The Time for Murder Is Meow

by Toni LoTempio

  He shot me a sheepish grin. “Yeah, okay. But you have to admit, it’s sort of the same situation.”

  Abruptly I thrust the book into his hands. “Okay, then. You look at it. It won’t seem as much of an invasion of her privacy if you read it.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  Gary pulled out a chair and settled himself at the table. I busied myself at the sink, throwing the congealed and cold eggs out and washing out the bowls, because it was a sure bet Gary wasn’t going to continue with his chef duties anytime soon.

  After a few minutes he said, “This goes back years. Your aunt made her first entry when she was seventeen.”

  I chuckled. “Aunt Matilda always did come late to the party. Most girls start diaries when they’re in fourth grade.”

  He cast me a quick glance over his shoulder. “Is that when you started yours?”

  “No, fifth—” I stopped, realizing how easily I’d stepped into that trap and stuck my tongue out at him.

  He continued flipping pages. “Not a lot of excitement in your aunt’s life. It’s mostly church stuff, and socials, and, oh, wow! She planned a church event when she was twenty-one. Guess event planning runs in your family’s bloodline, Shell.” He flipped a few more pages, and then let out a whistle. “Here’s an interesting entry.” He glanced up to meet my gaze. “Her first mention of a man.”

  Curious, I moved closer. “Who?”

  “Doesn’t say, just gives an initial. ‘Today R and I went to the movies. He wanted to see an action picture but finally agreed to the romantic comedy I suggested. Later on, we went for a soda at Parker’s.’” He flipped a few more pages and read a few more passages out loud, all of which hinted at a burgeoning romance between my aunt and this mysterious R. Gary let out a cry: “Here’s something interesting. Come look at this.”

  I didn’t need any further urging. I went and peered over his shoulder and read:

  Today I thought R might ask me to marry him. Instead I find out he’s been two-timing me with Amelia. That witch pretended to be my friend, and all the while had her sights set on my boyfriend. I don’t see how I can ever forgive either of them.

  “Oh my God,” I cried. “This must be the reason for the feud! Mother said it was over a man. Amelia stole Aunt Matilda’s boyfriend away from her.” Suddenly I started to laugh.

  Gary looked at me. “What’s so funny?”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking about the last time I saw Amelia. She certainly didn’t appear to be the man-stealing type.”

  “Maybe she just didn’t age well,” said Gary. He flipped another page and a faded photograph slid out and onto the floor. He snatched it up quickly and we looked at it. From the style of dress, I figured it must have been taken in the early fifties. My aunt would have been in her twenties then. The photo depicted two women, dressed stylishly, their hair worn in long bobs. Standing between them was a tall man with a high forehead, wide eyes, and a killer smile. I frowned as I looked at the photo. Something about the man struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t think why.

  Gary flipped the photo over. “Me, Amelia, and R before the church social, September 9, 1951,” he read. “Which one’s your aunt, I wonder?”

  “I think the one on the left. She looks like other photos I’ve seen of Aunt Tillie when she was young.” I stared at the other woman. “Amelia wasn’t half bad herself.” I tapped at the photo. “Wish I knew more about this R guy, though.”

  “Well, let’s see what this other book has to offer.”

  Gary set the diary aside and pulled the other volume from the box. He looked at the cover. “Fox Hollow High, Class of 1947. This must be your aunt’s high school yearbook. Man, she kept it all these years?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t even tell you where my high school diploma is.”

  I gave him an impish grin. “Are you sure you’ve got one?” As he sputtered, I reached for the book. “It does seem odd, though, that she’d lock her diary and this book away in such a—a unique hiding place.”

  “She obviously didn’t want to part with it, but the memories it brought up were too painful.”

  I nodded. “Maybe.” I set the book down on the table and started thumbing through the pages. It was typical high school stuff. Lots of candid photos, sports, different clubs. I looked carefully through the various photos but didn’t see any of those three in any of them.

  Gary noticed my disappointed look and patted my shoulder. “Maybe they weren’t very active in clubs,” he said. “But for sure you’ll find them in the class photos; unless, of course, they were absent the day they were taken.”

  “Thanks for the encouragement.” I found the section on class photos and went immediately to the Ws. Matilda Washburn’s and Amelia Witherspoon’s photographs weren’t far apart from each other and I had to admit, they were both very pretty. Gary was right—Amelia hadn’t aged well. No doubt her disposition could account for some of that.

  “Since we only know the boy’s first initial, R, we’ll have to look through these photos,” I said and sighed. “And there were almost a thousand kids in this class.”

  Gary flipped a few pages. “Say, maybe not. Look at this photo. He looks like the guy.”

  I looked, and indeed the figure Gary pointed to was the same man in the photograph with my aunt and Amelia. I sucked in a breath. The man’s most prominent feature wasn’t discernible in the faded photograph, but there was no missing it in the formal portrait.

  Big bug eyes. Like a frog’s.

  I looked at the name below the photo.

  Robert Lawrence Peabody.

  Well! That explained a lot!

  Nineteen

  I made a few quick calls and learned that Lawrence Peabody, aka Robert Lawrence Peabody, breakfasted this time nearly every day at Minnie’s House of Pancakes, out on Route 81. Gary needed no further urging, since our breakfast plans had long since been abandoned. After we both showered and changed, we set out in Gary’s convertible to not only get breakfast but hopefully some answers as well.

  We had no trouble finding Minnie’s. The building was made of gray stone with a huge stack of pancakes perched on the roof right next to an enormous sign. The parking lot was jammed with cars, and we had to drive around for about fifteen minutes before Gary spied an SUV pulling out of a space at the farthest end of the lot. The entrance was obscured by a sea of people; I finally asked a tall man wearing Bermuda shorts holding a small baby in his arms, and he told us that we had to give our names at the register inside, which meant that we had to push through a veritable wall of people.

  “This place either serves food on a par with Wolfgang Puck or no one wants to cook their own breakfast anymore,” grumbled Gary. “And this is a weekday.”

  “It’s what the natives would call a tourist hotspot.”

  Gary cut me an eye roll and then sighed as he looked at the sea of people clustered around the building’s railing. “You might as well wait here. No sense both of us getting crushed.”

  “Okay,” I said. “While you’re at it, see if you can spot our guy anywhere. Maybe he’s at the counter?”

  Gary’s eyes narrowed. “Even if he’s not there, we’re having breakfast,” he growled, and then turned on his heel and started to elbow his way into the restaurant.

  I walked over to the edge of the railing surrounding the building and leaned against it, letting my gaze rove over the crowd. After a few minutes, I saw the front door open and a group of people exit—a young couple with a toddler, an elderly man and woman holding hands, a group of chattering girls who looked to be not more than seventeen, and at the very end of the conga line, Larry Peabody himself.

  “Mr. Peabody,” I cried out. He paused and looked around, apparently trying to figure out who’d called his name. “Mr. Peabody,” I called again and this time I waved.

  Larry’s head swiveled in my direction and his gaze locked with mine. His lips twisted into a sneer, and then he deliberately turned on his heel and pushed past a young couple to walk briskly
down the steps and into the parking lot. I glanced toward the doorway. Through the plate glass I could see there was a line at the register, and Gary was nowhere in sight. After only a moment’s hesitation, I hurried down the steps too. I paused for a moment to get my bearings and looked around. I saw Larry heading toward the far end of the lot, not far from where Gary had parked. I quickened my stride, but the old guy walked darn fast. I was halfway across the lot when I saw him get into a dark maroon sedan about three spaces away from Gary’s convertible. Geez, did everyone in this town own dark maroon sedans? I broke into a run and reached him just as he backed out of the space.

  “Mr. Peabody,” I yelled. “Please wait. I need to speak to you.”

  He lowered his window and leaned out, his face as dark as a thundercloud. “I don’t believe we have anything to say to each other, Ms. McMillan.”

  I positioned myself directly in front of his car. “Oh, I think we do.”

  “Get away,” he growled. “I’ve no qualms about running you over.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, before I have a chance to ask you about your relationship with my aunt, and Amelia.”

  His frown deepened. “Relationship? What relationship?”

  I glanced around the parking lot. “I’d prefer to have this conversation in private.”

  “Really?” He sneered. “I’d prefer not to have it at all. Now, move!”

  “You led my aunt to believe you wanted to marry her, but you were dating Amelia,” I burst out. “Just how serious was that relationship, Mr. Peabody? And how long did it go on? Until Amelia’s death?”

  His eyes narrowed, but his face paled a bit. He waved one hand in an imperious manner. “What sort of nonsense are you babbling?” he said, but his tone lacked conviction.

  I moved from the front of the car over to the driver’s window and leaned inside. “I found my aunt’s diary,” I said. “I think it’s time you and I had a little talk.”

  For a few moments Larry didn’t say one word, he just sat staring straight ahead through the windshield. The knuckles of his hands were white from gripping the steering wheel, and I could see a muscle working in his jaw. “Diary, huh?” he said at last. He turned his head slightly and glared at me. “My house, two p.m. Be on time.” Then he shifted the car into gear and took off, tires squealing.

  I stood for a moment, watching the sedan as it sped out of the parking lot and took the corner sharply, then I started back to the restaurant. Gary was leaning against the railing, twirling a small plastic box in his hands. He cut me an anxious look as I approached. “Let me guess,” he said. He motioned with his chin toward the exit. “That was Peabody.”

  “Yep. He was all set to ignore me until I mentioned my aunt’s diary. He told me to be at his house at two o’clock.”

  One of Gary’s eyebrows winged skyward. “And that’s a good thing, right?”

  I set my jaw. “One way or another, yes.”

  “Good.” He jumped as the pager lit up in his hand, and then eyed me. “We’re still having breakfast, right?”

  My own stomach growled. “Sure, we might as well.”

  “Good. I hate interviewing suspects on an empty stomach.”

  • • •

  Robert Lawrence Peabody’s house was located on a side street near the edge of town, a narrow two-story structure. Gary parked his convertible in front and we walked up the short walkway onto the latticed porch and rang the bell. It echoed eerily through the house. We waited a few minutes and Gary was just about to ring again when the door jerked open and Larry stood there.

  “Right on time, I see,” he said. He moved aside to let us enter. “Come in.”

  We stepped inside the dimly lighted foyer and Larry ushered us into a large sitting room that had a long sofa, a love seat, and a La-Z-Boy recliner grouped around a low-slung coffee table. A massive flat-screen TV took up almost one entire wall, and the other had what appeared to be a working fireplace. The older man settled himself into the recliner and motioned us to take seats. We settled onto the love seat, and then I reached into my tote bag, withdrew my aunt’s diary, and laid it on the coffee table.

  Larry stared at it for a few minutes without saying anything. Then he said, very softly, “That was your aunt’s?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “You found it in her house?”

  “Not exactly.” Gary stretched his long legs out underneath the coffee table. “Purrday found it.”

  “Huh?” Larry looked puzzled. “Percy, you said?”

  “Purrday,” I corrected. “My aunt’s cat.”

  “Oh?” The angry expression melted away, and he barked out a short laugh. “That figures, that Tillie would have a cat as smart as she was.” He leaned back and steepled his fingers underneath his chin. “What do you want to know?”

  I scooted to the edge of the love seat. “You were the reason for the feud between Amelia and my aunt,” I said.

  He considered this a moment. “I guess I was.” He blew out a long breath. “I never meant for any of that to happen.”

  “Why don’t you tell me just what did happen? From reading some of my aunt’s entries, it appears she was madly in love with you—she expected you to ask her to marry you.”

  “Did she? Sometimes I wish I had.” He stared off into space for several minutes before he spoke again. “Your aunt was a real beauty back in the day. You look quite a bit like her, Ms. McMillan. Anyway, we dated all through junior and senior year in high school. We were quite the item.”

  “I gathered. How did Amelia figure into this?”

  “Matilda and Amelia became friends in high school; they belonged to the Business Club, and they had a lot of the same interests.” He pulled at the lobe of one ear. “Amelia wasn’t too good at making friends, so she spent a lot of time with Tillie. Once we started dating, Tillie didn’t have as much time for Amelia. I knew it irked her, but—” He spread his hands. “What could I do?”

  “The notation in my aunt’s diary said that she thought you were going to ask her to marry you. It was dated a few years after your high school graduation.”

  “Tillie and Amelia both went to business school, and I went on to college,” Larry said. “NYU is only an hour away by train, and the business school they went to was located two towns over, so we still kept on seeing each other. During my senior year at college I was planning to ask Tillie to marry me—I even went to look at diamonds one weekend. While I was shopping around, I ran into Amelia.”

  My eyebrows rose and I gave Gary a sidelong look. He looked surprised as well.

  “You just ran into her?” I asked. “That seems sort of odd.”

  “Looking back on all that now, I can see that it was, but then, when I was twenty-one and foolish . . . Anyway, I spent the day with Amelia. When she wanted to be, she could be damn charming. I found I enjoyed her company, so much so that I asked her out.”

  “I assume you abandoned your plans for an engagement ring for my aunt?”

  “I put it on hold,” he confessed. “Anyway, Tillie was busy with her new job—she worked a lot of weekends. So when I was home and she was busy, I-I started seeing Amelia. Before I knew it, I was head over heels for her. She kept pressing me to let Tillie down gently, and to announce our engagement, but I guess deep down there was a part of me that still wasn’t quite sure what I wanted. I kept putting it off, and she kept getting annoyed with me.”

  “I see,” I said tightly. “How did my aunt find out you were dating Amelia? From the notation, it didn’t seem as if you told her.”

  “I didn’t. Amelia invited me to her house one evening, and one thing led to another. We ended up, oh, heck, I’m sure I don’t have to draw you a picture,” he said roughly, pulling his hand through his hair. “What I didn’t know was that Amelia had invited Tillie over for a sleepover when Tillie got off work. She phoned her late that afternoon and said she had an errand to run for her mother, but she’d leave the back door open and Tillie should just come on up to th
e bedroom and make herself at home.”

  “Oh my God.” I put my hand to my mouth as I realized just what Amelia had done. “She caught the two of you in a compromising position.”

  “To say the least. She told me she wanted nothing more to do with me, and then she blasted Amelia and told her that she was no friend of hers. Amelia tried to tell her that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, things just worked out that way, but . . . Tillie wasn’t having any of it. She never spoke to either of us again, not unless she had to.”

  I shot the man a disgusted look. “I can’t say I blame her,” I said.

  “Of course, later I realized Amelia had set the whole thing up, and I dumped her,” he went on. “I finished college and moved away, out to Arizona, where I met my wife. Ona is a wonderful woman. She changed my life in every way.” He gestured toward some framed photographs on the fireplace mantel. “We have two wonderful children, and three grandchildren. We’re happy. There’s no way I could ever endanger that.”

  “Endanger that?” Gary frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Larry looked at both of us. “What do I mean? I mean blackmail. Pure and simple.”

  I gasped. “Amelia blackmailed you? Over what? Surely not what happened with my aunt?”

  He shook his head. “No, not that. That was old news, over a long time ago. When my father took ill, I had to come back East to take over the family business. In the beginning, I would just fly in for the weekends. The kids were still living at home, and there was a lot to be done, packing up our house in Tempe to move back here. Ona was great. She took care of all those details so I could concentrate on what needed to be done here. Well, one weekend, who should come knocking at my door but Amelia. She’d heard I was in town and wanted to offer her sympathies about my father. I figured she was sincere, so I accepted her apologies and her offer to help.” He let out a long breath. “You have to remember, I was under a lot of stress and wasn’t thinking clearly. One thing led to another and before I knew it . . .”