The Sow's Ear

by E. Joan Sims

  “Stupid Quickie Mart!”

  I thought for a moment. “The neighbors?” I ventured hopefully.

  “Parking lot.”

  “The school?”

  “Mini-mall.”

  “Rats!”

  “Indeed,” added Horatio somewhat absently.

  We were alone in the library waiting for Mother to finished getting dressed for their “date night.” Horatio had already confided to me the nature of the “something special” he had planned for his beloved Anna, and I could hardly wait until the next morning to learn what her take on his surprise might be.

  But I was itchy with an uneasy feeling that went well beyond my curiosity to see how Mother liked her fancy dinner on the casino riverboat. Not to mention the fact that Horatio had been less than enthusiastic about my hastily made conclusions concerning the Poole sisters. I was sure they had been murdered and he was not.

  “Lead poisoning, most likely,” he surmised. “The case was dismissed for lack of evidence, after all. Too bad the house was torn down. But it’s a given those old walls were thick with layers of lead based paint. Built in the early part of the century, the clerk said. Lead paint for certain. Waste your time elsewhere, my dear.”

  Of course, that last statement made me more determined than ever to “waste as much time” as I wanted to in order to prove my case. I made a mental note to look up the symptoms of lead poisoning when they had left, and added as an afterthought, the arsenic which he had so readily dismissed.

  “If the shoe fits…,” I murmured as I read the information on arsenic. I was certain it was murder and that I had found the murder weapon, the murderess, and the scene of the crime. What I didn’t know was how Millicent figured into the puzzle. But I truly believed that she did somehow and had painfully carved the perpetrator’s initials in her own skin for some bizarre reason that made perfect sense to her alone.

  I printed out the most pertinent information on arsenic—meaning that which made my hypothesis more believable, and fell asleep on the sofa in the library with the papers sliding off my chest onto the floor.

  It was late and very dark when Horatio and mother returned, but the happy lady was so full of joy and enthusiasm from her “surprise” that I couldn’t help but rouse and smile as she related their evening.

  “…and the food, Paisley dear, simply divine. And beautifully served, I might add, which is so rare these days, as you know. Do you even remember all the delicacies, Horatio darling? I can’t,” she continued. “There were simply too many…oh, that succulent shrimp dish, and something with crème fraiche. You simply have to make reservations and take Cassie, my dear. Oh, and I won! Can you imagine?”

  “I thought you didn’t approve…”

  “Oh, don’t be so old-fashioned, dear. It’s perfectly legitimate these days. Tell her, Horatio. You wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise, would you, dear. Paisley, I’m ashamed you would even think such a thing about dear Horatio! It’s not a dive, darling, or a speakeasy,” she added with a theatrical shudder.

  “But I didn’t…”

  “Not in so many words, but your tone…”

  “Nightcap, anyone?” interrupted the ever diplomatic Mr. Horatio Raleigh.

  “No thank you, sweetheart,” cried mother gaily. “I think I’ll divest myself of these raiments and get ready for bed.” She gave me a quick peek on the cheek and patted Horatio’s softly. “You’ll be there shortly, won’t you, darling,” she added meaningfully and floated out of the room.

  “Looks like you got lucky,” I noted slyly.

  “Paisley!” admonished the dear man, blushing profusely. “Here, take your sherry. And what are all these papers on the floor?”

  “Oh, right!” I sputtered over a mouthful. “Information on arsenic poisoning. Fits all the symptoms of the Poole children’s illnesses.”

  “You mean you made them fit to suit your sketchy facts. I thought you had learned over the span of your brief lifetime as a pseudo-detective to be more clinical in your approach. I‘m surprised that you are so determined to make a silk purse out of a sow‘s ear, so to speak.”

  “Wow! Talking about mixed metaphors.”

  “Well, it’s late, and I’m somewhat tired.”

  “Not too tired, I hope. After all, your lady awaits.”

  “Hmmpf!” he muttered as he downed the last of a very good sherry. “See you tomorrow, missy,” and left the room, trying without much success to hide a very satisfied smile.

  For a very brief minute I allowed myself to ruminate on the sad state of my love life, meaning none at all. But that meant not celebrating the fact that Mother and Horatio had finally managed to share their love, and I was not going to allow myself that selfishness.

  “Hooray for them!” I whispered softly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Billy Arlequin had been in the Lakeland County jail for almost a month now, and he seemed quiet and very resigned to his fate—almost pathologically so. I asked him why after I seated myself on the folding chair the assistant jailor had grudgingly brought out of musty old closet.

  “What’s up with that?” I asked, trying to jar him out of his state of ennui.

  “Go away, Mrs. DeLeon,” he sighed. “It’s hopeless, my case, I mean, come on…my styling scissors poking out of her neck? And all that blood!” He shuddered violently and tears filled his eyes.

  I got up and looked underneath the flimsy metal chair to give him a moment to compose himself. Using the tips of my fingers, I carefully brushed away several spider webs and egg sacs trying not to show my own feelings of disgust. I hated spiders.

  “Look, Billy, I know it’s awful being in jail. I was here once, and I’ll never forget.”

  He looked up sharply. His face now a stoic mask. “You were?”

  “Yup! Trespassing. And I scared an old lady half outta her wits. And I believe I tried to resist arrest.”

  “Goodness,” he laughed. It sounded good. “You—a hardened criminal? I would never have guessed it. You seem all meek like and quiet.”

  I sat still for a moment while his description of me sank in.

  “That’s not exactly what I’m aiming for, but never mind.”

  “Well, no offense and all, but I sure can’t picture a lady like you sitting on this side of the bars.”

  “Well, thank you, I guess. But let me ask a few questions before they kick me out of here. We only have twenty minutes.”

  Perking up somewhat, he turned around on the cot and faced me squarely. He was a small man, probably not much taller then I was. A month in jail had increased what I imagined was a natural pallor, and his stringy black hair belied his trade. The orange overalls they had given him to wear hung loosely on his wiry frame and increased the unhealthy aspect of his pale complexion. Billy Arlequin looked almost as frail as the lady he was accused of killing.

  “Did you ever notice anything unusual about Millicent?”

  “Ha! You’d need all day for the answer to that question, forget twenty minutes!”

  “I mean her person, her body…specifically her skin?”

  “You mean all dried up and wrinkly? Yeah, well, I rubbed her down with some very expensive creams at least once a week and more often in cold weather. She claimed it hurt sometimes she was so dry. I always tried to make her as comfortable as I could.” He thought for a minute and added hastily, “But never in her private parts, if you know what I mean.”

  “Nobody has accused you of being inappropriate, Billy.”

  “No,” he scoffed, “just murder.”

  I spent almost a half hour with the prisoner, but got no more information out of him. It was as if he were so afraid of saying something that might sound incriminating that he wouldn’t say anything at all—even to save his hide. He must have realized from the get go that his entire relationship with the Millicent Grazianni—a practically penniless younger man caretaking a wealthy and much older woman—would be deemed by most folks in our fair town as “inappropriate.”r />
  My visit did seem to have done him some good, though, and I was happy for that. And I took heart in the fact that he did promise to think about “things” that might help his case and let me know if he came up with something. I was even more convinced that whatever happened to Millicent, bizarre accident or premeditated murder—Billy was innocent.

  I had invited Cassie to meet me at the Dairy Queen for lunch, but she declined at the last minute, sending me a text with the bad news.

  “Damn technology,” I muttered over the large salad I had ordered in anticipation of her approval of my healthy choice off a menu loaded with things I would much rather eat. Phone texts were all fine and good if one were too busy to call, but a daughter declining a mother’s invitation seemed to warrant a short voicemail message at the very least. I was sure it was because she didn’t want to speak to me.

  She was hiding something. And I knew it!

  It didn’t take long to glean the information out of Mother. She was so proud of herself for coming up with the idea in the first place, she was positively beaming when she confided in me the secret that I was certain Cassie had made her swear to keep to herself.

  “He’s adorable, Paisley,” she enthused. “Good looking does not half do him credit, and we know he’s smart to have graduated cum laude from Emory. Owns his own company and he’s only three years older than our precious Cassie. He’s perfect, simply perfect!”

  “Well, there is the Madden factor…”

  “Pish and tush!” she remarked dismissively. I smiled, noticing that she had picked up Horatio‘s speech mannerisms.

  “So her first husband’s ex-wife’s step-daughter is his mother, so what! I’m sure we would never have even known about him if he hadn’t moved back in the vicinity and been such a hottie.”

  I laughed at her new word and she had the decency to blush “Why, Mother, you’re positively waxing poetic about the young man,” I teased.

  “Well, it’s high time our sweet baby found someone who deserved to be graced with her company. She’s been practically slumming for the last few years.”

  Mother was so obviously pleased with this new turn of events that I decided not to remind her that Mavis Madden was famous for grabbing any and all opportunities to shine—something she had few chances to do of late. I could see her now inserting herself and her hare-brained husband at our Thanksgiving dinner table as representatives of Cassie’s new family. I shuddered not once but twice, and then a third time at the thought of listening to her shrill voice over my plate of mashed potatoes, peas and turkey. I could only hope that this latest addition to the “adorable” file would be shot down like all the rest. Cassie had very discerning taste. I felt certain I could count on her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You’re kidding!” I stammered, flabbergasted. “Please say you’re kidding,” I added, hoping my voice didn’t sound as needy and whiny to her as it did to me. “I mean, you can’t be serious,” I managed in a more brisk and authoritative tone.

  My daughter looked down at me from her considerable height in the four-inch stiletto’s she had recently purchased. “He’s tall, Mom! Do you know what that means for an Amazon like me?”

  “Ha, you’re no ….”

  “You have no idea how it feels to date shorter guys all the time. Munchkins, practically!”

  “Well, lately you did …”

  “I know, I know, but that wasn’t a real relationship and you know it. That was purely for the cause. This…this is different.”

  “How different?” I asked with my heart in my throat.

  “Hmmmm, nice different.”

  “Damn!” I muttered, vowing to talk mother into a bigger dinner table. Or maybe I could revive the kiddy table and sit there by myself.

  “What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I said I need to get back to the book.”

  “Well, happy writing. I’m off to lunch with my new man,” she cried gaily, and twirled around on the tips of her toes, her skirt swirling around her like flower petals. She did look lovely…too lovely for her own good.

  I was afraid, very afraid.

  And I couldn’t concentrate long enough to write a sentence. Pam hadn’t had to reprimand me of late. In spite of all the time I spent on my real life sleuthing, I had managed to meet her expectations of all my deadlines. Leonard with indeed alive and well and bashing heads and catching bad guys at an alarming rate.

  “I need to take a page from my own book,” I decided. Another trip to the library was on the offing.

  Trudy wasn’t there again. Another new substitute assistant librarian pointed me to a stack of open shelving.

  “I think they’re over there, or maybe on the second row, or maybe that’s the later ones. I’m not sure…but somewhere in that general…

  I gratefully turned away when the phone rang and went in search of the older city address books on my own. Miraculously, girl had been right the first time. I found the 1950’s section right where she had pointed. I grabbed one of the stepping stools and pulled it over to sit down. It took a while but I finally found the Poole’s address. They had apparently moved into the house at 312 Market Street sometime in the early part of 1949. And it was a duplex…actually a triplex as three families shared the house. I had found neighbors…neighbors who were quite close. Close enough to tell me more.

  “It was a common thing, my dear,” shared Horatio. “During the war older homes were sectioned off and either used as boarding houses or shared rentals—the owners usually relegated to the basement or the attic. Sad, really, when you think about it. What once had been a large and lively family reduced to a single older woman or man who couldn’t keep up the cost of owning such a large home on their own and forced to share it—and very often—the single bath, with two, three, or even four other families because of the housing shortage.”

  “Then they must have been very familiar with one another! Don’t you see? If I can contact any one of these people they could possibly, no probably, tell me a lot!”

  Horatio sat back in what had now become his chair instead of my father’s—not that I minded one bit—and looked over the steeple his long fingers made. “That was very long ago, Paisley. You have to take in account that most of those people have gone to their Maker.”

  “But they might have had children…”

  “Very true,” he mused. Do you know the names of the people who lived there? Perhaps I could help you. I buried a considerable number of people in town and my father’s records are very detailed. Who do you have on your list, my dear?”

  I read off the names of the five different families who had inhabited the big old house on Market Street over the decade or so around the time the Poole children died. Horatio or his father had buried the last of three of them, but he thought the others still had remaining members.

  “Of course they could have moved away or sought the services of a funeral home in one of the surrounding counties. A lot of old people have roots out in the country and like to be buried in older churchyards or even family plots.

  “I thought you had to be buried in the local cemetery?”

  “Not here, my dear. No, it’s not against the law to bury a loved one in your backyard, even. All you need is a license from the courthouse.”

  ‘You’re kidding? You mean that strange bone Aggie found in the backyard last week really could be somebody’s great, great uncle?”

  “Absolutely. Although in that particular case, I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “Too small.”

  “A child, maybe?”

  “Paisley, my dear,” he admonished. “You simply have to stop seeing a murder under every bush, so to speak. Believe it or not, most people die in their sleep—or at least of natural causes. People around Rowan Springs are inordinately healthy—some living to a very ripe old age. I suppose the scientific fellows would say it’s because of the healthy lifestyle—fresh, homegrown vegetables and fruit, and meat unadu
lterated with hormones and preservatives. Plenty of exercise and sunshine is the rule for most, and less of the stress and strain that living in a big city engenders. We’re a healthy lot.”

  Fortunately for my purposes, he was right. Three of the children who had spent at least some of their growing up years on Market Street were still around.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Wild as a March hare!” I mumbled, deep in thought.

  “Who‘s that, dear?”

  My mother looked lovely in her tea length rose silk gown.

  “Can I help you with those earrings?”

  “May, sweetheart. May I help you with those earrings. Although I suppose that rough-necked man you spend so much time with doesn’t even acknowledge the difference.”

  My fingernails made little half-moons in the palms of my hand, but I managed to keep a smile on my face. After all, it would do no good to start another fight about Leonard—one I would never win. Especially since she was on her way out, yet again to be wined and dined in grand old Horatio style.

  I decided to be snarky instead. “I think Horatio is spoiling you. And remember, crème fraiche has bumpdelieshish calories.”

  “Come now” she smiled gracefully in the mirror. “There is no such word, even for Leonard. And remember, you didn’t inherit you tendency to widen through the hips from me. No. It was your dear sweet grandmother Sterling who had to give up her darling little rocker after your father was born for fear of splitting the staves.”

  “Ehhhh!”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “Have a good time, Mother.”

  I trudged back to the library, consoling myself with an extra helping of the wonderful caramel apple cake and a cup of hot cider she had made the night before. Baking was another one of those things she would always do better than anyone, most especially me.

  With Mother and Horatio gone, and Cassie out again with the Madden spawn, I was at home alone with the despondent little pup who stayed on my heels until I sat in front of the fire to eat my bounty. She waited for a moment to see if I wanted to share and then hopped up in her favorite spot on the sofa to doze.