by Morgana Best
“Is that allowed?” I asked her.
“Sure.” Jane pulled a card from her purse. “Call me, on this extension, and I’ll book you in.”
“Thanks.” That had certainly gone better than I expected. Alder gave me a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. He then sat down, which worried me. I knew I shouldn’t overreact, given his convalescence was going according to schedule, but I just couldn’t help it. I saw that Ruprecht and Camino were speaking to Paul and Maria, while Mint was speaking to one of the residents.
Jane and the other nurses were now escorting the residents back out the door. The minister came over to us and introduced himself. “How did you know Celia?” he asked.
“I’m Amelia Spelled, the cupcake store owner,” I said. “My store was the one who provided the cupcakes when Celia died.”
The minister looked shocked, but quickly recovered. “Oh, I see. Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so.” I was nervous. I realised he probably recognised me from the photo in the newspaper article that said I was one of the suspects, but he hadn’t quite put two and two together yet. “That was a lovely service.”
The minister looked somewhat embarrassed. “It was a short one.”
We both stood there nervously for a little longer, before the minister muttered an excuse and hurried away. “Well, that was awkward,” I said to Alder. Before he could reply, Detective Morrison walked over. “Did you enjoy the service, Miss Spelled?”
I didn’t quite know how to respond. “It was short.”
The detective looked at me for a moment. “Quite so,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I must find Detective Scott.”
“Why don’t you just arrest someone else and be done with it,” I said to his departing back, but not so loud that he would hear it.
Ruprecht hurried over. “As the funeral was so short, why don’t you pop over to the library and see if you can find any information on Celia? No one is expecting you back at the shop yet. In fact, Thyme should go with you.”
“Sounds good to me, boss,” Thyme said.
Chapter 14
I drove down the long narrow street to the small town library. “Do you think we’ll find anything there?” Thyme asked me.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “Oh thank the goddess, it’s open!” The library was known to have random opening hours. When we walked inside, we were greeted eagerly by a tall woman who was clutching several books to her chest. A quick glance around showed we were the only patrons. “We’re looking for old newspaper articles from out west, in New South Wales,” I said. “They’d be on microfiche.”
“We couldn’t find what we’re looking for on internet searches,” Thyme added.
“We do have one microfiche machine here,” the librarian said. “It’s not used all that often. Come with me.” We followed her down a narrow corridor lined with books. It was quite dark and somewhat creepy. She opened the door and indicated we should precede her into the room. When she switched on the light, I blinked and rubbed my eyes. It was a strong fluorescent light that was flickering in a rather irritating way. Directly ahead of us was a modern purple office chair, and in front of that, an old white desk with an antique looking microfiche machine on it. It resembled an ancient desktop computer. “Do you know how to work one?” she asked us.
“I used one when I was at uni,” I said. “I hope I can remember how to use it.”
“Feel free to sing out if you need a hand,” she said, followed by a nervous giggle. “Figuratively speaking, of course. We follow the usual rule of silence in the library here.”
“Sure,” I said in a low tone. “Thanks for your help.” She walked away, and I stared at the machine in front of me. “Actually, I have no idea where to start,” I said in despair.
“Here, let me have a go.” Thyme brought up a search on the screen and I stifled a laugh. It looked like one of the first desktop computers from an old movie. “Here we go.” Thyme jabbed her finger at the screen. “Digitised newspapers and more—allows access to historic Australian periodicals. Available in microfilm.”
“Good work!” I was impressed. An hour later, I wasn’t so optimistic. We had read about the Finnish leader abdicating, the Baptist cycle Carnival, farmers injured when falling from haystacks, the prospects for wool selling well, and a wonderful cricketer from Condobolin.
The librarian walked back in and cleared her throat, startling us. “Have you found what you’re looking for?”
“No,” I said sadly. “We were about to give up.”
“What are you looking for exactly? Old newspaper articles, did you say?”
Thyme and I nodded.
“Have you tried the newspapers stored on CD?”
I raised my eyebrows. “I didn’t know newspapers were stored on CD.”
She nodded. “We have many newspapers stored on CD and they’re searchable as well, which of course you can’t do with microfiche.” She beckoned us to a desktop computer at the next table. It didn’t look much newer than the microfiche machine, so I hoped it worked. “These are our CDs here,” she said, gesturing to a large shelf of CDs. “If you know the newspaper you’re after, then you just put the CD in the computer and search for the term.”
I thanked her profusely. “This could do the trick,” I said to Thyme. As soon as the librarian left, we pounced on the CDs with glee.
“Look Amelia, here are CDs of The Forbes Advocate, the Parkes Champion-Post, and look at this one, the West Wyalong Advocate and Mining, Agricultural and Pastoral Gazette.”
“Okay, let’s make a start. Pick a CD and we’ll search for Celia Carmichael.”
This time, it only took us five minutes. Between an article stating that there was no forecasted change in wool prices and an article on a big theft of handkerchiefs from a factory, was an article on Celia’s wedding, complete with a photo. “I wonder if Edith was one of the bridesmaids,” I said.
Thyme made a rude sound. “I hardly think so. And Celia had a mean look on her face, even back then. The poor guy, he looked nice.”
I peered at the screen. “Perhaps we can find something more recent on her.”
“If it was more recent, we would have found it on the net,” Thyme pointed out.
She had a point. “When did the internet come in? Early 1990s, wasn’t it? She could’ve got up to a lot in the 1980s. See if we can find something from around 1980. That could be more relevant to today.”
We did, in fact, find several newspaper articles on Celia’s and her husband’s fight with the bank, and on the bank eventually selling the property out from under them. We didn’t find anything that would throw any light on motives for Celia’s murder. “Let’s search Edith,” I said. “Her surname is Moore.”
“Was that her married name or her maiden name?” Thyme asked me.
I shook my head sadly. “She never married. She was in love with Frank Carmichael, the man Celia stole from her.”
Thyme bit her lip. “That’s just too awful. It’s like a sad movie.”
We weren’t able to find much about Edith, only that she was a good tennis player and that she was a bridesmaid of a Beryl Broadfoot from Wagga. That was about it.
A sudden idea occurred to me. “Why don’t we search Paul Addams?”
Thyme looked surprised. “Why would we? We’ve already googled him.”
“He’s no spring chicken, Thyme. He would have married Maria before the advent of the internet.”
Thyme took the CD out of the computer and put it back in its case. “I thought you didn’t suspect him anymore?”
“I don’t, really. It’s just that I think we need to look into all the suspects while we’re here.”
Thyme shrugged in resignation. “Okay, but where do we start? We knew where Celia and Edith lived, but where did Paul live?”
“Around the same parts,” I said. “From what I know, his parents died when he was young and Celia raised him. Well, he was probably a late teenager at the time,
but he was still living out west. We could just search through the same CDs.”
Thyme let out a long sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I took out the CD?” She put it straight back in, and searched for Paul Addams.
We struck gold immediately, an article on climbing accidents in Australia from 1955 to 1985. Paul Addams’ name was on the fifth page. He had been scrambling, unroped, near a cliff edge, with a Joe Collins. Joe Collins went over the edge and died. The article said they were both experienced climbers. The article went on to say that unroped accidents were a serious problem. It stated that out of the twenty-five rock climbing injuries in that period, five were unroped, scrambling, and near a cliff edge.
“I wonder who Joe Collins was?” Thyme asked me.
“Do a search for him,” I suggested. The search came up blank, so I wrote down his name to google him later. I thought it was a waste of time, but it wouldn’t hurt to explore all avenues.
We spent another half hour or so searching through other CDs, but didn’t turn up anything else. “I officially give up,” I said to Thyme, who readily agreed.
“I’ll text Camino that we’re heading back to the shop now,” she said. “I hope she gets that coffee machine turned on. I’m desperate for some decent coffee after that ghastly instant stuff at the funeral.”
“Good coffee sounds enticing,” I said.
By the time we got to the store, only minutes later, Camino was waiting outside. “You haven’t been waiting here long, have you?” I asked her.
“No, I was doing some window shopping when I got Thyme’s text, so I came straight here.”
“Why didn’t you use your key?” I asked her, puzzled.
“I literally just got here,” she said, “and I saw you coming, so I waited for you.”
That made sense. I unlocked the door, and Thyme hurried Camino over to the machine. “Quick, turn it on,” she said. “I’m desperate, absolutely desperate.”
Camino chuckled. I opened the glass door and flipped the sign to open. “Did you find anything interesting?” Camino asked us.
“Not really,” I told her. “We now know a lot more about wheat prices and wool prices from last century than we ever wanted to know.”
“And there was that guy who fell over the cliff,” Thyme said. “Why don’t you look him up on your iPad while I put the cakes out?”
I got my iPad out from under the counter and sat at a little table in the far corner of the room. I typed in the words Joe Collins and Paul Addams. Bingo! Several entries popped up, all talking about Joe Collins’ fatal rock climbing accident. Many of the articles said that it was more dangerous to climb rocks in the afternoon and that climbers should wear helmets, but a few articles went into detail. They said the two were good friends and that they were experienced rock climbers.
“Have you found anything out yet?” Thyme asked me from over the counter.
“Mainly about the fatal accident,” I said. “Why couldn’t I find this before when we searched for Paul Addams?”
Thyme paused, a tray of cupcakes in her hands. “Probably because there’s something like five million different Paul Addamses, and I gave up by the time I got to page twenty. I’d say the combination of the names is the reason you’re seeing the entries now.”
I nodded. That made sense. I was about to give up, when I thought I would try one more entry. This one had a photo of Paul Addams and a woman. “Hey, Thyme and Camino, could you both come over here?” When they were both looking over my shoulder, I pointed to my screen. “Who does that look like, a younger version?”
“It looks a bit like Maria, don’t you think?”
Camino muttered to herself for a moment and then agreed. “That’s what I thought, too,” I said. “The article says she was Joe Collins’ fiancée.”
“Well, read a few more articles then,” Thyme said, before returning to the cupcakes.
I did as I was told. It wasn’t until the fifth article that I found what I was looking for. “Yes, we were right. It mentions his grieving fiancée, Maria Mariner. She has to be the same Maria. Imagine that! Paul married his friend’s fiancée.”
Camino and Thyme scurried back to look at the article. “It’s not all that strange when you think about it,” Thyme said. “They would have come together over their grief, and one thing led to another.”
“It’s a shame we didn’t find out anything about Edith,” I said.
“She wasn’t one of Celia’s bridesmaids,” Thyme said, “but who could blame her?”
“How do you know she wasn’t one of her bridesmaids?” Camino asked us.
“We found a really old photo of her when she was someone else’s bridesmaid, and it was about the same time that Celia was married, so we saw what Edith looked like back then.”
Thyme agreed. “Yes, she certainly wasn’t one of Celia’s bridesmaids, but that’s not surprising.”
“I’ll call Jane now, and make an appointment to see Edith tomorrow, after work, given that it’s a Saturday,” I said.
“What reason will we give for visiting her?” Thyme asked me.
“I’m sure Ruprecht will come up with something,” I said hopefully.
Chapter 15
“I don’t know if Ruprecht’s idea was such a solid one,” I said to Thyme, “to say we were there because we felt bad that Celia died.”
“Yes, and he said to skirt around the matter of Celia dying, too,” Thyme said. “It seems a little convoluted to me. Hopefully, these cakes will pave the way.”
“Yes, well Jane did say that strawberry shortcake cupcakes were Edith’s favourites.”
There was no sign of Jane as we walked up to the reception desk. Nevertheless, it all went smoothly. The receptionist didn’t ask if we were related to Edith at all, simply noted that our names were in the appointment book, told us we had to sign the visitors’ book as that was a legal requirement in nursing homes, and then directed us to Edith’s room. “Knock on her door, and if there’s no answer, she could be in the recreation room or in the garden,” she said.
I thanked her, and headed in the direction of Edith’s room. A faint smell of pine disinfectant hung in the air and I wrinkled my nose in distaste. It certainly didn’t have a homey feel about it, and the added faint smell of bleach didn’t help.
This wing looked recently renovated, the old yellow square tiles being offset nicely by white high-gloss paint on the walls and the ceiling, and the downlights detracted from the clinical feel. We walked past two pretty lime green chairs flanking a long low table on which were framed certificates of some kind, next to vases of the inevitable fake flowers. A big sign pointed us in the direction of rooms one to fifty. There was a large antique chiffonier right next to the doors to the public bathrooms which I found rather incongruous.
Edith’s door was easy to find. I only knocked once, before she called out, “Come in.”
I was at once taken aback by the room. It was far nicer than I had imagined. Edith was sitting in a red wingback chair by a large window overlooking the garden. The purple fabric that framed the window was quite pleasant, quite a change from the curtains I had seen in the public dining room only days earlier.
Edith’s eyes narrowed when she saw us. I figured she had been expecting one of the nurses. Before she could speak, Thyme handed her the box of cupcakes.
“What’s this for?” she asked suspiciously, one hand going to the string of large pearls around her neck.
“Strawberry shortcake cupcakes,” I said. “Jane said they were your favourite. We felt bad that the event was cancelled the other day, or rather, postponed, and we don’t know when the next event will be.”
“Did you give everyone cupcakes?” she asked, still glaring at us.
I shook my head. “Just you, because you were Celia’s friend and you were there when she, you know, um, passed away.” Thyme shot me a look. I knew what she was thinking—I wasn’t exactly adhering to Ruprecht’s plan, but then I hadn’t fully grasped what Ruprecht
’s plan had been in the first place.
Edith opened the box and looked inside. “My favourite,” she said with delight. She looked back up at me. “Can I eat one now?”
“Of course,” I said. I took a seat opposite her, on a large mustard coloured armchair and raised my eyebrows at Thyme to give her the hint to sit down. She did so, on the only other available chair, a rather uninviting metal-framed chair.
Edith ate the whole cake before speaking. She lifted up a second cake and examined it closely. “Celia was no friend of mine,” she said firmly.
I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I said, “Why was that?” I hoped my words didn’t upset her like they had at the funeral.
“Why, Celia was a…” She let out a string of words that would have made a sailor blush. I certainly blushed.
Edith put the cake she was holding back in the box and laughed. “Everyone thinks little old ladies are sweet, but let me tell you, I was brought up on a sheep farm. I could throw a mean fleece when I worked in the shearing sheds as a rousie. Why, if I hadn’t been a woman, I would have been a shearer. I could shear the most objectionable of rams, but they didn’t have feminism in those days. You understand?”
I nodded. I certainly wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of Edith. When she didn’t continue, I risked a question. “Jane mentioned that you grew up in the same town as Celia?”
Edith gripped the cake box so hard that the sides caved in and her knuckles turned white. “Yes. I thought we were friends, all those years. My parents were friends with her parents. We even used to ride our ponies together. We went to the local pony club together; we used to swim in the river together.”
“That must have been nice,” Thyme said.
Edith’s head snapped up. “Are you mad? That river was full of leeches. We had to carry a box of matches with us.”
“Why was that?” I asked her.
“Don’t you know anything?” she said, more as a question than an insult. “That’s how you get leeches off you. You either throw a handful of salt on them, or you light a match and hold it on the leech. Then they let go. Bam!” She clapped her hands together. “Haven’t you ever been bitten by leech?”
