Iced Tea for Two

by Donna McLean

  Campbell studied Tilda MacArdan’s furious face. He massaged the creases in his forehead. He drummed the pencil eraser against the notepad on the top of his desk. At last he spoke.

  “Ms. Tilda, this is a police investigation and therefore I must ask you some questions.”

  “Why, of course you do, Douglas Winton! You go on and ask. I want to get to the bottom of this, too!”

  “Good. Good. Let’s start with the blueberry pie. You baked it at your house, correct?”

  “Yes, sir, I certainly did! That very same day! And I used fresh ingredients and I baked it completely from scratch using my Granny Polly’s recipe and there was no one else present when I baked it, either!”

  The officer nodded. “And did you leave the pie unattended at any time, therefore giving some person or persons unknown an opportunity to lace it with arsenic?”

  “No, sir, I did not!” Tilda said. “And I will tell you another thing, Douglas Winton, that pie was fine when I took it to Mr. Lach McGrady’s house. Just fine! And that’s a fact!”

  “How can you be certain of that?”

  “Because I cut a slice for Mr. Frederick and he sat right there and ate it. And it didn’t make him sick, not a bit! He even said how good it was!”

  Addie interrupted. “How do you know it was the pie, not something else the man ate or drank?”

  The policeman glanced in her direction, then turned his gaze back to Tilda. “Interesting question. We never found the pie.”

  Tilda demanded, “Then how do you know the arsenic was in my homemade blueberry pie?”

  “Lach McGrady. He said Hannah Smith brought him a slice of pie later that day, long after you left. He took a few bites of it and immediately began to feel very, very ill. Said he knew it couldn’t be from anything Ms. Tilda made, so the man got suspicious. Hannah had already gone back downstairs, so McGrady stuck the saucer and the slice of pie in a drawer of the nightstand beside his bed. He yelled for Hannah and insisted that she call the doctor, which she did, right away. Didn’t tell her what was wrong, just to call the doctor and tell him to get over there in a hurry. As soon as Dr. Jones arrived, McGrady made Hannah step outside the room and he showed the doctor the rest of the pie and told him what had happened.”

  “The doctor took the remainder of the blueberry pie slice and had it analyzed?” Addie asked.

  Campbell nodded. “And immediately transferred McGrady to the hospital, mainly for his protection from whoever attempted to poison him. Dr. Jones told Hannah and everyone else that it had been some sort of gastrointestinal attack, no mention of poison, so that little fact has to stay just between us. Understand, ladies?” He glared at them severely.

  “Between us and the murderer!” Tilda said fiercely.

  “Exactly. So the two of you must promise not to mention it, got it? It doesn’t leave this room.”

  “Yes, sir,” the ladies mumbled.

  “Excellent. Now, Ms. Tilda, tell me everything you can remember about your visit with McGrady. Where did you put the pie? Who was there when you left? Any little detail that you can remember.”

  “You mean, who could have poisoned my pie after I took it to the house?”

  Officer Campbell cleared his throat. “Yes, well, if we are to proceed on the assumption that you did not poison the pie, then we need to consider others who had the opportunity to do so.”

  Tilda said thoughtfully, “Opportunity and motive.”

  Addie agreed. “Yes, both things are needed. A lot of people may have had an opportunity, but who had a motive? Why would anyone want to bump off that cantankerous old man? He’s already so close to death!”

  “And why would somebody use my pie to do it!” Tilda said, disgusted.

  “Could it have something to do with the inheritance? Maybe the twins wanted to inherit in a hurry. And by the way, what ever happened to the other twin? Might be a motive there, somewhere.” Addie said.

  “Now I think that is odd, right odd! Where did that fellow disappear to after the man was shot? Seems like he would have wanted to be right there next to his own brother at a time like that!” Tilda stated.

  “Maybe that twin shot the other twin? Could explain why he vanished,” Addie mused.

  “No, that would cut him out of the inheritance real fast, unless they were arguing over a woman or some such thing. If you recall, both twins had to inherit the estate together.”

  “But you said they weren’t arguing,” Addie pointed out.

  “Whoa, ladies, whoa!” Campbell raised a hand, palm out. The women exchanged guilty glances and grew silent.

  Tilda made a timid comment. “We were just supposing, Douglas.”

  The aggravated officer shook his head. “Let’s start at the beginning, ladies, and NO supposing! Please confine your comments to the facts at hand regarding the poisoned pie, and only the poisoned pie, an event which took place before the shooting and which may have nothing at all to do with the shooting. Now, Ms. Tilda. Even if you don’t think a person had a motive, if he or she was definitely in the vicinity around the time of your visit to Lach McGrady, please tell me. A mail carrier, for example.”

  Tilda shook her head. “No, the mail had already run. I saw it on the table in the hall when I went in. So it wouldn’t be the mailman. That nice Billy Forrest has been the mailman for years and years, anyhow, and I know he wouldn’t want to bump off Mr. McGrady! That’s just plain silly, Douglas Campbell!” She gave him a reproving glance.

  He rubbed the back of his tense neck, and sighed.

  “Come to think of it, though, when I was upstairs with Mr. McGrady I did hear a lawnmower or some sort of motor running. I do believe it was a lawnmower. So maybe the gardener was there. You could look into that,” Tilda said with helpful naivety.

  The policeman looked at her. “You don’t know the gardener?” he asked innocently.

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” Her hazel green eyes brightened. “I know his people, though. The McGales from over in Pineyham. They are kin to him, somehow. I believe he lives somewhere between Sparrow Falls and Pineyham. Goes back and forth taking care of people’s estates and such.”

  Addie spoke up, excited. “And a gardener would have access to a poison like arsenic! For killing bugs and things like that!”

  “Or sugar ants. . . ” Tilda said thoughtfully.

  Campbell grunted and scribbled something on the notepad.

  “And Mr. Frederick was there, of course. I told you that already,” Tilda continued. Her voice sounded doubtful. “I can’t see that he would have a motive, though.”

  Addie suggested something. “Maybe the old man will leave him a ton of money for being the faithful old family lawyer and all that? Hannah Smith, too. The faithful family servant with no family of her own.”

  The women looked at Campbell.

  He shook his head. “McGrady says everything goes to the twins, if they really are the twins. If they are not his heirs, then everything goes to various charities.”

  Tilda gasped. “You mean that stingy old man isn’t leaving one red cent to Hannah, after her devotion to that family for all those years?”

  “Nope. Says he paid Hannah and Frederick well during their time with him, and says that’s all they will ever need if they managed their finances well over their lifetimes. If they didn’t manage well, he says that’s their problem!”

  The little lady said, “Bless their hearts. Mr. Frederick will probably do just fine but Hannah has lived in the McGrady house most of her life. She will have to find another place to live after McGrady is gone. Might even have to go to work for somebody else, at her age! That would be very difficult.”

  Campbell shrugged. “Probably move to a retirement village in Florida and kick up her heels for a change. She might like to be free of the McGradys at long last.”

  “Which could be a motive,” Addie pointed out.

  The officer nodded, but Tilda scratched the tip of her nose, musing for a moment. Then she said abruptly, “Add
ie has something to tell you.”

  Addie jumped in the chair and looked guilty.

  Officer Campbell stared at her, waiting.

  She hesitated. “Well, it’s about the man who was shot at the restaurant. Actually, it’s not about him, exactly—” She paused, flustered.

  Tilda said cheerfully, “We don’t know where Dane Donovan was when the shot was fired.”

  The strawberry blond glared at the spry lady, who wiggled uncomfortably in the chair.

  “Is this true?” Officer Campbell demanded.

  Addie glanced down at her hands, then met the policeman’s eye. “Yes, sir, it is. We had walked into the garden at the restaurant. Tilda was closer to the entrance than we were.”

  She paused, and stared at her hands again.

  “What happened, Addie?” the officer asked gently.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, nothing, really. It may not mean anything at all, really. I’m just not certain.”

  The young woman looked at Tilda and then at the officer, as though seeking reassurance. They waited.

  “Dane got a phone call on his cell phone. I don’t know who it was. I turned my back to him and walked off a little way, you know, in case he wanted some privacy.” She hesitated.

  “Go on, honey, just tell him what you told me,” Tilda said kindly.

  “I heard the shot, and started running toward the front of the restaurant. I could see Tilda so I knew she wasn’t involved or anything, but I knew something was going on at the front of the restaurant closer to where she had been standing. And when I glanced back, Dane wasn’t standing in the same spot where he had taken the phone call.”

  “Where was he, exactly, Miss McRae?” Officer Campbell asked.

  “He was close to one of the walls that border the parking lot. You know how the Marble Garden is, all those freestanding walls that are supposed to look like old ruins?”

  The man nodded.

  “We had been standing near a wall, on the right, and when his phone rang I turned my back to him and walked a few feet away. When I glanced back, he had moved to the left of the wall, the part where the open archway is close to the parking lot.”

  The strawberry blond paused, looked down at her hands, rubbed her fingers a little. She looked up and said, “I really don’t think he did it. I hope he didn’t do it. There’s no reason why he should have done it!”

  “Done what, Addie?” Officer Campbell was growing impatient.

  Addie shot a panicked look at the spry lady and the policeman. She blurted, “Dane could have stepped behind the wall, fired a gun and stepped back into the garden before anyone realized he was gone. He could have shot that man!”

  NINE

  A few days passed uneventfully, days in which Tilda could not help noticing that her young tenant seemed uncharacteristically quiet and even a little depressed. Ms. MacArdan had done her best to cheer the young lady up; even baking her favorite chocolate cake with fudgy frosting, but nothing appeared to help. Addie smiled softly and spoke to Tilda politely, although distantly, and seemed wrapped up in her own thoughts. She had gone out with Dane only once since the interview with Officer Campbell, although Tilda noticed the strawberry blond still took all his phone calls and always appeared happy to hear his deep, smooth voice.

  Now Addie was backing the blue convertible around and preparing to leave on an errand. Tilda stood on the back door steps and waved. “Yoo-hoo, Addie! If you don’t mind, would you please do me a little old favor on your way home?”

  Addie stopped the car next to the porch. She smiled. “Of course, Tilda. What do you need?”

  “I don’t want to put you out or anything. If you are going somewhere important . . .” Tilda paused but Addie did not divulge any juicy details. Tilda continued, “Or if you won’t be back for a long time, or if you are going on a visit or —”

  The young woman laughed. “Ms. Tilda, I will be back in about an hour. I’m only going to the library to look up a few things for a story I’ve been working on. So, what do you need? Something from the pharmacy? The post office?”

  “No, I only want some of those grocery store tomatoes from the chain store near Main Street. Now, they are not as good as the homegrown ones that Jasper Collins sells at his vegetable stand, but tomatoes aren’t in season yet and I want to try out a new recipe, so the fancy grocery store ones will have to do. And if you’re going to the library you will be going right past it! So that will work out just fine, if you don’t mind. Let me give you some money.”

  Addie pressed the gas pedal. “Don’t worry about the money. Just save a few slices and make me a nice tomato sandwich for supper!” She waved at the little lady as she drove away.

  The library offered a nice break from the brilliant spring sunshine. Addie quickly found the information she needed, checked the time on her cell phone, and decided to stop by the Coffee Click for some freshly made strawberry ice cream before picking up the tomatoes and heading back to Tilda’s.

  She swung the blue convertible into a parking space and walked toward the cafe, cheerful at the prospect of a good article to write and the beauty of the early spring day. Her hand grasped the metal door handle of the Coffee Click and then she froze in disbelief. She left the door unopened and leaned closer to the window glass, staring at the shocking sight that met her eyes.

  Pearce Allen Simms was sitting at their usual table, in his usual chair.

  He was not alone.

  He was smiling!

  Smiling at a gorgeous brunette.

  A gorgeous brunette who was sitting in Addie’s chair!

  Fury rushed over Addie McRae as her fingers tightened on the door handle. She pushed her nose against the glass to get a better look, at the very moment when Pearce Allen glanced up and saw Addie staring at him with blazing emerald green eyes!

  She noticed his dimple disappear as the smile vanished from his handsome face. He cast a nervous glance at the gorgeous brunette, then back at Addie.

  Addie suddenly felt embarrassed, painfully aware that Pearce Allen was not the only person who was now staring at her! It seemed that every person within the café and without was gawking at the redhead. She let go of the handle and shook herself. “What am I doing?” she whispered. “He’s not my guy anymore!” Emotions tumbled within her and she sped back to the car, jumped in and drove away.

  It was not until she pulled into the driveway of Tilda’s house, edging the little car toward her carriage house at the back, that she remembered that she had forgotten the fancy grocery store tomatoes. Addie bit her lip and parked next to the back door.

  She knocked lightly, numb with misery, and entered through the screened porch, setting off Puddin’s fierce bark.

  “Hello, buddy,” Addie said, a little sadly. “It’s only me.”

  Tilda MacArdan entered from the living room and laughed at the tiny terrier bouncing up and down at Addie’s side. “Bless his heart! He’s wagging his tail so fast that his whole caboose is shaking!”

  “You still love me, don’t you?” Addie said, bending down to pet the little dog. She burst into tears.

  Tilda’s mouth fell open. “Why, Addie, dear—” She stared at the young woman in dismay.

  “Oh, Ms. Tilda, I forgot your tomatoes!” Addie wailed. She pressed the palms of both hands over her eyes and bawled.

  “Oh, honey, don’t cry! I didn’t really need those tomatoes! I’ll make you a nice grilled pimento cheese sandwich instead. Now hush, hush!”

  The incongruity of that statement made Addie instantly turn from tears to laughter, which confused the spry little lady even more.

  Tilda said, puzzled, “Maybe what you need is a big ol’ slice of chocolate cake. And after you pull yourself together, you can tell me what in thunder is going on around here!”

  An hour later Addie pushed away the saucer containing the last few crumbs of chocolate cake and licked the last little bit of fudgy frosting from the fork. “Delicious, as always, Ms. Tilda. And thank you,” she said
, “for the cake, and for being a good listener, too.”

  Tilda patted her hand. “Bless your heart. That’s what friends are for! Sometimes we just need to talk things out. Even if it doesn’t really solve anything, it makes us feel better. That’s all you needed to do.”

  Addie shook her head. “No, I need to do more than talk. I need to make a decision. It’s so difficult, Tilda! I still have feelings for Pearce Allen, and we’ve been through a lot together. But Dane Donovan is so exciting, so handsome, so, so, so—perfect! And that’s what bothers me, I guess. He’s everything a woman could ever want, but he seems almost unreal.”

  “Hmmm, like a made up name in a romance novel,” Tilda mused.

  “Yes, that’s it exactly, Tilda! Like someone out of a book or a movie. It’s hard to get close to him, to know what he’s really like. And then I think, well, maybe he really is that perfect man. I just don’t know. I don’t know if he’s trustworthy. I don’t know anything about his background, really.”

  “And there’s that incident at the Marble Garden,” Tilda reminded her, gravely.

  Addie sighed and put her head in her hands. “Yes, that too,” she said. “I wish I could be certain of where Dane was at that moment. And I wish I could know that he had no connections with the man who was killed. I feel guilty for even thinking these things! Dane has been nothing but wonderful to me. I just don’t know what to think about anything anymore.”

  Tilda’s telephone rang with a loud and insistent clang. She rose to answer the phone and Addie could hear her speaking from the other room.

  A few minutes later Tilda called her to the phone. “Some news for you, Addie,” she said, and passed the receiver to the young woman with a smile. “Officer Campbell,” she whispered.

  Addie held the phone to her ear, her heart racing with apprehension. “Yes?”

  “Thought you would like to know. At this time we’ve pretty much cleared your friend Dane Donovan. He does not appear to be a suspect. No motive, no connection with the victim that we can find. And the angle of the gunshot wound indicates that the victim must have been shot from the opposite side of the parking lot. Too far for Donovan to have run in such a short amount of time. When you saw him he did not appear to have been exerting himself, did he? No shortness of breath, no beads of sweat on his forehead, nothing like that, right?”