like that.” Again, with effort, he sat up. “Whaddya take me for? Grace is like a daughter to me. Aren’tcha?”

  I chose not to answer. A window air conditioner had been built into the wall near the ceiling, though it didn’t seem to be running at the moment. I crossed the room in two strides, reaching up to turn it on.

  He rolled his head back to stare up at me. “Good idea, Gracie. Iz gettin’ warm in here.”

  “Only the Mister calls her Gracie,” Frances said.

  Tooney slapped the air again. His tongue made its way around his lips.

  “Thirsty?” I asked.

  Both hands came up fast and he reacted as if I’d asked him to strip naked and dance the Hokey Pokey. “I’ve had enough, thank you very much,” he said. “Can’t handle any more.”

  “I meant water. I’m sure you’re dehydrated.”

  I didn’t wait for him to answer. I made my way to the kitchen, passing Tooney’s bedroom and bathroom along the way. Both doors were open, so I wasn’t snooping, not exactly. I simply took an extra moment to glance in at them. They were as small and dreary as his living room. The entire home was floored in adhesive tiles, some of which were missing. Tooney’s bedroom consisted of a bumpy double bed, a pitted dresser, and orange walls with broken drywall near the floor where a baseboard should be. At least there was a window in this room. Shabby but tidy. I had to give him that.

  The bathroom was cramped, painted hot pink, and featured an aluminum shower stall that would be narrow even for me. I had no idea how a man Tooney’s size managed to get clean in there. A matching metal medicine cabinet hung on the wall over the toilet. There were prescription bottles on one shelf, but I thought it would be too much of an invasion of privacy to peek at what was in them.

  The kitchen was painted a vivid green and fluorescent yellow. What was it with all the bright colors? The sink was clear, the countertop—what little there was—clean. He had a toaster and a coffeemaker in addition to the refrigerator that hummed in the corner, but otherwise the room was empty.

  I opened the cabinet closest to the sink and found three drinking glasses. Two were juice size, one was a tumbler. I checked the fridge for ice water, found nothing but an opened package of hot dogs, a container of strawberries, and four cans of beer. That wasn’t going to cut it.

  A lonely bag of creamed corn sat in the freezer. No ice.

  “Tap water it is,” I said. I waited for it to run cold, filled the tumbler, and brought it to Tooney.

  In the short time I’d been gone, Frances had dragged in the two lawn chairs from outside and had set them up across from Tooney’s couch.

  “He expected us to sit next to him on that,” she said, pointing to the sofa. “The nerve.”

  I handed Tooney the water, and he gulped it down, barely breathing until it was done. “Thanks,” he said, handing the empty glass back.

  “What, you think she’s your maid now? Expect her to hurry off and get you a refill?”

  “Frances,” I said.

  She grabbed the glass out of my hand, huffed, and stormed out of the room. “We drove all the way out here to talk to the man. What are you waiting for?”

  The lawn ch
air’s aluminum frame scraped against the tile floor as I pulled the seat closer and sat in it. “What happened, Tooney?”

  “I think I found them.” He smacked his lips a few times. “I’m really sorry I am in this condishh—condition.”

  “How much did you have to drink?”

  “Not mush.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him.

  Frances returned at that moment, handed him the refilled glass, and stepped back. “That’s a lie,” she said.

  He adopted an exaggerated sincere expression. “No, really. I don’t drink a lot. Maybe a beer, y’know, once in a while. I had two shots of the stuff. These guys make it in their barn.”

  Frances and I exchanged a skeptical look. “Two shots?” I asked.

  “Maybe three?” He held up four fingers, then five. Shrugged. “Can’t remember. Here.” Half-draped over the couch’s arm, he reached down and pulled up a clear, unlabeled jar. “This is it,” he said. “Totally illegal.”

  I took it from him. “I’ve seen something like this before.”

  “The evidence technicians said they found two empty jars in the hidden passage,” Frances reminded me.

  “Yeah, but I never saw those. The techs bagged and removed the evidence before I got back down there.” I held the jar and turned it from side to side.

  Frances watched me. “Where did you see it?”

  “It looks a lot like one that belongs to David Cherk.”

  “Oh?” she asked. She sat in the other lawn chair and leaned forward. “What was he doing with moonshine?”

  “First of all, I don’t know what was in David Cherk’s jar. He’s a photographer. It could have been developer.”

  “But you don’t think it was, do you?” Frances’s eyes glittered. “Do you think Cherk was in cahoots with Joyce?”

  I took a deep breath. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.” I turned to Tooney, who appeared to be having a tough time tracking our conversation. “What did you find out?”

  “I found ’em,” he said, nodding. “Took me a coupla days but I found the guys who make this stuff.”

  I needed to exercise patience. “That’s wonderful. Now, why don’t you tell me who they sold it to.”

  He shook his big head. “They’re afraid of the cops, y’know. Took me a lot of effort to infla- infila—”

  “Infiltrate?”

  “Yeah. That.” He wiped the back of his hand across his nose. “I can’t tell you who the people are who made the moonshine. They made me promise.”

  “That’s fine. All I want to know is who else bought from them recently. They told you that, didn’t they?”

  He stuck a pinky finger in his ear and wiggled it around.

  Frances was giving me the evil eye. “He’s useless,” she said under her breath.

  Tooney brought his arm up and pointed a shaky finger at her. “You—need—to—shut—up.”

  Frances’s mouth dropped open and she sat straight. “How dare—”

  “Frances, let it go,” I said. “Talk to me, Tooney. Who else did they sell moonshine to?”

  “A guy. Male.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t ask too many questions, y’unnerstand,” he said. “I had to be sneaky about it. I told them that a coupla friends might be innerested in buying from them, too. Asked them if maybe my friends were already customers.”

  “And?” I asked, wishing he would get to it.

  “No names. Never names.” He held up an index finger and wagged it back and forth. “Wouldn’t even let me say my name. So—” He held both hands out to the side. “No help there.”

  “How old was the guy?”

  “No idea.” Tooney gave an exaggerated shrug. “Y’see, these guys who make the stuff are old. They been doin’ this since before even I was born. Everybody looks young to them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I said that one of my friends had dark hair and kinda looked like a skeleton.”

  “You described David Cherk?”

  He nodded, his top lip heavy over his bottom one. “They said nope, no skeletons came in.”

  My shoulders slumped. “So you got nothing.”

  “Didn’t say that.” He worked up a smile. “I like it when you’re proud of me, Gracie. Makes me feel good.”

  Frances loosened her pout long enough to interject, “Her name isn’t Gracie.”

  “I asked if anybody seemed, like, suspicious, when they bought the moonshine,” Tooney said.

  “More suspicious than you, you mean?” Frances asked.

  He was so intent on imparting information that he seemed to not hear her. He leaned very far forward and I could smell the booze on his hot breath. His eyes were yellow and rimmed in red, and he looked as though he might crash any moment.

  “They told me about a guy who comes in and buys four bottles at once. I got the impression he was a regular customer.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Tooney?”

  “The guy said that his wife left him. Said he wanted the stuff to drown his sorrows.” Tooney lowered his chin and stared at me from beneath wiry brows. “Who does that sound like?”

  Chapter 27

  When I got home late that afternoon, I didn’t walk straight in. Even though my brain was chock-full of clues about the murder and my heart was heavy because of Adam’s departure, I stopped for a moment on my driveway. I wanted to take some time to appreciate the positive changes Hillary had brought to my home.

  All her hard work, coupled with her surprisingly adept management, had paid off. The exterior was in the process of being painted—Hillary’s choice, pastel blue—and all the new windows were in. The porch, which had once been as shabby as Tooney’s, was now on the way to becoming breathtakingly beautiful. All that was left—outside at least—was to finish up with bright green, purple, and pink trim. As Hillary had promised, the house was beginning to look like something out of a high-class fairy tale.

  I took a deep breath. Tooney’s investigation hadn’t provided as much help as I’d hoped for, but Flynn had been happy to see us. More accurately, he’d been happy to see the jar of moonshine when we’d dropped it off with him. He planned to give it to the coroner for comparison with the alcohol that killed Keay. If they proved to be a match, I knew Flynn would go after the distillers in a flying tackle. Heck, he might go after them anyway, for fun.

  I stood outside staring, letting myself slowly relax. Until a voice behind me said, “Looks wonderful.”

  I turned and my heart gave a little skip. Like Adam said his did when he looked at me. But the voice behind me belonged to Jack.

  A thousand thoughts raced through my head at once: Did my stomach flip-flop because of attraction? Was it merely surprise? What the heck is going on? Why is Jack here right now?

  And then I remembered.

  “So you heard,” I said.

  He massaged the stubble on his chin. “Yeah.”

  I fought a rising tide of anger. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was driving it, but I couldn’t tamp it down either.

  “Is this how it works?” I asked. “The minute I break up with Adam, the entire town conspires to get the two of us together?”

  He had the decency to look embarrassed.

  “How’s Becke?”

  He kicked a stone and watched it skitter away. “Why is that important?”

  “Because it is.” I knew that wasn’t much of an argument, but a light was beginning to flicker alive in my brain.

  “She’s fine.”

  He wasn’t wearing the khaki shorts and sweaty T-shirt I’d been used to seeing him in, back when he was in charge of landscaping at Marshfield. Today he sported dark jeans, a collared shirt, and shiny loafers.

  I took a step closer to him. He smelled good, really good, and
my heart raced a little bit when that whiff of aftershave caught me unawares.

  And yet, his being here was wrong.

  “What do you want, Jack?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You and I don’t even know we’d be good together,” I said, realizing as I spoke the words that they were true. “Yet we’ve been trying to forge a path together. What you and I should probably really be trying to do is make ourselves work, first.”

  He scratched the side of his eye, still looking away. “What more do I need to do?” he asked. “I quit Marshfield to go back to school. I’m following up on what I’ve wanted to do from the start. I’m serious about putting my past behind me and making a new life for myself.”

  “You’ve done a marvelous job of that,” I said. “I admire all you’ve done.”

  When he met my gaze, I could see anger burning there. And something more. Exasperation. He hadn’t expected a discussion; he’d expected me to welcome him back with open arms.

  “But?” he asked.

  I could do no more than tell him the truth. “I don’t know you. Not really. I have this ideal in my mind, this image that formed when we first met. But that’s not who you are.”

  “Are you telling me that you don’t like who I’ve become?”

  I shook my head. “Months ago, you told me you had no interest in Becke. That you were simply helping out an old friend. I told you that if you were serious about a relationship with me then you had to settle things with her first.”

  He hunched his shoulders and spread his hands, his face tightening. “You were dating Adam,” he said. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “You don’t get it, do you, Jack?”

  “What I get is that you’re single again. Why shouldn’t we give a relationship a try?”

  “What about Becke?”

  “What about her? She’ll understand. She knows that we’re not serious.”

  “No, Jack, she doesn’t know that.”

  He gave me one of those “You don’t know what you’re talking about” looks. “I’ve told her I’m not looking for an instant family. We’re just friends.”