Murder at Peacock Mansion

by Judy Alter

  “Where’d you hear about that stuff?”

  “Jimmy Baldwin.” I didn’t want to look at any of them. “Or whoever he was or is.”

  David was back to his efficient self, and I let him take care of everything. Bill Cook would tow the car; flat tires were not a problem; he’d let us know if he needed to order new tires; no, he’d never heard of Jimmy Baldwin.

  Halstead was angry about the car but said he could do nothing about it. I wanted him to take fingerprints, go to the scene of the crime, canvass people in Edom to see what they saw. In short, I wanted him to acknowledge I’d been a victim. Instead, he asked if I could give a description of Jimmy Baldwin. I wanted to tell him not of the real Jimmy Baldwin, only of an actor in disguise.

  “Do you have a sketch artist in your office?”

  He snorted. “Nothing so fancy. I just want to know what he looks like.”

  I did the best I could over the phone.

  “I know him,” Halstead said. “Jimmy Baldwin is kin to John and Dan’l,” he said. “I don’t know what he wanted, but he didn’t break any law, and I can’t go after him.”

  “He’s right,” David said. “There’s not much he can do. Brian and I are going out to the house now before it gets dark. Want to come along?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve had a full day already and been away from the café too long. Take pictures for me.” Pictures of a scraped, blackened patch of earth. Whoopee! I just couldn’t work up to David’s level of enthusiasm about this.

  “Will do.” He kissed me on the forehead and was gone. Brian, trailing behind him, gave me a smile.

  ****

  To complete my day, Edith Aldridge came in about six and seated herself at her usual table. I went to greet her and ask if she needed a menu.

  “No, just tea and talk, please. I suppose you only have tea bags.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s all we have. But we do have English breakfast tea as well as Lipton’s.”

  She shuddered at the mention of Lipton’s and said she’d take the English breakfast. “I don’t suppose you have biscotti?”

  I shook my head. Who even asks for biscotti in a small-town country café? I was tempted to tell her no, but we had chicken-fried steak. But Gram had raised me too well to be that rude.

  When I delivered the tea, I pulled out a chair next to her and asked, “May I?”

  “Of course. I came to talk to you. What progress have you made?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. I’ve studied everything I could find online about your husband and his death. And this morning I talked to James about what he remembers about the night of the murder. From everything I’ve found, I think Sheriff Halstead is wrong to even begin to suspect you.”

  “I knew that,” she said flatly. “You’ve not made progress in the right direction, though. Who did it? I’m convinced if you find that answer, we’ll know who’s threatening me.”

  She was so demanding I almost asked if she wanted to talk about billable hours. Edith Aldridge had been charming the first time she’d come to call. I guessed now that I agreed to help her, pro bono, she thought I was part of her staff and she could be demanding. There were several quick responses to her question.

  “I thought you suspected your stepchildren.”

  “Rodney was twenty-something and supposedly away for the night.”

  “Have you decided you don’t suspect the children?”

  Suddenly, all defenses gone in an instant, she put her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I’ve decided. Another one of my beautiful peacocks was by the front door this morning. Someone wants me out of the house. All my birds are being killed.” She was almost keening.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marj start and look our direction. I reached out a hand to Edith and almost patted her on the shoulder, as I would comfort a young child. I gave her a minute to compose herself and asked, “Did you call Steven Connell about the peacock?”

  “He didn’t pick up, and I left a voice message. He hasn’t called back.”

  I tried a new question. “If you think Walter’s children are behind this, why is it so important to find out twenty years later who killed him?”

  She went quickly from desperate to fierce. Looking me straight in the eyes, she said forcefully, “Because I think it is, and because I’m convinced it’s all connected.”

  I couldn’t make sense of that tangle, but before I could worry about what to say, she said, “James came to see me this afternoon.”

  “He did?” I know my voice almost squeaked. “What did he want?”

  “To be friends.”

  I have never seen so many expressions on one face. Now she looked bewildered. “How can he want to be friends after all these years?”

  That I could answer. “Because he’s a kind and gentle soul. He always felt you didn’t want anything to do with him or his siblings, but he felt bad about it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve talked with him, and I really like him. And his girlfriend. I don’t understand his art. I’m pretty much a bluebonnet painting kind of art fan.”

  Honest, she shuddered just like she had when I mentioned Lipton’s.

  “But I think he has talent. He’s had works in shows, a few in museums, and some in galleries. I think the gallery in Edom is incidental. He works, or paints, in Edom but he knows his clientele is not there.”

  She stared at me. “Maybe you have made progress. Shall I invite him to bring his mistress to tea?”

  Now it was my turn to shudder. Surely even twenty years ago she wouldn’t have used that term. “Why don’t you meet them here for supper? They both came in one night, and we had a good visit.”

  “You’ve been conspiring with him without my knowing it.” Back to accusations.

  “No, I’ve been investigating, as you asked.” I wanted to say angry words to her, ask how I could investigate if I didn’t talk to people without her permission. But I didn’t.

  “I’ll think about all this.” She swept up her purse and made as grand an exit as she could manage.

  I felt sorry for her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  David was high on excitement when he and Brian came in just before closing. “Brian had some great ideas. The old house sat on the only sunny part of the lot, so we’re going to make that the garden—vegetables and stuff—and angle the house so it focuses more directly on the lake. We can hear the lake when we sleep on the porch.”

  That blasted sleeping porch again! “Can you grow plants on burned-out soil?”

  “For sure,” Brian said eagerly. “It’s been tramped on and packed down. David will have to plow it and treat it but it should be great.”

  “Make a list of the vegetables you want,” David said.

  I’m sure he had visions of a lush crop the first year, but I knew better. Hadn’t I struggled a couple of summers just to get herbs started and keep Gram’s poke salad alive? From my deep store of knowledge, I suggested April was a little late to plant.

  “Oh, sure, some things. No potatoes or onions or things like that this summer, but we can have them in the fall. But it’s a good-sized plot—we can have squash and tomatoes and lettuce, green beans, spinach, I guess even kale, though I don’t much like it.”

  “I’ll make a list,” I promised.

  “The house will be wonderful. Maybe a little bigger than I first thought—slightly over a thousand square feet. But all the conveniences of home.”

  I wanted to shout. “David, I have a home!” Instead, I asked what they wanted for supper.

  “Can we have to-go? Brian brought a wonderful bottle of bourbon and some good wine.”

  I agreed. David raved about the chicken-fried steak, and Brian readily agreed to have that. I put their orders in along with my own, and since it was late sat down with them, wondering if Brian would spend the night. I supposed he could sleep in Donna’s old room, but then I’d feel awkward and probably have to sleep in my own bed. Go on, Kate, bring tha
t bridge right up here and jump it.

  “Edith Aldridge was here today, really upset.”

  David slapped himself on the cheek. “I had a call from her and forgot to return it. What’s up?”

  “Another peacock was shot and killed.”

  “At least it wasn’t a threat to her.”

  “David Clinkscales, it is a threat to her! To her sense of well-bring, her pride in her home, all kinds of things. Get your head out of house plans and pay attention to your client.” The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to say, “Kate Chambers would like to withdraw that last message.”

  Brian turned tactfully away, and David looked sheepish. “You’re right. I’ll call her.”

  “What have you heard from Steven Connell?”

  “Nothing. I guess he has nothing to report.”

  “Well, he might start by finding Rose Mitchum. I know what I think of Rodney, and we know he’s probably back in Dallas….”

  “We do? How?”

  “I don’t know, but why would he hang around Canton when he has a business in Dallas? And we know James is in Edom—he went to see Edith today. I think she’s relaxing a bit toward him. But he doesn’t remember much helpful about the night his father was killed. He was fifteen and lost in his art, drawing in his room after he was sent to bed.

  “Rose is the missing piece now. Steven could at least find out if both Rose and Rodney are back in Dallas. If there’s any collusion between the children, it’s those two. James is out of it. They came to talk to him, and he wanted no part of it.”

  “I’ll call Steven tonight,” David said.

  “And I think you have a story to tell me.” Brian’s curiosity was written all over his face.

  I felt silly calling David to meet me at ten or so, with Brian there, but I had promised. I had my heavy flashlight and didn’t sense or hear any danger. As it turned out, Brian had headed back to Dallas and left a gracious note, thanking me for dinner.

  “I called Edith. She’s calmed down since she was here, but she’s thinking about donating the remaining three peacocks to the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. Says she can’t stand to have any more killed.”

  “Aren’t they like watchdogs? Sounding the alert?”

  “Yes, but she didn’t hear them last night, although she heard that scream the night the first one was killed. Today she just found the dead bird. She’s determined to stay in her house and find out who killed her husband.”

  “Two different problems. She told me that today, but I don’t know why she waited thirty years to get so anxious about who killed him.”

  “I don’t either, but I also called Steven and told him to get it in gear, find Rodney and Rose. He suggested Rodney killed his own father.”

  “Edith and I considered it, but I think it’s unlikely. What does Rodney’s record look like since? If he would kill his own father, I doubt he’d stop there.”

  “Good point. Like kids who abuse animals and go on to abuse people.”

  We went to bed shortly after that, but I might as well have slept in my own bed. There was a gulf between us. For my part, I was frustrated at the inaction of David and Steven and also feeling like a bit of a nag for keeping after David. What David thought, I didn’t know, because we didn’t talk.

  ****

  By noon the next day, David called from Canton to say that Rodney and Rose were in adjoining rooms at the Holiday Inn Express. Quite a comedown from the mansion!

  The most surprising news was that Rose had apparently sent Melissa back to Dallas—which I would have done a long time ago—and was sharing a room with Steven Connell. David found that out when he called the motel number Steven had given him and Rose, answering the phone, had blurted out that her name was Rose Middleton. Talk about sleeping with the enemy. Trying to picture svelte Steven with—forgive me—dumpy, matronly Rose just didn’t work out in my mind. She surely didn’t look like a cougar. And I couldn’t figure out who was telling what truth—Rodney told me he was close to Edith, which Edith denied; Edith told me she communicated privately with Steven—but when he was sleeping with the stepdaughter she thought wanted to kill her? Probably she didn’t know that.

  “Did you talk to any of them?”

  “Just Steven, who was a bit sheepish about it, says he can explain. I told him it better be a damn good explanation. But even without his story, it explains why we haven’t heard from him. He’s off the payroll. I may contest his license if this gets any worse.”

  “I’m glad. I’m coming to Canton.”

  “Hold on. As you keep telling me, you’ve got a restaurant to run. And Steven said Rose wants to have more chicken-fried steak—and to talk to you. She’s headed your way now. I have no idea what she wants to say, but I’m staying out of this and leaving it a girls’ talk. In fact, I’m going to Dallas. Be back late tonight. Love you.”

  And he was gone.

  Rose came in early, along about eleven fifteen. She was not the coiffured Highland Park matron I’d seen before. I thought her hair probably hadn’t been done by a stylist since she left Dallas, and it showed. She’d obviously finally tried to brush it out herself, but the results were dismal. Her face was made up but not as carefully as before. Whereas the first time I met her I thought maybe she was in her early forties, now I thought she looked fifty or beyond.

  “Chicken-fried steak?” I asked brightly as I seated her.

  “Yes, and some talk. Can you be free?”

  I looked around. It wasn’t busy yet, and Sallie was working with Marj. “Let me find out,” I said. I asked Marj if she and Sallie could handle things, and she, always willing, agreed.

  “I need to talk to this woman privately,” I said.

  Marj, always intrigued by my intrigues, said of course. She knew she’d get the story later.

  I went back to Rose and suggested we take our lunches to my house next door. She brightened at that, and I ordered her chicken-fried with all the trimmings and my tuna salad plate to go. Then I led her across the meadow to my house.

  “My goodness. How handy that you live so close.” She was panting a little as we crossed the steep rise of the meadow.

  “Yes, mostly it is.”

  I’d left Huggles out that morning since it was a pleasant day and I anticipated no trouble. He waited for us at the gate, wagging his tail and barking enthusiastically. She misunderstood the bark and pulled back.

  “I’m afraid of dogs. Really afraid.”

  I saw that she was trembling and turning pale.

  Really afraid is an understatement. “Huggles will only love you to death, but I tell you what. Can you make it around the house to the front door?”

  She looked at the uneven ground but gave me a positive, “Yes, of course.”

  “Then I’ll go in through the kitchen, leave Huggles outside, and come let you in the front door. I hope you don’t mind cats.”

  “I don’t much like them, but I suppose I can handle one. You don’t have a houseful, do you?”

  Good heavens! What a wimpy lady. “No, just one. I’ll meet you in a minute.”

  And so I left a disappointed Huggles outside, went through the house, and let Rose in the front door. Wynona didn’t even make an appearance, which I took as a relief.

  We sat at the kitchen table, and I poured iced tea for two, then unpacked our lunches, and served them on proper china, not the Styrofoam boxes they’d come in. A touch of Gram’s nicety.

  “I’ll just reheat yours a bit in the microwave.”

  “Thank you.” She sank down in the chair, and I do mean sank. Her shoulders were slumped, her head sunken on her chest, and her whole body seemed to have lost its uprightness.

  With forced brightness, I put on lunches on the table and said, “Cheers to you,” lifting my glass of iced tea.

  “Thanks,” she said, responding limply.

  What has happened to this woman? I didn’t have to wait long.

  “I’ve made a terrible mess of things,” she said, pickin
g at her food but not really eating. “I don’t really know where to begin.”

  I thought a minute and then said, “Begin with Rodney.”

  “Ah, Rodney. My big brother, my protector. Always there for me. But this time I think I’ve listened too much to Rodney and not enough to myself.”

  “How?” I took a delicate bite of tuna and noticed she really wasn’t eating. I could always microwave it for her again, but it would lose crispness and flavor each time I did that.

  “I listened to him when I shouldn’t. He’s always thought we would inherit a lot if we just got Edith out of that house. He’d go for years without mentioning it, and then it would come up again. I never paid him much attention. I didn’t much like Edith, but if she wanted the house and was happy there, so be it. I don’t need money.”

  “And this time?” I prodded.

  “He caught me at a bad time. My husband has filed for divorce, ordered me out of the house. I have no place to live and no money. Oh, I’m sure I’ll get some when the settlement is finalized, but for now I have nothing.”

  He can’t do that! There are laws, even in Texas. How gullible is she? This was a case for David, but I kept listening.

  “Rodney must have known, or else it was pure coincidence, but he called me again with that wild notion about getting Edith out of the house so we could inherit it.”

  “I thought it was hers as long as she lived.”

  “No, only as long as she lived in the house. He thought we could make it so unpleasant that she’d leave and forfeit it. Frankly, I think Rodney underestimates Edith. But I was desperate, and I listened. I agreed to come to East Texas.”

  I said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

  “I’m not sure how Rodney thought he’d convince her. He says he’s close to her, but I know that’s not true.”

  “So did he plant the trip wire and shoot the peacocks?”

  She shook her head. “No, Rodney’s conniving and scheming, but he’s not that mean, and now he doesn’t know what he’s started.”

  “Okay, so let me get this straight. You’re in Canton because you have no home in Dallas, right?”

  She nodded. “Geoffrey said he’d welcome Melissa, but I was banished.”