“Then you’d better be careful. Being in the middle of something you don’t understand could get you killed.”
“Is that a threat?”
He shook his head. “Just an observation.”
* * *
It was nearing five o’clock by the time Tricia returned to Haven’t Got a Clue. As usual, customer traffic had thinned. In fact, there were no customers in the store. Ginny leaned over the sales desk and looked up as the door opened and Tricia strode in. She’d been reading a copy of This Old House magazine.
“Looks pretty dead,” Tricia said, indicating the lack of warm bodies in the shop.
Ginny nodded. “Thanks to the Pumpkin Festival, I don’t think we’ve pulled in ten dollars in the last hour. How did it go at the hospital?”
“It went. I’m convinced Stuart Paige and his people had nothing to do with Pammy’s death.”
“How come?”
“He’s too nice. And he’s not well. In fact, I promised to send him a book at the hospital. How would you like to go home early tonight?”
Ginny frowned. “Didn’t you say he’d been taken to the medical center in Nashua?”
“I’ll give you gas money. If you go there and back, you should still be home at least a half hour earlier than usual.”
Ginny nodded. “Okay. That’ll give me time to slap some joint compound on the living room’s new Sheetrock before dinner. Let me get my coat.”
Two minutes later, Tricia had wrapped up a copy of Bonecrack, given Ginny Turner’s card with instructions to call him when she arrived at the hospital, and sent her on her way. Tricia stared at the clock. She still had another hour and forty-five minutes before closing time. After that, she’d go upstairs, scrounge in the fridge, and settle down with a good book.
She glared at the phone. It wasn’t going to ring. It wouldn’t be Russ, calling to apologize for this morning. His phone message said he wanted to talk, but he hadn’t called again. That meant he’d only been trying to smooth things over. To assuage his guilt, perhaps? And anyway, if he was the photographer at Grace and Mr. Everett’s wedding, he could talk to her then. He probably knew about the new job by now. Maybe he’d even gloat.
Now she was being ridiculous.
Tricia glanced out the window. A light still glowed inside Booked for Lunch. Angelica was probably holed up in her café’s kitchen, preparing the food for Grace and Mr. Everett’s wedding. She hadn’t called to tell Tricia the results of Captain Baker’s search, as she’d promised. Or if she had, Ginny hadn’t mentioned it.
Tricia picked up the heavy receiver on the old 1930s phone. She dialed the number and waited as the phone rang and rang. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen times before it was answered with a testy “What do you want?”
“Ange? It’s Tricia. You said you’d call me after Captain Baker left your place.”
“You caught me at a bad time. I’m working on the food for Grace’s wedding.”
“And?” Tricia prompted.
“Captain Baker didn’t find a damn thing. I could’ve told him he wouldn’t-but why listen to me?”
“I’ve been to see Stuart Paige. Lots to report, but it doesn’t get me any closer to finding out who killed Pammy.”
“Why don’t you just let the captain work this out? I mean, why are you so interested?”
Tricia wasn’t sure she could answer that question.
“Ginny said it’s been dead here for the last hour. I’m feeling discouraged. In fact, I may even close the store early tonight.”
“Terrific. Then come over here and help me with these mini quiches.”
“You know I can’t cook.”
“You just have to assemble ingredients; I’ll do the cooking.”
Tricia sighed. “Why not? I’ll be over in about ten minutes.”
“See you,” Angelica said, and hung up.
Tricia hung up the CLOSED sign on the door, pulled the shades, and put the day’s receipts in the safe. She checked to see that Miss Marple was asleep in one of the chairs in the nook before she grabbed her jacket and purse, and headed out the door.
Angelica was waiting for her, and let her into the darkened café. “Come on back to the kitchen.”
With only the dim security lights on, the café’s usually bright and cheery interior looked dated and unwelcoming. It was far more pleasing in the light of day. Tricia followed her sister to the cramped kitchen.
The work counter was littered with bags of flour, cartons of eggs, and mounds of what looked like seaweed on a platter. “What’s that?’ Tricia said, turning up her nose as she hung her jacket on a peg next to Angelica’s.
“Thawed frozen spinach. You can squeeze it dry while I whip up the eggs. I’ve already got all the little pastry shells made. See?” Angelica pointed to the stack of mini muffin pans and their contents. “I’ll bake and freeze these tonight, and then thaw them and pop them in the oven on Sunday morning, just before the ceremony.”
Tricia’s lip curled as she contemplated the mass of wet, limp spinach. “Spinach for breakfast? What were you thinking?”
“These days, people don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables.”
Tricia sighed. “No matter how many veggies you put in a quiche, it’ll never be a healthy food. You’ll be putting Grace’s guests in danger of a heart attack.”
“Get on with your work,” Angelica said.
“Okay, what do I do first?”
“Wash your hands. And scrub them like you were about to do surgery. There’s a nailbrush on the sink. Use paper towels to dry them. And don’t touch the rim of the garbage pail when you throw them away.”
Tricia did as she was told, while Angelica cracked eggs into a large plastic bowl.
“Tell me all about what happened after you left here this afternoon,” Angelica said.
Tricia told her tale as she squeezed cold, green juice from the spinach until her hands ached.
“I’m betting Pammy tore those pages out of the diary because they would’ve proved Paige wasn’t the father of M.J.’s child. And knowing Pammy, if she couldn’t wring money out of Paige, she might have tried to go after the baby’s real father.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Angelica said, as she beat eggs with a big metal whisk. “Why would the real father care about the baby twenty years later? At this point in time, he might not even be married to the same wife. Hardly anybody lasts twenty-plus years of marriage these days. We’re prime examples.”
“But just say he was-that news could destroy his marriage.”
Angelica shrugged. “So many people harp about the sanctity of marriage-but if it’s so sacred, why is this country’s divorce rate more than fifty percent?”
Tricia finished squeezing the last of the spinach. She dried her hands. “I’m convinced that Pammy left those pages here in this café.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. Captain Baker was pretty thorough in his search. He did everything but empty the bags of flour.”
Tricia’s eyes widened. “Where was Pammy working before I found her in the garbage cart?”
“Here in the kitchen. She was washing dishes.”
Tricia looked up at the sacks of flour and sugar on the shelf above the triple sink. Most of them hadn’t been opened.
“Let’s go back to the day Pammy died. Jake had left for the day. You were busy out front with the last of the customers-or cleaning up or something, right?”
“That’s right,” Angelica agreed.
“So Pammy was here in the kitchen, all alone. What if someone called her out to the back of the café? If she had the pages on her, and she recognized the voice, she might have stuffed them into something really fast-if she wasn’t prepared to give them up just yet.”
“I told you,” Angelica said patiently, “Captain Baker tore this place apart.”
Tricia studied everything on the shelves above her. A big glass jar held white crystals. Sugar or salt?
“Why is that stuff up there in a jar-and what is it?�
�
“Sugar. I had ants just after I started stocking the place. I didn’t want to spray chemicals around my food prep area, so I sprinkled some borax on the shelves and put my sugar in jars. I haven’t seen an ant since.”
Tricia reached for the jar. The lid did not want to come loose.
“Give it to me,” Angelica said. Since the opening of the café, her nails had taken a beating, but her hands were bigger and stronger than Tricia’s. She wrenched off the lid and shook the container. The sugar didn’t want to budge. She grabbed a spoon from the drying rack, plunged it into the sugar, and stirred it around.
Nothing but sugar. No folded pages. No nothing.
“Rats! I was really hoping we’d found them,” Tricia said.
Angelica replaced the lid and put the jar back on the shelf. “Too easy. And I’m sure Captain Baker looked in every other container in this kitchen, too. Those pages just aren’t here.”
Tricia wasn’t about to give up.
While Angelica stirred the spinach into the egg mixture, Tricia took out the step stool and moved it to the shelving. Since Angelica seemed in an affable mood, Tricia decided to broach a potentially volatile subject. “Frannie has fallen in love with Penny.”
“Penny?” Angelica asked, squinting down at her recipe.
“Her new cat.” Tricia climbed to the stool’s top step and steadied herself by grabbing onto the shelf. It was obvious everything had been moved, for Angelica liked order, and nothing was lined up to her usual standards. Cans of vegetables, tuna, and fruit stood next to a meat slicer and a food processor-everything you’d expect to see in a small working kitchen.
“She hates to leave the poor little thing all alone at home while she’s at work all day. It could make for a neurotic cat.”
“Well, she’s not bringing it to the Cookery. I’ve made that clear. And I’m assuming she’d have to lug a carrier with her to work everyday. That wouldn’t be good for the cat. Talk about making the thing neurotic. Can’t she get it a friend to keep it company during the day?”
“Maybe,” Tricia admitted, exasperated.
“If there’s one thing the Cookery doesn’t need, it’s some kind of animal mascot,” Angelica said, and it was obvious by her tone that the subject was now closed.
Tricia wasn’t ready to quit. “Ange, what is your problem with people having pets? Just because you don’t like them-”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with pets,” Angelica said, shaking her whisk in Tricia’s direction. “They die on you. You give them all your love for years and years, and then they go and die on you, and give you a broken heart.” She finished the sentence with a sob, her eyes filled with sudden tears.
“Ange,” Tricia said, with understanding, “have you lost a pet?”
Angelica wiped at her eyes with the edge of her apron. “Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it. Was it a dog or a cat?”
Angelica sniffed. “A toy poodle. His name was Pom-Pom. John, my second husband, bought him for me. When he left, all I had was my little Pom-Pom. He was the joy of my life. And then he got sick. Cancer.” Tears cascaded down Angelica’s cheeks, and her face scrunched into an ugly mask of grief.
A lump formed in Tricia’s throat. “I’m so sorry, Ange. You never told me you had a dog.”
“Well, why would I? It sounds so stupid to love a damn animal.”
“No, it doesn’t. Pets enrich our lives.”
Angelica waved a hand in dismissal. “Anyway, after Pom-Pom died, I told myself I’d never put myself through it again.”
“How many years did you have him?”
“Just three. He was such a tiny boy. I spent thousands of dollars on treatment, but it didn’t help. It nearly killed me when I had to have him…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Tricia wrapped her arms around her sister. “I’m sure he loved you. And you had three wonderful years with him.”
Angelica sniffed. “Not nearly enough.” Then suddenly she was sobbing into Tricia’s shoulder.
Tricia patted her sister’s back. “How long have you been denying yourself the love of a pet?”
Angelica hiccuped. “Fifteen years.”
“Oh, Ange, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand how you can allow yourself to love that silly little cat of yours, knowing you’re going to lose her someday.”
“It’s painful to lose a pet. Especially for people like us, who’ll never have children. But I like to think of the wonderful years Miss Marple has already given me, and I hope we’ll have many more years together. Our pets give us unconditional love. Something we can’t always count on with people,” she added, thinking of both her ex-husband, Christopher, and Russ.
“It’s been a long time since you lost Pom-Pom. And you’ve got a lot of love inside you. Wouldn’t you like to share it with someone besides just me and Bob?”
Angelica pulled back and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Maybe. But my heart would be broken when that pet died, too.”
“Yes, but if your heart breaks, at least you know it was real love that you felt.” Tears filled Tricia’s eyes, too. “I’m not saying this right. What I guess I mean is… why deny yourself any kind of love? You deserve it, Ange.”
Angelica straightened up, took a stiff breath, and swallowed hard. “You know, maybe you’re right. I was a wonderful mother to my sweet little Pom-Pom.”
“Yes. And you could do the same for some other dog or cat. There are a lot of abandoned dogs and cats who need homes.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to do this again just yet.”
Yet? Pom-Pom had been consigned to doggy heaven at least fifteen years before.
“When you are, you should really consider contacting a shelter to make your choice. I’d be glad to help you with that.”
“Well, I guess I hadn’t thought that getting a new pet would actually honor Pom-Pom’s memory,” Angelica said softly. “No other dog could ever take his place.”
“Of course not.” Tricia patted Angelica’s back one last time, and stood back. “And you know, if you gave her a chance, you might get to like Frannie’s cat.”
“Cats aren’t as bad as I thought,” Angelica admitted. “I actually kind of liked it when you and Miss Marple stayed with me last spring. She’s really not a bad little cat at all.”
Tricia smiled. “No, she’s not.”
Angelica cleared her throat and started beating the egg mixture with renewed vigor.
Tricia let out a long breath, feeling exhausted.
She let her gaze travel around the entire kitchen. Everything looked just fine… except for maybe the clock, which was a teensy bit crooked. No doubt Captain Baker had knocked it askew during his search of the premises.
She moved the step stool across the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Angelica asked.
“The clock is crooked. It bugs me.”
“And you always say I’m the picky one.”
Tricia mounted the steps. As she grasped the clock, something slid out from behind it. “ Eureka!” In her haste to get down, she nearly fell.
“Watch out!” Angelica cautioned.
Tricia scooped up the folded papers and spread them out on the counter. They were indeed the missing pages from Pammy’s diary.
“Read, read!” Angelica encouraged.
Tricia scanned the words.
I’m so annoyed with Joe. At first he was angry about the baby, but I thought I’d wear him down. Libby can’t have children, after all. Why should he want to stick with her when I can give him what he wants?
Tricia gasped. “Good Lord! Joe-Libby! She’s talking about the Hirts.”
“You think little Eugenia’s father killed Pammy?” Angelica asked, aghast.
Tricia’s mind whirled with the implications. “Oh, sweet heaven! Eugenia was the baby who needed gender assignment. No wonder she didn’t want anyone to know her secret. Can you imagine how the kids at school would have tease
d her with that piece of news?”
“But she’s been out of school for years,” Angelica said.
“Public school, yes, but she’s still taking classes at Daniel Webster College in Nashua.”
“I’m sure she’s practically anonymous at college. Unless you live on campus, most people are.”
Tricia’s mind whirled with the implications. “It had to be Joe who killed Pammy, don’t you see?”
“That poor woman,” Angelica said, shaking her head in sympathy.
“Who, Pammy?”
“No, Libby. Married to a rat. Well, what else is new? I’ve married four rats.” Angelica nodded at the pages on the counter. “What are you going to do with them?”
Tricia sighed. “I certainly don’t want to confront Joe Hirt. I’m going to let Captain Baker take care of that.” She grabbed her purse from the counter and dug through it until she found the business card the captain had given her days before.
By the time the captain arrived more than an hour later, all the mini quiches had been baked and were nestled in plastic wrap in the café’s large freezer.
Tricia and Angelica were sitting at the counter in the dining area, eating tuna sandwiches and spooning up Angelica’s delicious potato-leek soup, when the cruiser arrived. Angelica let the captain in.
“Thank you for calling me, Ms. Miles. Somehow I had the impression you were going to try to deliver justice by yourself.”
“Not me. Last time out, I got my nose broken. I’m content to stand quietly along the sidelines.”
“I’m not sure I would have believed that a few hours ago.”
“I’m sorry if you thought I was interfering. I simply wanted to make sure that whoever killed Pammy was found.”
“Why don’t you have a cup of coffee while you look them over?” Angelica suggested.
This time, Baker took her up on her offer, settling at one of the counter’s stools. He quickly skimmed the pages. When he’d finished, he picked them up, waving them in Tricia’s direction. “This doesn’t prove Joe Hirt killed anyone. All it says is that he fathered a child, with a birth defect, out of wedlock. I’ll be speaking with him concerning this, but we’re still a long way away from proving he or anyone else killed Pamela Fredericks.”
Bookplate Special Page 21
