Murder Is Binding

by Lorna Barrett

  Tricia eyed the phone. She could try to call Mike, but what would she say? “Sorry I ran out of your house like a raving idiot. Now did you sell a valuable book to an old lady, kill another elderly woman for buying that book from her, and then kill the first old lady to cover your tracks?” That wouldn’t go over well, but she would have to find a way to casually run into him and tactfully ask some questions. And maybe hell would freeze over in the next couple of days, too.

  Miss Marple levitated onto the island. “Hey, you’re not supposed to be up here,” Tricia scolded, but the cat merely circled around, rubbed her head against Tricia’s chin, purring lustily.

  Tricia scratched the cat’s head, but kept her gaze on the yellowing ad. “Follow the signs on Canfield Road,” she repeated. Russ Smith should be able to check who’d placed the ad. Surely there were no confidentiality issues between a newspaper’s ad page and the purchaser of said ad. There’d be no one at the paper at this time on a Sunday night. Another task for the morning, and something law enforcement ought to be doing.

  Angelica taunting the sheriff hadn’t been wise, and while Tricia appreciated the sentiment behind it, she was still irked at her sister. Then again, why was the sheriff so intent on nailing her for Doris Gleason’s death besides clearing up the matter before the pending election? And was that enough of a motive? One thing was certain, Sheriff Adams wasn’t interested in finding another suspect. If her name was to be cleared, Tricia was going to have to do it herself.

  Tricia leaned against the brick wall beside the door of the Stoneham Weekly News, clutching a cardboard tray with two cups of the Coffee Bean’s best brew. The recorded message had said the paper’s office hours were from eight until five, but Tricia had shown up at seven forty, anticipating Russ would arrive for work before office hours. And she’d been right.

  “Been waiting long?” Russ asked, as he approached from around the corner. He pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket, selecting one of them. He looked like a farmer in well-worn jeans with the collar of a blue plaid flannel shirt sticking out the neck of his denim jacket.

  “About five minutes. Hope you’re thirsty,” Tricia said, proffering the cardboard tray.

  “I am.” He unlocked the door. “Come on in.”

  She followed him as he led her through the darkened office. He hit the main switch and the place was flooded with fluorescent light. Peeling off his jacket, he headed for a glass cubicle in the back of the room. The rest of the office was open landscaping, with two desks with computer terminals. Stacks of the most recent issue sat atop a long counter that separated the public part of the office with the work zone behind it.

  Russ took his seat, powering up his computer. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Tricia set the tray down and handed him a cup, offering creamer and sugar. “Just a little thank-you for your help the other night.”

  “What’re friends for?”

  So now he considered himself a friend. All the better. Tricia took one of the standard office guest chairs in front of his desk. “As you know, the sheriff seems determined to prove I killed Doris Gleason, quite a feat as I didn’t do it.”

  Russ made no comment, but dumped a tub of the half-and-half into his paper cup.

  “I’m taking your advice and trying to find out who did kill Doris.”

  “And you want me to help.” It wasn’t a question.

  Tricia leaned forward. “I’m convinced Winnie Wentworth bought Doris’s stolen cookbook at a tag sale, and I think I’ve found the ad right here in the Stoneham Weekly News. I was hoping you could tell me who placed it.”

  Russ stirred his coffee, then leaned back in his chair. “Depends on how long ago it was placed. We purge our system on a monthly basis, otherwise it gets bogged down storing all that data.”

  “Why don’t you just copy it onto a CD?”

  “What for? It’s not even old news. We don’t really care who buys classified ad space. It’s the display ads that bring in the money. And we keep bound copies of the paper for posterity—not that I think anyone would ever want to look at an old ad ever again.”

  “The ad I’m concerned with was printed in the August nineteenth issue.”

  Russ tapped at his computer keyboard, studied the screen, then shook his head. “Looks like Sherry has already purged the August ads.”

  Tricia gripped her cup, hoping her disappointment wasn’t too obvious. “Well, thank you for looking.”

  Russ turned back to face her and picked up his cup once more. “Just who did you think placed the ad?”

  “I don’t think I should speculate, at least not to you, without some other kind of proof.”

  “How will you find it?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not going to give up.” Tricia took a sip of her coffee. Since Russ was supposed to be on top of everything that happened in Stoneham, she decided to tap him for more information.

  “What’s the scuttlebutt on a big box store coming to the area?”

  He shrugged. “I hadn’t heard about it.”

  “Is that so?” she said, incredulous.

  Russ laughed. “I’ve got no reason to lie.”

  “You’ve at least heard about the nudist tracts someone’s been leaving all over the village.”

  “Nudists?” Either he was clueless or the world’s worst reporter.

  “You need to get out of your office more often. According to the website listed on the leaflets, a nudist resort is supposed to open somewhere near here next summer.”

  He picked up a pen, jotted down a note. “Tell me more.”

  She gave him the name of the business. “Drop by any of the bookstores if you want copies of the tracts. We’ve all got them.”

  “I’ll do just that.”

  Tricia stood and picked up her coffee. “The day’s getting away from me.” She turned to leave, paused, and turned back. “Just one thing: would you have told me who bought the ad if the information had still been available?”

  Russ smiled. “Don’t you know that a good reporter never reveals a source—be it of information or revenue?”

  Tricia swallowed down her annoyance. “I’ll remember that for future reference.”

  Piqued, Tricia discarded her nearly full cup of coffee in one of Stoneham’s municipal trash cans and headed back for Haven’t Got a Clue. The lights inside the Cookery were already on, and she could see that Deirdre had finished washing the walls and had even made some progress with her restocking efforts. Had Bob opened up the storage unit and let her reclaim the display pieces? Some of them even had books on them, perhaps from the stock stored on the second floor or from Doris’s home storeroom.

  Tricia hammered on the door and waited. Deirdre had to be in the back room. She knocked again. Sure enough, Deirdre lumbered out of the back. She looked uncannily like her sister—but then wasn’t that the way with identical twins? She even seemed to have lost her glasses.

  Deirdre opened the door, her smile of welcome almost convincing. “Good morning, Tricia. You’re out early.”

  “And you’re already hard at work, I see.”

  “I’ve got a schedule to keep if I want to reopen the Cookery next Monday. Come in.” Deirdre stepped over to one of the bookshelves. Several opened cartons sat on the floor. She picked up a book and squinted at its cover.

  “Did you lose your glasses?” Tricia asked.

  “My what?” Deirdre asked, alarmed.

  “Your glasses. You’re not wearing them.”

  Deirdre patted her cheek in panic. “Good grief, you’re right. I must have taken them off when I first came in. They’re around here somewhere. Now what can I do for you?” she said, changing the subject.

  Tricia prayed for tact, knowing there really was no easy way to begin what she had to say. “I’m sorry to say that Sheriff Adams is convinced I killed your sister.”

  Looking doughy and toadlike without her glasses, Deirdre merely blinked, apparently startled at Tricia’s bluntness.


  “I did not kill Doris,” Tricia asserted.

  “I should hope not,” Deirdre said.

  “But I do have some questions for you.”

  Deirdre visibly stiffened. “Me?”

  “Yes. Within hours of Doris’s death, the whole village was buzzing with the news. You were in town, registered at the Brookview Inn. Why didn’t you step forward and let the sheriff know you were her next of kin?”

  “I was not in Stoneham when Doris was killed. Yes, I’d taken a room at the inn, but I’d gone home to take care of some business and collect more clothing. I didn’t arrive back until days after her death.”

  “How many days?”

  Deirdre’s eyes narrowed. “What are you implying? That I had something to do with my own sister’s death?”

  Tricia hesitated. If she mentioned the insurance policy, Deirdre would wonder where she learned about it. Likewise if she mentioned anything else about Doris’s daughter. “Of course not. I just thought it was funny you didn’t come forward sooner.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s funny at all. What if something happened to your sister and people accused you of doing her in? Would you think that was funny?”

  “No, I—”

  “And neither do I.” She pointed toward the door. “I think you should leave.”

  “Deirdre, I—”

  “Now, please,” she said and grasped Tricia by the shoulders, shoving her across the room and out of the Cookery, slamming the door and locking it before stalking away.

  “Deirdre! Deirdre!” Tricia shouted to no avail.

  Suddenly Mr. Everett was standing beside her, looking through the Cookery’s door as Deirdre disappeared from view. “She’s in a bit of a snit, isn’t she?”

  “With cause.” Tricia turned and walked the ten or so feet to the door to her own store, withdrew the keys from her purse, and opened the door. Mr. Everett trotted in behind her, hitting the main light switch. Miss Marple sat on the sales counter, ready for another hard day of sleeping on the stock or perhaps a patron’s lap.

  Juggling his umbrella, Mr. Everett shrugged out of his coat. “Would you like me to hang up your coat as well?”

  “Yes, thank you. Looks like you’re ready for rain.”

  “There’s talk we’ll get the tail end of Hurricane Sheila later today or perhaps tomorrow, depending on how fast it travels.”

  “Hurricane?” Tricia asked. Preoccupied, she hadn’t turned on the TV or the radio in days.

  “Would you like me to finish alphabetizing those biographies, Ms. Miles?”

  “Please call me Tricia.” Mr. Everett nodded, but she knew he wouldn’t. Any more than she could call him by his first name, which he’d written on his official application and she’d already forgotten. He’d always be Mr. Everett to her.

  “Yes, go ahead. Oh, but maybe you wouldn’t mind dusting the display up front. Should it be a sunny day, it’s really going to be obvious it hasn’t been touched in days. But be careful; there still may be some glass up there.”

  “I’ll get the duster,” he said and started for the utility closet.

  Tricia opened the small safe from under the sales counter and sorted the bills for the drawer, settling them into their slots. She caught sight of the little scatter pin she’d bought from Winnie, which had resided in the tray since the day Winnie had died. On impulse, she scooped it up and pinned it on the left side of her turtleneck, wondering why she hadn’t thought to take the little brooch upstairs to her jewelry box where it belonged.

  She checked the tapes on the register and credit card machine, finding them more than half full, and though the store wouldn’t open for more than an hour, she decided to raise the shade on the door and let in some natural light. Mike’s office across the street was still darkened, and she wondered when or if he’d show up today. He’d said he still had some time left on the lease for his last office. Perhaps he started the day there and only came to the campaign office when work permitted.

  Mr. Everett had donned one of the extra Haven’t Got a Clue aprons and was happily dusting his way along the front window display. Tricia gave him a smile and turned back to stare out the window. If Mike had sold Winnie the Amelia Simmons cookbook, then found out how valuable it was, he might’ve decided to take back what had once been his property. He could’ve slipped across the street and done the deed in the thirty to forty minutes between Tricia speaking to Doris and then finding her dead. And then on Saturday morning Mike had also spent time wandering around Haven’t Got a Clue when he could have planted the stolen book to avert suspicion. Not that anyone but Tricia suspected him. Or Bob. Or Deirdre.

  She thought about her encounter with Mike at his mother’s home the day before. What kind of woman had raised him? She looked over at her new employee. “Mr. Everett, what do you know about Mike Harris’s mother?”

  “Grace?” he asked, not looking up from his task. “She’s a very nice woman. Used to be quite friendly with my late wife, Alice. It’s a pity she had to go to St. Godelive’s.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  He paused in his work. “St. Godelive’s. It’s an assisted living center over in Benwell. I understand she came down with dementia. Such a pity.” He shook his head in obvious disapproval.

  Came down with dementia? Okay.

  “It used to be only the indigent that ended up there, but it seems they’ve been trying to upgrade the place and are now taking patients who can pay for their services.”

  The indigent? Surely Grace Harris had arrived after they’d changed their policies. After all, Mike had said he’d been clearing out her home to pay for her medical expenses. She thought back to the birthday card that had fallen out of American Cookery two days before. “Just out of curiosity, what was Mike’s father’s name?”

  “Jason.”

  And the other name on the birthday card found in Doris’s cookbook was Letty. So the book hadn’t been a gift from Mike’s father to his mother. Scratch that notion.

  Still, the possibility of Mike being a murderer nagged at her. Facts were facts. He visited the Cookery the day of Doris’s death. If he’d sold the booklet to Winnie for pennies, and saw that she’d sold it to Doris and it was on display, he might have decided to take back the book—by force if necessary.

  “Mr. Everett,” she called, interrupting his dusting once more. “What do you think about Mike Harris running for selectman?”

  His brows drew together in consternation. “I really don’t like to participate in idle gossip,” he began. “Then again, I do believe I’m entitled to an opinion when it comes to the village’s representation.”

  “So I take it you won’t be voting for him.”

  “Certainly not!”

  Tricia hadn’t expected such vehemence from mild-mannered Mr. Everett.

  “Do you mind telling me why?”

  He exhaled a sharp breath. “His reputation as a youth was…soiled.”

  “In what way?”

  “It seems to me he was always in trouble. Schoolyard fights, shoplifting, and when he got older, he was a terror on wheels. That’s not someone I want to represent me, even in local government.”

  “I see. And you don’t believe he’s capable of redemption?”

  “I suppose everyone is. However, there’s also a saying I’ve come to believe in: a leopard doesn’t change its spots.” And with that, he turned back to his dusting.

  Thoughts of Mike kept replaying through Tricia’s mind like a CD on repeat. Although she really didn’t know Mr. Everett all that well, she trusted his assessment of Mike’s character. She was also sure Angelica would accuse her of taking out her anger at Mike by making him a possible suspect. Then again, Angelica was convinced Deirdre had killed Doris, taken the book to fake a robbery, and then tried to cover her crime with arson.

  Confronting Deirdre was one thing; she had no fear of the older woman. Confronting Mike, with his strong hands and steel-like arms, would be another thing. And what if all her suppositions were
wrong? What if Doris had been murdered by a complete stranger? But that didn’t make sense, either. Doris had unlocked her door to let her killer in. Someone had planted the stolen cookbook in Tricia’s store. Someone still in town.

  Someone who didn’t want to be arrested for murder.

  SIXTEEN

  As promised, the men from Enclosures Inc. arrived to replace the broken window at just past ten that morning. The whole operation took a lot longer than Tricia anticipated, and Miss Marple was extremely unhappy to be banished to the loft apartment during the repair. Her howls could be heard by everyone in the store, and Tricia found herself explaining to more than one person that no one was pulling the cat’s tail. Still, the entire ordeal put a damper on business.

  After the window was replaced and order once again reigned, Tricia again called her security company. They were still too busy to come out to fix her system, but she suspected her monthly bill would arrive on time with no mention of interrupted service. She documented the call and intended to start contacting other firms when she realized the day was once again getting away from her. And she had to at least try to smooth over the damage Angelica had done between her and Sheriff Adams before attending to other matters.

  Tricia drove to the sheriff’s office rehearsing her speech. When she got there, Wendy Adams listened, but from the look on her face, she wasn’t likely to accept anything Tricia had to say.

  “You’re beginning to sound like a broken record, Ms. Miles,” she said at last and leaned back in her office chair, folding her hands over her ample stomach. “Or maybe someone so desperate she can’t wait to point the finger at anyone else to evade suspicion.”

  “Look, Sheriff, I’m sorry my sister was rude to you yesterday, but I have real concerns that you’re not taking this investigation seriously.”

  “Oh, I’m very serious. And I’m going to prove that you killed Doris Gleason.”

  “Even if I’m not guilty? That’ll be quite a trick.”