Much Ado About Muffin

by Victoria Hamilton

  Two: Minnie either had already or was close to figuring out that Crystal was conning folks with her fake Consciousness Calling enterprise. That was more of a motive.

  I pulled up the long lane and came around the curve, emerging from the wooded section. In the hours I had been gone Gordy and Karl had done a lot, and the property was beginning to lose the abandoned look. As good as Pish was at looking after the place, he was not always practical about organization, nor did he notice the exterior like I did.

  I waved to the boys, who were working along the edge of the arboretum section of the woods. Becket emerged from the forest and bounded across the shorn grass, hightailing his way away from the nosy machinery. I held the big oak door open for him. He scooted past me and raced up the stairs as I entered, closing the door softly behind me. I heard voices only, no music, coming from the library; I could hear because they had the doors open for some reason.

  There was an argument, then a storm of weeping. Funereal orchestral music with a solemn, rhythmic undertone started, and then . . . “Sola, perduta, abbandonata . . . in landa desolata! Orror! Intorno a me s’oscura il ciel . . . Ahimè, son sola! E nel profondo deserto io cado, strazio crudel, ah! Sola abbandonata, io, la deserta donna!”

  Translated, this means, roughly, “Alone, lost, abandoned in this desolate plain, ah, the horror! Around me the day darkens. I am alone and in the depth of this desert I fall. What cruel torment! Alone, abandoned, a woman deserted!”

  Roma’s voice was strong and clean, deeply emotional yet controlled, with the perfect essence of weeping for such a forlorn piece. I had heard it done badly, the top notes wriggly and wavering, quavering, uncontrolled, everything people hate about soprano opera singers’ arias. Roma’s version was sublime. Pish had figured out the right selection for Roma’s state of mind, the final soprano aria from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, “Sola, Perdutta, Abandonatta.” When she sings this, Manon is dying, reflecting on her life. Whatever mojo had helped Roma climb from the chorus to principal soprano, she had it back. With Pish’s help, she might regain her position someday. She was, indeed, brilliantly talented.

  I left them to it and went to clean up the kitchen.

  And there, at my kitchen table, was Virgil, in uniform, wolfing down a sandwich while reading the local newspaper. He was a good antidote for the melancholy and confusion I felt, and when he looked up, smiling, I smiled back. “Sheriff, what are you doing here eating my food with no sheriff’s car in the lane?”

  He watched as I crossed to the counter and covered the almost-empty platter of sandwiches, putting it back in the fridge. I lifted the kettle to be sure there was water in it, then turned on the burner.

  “I had Urquhart drop me off. I wanted to talk to you. Gordy said you would be back anytime.”

  His voice and expression were serious. “What’s up?”

  “Come here,” he said.

  I crossed to him, my stomach twisting as it always does when he looks at me like that, his brown eyes warm. He pulled me down on his lap and tugged my hair out of the clip that held it piled on the top of my head. It tumbled down until it fell like a curtain around our faces. He threaded his fingers through my hair and kissed me. At first I could taste the ham sandwich and coffee, and felt the stubble scraping my chin and cheeks, but then I was lost in the kiss, and felt how much he wanted me. It was luscious and delirious.

  What a man! And I mean that in the best way, completely and utterly. I am so grateful that he’s not controlling or withholding like some men, who pull back if you don’t do exactly what they want or expect. The teakettle shrieked and awoke me from bliss. I jumped off his lap, breathless, and he smothered a grin as I turned it off, filled the teapot, and returned, sitting demurely across from him, heat flooding my face. “So, you want to talk to me—what about?”

  His grin died and he looked down at his hands, laced together in front of him on the table. I reached across and he grasped mine and squeezed.

  “Virgil, what’s up?”

  “Kelly is visiting her parents until tomorrow. I’m going there to talk to them all together. I need to force the issue, or she’s never going to come clean. I can’t have this shadow hanging over me. Over us.”

  Kelly was his ex-wife, and she had done him a terrible disservice in lying about him to her father, who happened to be the sheriff of Ridley Ridge. “Virgil, is that wise? If you show up, won’t it seem like you’re bullying or threatening her?”

  “I talked to her yesterday. She agrees that she needs to come clean to her dad, and she’s okay with my being there. I’ll stay out of it unless she needs my support.”

  His support? After what she did to him? I kept my temper under control. I admired him for his tactic and hoped it would work, but Sheriff Ben Baxter was a hard man and would not take kindly to finding out that he had been wrong about Virgil for years. I didn’t know him well enough to understand him, but I do know that some people, once their opinion has solidified about a person or event, cannot be swayed. Kelly had let things go too far for too long, and I wasn’t sure that it would work.

  But I could be wrong this time. Virgil did need to do something, and I trusted his judgment. I would cross my fingers, hold my breath, and hope for the best. I was thinking about returning to his lap to kiss him a whole lot more, but Pish, Roma, and Zeke came into the kitchen just then, the two fellows chatting about some technical problem they were having. Roma looked drained and exhausted. Virgil had gotten up to leave, but Roma sighed, didn’t flirt, and said she was going up for a nap.

  Urquhart called Virgil and said he was pulling into the lane. Virgil was ready to go, so I walked him out, kissed him, and didn’t tell him I loved him. I wanted to, but I wanted to do it when we were together alone, not in a hurried, rushed way. I wasn’t afraid to say it first.

  I returned to the kitchen. Zeke was alone, drinking a coffee and reading the paper Virgil had left open. He ran his finger along the line of print, muttering the lines aloud as he read, sometimes repeating words or phrases. Despite a brilliant mind and great technical prowess with computers and electronics, Zeke has reading difficulties. But Hannah had been helping him for some time, and he now had the tools and awareness to solve reading problems himself as they cropped up. He looked up when I approached.

  “Where’s Pish?” I asked.

  “He’s running the tape through and listening alone to Miss Roma’s song. She’s good, isn’t she?”

  “Now that Pish has found the right piece, she’s brilliant. So you’re putting together a video of her singing to upload online?”

  He nodded. “I’ve got a lot of it worked out, but now we need some photos of Miss Roma out in the woods. Pish thought of asking Lizzie’s help. She’s such a good photographer.”

  “I think she would be positively thrilled, and it would be good experience for her. Tomorrow’s Sunday; why don’t I call her and ask if she’ll come out? She’s staying at her grandmother’s right now.”

  He nodded.

  “Zeke, I understand Karl is still staying with you. Did Binny’s advice not work out? Or did you change your mind?”

  “He worked on Gordy while I wasn’t around. He got Gordy to say it was okay if he stayed for a while.”

  I sat down opposite him and watched his face. Something was wrong. “Did you and Gordy fight about it?”

  He nodded.

  “So Karl’s bunking on your couch, still?”

  He nodded, and his expression became more clouded.

  “Zeke, something’s wrong. Please tell me what it is?”

  He looked furtively toward the door, then craned his head to look down the hall, where the back door was. He hunkered down and muttered, “I don’t know if I ought to tell the police something. It’s about Ms. Urquhart’s murder. Maybe, or maybe not. I don’t know!”

  “Tell me, and I’ll help you decide.”

  His exp
ression cleared some. “That morning, the morning Ms. Urquhart was murdered, Karl was sleeping on our couch, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I came out of my room earlier to go to the bathroom, and he wasn’t there. I mean, he wasn’t on the couch. I don’t know where he was.”

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  He shook his head. “What if he did it? We’re just across from the post office; it would be easy. I mean, he had a big fight with Ms. Urquhart just the night before and left, right?”

  “Or was kicked out. That’s what Brianna and Logan say—that Minnie kicked him out. He was probably pretty mad about that.”

  “He was. He came to our place and went on and on. We were chilling, eating pizza and watching Dr. Who. I was like, Dude, we’re not interested, but he wouldn’t shut up. I don’t like the guy, but Gordy does.”

  “Did he say what they fought about?”

  Zeke frowned. “It was kind of a jumble, but I think she said he stole something or took something. I don’t know.”

  That was interesting. “And he said he walked out?”

  Zeke nodded.

  I thought about it for a long minute. “You’re all staying for dinner; why don’t we talk about it then? I’ll see if I can bring the topic up.”

  He looked uneasy.

  “Are you afraid he’s dangerous?”

  “Maybe. I mean, the stuff he says is weird! Like, he talks about how he beat kids up back in school. Says they deserved it because they were wusses.”

  “Where is he from?”

  “Ridley Ridge.”

  “Did he get along with Brianna and Logan?”

  He shrugged.

  I had a sudden thought when I remembered Gordy’s car from the morning of the murder. “Zeke, where does Gordy keep his car keys?”

  “I don’t know, maybe his room somewhere?”

  “Would Karl have access to them?”

  “Not Gordy’s, but there’s a spare set on a peg by the door in case I need the car anytime.”

  I saw the vehicle once again in my mind’s eye, a beat-up beige sedan, with lots of damage on the front bumper badly held together with duct tape and Bondo. Would Gordy even notice if it received more front-end damage?

  Pish called Zeke away to work on something technical. I got my phone and called Dewayne, leaving a message on his voice mail briefly asking about the paint chip tests, urging him to let me know as soon as possible. Then I called Hannah. I got her voice mail and left a message, but she called me back immediately. I wandered out to the terrace and watched Karl and Gordy work as we talked first about her day, what she was up to, and then what info she had discovered for me.

  “I have so much to tell you!” she said, breathless with excitement. I could practically see her big gray eyes gleaming. “First, what Chrissie told me: Deputy Urquhart and his brother were Minnie’s heirs, but that changed a couple of months ago. The deputy wouldn’t know about the change unless she told him.”

  “And the new heir is named Casey Urquhart,” I said. “You told me that in your message. Who is he or she to Minnie? A niece or nephew? She was close to a lot of her nieces and nephews.”

  “That’s the thing; I’ve talked to friends in Ridley Ridge and no one knows a Casey Urquhart. Even the Urquharts I’ve talked to don’t know a Casey Urquhart!”

  I was silent, not sure what to make of this information.

  “So I found a reason to call Minnie’s friend,” Hannah went on. “I told her I was computerizing cardholders’ information—which is true—and needed to ask her a few questions. We went through that, and then I said how sorry I was, that I knew she and Minnie were good friends. Well, that opened the floodgates!”

  “I’ll bet.”

  She told Hannah a lot about Minnie’s parents, both dead, and her brothers, who sired a whole bunch of the Urquharts in Ridley Ridge, and how many were alive, dead, or in jail. “I guess when they were young they hung out together, too, Minnie and this friend,” Hannah continued. “They’d known each other a long time. But here’s where it gets interesting—Merry, this is huge! Minnie did have a baby, back when they were in their teens. She gave it up, and no one has heard about the child ever since.” She paused, then said, “Guess what the baby’s name was?”

  I felt my heart drop. There was only one answer. “Casey.” I tried to wrap my mind around what I had heard. If it was true, that explained the Casey Urquhart who’d inherited. But it probably meant nothing, then, to the investigation, nor had anything to do with Minnie’s death. “So do we know where this child is? He or she would be . . . what, mid-forties at least, maybe almost fifty?”

  “That’s just it. As far as I can tell, no one has ever heard of anyone by that name, male or female.”

  “Maybe Minnie traced her child through the adoption agency and has been in contact with him or her recently. She wouldn’t tell anyone about that, not even her best friend. She liked to gossip about other people, but I don’t think she liked being gossiped about. It seems like it doesn’t have anything to do with her murder, though we can’t rule it out.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out any more and talk to you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be in town,” I said. “Bringing muffins to the coffee shop. I’m back in the muffin business, after all. Are you going to be around?”

  “I’ll be at Golden Acres with my mom and dad for a special memorial service for one of the folks who passed away, a lady who enjoyed my visits a lot.”

  I said I’d drop in and talk to her there. Pish and Zeke finished up in the library, which I looked forward to getting back after they were done. Gordy and Karl, tired, dirty, and hungry, were done, too. I got them some towels and had them clean up in one of the spare bedrooms.

  We gathered in the breakfast room, my second-favorite place to eat after the kitchen. It’s a turret room, lovely and hexagonal, and centered with a beautiful old rosewood table. I have a huge antique Eastlake sideboard that holds the more elegant pieces of my teapot collection, Limoges, Spode, Crown Derby, and a few others.

  I had the fresh bread from Binny’s, had baked cheddar biscuits to go with the stew, and had thrown together a tarte tatin for dessert. Roma decided not to come down for dinner, which was just as well. She does tend to dominate any gathering, and with men there, would be in full-on flirt mode. I needed Karl’s focus. I let everyone eat for a few minutes. Zeke and Pish chatted quietly about their technical problems while I quizzed Gordy and Karl about the work they had done, lavishing praise on them for their labor.

  “Where are you from, Karl?”

  “Here and there.”

  “You must have been born somewhere.”

  He chewed and watched me, then grabbed another biscuit, breaking it open and slathering it with herbed butter. “My folks live in Henrietta.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I asked, and I had been told by Zeke that he came from Ridley Ridge. Hmm. “You were born in Henrietta?”

  He nodded.

  Not the chattiest of fellows. “Have you spoken to Brianna and Logan lately?” I asked, after a few minutes of quiet.

  “No.”

  “They’re still living in Minnie’s house.”

  “Good for them.”

  “So the night you fought with Minnie, the night before she died, did you also fight with them?”

  Zeke kept his head down, but looked up under his flopping hair while Gordy blithely continued eating, taking his third biscuit and a second helping of stew from the covered tureen.

  “No. They kept giving each other these weird looks, and I didn’t appreciate it that they didn’t stick up for me.”

  “Weird looks?”

  He shrugged and chewed.

  “So the argument with Minnie . . . it truly was about you borrowing her car?”

  He got that watchful look again.
“That’s what I said, right?”

  “Nothing else, not that she accused you of stealing?”

  He stilled. “Maybe she said something like that. But I didn’t! I never took nothing from her!”

  “You also said that you stormed out, while Brianna and Logan say you were kicked out. Which was it?”

  “What’s it to you?” he asked, standing suddenly, his knee catching on the table and making it jump. Gordy’s cup tipped over, spilling milk all over the tablecloth.

  “Hey, man, cool it!” Gordy said. “What’s up with you?” He blinked and looked from me to Karl and then at Pish and Zeke, who watched.

  “I’m just curious,” I said as Pish trotted off to get paper towels. I was not going to be distracted from my questions. “Where were you the morning Minnie was murdered?”

  “I was asleep on the frickin’ couch at these guys’ place,” he bellowed, waving toward Gordy and Zeke, his face getting red.

  “But you weren’t,” Zeke said, his voice shaking slightly. “I came through the living room to go to the can, and you weren’t in the apartment.”

  “You didn’t say that before,” Gordy, his eyes goggling, said to his best friend. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  Zeke shrugged. “I didn’t know what to say. You guys seem so close.”

  Karl had become watchful and withdrawn.

  “Where were you, Karl?” I asked.

  “I was probably out on the fire escape having a smoke.”

  “We don’t like smoking in the apartment,” Gordy said helpfully. “Karl’s been real good about it.”

  “Where were you Thursday evening?” I asked, not letting my attention waver.

  “How am I supposed to remember?”

  “It wasn’t that long ago,” I replied, watching him, trying to figure out what was going on behind those eyes. I turned to Gordy. “You remember that night, don’t you? Did you guys go anywhere?”

  He shook his head. “I think we watched a movie or something. I was beat. It’s harvest, and I’ve been working extra hours for my uncle.”