by Judith Ivie
I found my voice at last. “And then you came home?”
Her smile was bitter this time. “Oh, that might have been possible in another place and time, but as I’ve said, Wethersfield is a very small town, and it was the ‘60s. My ruined virtue became common knowledge, and Mother simply could not bear the shame of it all. Had it been a different time, a different place, Henry and I would have made different choices, but at the time, my disappearing and giving up our daughter was presented to us as the only option. Mother was a very forceful personality. She forbade me to return, if you can believe it.” Her mouth twisted in remembered pain.
My heart went out to her. “How terrible for you. What did you do? Did you have any friends or relatives to turn to out there?”
“No, no one. Everyone on both sides of our family lived right here in provincial New England. California may as well have been China. But somehow I managed. I was eighteen by then and got a job as a clerk at the state university in San Jose. After I established a year’s residence, I was entitled to free tuition at a state institution, so I put myself through school and got a better job. I lost a lot of weight, dyed my hair brown, and got contact lenses to replace my eyeglasses. Then I went to probate court and changed my name legally to Mavis Wellman. My transformation was complete. As far as people in Wethersfield knew, Sarah Wheeler had disappeared.”
“Who started the rumor that you were killed in a car crash out west? What happened to Henry all that time?” By now I was completely caught up in Mavis’s story.
“To answer your first question, probably Mother herself. She never got over the horror of having an unwed mother for a daughter. It was far preferable to tell people that I had died, which made her a tragic figure instead of a mean old woman, which is what she really was, you know. As for Henry, he suffered in his own way. The shame wasn’t as bad for his family, of course. Even ministers’ boys will be boys, and you know the old double standard. So they just packed him off to a seminary in Oregon, trusting that he would get over his little crush. But in reality, we were always in contact, writing and calling, even visiting each other when he got a break from his studies. When he was ordained, he took a posting in northern California instead of going back East. In 1981, when his father was nearing retirement, Henry was invited to fill the position of senior minister. Since people’s memories had faded and my appearance had been sufficiently altered, I married him and returned not as Sarah Wheeler but as Henry’s bride Mavis, recently of California. So we eventually worked out a happy ending to our story, but it wasn’t tidy enough for Mother. Real life seldom is, I find.”
I was quiet, imagining myself in Mavis’s situation all those years ago. What would I have done in her place? “Please forgive me for asking, but was it really so unthinkable for you to defy your mother? Even in 1960, unwed mothers weren’t exactly being tarred and feathered, as I recall. If you and Henry were so very much in love, why couldn’t you marry and raise your daughter, even if you were young and the baby arrived a bit early?”
Mavis didn’t appear to take offense. She sipped her tea thoughtfully. “It simply didn’t occur to me, I suppose. I was a placid sort of child, a pleaser, I guess you would say. I was seventeen years old, not yet of legal age, and defying Mother was no more an option for me than getting an abortion.”
I winced at the parallel she had chosen to draw.
“Oh, yes, that crossed my mind. Another girl in my senior class who found herself in the same predicament had done just that. But I had been raised to believe that abortion is murder, all the more heinous because the victim is an unborn child. Henry felt the same way.”
Mavis set down her cup and met my eyes. “I wonder if it’s possible for you to understand. You and I don’t know each other very well, I realize, but a minister’s wife is accustomed to observing others. I’ve often seen you with your daughter … Emma, is it? … on your morning walks down to the cove or having coffee together at the diner. You’re always nattering away or laughing about something. You seem very free and open with each other, more like girlfriends than mother and daughter. I don’t imagine that there are many secrets between you.”
My heart dropped as I remembered my last conversation with Emma. “Well, one or two, perhaps,” I protested weakly. “Everyone has secrets, especially from their parents. But generally speaking, Emma and I can talk about most things.” Except why she was spotted paying off a known blackmailer. Apparently, that topic is off limits. To cover my confusion, I held out my cup for a refill. What a fraud I was, sitting here questioning Mavis’s long-ago choices and allowing myself to be mistaken for a model mother.
Mavis tipped the old teapot over my cup, replenishing the fragrant brew. The incongruity of our surroundings and our conversation struck me. Here we were in this charming old parsonage, two ladies chatting over our teacups—about blackmail, abortion, and yes, murder. All those straitlaced parishioners in the burying ground behind us must be aghast.
I dragged my attention back to the topic at hand. “Please know that my openness with Emma doesn’t mean I can’t understand your situation. My relationship with my own mother was guarded, to say the least.”
Mavis nodded understandingly. “I’m sure. That was the way it was when you and I were young.” Her eyes grew distant once again. “In my case, it was ridiculous to think the truth would never come out, of course. It always does, and its potential to do damage escalates exponentially with the passage of time. Our story was no exception. By the time Prudy got hold of it, Henry’s parents were long dead, but he and Mother and I had been living a lie for more than forty years. Precisely because it had been kept secret for all that time, our adolescent peccadillo would have achieved the status of a full-blown scandal, one that would totally overshadow Henry’s decades of selfless service to the church and the community, just as he was looking forward to retirement. I simply couldn’t let Prudy do it to him, to us.”
I swallowed hard. “Are you telling me you killed her, Mrs. Griswold?”
Mavis’s eyebrows climbed her forehead. “Why, no,” she replied calmly. “Oh, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit that it crossed my mind. Helping Prudence Crane to meet her Maker could almost be considered an act of compassion. She wasn’t only my cross to bear, after all. She made the lives of everyone with whom she came into contact a living hell. But,” she smiled almost impishly, “the good Lord apparently saw fit to assign the task to someone else.”
I believed her. It was impossible to look into those serene brown eyes and do anything else. I put my empty teacup on the coffee table and groped for my handbag at my feet. “Thank you for speaking with me so frankly, Mrs. Griswold. You certainly didn’t have to, but you’ve helped me enormously. I only hope our conversation hasn’t been too distressing for you.”
“Mrs. Griswold is a bit formal under the circumstances, don’t you think? Please call me Mavis. And on the contrary, I can’t tell you what a relief it’s been to confide in someone after all these years,” she reassured me as we headed for the study door. “I’m really most grateful to you, my dear.”
I could understand her feelings. After decades of allowing others to unburden themselves to her, of keeping their secrets and offering advice, the relief of finally sharing her own story must be exquisite. “Please know that what you’ve told me this afternoon will go no further unless that becomes absolutely necessary, and at this moment, I can’t think why it would.” I frowned as something occurred to me. “Mavis, do you happen to know what else was in your mother’s diaries?”
“Quite a bit, I would imagine. Mother didn’t miss much,” she said drily.
“Haven’t you seen them?”
“Why, no, I haven’t. Mother and I weren’t close enough for her to acknowledge my existence. She left her house to her neighbor. She would scarcely entrust her diaries to me.”
Good point. “Do you have any idea what happened to them after Prudy got her hands on them?”
Mavis thought a bit. “I suppos
e the police must have them. Isn’t it routine in these matters for the authorities to search the victim’s home for clues?”
I considered this. “The police couldn’t have the diaries, or they’d be the ones questioning you instead of me.”
“Then Prudy must have hidden them somewhere,” Mavis concluded quite logically. “But where?”
“There are too many people at the diner for her to have found a safe hiding place there. They have to be in your mother’s house somewhere, just not in Prudy’s apartment. Remember, the police don’t know these diaries exist, so they’re not looking for them. Do you have any idea? Did you have a secret hiding place in that house when you were a child?”
Mavis shook her head regretfully. “I was a very timid child. There’s a huge attic, but the bats and the squirrels frightened me, and I avoided the big, dark basement at all costs.”
The prospect of searching those spaces didn’t do much for me, either. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but if I’m going to have a chance of figuring this situation out, I have to find those diaries. When I do, what shall I do with them?”
“Why, you must do whatever you think best, dear. I leave it entirely in your capable hands.” Mavis smiled serenely. “I have faith.”
Late that afternoon I finished returning phone calls and trudged up the stairs to the loft to fill in Emma on my conversation with Mavis Griswold. She switched the phones to the answering machine and led me into her phantom boss’s office, closing the door behind us. She listened to my tale without interruption. “But how are you going to get into the Wheeler house?” she asked. “The Copelands aren’t living there yet, but they own the property. Prudy’s apartment must still be sealed by the police. Short of breaking and entering, I really don’t see how—“
She was interrupted by someone pounding on Jimmy’s door, and then Margo burst into the room followed closely by Rhett Butler. “Hey, ladies, what’s cookin’?” She plopped into the second guest chair and beamed at us both. Rhett trotted directly to Emma, whom he adored almost as much as Margo, and put his head in her lap. Emma smiled at Rhett and scratched his head.
“Later,” I said. “What happened with Lieutenant Harkness?”
“In front of the child?” Margo asked, feigning shock while she kicked off her Manolos and wiggled her stockinged toes.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Give.”
I nodded my agreement.
Torn between his two loves, Rhett walked to the middle of the room and flopped down on the floor at a point precisely midway between Margo and Emma, panting happily.
“Well, if you insist. Would either one of you happen to have a piece of gum?”
I threw my purse at her, while Emma tossed the box of tissues from Jimmy’s desk.
“Okay, okay! Here’s what I know so far. It’s not much, because the delectable lieutenant only had a few minutes for me. The mayor was expectin’ him, you see,” she offered by way of explanation.
“Hardnose kept the mayor waiting while he talked with you?” Emma asked in disbelief.
Margo smiled at her kindly. “Why, yes. He’s such a gentleman, don’t you think?” She smoothed her linen sheath over her slim thighs and admired the result.
“Not according to Rick Fletcher or any of the other young cops on the force,” Emma snorted. “Rick says he’s a complete—“
“Stop it!” I hissed at the two of them. “Emma, be quiet, now, and Margo, I swear, if you don’t tell me what you found out right this minute …”
It was Margo’s turn to roll her eyes, but “Okey dokey,” was all she said. “First, I introduced myself and explained that as a local realtor with listings in the area of the old Wheeler house I very naturally had an interest in how visible any ongoing investigation of the premises might be, not wanting to spook any potential buyers. I must say John was very understandin’.”
“John?” Emma interrupted, and I quelled her with a look.
Margo smiled again. “Yes, John understood my concerns perfectly. He went out of his way to explain that the crime unit had already completed a very thorough investigation of Prudy’s apartment, dustin’ for fingerprints and takin’ up the carpets, lookin’ for fibers and hairs and all that sort of disgustin’ forensic evidence. It was their belief that not only did Prudy live alone, but she couldn’t have had any visitors, either. The crime lab technicians spent a lot of time goin’ over every little thing, and they didn’t turn up one single piece of evidence that any other person had ever set foot in her apartment. Isn’t that just the weirdest thing you ever heard?”
Emma and I stared at her. “I can’t believe Hardnose gave up that much information to someone outside the department on five minutes’ acquaintance,” I said finally.
“Two minutes, Sugar,” Margo said smugly. “The mayor was waitin’, remember. Anyway, the point is that the forensic investigation of Prudy’s apartment appears to be complete. The crime scene tape is still in place, but John said that the new owners are free to come and go now.”
I chewed over what Margo had learned. “Did Hardnose mention finding any diaries at Prudy’s place?” I gave her a short version of the interview I had had with Mavis Griswold earlier that afternoon.
Margo listened closely, her eyes half closed while she processed what I had to say. “Elsie the Cow had a calf? Amazin’. No, John didn’t mention any diaries, but I’ll raise the question with him again later. We’re havin’ dinner this evenin’.”
Emma choked in disbelief, but I waved off any comment. “Good. But if they have the diaries, then why haven’t they questioned Mavis?”
“And if they don’t have them, how did they know Prudy was blackmailing Abby?” Margo finished my thought.
“Good point,” I agreed, and Emma nodded.
“We still haven’t solved the problem of how we’re going to get into Prudy’s apartment to search it ourselves—unless, of course, John handed over a key to the place,” she joked.
If possible, Margo looked even more smug. “Not a problem, girlfriends. The good lieutenant let it slip that the Copelands have decided to dump the Wheeler house. Can’t stand the idea of living with a murder victim’s ghost or some such twaddle. At any rate, they want out, the sooner the better. I know it was tacky of me, but I simply couldn’t help myself. I ran right over to see them.” She risked her manicure by scrabbling in the bottom of her Etienne Aigner tote. She produced a set of huge, old fashioned keys, which she dangled before us tantalizingly. “And guess who’s got the listin’!”
Seven
Usually, I anticipated Fridays with pleasure, but today wasn’t one of those days. I had been looking forward to spending Thursday evening with Armando, but an unexpected software problem at work had caused him to cancel our dinner date. I had consoled myself with half a bottle of wine and wound up tossing and turning all night to the annoyance of Jasmine and Simon. They retreated to the family sofa in the wee hours, and I fell into a sleep too restless to be restorative. I awoke with a headache at 6:00 a.m. and grumped off to meet Emma for a walk before work, hoping some exercise would perk me up. It didn’t.
A cold fog had rolled off the Connecticut River and enveloped Old Wethersfield from its banks nearly to the Silas Deane Highway. The water of the cove was barely visible, disappearing into the swirling mist just a few feet from shore. Even the birds were silent. By unspoken agreement, Emma and I avoided the diner, grabbing coffee to go from Dory’s on our way back up the hill. At the corner of Church Street we crossed Old Main, giving a wide berth to the spot where we had found Prudy’s body. The scarecrows in front of Blades Salon had been totally dismantled. Jay and Ed, the owners, had filled the awkward gap with some artfully arranged wheat sheaves, pumpkins and mums. To out-of-town tourists, the new display probably looked fine, but it only served to remind us locals of what had been in its place.
Margo had talked the Copelands into scheduling an open house on Sunday. Will and Janet were eager to divest themselves of what they now considered
to be a white elephant, but Margo considered it a lucrative opportunity. “The curiosity factor alone will bring people out in record numbers,” she predicted. “Nothin’ folks like better than a chance to gawk at a crime scene, and once they see how nice it is inside, we’re just bound to find a buyer. If we keep a sharp eye out, we can see what other locals show up who might be considered suspects. With any luck at all, we’ll solve this little mystery and make a tidy profit, too.”
I had my doubts about how profitable this listing would turn out to be, but my main interest was getting inside the place to hunt for Harriett Wheeler’s diaries. Grace Sajak and her crew had been dispatched to remove the crime scene tape, vacuum and clean the fingerprinting dust, and generally remove any remaining traces of the police investigation of Prudy’s apartment. We trusted Grace absolutely, and she knew not to relocate anything. As squeamish as the Copelands now were about the property, they were only too happy to leave the preparations to Margo and me. Along with Emma, we planned to take full advantage of our access on Saturday. In the meantime, there was today to get through.
“So what’s on your sleuthing agenda today?” Emma asked as we trudged toward the Law Barn. It being the last day of the month, she would be flat out all day handling closings.
I considered my options. The last thing I felt like doing was prying into yet another family’s personal business, but it had to be done if we were to get Abby off the hook. Since our meeting, Abby had scrupulously avoided contacting me, but I knew she had to be anxious for news. “First, I want to hear what Margo learned from John Harkness last night.”
