by Maia Chance
“It’s an outrage!” Roy cried.
For my part, you could’ve knocked me down with a false eyelash. Because if George and Fenton were the sole heirs—and Fenton had been blipped off—George was looking fouler by the second.
And … he was laughing. Great, big, raspy laughs and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a spot of knee-slapping as well.
“I fail to see the humor in this,” Rosemary snapped. “Mr. Ackroyd”—I assumed this was the lawyer’s name—“what will become of Fenton’s half of the estate?”
“Well, that, of course, is the interesting part—from a legal perspective, I mean to say. Fenton did not have a will, and there is some legal precedent in the state of Ohio to conclude that his half of Judith Goddard’s estate, as well as the remainder of his money in trust, shall pass in equal shares to you, Mrs. Rogerson, and George.”
“Outrageous!” Roy cried. “She didn’t leave me a thin dime? Why, at the very least, I have a claim to that caretaker’s cottage, you know. I’ve lived there for years. Surely there is some way we might—let me see that will with my own eyes. Could it be a—a counterfeit?”
“Oh no,” the lawyer said. “This will has been locked in the safe-deposit box belonging to my firm for more than one year, after Mrs. Goddard revised it in September of 1922.”
“How about that, sis?” George said in a needling tone. “I’ve got three-quarters of the pie. I guess this means I get to call all the shots about what happens to the estate now, doesn’t it? Not that you’d know how to manage, anyway. I mean, you can’t even figure out how to bake a pie—”
“Oh, stop it, stop it, you horrible beast!” Rosemary screamed. There were stampeding footsteps, and then a door slammed.
Ralph, getting smoothly to his feet, whispered to me, “She could be coming upstairs. Let’s skate.” He helped me up and we hurried out of the nursery.
Reaching the living room via the back stairs without any run-ins, I spotted Berta, still flanked by the ski club co-presidents. Pickard was glaring at Strom as Strom said something that made Berta laugh.
I tugged her sleeve. She was still holding Cedric in my handbag. He was asleep, but he woke and perked his ears at me in greeting. “Sorry to cut the rodeo short,” I whispered, “but it’s time for our exit.”
“Woodby,” Ralph said loudly, holding out a hand to Pickard. “Ralph Woodby.”
Pickard shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Woodby. I’m Daniel Pickard, and this big old cadaver here—” He slapped Strom hard on the back. “—is Peer Strom.”
“You must forgive my friend,” Strom said, shaking Ralph’s hand. “He skipped school the day we learned about good manners. You’re Mrs. Woodby’s husband, then. Funny, she didn’t strike me as the sort to have a husband.”
“Oh, she’s not,” Ralph said, giving me a wink. “But here we are, all the same.”
“You in the detective line of work, too?”
“Nope. I leave that to the good old ball and chain. I’m in the baking business myself.”
“Baking?” Pickard repeated. “You sure don’t look like a baker. Matter of fact, you have the look of a sportsman. Tell me, Mr. Woodby, do you ski?”
As the men talked, Berta prodded me and whispered, “What about the will, Mrs. Woodby?”
“Success,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “I know everything.”
Pickard and Strom traded quick looks. Even though Ralph was saying something, they’d overheard.
Rats.
Berta turned to the men. “It was a delight to see you both again, but I am afraid I must take my leave.”
“But—” Strom said.
Pickard said, “—you haven’t finished your cookies.”
Ralph, Berta, and I were already walking toward the door.
After a stop at the coat closet to gather up our things, we stole out of Goddard Farm and stuffed ourselves into the Speedwagon’s cab.
25
“The shopkeeper at the general store said Sweet Meadow Dairy is on the highway toward Waterbury,” I said as Ralph maneuvered the Speedwagon down the slick road. “On a road called—what was it? Oh yes—Guildhall Road. He said we couldn’t miss it. Let’s go there next.”
“Okay,” Ralph said.
“What did you learn about Judith’s will?” Berta asked me. “Is it truly still necessary to pursue the mystery of those marked milk bottles?”
“Maybe not. I mean to say, I can’t imagine how the two deaths could possibly be related to milk bottles. But on the other hand, I must see this bottle business to the end. It’s just so very odd.”
I filled Berta in on the details of Judith Goddard’s will. It didn’t take long. The will had been, just like the woman, brisk and brutal. “In a nutshell,” I said, “George appears to have the best murder motive in the world.”
“If he had any idea of what the will said in advance, that is.”
“Yes. And since Maynard Coburn wasn’t even mentioned in the will—it hadn’t been altered for more than a year, long before Judith and Maynard were an item—he couldn’t have expected to gain anything financially from her death. I think we might be able to eliminate him as a suspect.”
“I would not go that far, Mrs. Woodby. Maynard could have motives that are not financial. We still have not gotten to the bottom of the nature of his relations with Patience Yarker, for instance, and there is still the faint possibility that he runs rum down from the border.”
“You didn’t mention that part,” Ralph said.
“It’s a long shot,” I said. “Based on a tip from an unreliable source—a seedy sportswriter.” I filled in the details for Ralph.
Next, I told Berta about the letter from Juliet Vanderlyn in George’s wastebin. “As suspected, he’s a scoundrel.”
“Poor Patience,” Berta said with a sigh.
“You know,” Ralph said, “I’m just here to lend a hand, but aren’t you jumping to conclusions about this Patience girl? I mean, she doesn’t look like she’s in the club.”
“Not yet, anyway,” I said.
“These things take time,” Berta said.
“And, well,” Ralph went on, “she wouldn’t be the first female to pretend that kind of thing to get what she wanted.”
“What an awful thing to say!” I cried.
“Mr. Oliver, how could you?” Berta said.
Ralph hunched over the steering wheel, pressed his lips tight, and kept mum for the remainder of the drive.
After we had motored alongside the frozen river for four or five miles, a farm came into view off to the side. There was a trim farmhouse, a red hay barn, and another long, low, white barn that looked like the sort of place you’d stash a few dozen cows. The steep fields around the farm were white with snow, terminating in forest.
“Look—here’s a road sign,” I said. A hand-lettered, black-and-white sign read GUILDHALL ROAD.
Ralph drove up the narrow road, following tire ruts in the snow. He parked in front of the farmhouse, behind a Willys-Overland pickup. A curly-haired young man in dungarees, a thick blue wool sweater, and snow boots came out onto the porch. He carried a pipe, his frozen breath mushrooming around him.
Berta lowered her window.
The man came up. “You folks lost?” he asked.
“No,” Berta said. “We are looking for Sweet Meadow Dairy.”
“That’s me.”
“Oh, good.”
“You wanting to buy some milk or butter?”
“As lovely as that sounds, no,” Berta said. She passed over one of our agency cards. “We are private detectives, looking into the Goddard deaths—”
“Terrible business.”
“Indeed. I wonder if you could answer a few questions.”
“Don’t see why not.” The man gave his pipe a bemused puff. “May as well enjoy the fresh air while I might.” He squinted up at the white sky. “Storm’s comin’.”
Berta told him how she’d happened to see mysterious grease pencil markings on one�
��and only one—bottle at the Maple Hill general store that morning. “Do you make such marks on your milk bottles, Mr.—?”
“Tunkett. No, I don’t mark up my bottles. Why would I do a fool thing like that?”
Tunkett seemed relaxed and honest. If he was telling the truth—and I thought he was—that meant someone else was marking those milk bottles, after they were delivered to the general store.
“What time do you deliver the milk?” Berta asked.
“Eight o’clock in the morning, right after Green—he’s the shopkeeper—opens the place up. I bring a crate of a dozen in through the back, like clockwork. Then I pick up the crate from the day before and any empty bottles, and I’m on my way.”
Leaning forward to be seen around Berta, I said, “Do you know a man by the name of Titus Staples, by any chance?”
“Titus? Oh, sure. I know Titus—well, I mean to say, I know of him. Can’t say I’ve ever spoken two words to the fellow. He’s something in the way of a recluse, you know.”
“Where does he live?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t go paying calls on Titus, ma’am,” Tunkett said. “He’s, well, he’s not too sociable.”
“It’s terribly important that we speak with him.”
“Suit yourself, but don’t forget, folks, you’re in the country now.” Tunkett was eyeing Ralph, as though attempting to size up his bear-and-bootlegger-wrestling prowess.
“Oh, we know,” Berta said archly. “It is ever so much safer than New York City.”
Tunkett rattled off directions to Titus Staples’s place, which entailed going back through Maple Hill, going a mile more, and then turning onto Concord Road. “When you see an abandoned sugar shack,” he said, “you’ll know you’re there.”
“Pardon me, but what is a sugar shack?” I asked.
“Building for boiling up maple sap for syrup.”
“Ah,” I said. “Thank you very much for the directions.”
“Sure. And you folks’d best get yourselves inside in an hour or so, or you risk getting stranded. We’re in for some weather.”
* * *
“Well?” I said as Ralph steered the Speedwagon away from the farm. “Shall we pay a call upon Titus Staples and ask him about those milk bottles?” I looked back and forth between Ralph and Berta.
“Why not?” Ralph said.
“I do not know,” Berta said. “He could be dangerous. He was vicious about wrenching the bottle from my hands.”
He had been, and the thought of confronting him made my skin prickle. “When has danger ever stopped you?” I asked.
“I am fatigued, Mrs. Woodby. I feel brittle and so very cold.”
She had looked plenty warm in the company of Pickard and Strom, but I kept that observation to myself.
“Berta,” I said, “how would you like it if Ralph and I visited Titus Staples without you?”
“I would like that very much,” Berta said. Her relief was palpable. “I could take your canine if you like.”
“Dandy.”
Ralph and I let Berta and Cedric out in front of the Old Mill Inn and continued on our way.
“Is Mrs. Lundgren okay?” Ralph asked me.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. She’s … tired. Of everything. Just between you and me, I wouldn’t be surprised if she…” I looked out the window, at the smear of bare branches and interminable white.
“What?”
“Well, she always has suitors, wherever she goes, and she’s never taken anyone seriously. There’s Jimmy, of course—”
“The Ant?” Ralph said roughly. He wasn’t fond of gangster types.
“Yes, and as odd as it seems, she has preferred him above all others. But now, well … I’m afraid she is done with adventure. I think she wants to settle down.”
“Huh,” Ralph said, keeping his eyes on the road.
* * *
We motored steadily along River Road, leaving Maple Hill behind. The road followed the frozen white river, and on either side of us, hills rose up, covered in grayish-brown puffs of dormant trees. Ice streaked high granite outcroppings. The sky sank heavier with each passing minute, and I tasted the dusty, metallic air that foretold snow. However, only a few aimless flakes floated across the windshield.
I cuddled close to Ralph. I could feel his heat and his life even through our combined layers of wool and fur. I asked myself if it really mattered if he thought the idea of marriage was a joke, if we could simply be, together like this, from time to time. I could store happiness up, like a cactus stores water. Then I could survive without promises of forever.
Presently, a road branched off to the left.
Ralph braked slowly so as not to skid.
I peered up the road, which followed a tight ravine before twisting out of sight into the trees.
“Do you suppose this is the Concord Road the dairy farmer mentioned?” I asked. Why was my voice so quivery? “It isn’t marked.”
“We’ve gone about a mile—and he said the turnoff was a mile out of town—and I haven’t seen any other roads.” Ralph turned up the road, but promptly braked again. “Tire tracks.”
“So there are. Two sets. Wait for a moment.”
I climbed out of the truck, went over to the tire tracks, and bent to inspect them. Then I got back into the truck. “They appear to be from the same vehicle.”
“Someone came and went, then.”
“You mean Titus came and went.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, if he isn’t home, then perhaps we ought to turn back.”
The truck was still idling. Ralph dipped his face to look into my eyes. “Kid, if this is giving you the jumps, then sure, we can turn ba—”
“The jumps?” I laughed, sounding distressingly like a cockatoo. “Silly darling, of course I haven’t got the jumps. Please.” I swept a hand in the direction of the windshield. “Proceed.”
“I’ll keep you safe, you know,” Ralph said, motoring carefully up the road. “You don’t need to be scared when you’re with me.”
26
The woods pressed in. We rounded a bend, and then another, gaining a little elevation, and then the road opened out onto a snowy meadow fringed with feathery bare trees. A lone grayish building stood at the edge of the trees, with a metal chimney and small windows.
“That must be the abandoned sugar shack the farmer mentioned,” I said. “But where is Titus’s house? Or do you suppose he lives in that shack? It appears a little … drafty.”
Ralph was studying our surroundings with keen eyes. “The vehicle tracks go all the way to the side of the shack, in front of that door, see, and then circle back this way. I don’t know if Titus lives in this joint or not, but that’s where our mystery vehicle went.”
We rolled closer to the shack. There were no signs of life, and when Ralph parked a few yards from the shack and switched off the engine, the silence around us spread, cushiony and vast.
“I’ll take a look,” Ralph said, opening his door. The hinges groaned.
“I’m coming, too.” I scrambled out after him, and he held out a hand for me as I hopped to the ground.
We went toward the shack’s door.
“Footprints!” I whispered, pointing to the ground. “Lots of them.”
“They look like they’re all from the same person,” Ralph said. “Someone who made two or three trips back and forth from his vehicle.”
My eyes swept the line of trees behind the shack. The woods were serene, and the maple trees were too slender to conceal a human being. And yet, couldn’t a person be crouched behind one of those big humps that were perhaps snowy rock walls or boulders?
My eyes drifted up the treed slope and—oh golly—there was a ramshackle little cabin up there on a sort of outcropping, with smoke pluming from its crooked chimney and sullying the sky. I supposed we’d missed it because of the way it was burrowed into the landscape, more like a rodent’s nest than a human habitation.
“Um, Ralph?” I croaked.
“Yeah?” His hand was on the sugar shack’s door handle.
“There is Titus’s house.”
He followed my pointed finger.
“There’s smoke,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Which would suggest he’s at home.”
“It would.”
“He wouldn’t be too pleased about us snooping in his sugar shack.”
“Likely not, no.”
“Then we’d better dash, because here he comes!”
A lanky form was hastening down the slope through the trees, his red hat vivid against the brown-and-white landscape.
Ralph and I ran to the Speedwagon.
“Hey!” Titus shouted, his voice muffled by the snow. “Stop!”
I scrambled up into the cab, and Ralph leapt in after me and slammed the door. The engine gurgled to life, and we lurched into Drive.
“Oh golly!” I said, craning my head to keep my eyes on Titus. Ralph turned the truck. “Hurry! He’s running now—he has a rifle—”
BLAM!
“That was his rifle,” I whispered. “Are we hit?”
“Don’t think so.” Ralph pressed harder on the gas. “Soon as we round that first bend up there, we’ll be out range of—
BLAM—ding!
“He hit the bumper!” I shouted. “The absolute nerve!” I cast an angry glance into the rearview mirror. I saw Titus, a tiny, hunched figure with a rifle braced against his shoulder—
Then we were swooshing around the bend. Safe.
I couldn’t seem to unclench my hands from the edge of the dashboard. “I suppose it’s pretty obvious that Titus Staples is hiding something in that sugar shack of his, otherwise he wouldn’t be going around shooting at—at innocent people who are only having a quick peek! Whatever he’s hiding in there, well, to begin with, it must have to do with that secret code written on the bottoms of those milk bottles he collects every morning, and further, well, don’t you think it must have something to do with Maynard Coburn? Or Rosemary or Roy? Or maybe all three of them? Because Maynard might be a bootlegger, but Titus was also helping Roy with wine crates in his cellar and Roy did burn our dossier—and then there was the way Rosemary skulked out of the general store bright and early this morn—”
