Much Ado About Muffin

by Victoria Hamilton

  I spent the rest of the evening doing online research and taking notes. I was planning for the future, but with so many things up in the air (Lookin’ at you, Virgil, I thought) I was unsettled and kept peering out windows, waiting, pacing to the door downstairs and looking out. Finally, at about eleven thirty, I was rewarded when I spotted headlights blinking through the trees that lined my lane.

  They were coming back.

  I had intended to confront Roma in front of Pish the moment they came home, but recalled my dear friend’s gray, weary face. After dinner out—as much as he likely loved it—he would only be more tired. He needed to rest, and this was between me and her. I also didn’t want him defending her; not this time. I raced upstairs, closing my door and waiting by it. I heard the downstairs door swing shut—it’s so big that the sound when it closes echoes through the whole castle—and then they both ascended to the gallery, talking loud at first, then whispering.

  Finally, after a few minutes, I trusted that Pish was in his room and showering, as he always does, before slipping into his pajamas. He habitually wears what are called kurta pajamas, an Indian style of long top over pajama pants, very elegant in linen or more often silk, Pish’s preference. I slipped from my room and down the hall, tapping on Roma’s door.

  “En-ter,” she sang, likely thinking it would be Pish.

  I heeded her offer. She had thrown off her dress and wore a silk dressing gown, pale pink, and pom-pom mule slippers, satin, the very image of a 1950s star, which was how she saw herself in her better moments. She sat at her dressing table and efficiently wiped makeup from her face using makeup remover cream and cosmetic pads.

  “I was thinking, Pishie darling, that if we are to go on with Much Ado About Nothing we should film it and upload it to YouTube, given how many views Sola is getting.”

  “I’m sure he’ll agree with you when you tell him that in the morning, Roma.”

  She jumped and shrieked, tipping over her bottle of makeup remover and hastily wiping up the spill with a tissue. “Merry, you startled me,” she finally said, tossing the tissue at the garbage can under the dressing table but missing. “What do you want?”

  “To ask you again where you were the morning Minnie was murdered. Did you go to the post office to discuss her love life? Blackmail her? Minnie was never easy to get along with—I know that from experience. Did it break out into an argument and you lost your temper, saw the letter opener, and went for it?” That wasn’t quite how it must have gone, given that I knew the letter opener was not the only weapon, but I had to ask.

  Her face in the dim light from the sconce was deathly white, a bit of the makeup remover still visible in a line along her jaw, her visage bizarre, with one eye still made-up and the other bare. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  I crossed the room and sat on the end of her bed, staring at her, my gaze never leaving her face. “I know you were plotting, Roma, but plotting what?”

  She shook her head and opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

  “I’ve heard it, you know; you taped a phone conversation between Minnie and her new love interest. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But you did it.”

  Her dark eyes widened. She leaped to her feet, dashed to her closet, and fell to her knees, pushing aside her luggage and pulling the canvas bag out, rooting around in it. She whirled and sat down with a thump, glaring across the room at me. “You searched my room! How could you? You’re so self-righteous, but you’re a nasty piece of . . . I’ll tell Pishie right this minute unless you give it back. I’ll let him know how despicable—”

  “Don’t even try to destroy my relationship with Pish,” I said, my tone frosty. “I could have done this in front of Pish. Instead I decided to give you a chance to explain yourself.”

  “I never explain. Ever.”

  “Then we have a problem.”

  We bantered like that for a few minutes more: threats and wheedling on her side, demands and ultimatums on mine. She returned to her dressing table and took off the rest of her makeup. She was trying to figure out what to do, given my refusal to go away or be silent.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you what happened, since you’re being such a witch about it,” she finally said, turning and facing me, all the blotches and blemishes of a normal woman’s skin now evident.

  “That’s all I want. How did you get a tape of Minnie talking to a lover?”

  She bit her lip and smothered a smile. “That is not a lover,” she trilled, her voice musical with suppressed laughter. “That’s an actor friend of mine who is doing a cabaret show in Rochester right now.”

  Stunned at her smirk, I was silent for a moment. An actor. It took me a minute, but I got there. “You hired an actor to romance her on the phone. But why?”

  She gave me a withering look. “She was planning on making my life miserable if I stayed. I thought I’d beat her to the punch.”

  I recognized that given the circumstances, it would have seemed completely reasonable to Roma. Minnie had attacked the only thing she cared about, her identity as an opera singer, so she would attack back. Women can be vicious when their children are threatened; Roma’s singing career was her child. Making Minnie a laughingstock in Autumn Vale would have been a return ten times for the damage Roma had suffered. I spared a thought for the dead woman; poor Minnie, two lovers, and neither one genuine.

  The explanation was not satisfactory, though, in so many ways. “Roma, where were you the morning Minnie was murdered?”

  “I was getting that tape from my actor friend. Think about it, for heaven’s sake. I didn’t know she was dead. I had planned to confront her with the tape and all the ridiculous things she said, or . . . or play it in the coffee shop, or something! If I knew how to use the Internet I’d have loaded it up there, or whatever you call it, with a photo of her so everyone in the world could hear that pathetic woman spout love poetry.” She had the grace to look slightly guilty at that, clasping her hands between her knees. “Once she was dead, of course, I had no use for it.”

  “What about the night I was run off the road?”

  “Merry, dear, you do need to stop being so dramatic,” she said, casting me a snide glance. “Why would I do something so dreary to you? I simply went for a drive and met my friend for drinks, that’s all.”

  “So your actor friend is actually a lover!”

  “On occasion. I don’t have any money, but Bertram is easygoing. It amused him to play Minnie’s ‘phonamour,’ and the price was merely my company. He finds me entertaining. We had some wine and went to a motel; I may have had a wee tipple too much and ran into a parking lot barricade. The motel will tell you everything. As a matter of fact, they’ll be contacting Pish about it.” She glanced at herself in the mirror, pinched some color into her cheeks, and smiled. The smile faded. “I suppose I need to tell him what happened.” Her gaze switched to me, in the mirror. “I wanted to wait until after . . .”

  She didn’t need to finish. She wasn’t going to tell him until after they’d finished the video, in case it put him off and he refused to do it. How little faith she had in Pish. She bit her lip and smiled at me. “I don’t suppose you’d—”

  “No, Roma. It’s up to you to tell Pish what you did to his car and everything else, even about Minnie. Have fun.” I stood. “I’ll be checking this all out, you know.”

  Now that I had refused to help her, she was back to being snotty. “Go ahead, you suspicion little peon. He’ll be amused. I have told him so much about you.”

  I headed to the door, but turned and eyed her with dislike. “Tell Pish why his car is dinged the moment you’re up tomorrow. If you don’t, I will, and I won’t sugarcoat the whole sick little plan, like you will.” I would be talking to him anyway, to make sure he confirmed her story, but I’d let her tell him her own way first.

  “All right, okay.”

  She mut
tered to herself and flung some clothes around as I left. In my room my cell phone had a voice message on it from Hannah, telling me to call her right away. I did, and found her breathless with excitement.

  “What’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  “Merry, I couldn’t wait, and I didn’t think you’d want to, either. I have news.”

  “What is it?”

  “I started with Minnie’s child.”

  “Yes . . .”

  “We figured out that the kid would be late forties by now if Minnie had the baby as a teenager.”

  I sighed with exaggerated impatience. “Are you going to make me go through every step of your investigation?”

  “I am,” she said, with a laugh. “You know me by now, Merry. I want you to hear it all, so you know how clever I am.”

  I laughed. “I already know that, but go ahead. We’ll get there.” I lay on the bed and put my hand on Becket, feeling him purr.

  “So, I started from the information we had. I had a name, and an approximate date of birth, from Minnie’s friend.”

  “Right. But no one around here seemed to know about the baby except her friend.”

  “Yes, but everything we do in life is tracked and recorded.”

  I remembered her mysterious need to wait until government offices were open. “You didn’t go all the way to . . . wherever for birth records, did you?”

  “Not exactly. I used the power of the Internet.”

  “How did that help you?”

  “It took a lot of cross-referencing, but I started with Minnie, and children in the area born around then, and the name we know she gave the child.”

  “Casey Urquhart,” I supplied.

  “Uh-huh. For a price you can search databases that hold all of our information, and I mean everything: date of birth, marriages, licenses. Adoption. Change of name.” She paused, then said, “Death.”

  “Oh. Oh! Is Casey Urquhart dead?”

  “She died a long time ago, when she was just nineteen.”

  “That’s so sad. Did Minnie know?”

  “I think so.”

  “I can’t believe you found all this out in one day.” Hannah is an extraordinary researcher, like many librarians: part researcher, part human resources, part Internet goddess, and part rat terrier fixated on one task until it is mastered and defeated. I would never have figured out all she did, nor stuck with it as long. There had to be something more, judging by the excitement in Hannah’s voice at first. “So what’s got you jumping?”

  “Merry, the poor girl died in childbirth, but the baby survived.”

  I was silent for a moment, stunned. “Minnie had a grandchild?”

  “She did.”

  “Did she know that?”

  “Oh yes, she certainly did. And changed her will accordingly. The baby was adopted at birth and given a different last name from Urquhart. Not a name anyone around here would know, you see.”

  “Oh. Oh! Do we . . . no, that’s too much to ask.” I paused. “Or maybe not. Do we have a name?”

  “We do.”

  “Do I know the individual?”

  “You do.”

  And then she told me who it was, and everything fell into place.

  Chapter Twenty

  The FBI had caused quite a stir in town, with exhaustive interviews and searches. The gossip mill was grinding exceedingly fine, with every bit of minutiae available from every person who had been questioned, every neighbor who had been canvassed, every single little bit discussed and microdiscussed down to the finest grain of detail. I heard it all as I did the rounds of muffin deliveries. I had purposely left early, giving Roma enough time to fess up to Pish what she had planned to do to Minnie, but I knew darn well she’d sugarcoat it, and that Pish was a pushover.

  I didn’t expect any major blowouts, but my friend is a kind man, and I thought he’d be disappointed with the diva. The way she’d planned on humiliating Minnie was particularly female and vicious. Though in life I had disliked Minnie intensely, in death I felt nothing but pity for her, especially after hearing the latest news from Hannah. The least we could do was find her murderer because she had been slaughtered, if I was right, by someone for whom she cared. It must have been awful.

  I visited the library, got the information that Hannah had printed for me, and insisted on reimbursing her for the services for which she had paid. Perhaps there was some way I could charge it to my taxes under medical, as a treatment for SD, snooping disorder.

  Then I stopped at the FBI trailer and spoke to Esposito. As I climbed up into the vehicle I asked about Minnie’s car and he confirmed that it had been impounded the day of her death. That was the answer to my question, then, about Karl’s access to it after Minnie’s death: he didn’t have any. The inside of the command center was dull gray and lined with computer terminals, mostly dead, with one fellow doing something official-looking. Or maybe playing Candy Crush. Esposito had me sit in the passenger seat while I told him everything I knew. He nodded. A lot.

  “Did you know any of this? All of it?”

  He smiled. “You know I can’t divulge what I did or didn’t know, Ms. Wynter.”

  I restrained the urge to roll my eyes like Lizzie talking to her mother. “Have you, perchance, been to one of Crystal Rouse’s Consciousness Calling introductory meetings?”

  “That’s beyond the scope of our murder investigation, though we have looked into both Emerald Proctor and Crystal Rouse, of course, as two suspects who Minnie Urquhart had run-ins with.”

  I squinted and eyed him. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you’ve found out about Crystal.”

  “Of course not. However, I will say we’ve been contacted by a young woman at Consciousness Calling in San Diego. She said she had spoken with you, and was very concerned about Crystal Rouse’s misappropriation of the CC brand and methodology, as she called it.”

  That was good. “They’ve advertised another introductory meeting tonight, and I’m going. Maybe you should have someone there. I think interesting things are going to happen.”

  He watched me for a moment, perhaps digesting the subtext of what I was saying. “I don’t have a single agent in this town who would not be recognized instantly.”

  “Well, that’s a problem, isn’t it?” I said, opening the vehicle door, slipping from the seat, and looking back at him. “I would imagine you have lots of other agents within an hour’s drive.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement, Ms. Wynter. We greatly appreciate your intimate involvement in our investigation.”

  He might have been joking, but I’ll confess I wasn’t sure. I went on my merry way. Every way is my Merry way; that was a joke my grandmother used to make.

  I hadn’t forgotten my dear friend, Shilo. I had called the evening before but got their machine, a jaunty new message with Shilo singing off tune “We Are Family.” I drove to their new house with the last of the muffins to find Jezebel haphazardly backed into the drive and the trunk open. The front door of the house was open, too. Everything was open.

  I hesitantly climbed up the steps and poked my head in the front door, inhaling the odor of paint and sawdust. “Hello?” I called.

  I heard something fall and a laugh, followed by a slightly lower laugh that was very similar. I followed the sound. Shilo was in the kitchen doing dishes with Lido. “Hi!” I said.

  “Merry!” She raced at me and hit me with the full force of her slender frame. Luckily I am sturdy and not easily sent flying.

  Lido smiled and nodded, softly saying, “Howdy, Merry.”

  “Hi, Lido. What’s going on?” I asked, my gaze returning to Shilo, who had returned to the dishes. “Jezebel’s sitting out in the lane with her trunk wide-open.” I heard a noise in the other part of the house like someone clattering down stairs.

  “Jack is loa
ding up the old girl,” Shilo replied. “Can you give him a hand, Lido?” Her brother nodded and raced through the house, joining Jack, who I could hear shout a welcome to his brother-in-law. “Oh, Merry, it’s so wonderful!” Shilo said, taking my arm and clutching it against her. “Jack and Lido had a long talk. We’re going to go see my granny!”

  I was relieved, if a bit miffed that no one had bothered to tell me. However, Shilo was free-spirited Shilo. “I’m so happy, honey. I told you Jack would be okay with it.”

  “And his mama was even better! She hugged me and told me she was worried about me, and happy now that I was okay. She was afraid I was sick or something. I said that other than being a little ralphie, I was fine.”

  “Ralphie?” That was a new one. “What does that mean?”

  “Ralphie . . . like I want to ralph all the time. The girls I knew in New York always said they were going to visit Uncle Ralph when they were getting rid of a meal. I can’t keep food down the last few days.”

  My mind immediately went there, and I stared at her, the glitter in her eyes, her pearly skin, and her pink cheeks. “Shilo, honey, have you taken a pregnancy test lately?”

  She stilled and her eyes widened. “Do you think . . . Is that why I’m sick?”

  “I’d check it out if I were you.”

  She promised she would. I told her to call me the moment she knew one way or the other. In the meantime, we decided not to say a word to Jack or Lido. Jack, happier than I had ever seen him, was jovial and scattered and erratic with love. He and Shilo would celebrate their first anniversary in December; I hoped by then I’d be well on my way to being an honorary aunt. I helped them pack Magic, her bunny, in his cage in the backseat with Lido, got a spare set of keys, promised to water Shilo’s plants, and waved good-bye to them.

  It happened that quickly. I checked that the doors were locked securely and drove back to Wynter Castle to find out if Roma had done what she promised to do. The place was silent and chilly. Becket, who had gone out at dawn, followed me in, went to his food bowl, then climbed the stairs and disappeared into my room. I found Pish in his study, where he was listening to Bartok and reading Shakespeare. I closed the door behind me and sat in the other club chair, watching him.