A Truth for a Truth (13 page)

“Stupid? I don’t know. Cocky? Apparently. She nearly got away with it.”

“And the minute Hildy realized an autopsy was about to take place, she would have marched home, removed the dip from her fridge, and taken it to a public Dumpster. Or somebody else’s garbage can. She certainly wouldn’t have left it there for days, finally tossing it out in the same garbage can where Win expired.”

“That’s what you would have done, because you’re the local expert on these things. Suspects aren’t always as crafty as you are.”

“Come on! That’s darned elementary, Watson.”

“It’s not enough evidence to give the nice lady a pass. Murderers behave in strange ways. If they didn’t, we might never catch them.”

“I know this won’t impress you, but this is not a woman who would commit murder.”

“No kidding? Call her lawyer and tell him Mrs. Dorchester’s off the hook.”

I pretended he hadn’t spoken. “Hildy’s entire life was tied up in Win’s position in the community. She wouldn’t jeopardize that. And yes, I know he had an affair, maybe even an ongoing one, although we only have Marie Grandower’s word about that. But Hildy knew about it, and she stayed with him because she liked her position too much.”

“He retired recently. What position?”

“Win was still a respected minister. They were probably going to stay here, because retiring where he’d had a church would guarantee he’d keep that respect and some authority with it.”

No sarcasm this time. “So what kind of respect would he have if word got out he was slipping between the sheets with a member of his former church?”

“We don’t know word would have gotten out.”

“We can be pretty sure—witness the scene at that party. Maybe your Mrs. Dorchester realized she wasn’t going to have respect after all, so she settled for revenge.”

He knew a lot, and I could tell he had been questioning people at the party. Sally, or Marie herself.

“That’s the other part of this,” I said. “Hildy’s the kind of person who would confess to stepping on an ant, or yanking a weed. Her life is so entwined with moral principle, she might pull off a murder, but never lying about it. And lacing shrimp dip with digoxin, when somebody else might eat it? That’s premeditated, dangerous, and completely outside the realm of possibility.”

He didn’t laugh, which was a nice change.

“I want you to find the real murderer,” I said.

“You mean
you
want to find the real murderer. That’s why you’re pumping me for information.”

“No, I don’t mean that. But let’s say I did. What else should I know?”

This time he did laugh.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll ask a few questions. Maybe I can get an answer from your grunts.”

“We could just enjoy the spring air.”

“Have you checked Win’s prescription bottle? Do you know for sure some of his pills are missing?”

“Yes to both.”

I nearly tripped. An answer? I figured this must be something they weren’t keeping secret, and he knew I’d hear it from Jack or Hildy.

“So his own meds were used to murder him?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Looks likely.”

“Who else was around at the party’s end who might have put those pills in the dip?”

“Your friend Hildy can tell you that.”

I knew she would. I moved on. “Who are your other suspects?”

“Nice try.”

I knew this was all I was going to get out of him. “How did you like San Francisco?”

“What?” He looked surprised.

“Your vacation to San Francisco.”

He looked wary. “I thought we were talking about the Dorchesters.”

Darn. This time I shrugged. “Are you going to interview Hildy today or tomorrow?”

It was a short stroll. We had circled around and were heading back toward the station. As I asked the question, I saw Jack’s Camry pulling in beside my minivan. I had my answer.

“Don’t bother with that one,” I said. “But I’m going to stay until Hildy’s finished. She’s going to need a friend. Just remember, she’s not a bit stupid. If she poisoned him, she wouldn’t have left that dip where it could be found.”

“No? By your own description, she’s the kind of person who would confess if she murdered somebody. Strikes me, leaving the dip where it could be found was as good as a confession.”

I hated that I’d given him ammunition. I was angry at myself for not thinking that through. I tried to regroup. “No, Hildy would be right up front. She wouldn’t trust something like that to luck.”

“We’ll see. And now, a word of advice. Watch yourself this time, okay? And no half-baked theories. You figure out something important, you come to me, and maybe I’ll listen. But I don’t want to chase down your shadows. I see enough of my own.”

At the door I stripped off the sweater and handed it back to him. “Hildy just lost her husband. Please remember she’s fragile.”

“That’s the way we like it.” He didn’t smile, and neither did I. He went inside, and I waited outside for Hildy and Jack.

I greeted them and told Hildy—pale as a ghost—I would be in the waiting area for as long as the interview took. She nodded, and I knew she was grateful. Then I settled myself in a chair, and pulled out my checkbook.

At some point in the past three months, I lost forty-two cents. I still, after an hour of calculating, counting on my fingers, and calculating again, hadn’t accounted for it when Hildy and Jack came out.

The fact that she came out sans handcuffs was a fine thing indeed. I threw my recalcitrant checkbook in my purse and got to my feet.

Hildy looked as if she’d been standing in high winds, and they’d blown everything out of her. I wanted to grab her hand and chafe it in my own to make sure blood was still flowing. Jack looked a little better, but nothing like happy.

We didn’t speak until we got outside.

“I can take Hildy home,” I told Jack. “I’d be happy to.”

“I’d like that,” Hildy said, before Jack could speak. “I want to talk to Aggie.”

Her voice sounded windblown, too. Jack looked grateful. He clasped a hand on Hildy’s shoulder and reminded her that if the police had been absolutely convinced they had a case, she would not be a free woman. Then he said good-bye to both of us and started toward his car.

“He grew up to be a fine young man.” Hildy turned to me. “Thank you for recommending him.”

“Let’s get you home.” I put my hand on her arm, and her skin felt clammy. I wished I’d kept Roussos’s sweater to drape over her shoulders.

The drive was almost silent. She said something about my missing dinner, and I told her I’d called home and they were eating without me. I assured her I wasn’t hungry, which was true until the moment I said it.

I parked in front of her house and followed her inside. There was no sign the police had conducted a search. She had probably spent hours cleaning up afterwards. It was a huge burden to add to sudden widowhood.

“Let me make you some dinner,” I said.

“There’s nothing in the refrigerator. They took it all. I haven’t felt like shopping for replacements.”

I wondered what she had been eating and vowed to make casseroles and bring them to her tomorrow, along with a bag of groceries. Maybe some of the women in the Women’s Society would help, as well.

“Let me run out and get something then,” I offered.

“I think they left canned goods. Too difficult to poison, I suppose. I’ll heat up some soup in a while, but thank you anyway.”

“What can I do for you, then?” I asked.

“Come sit a moment. I need to tell you something.”

For a moment, just a moment, I flashed on “confession.” Then I put it out of my mind. I really did not believe this woman was guilty. Even if she confessed, I still wouldn’t believe it. That was something of a revelation.

I joined her in the tastefully furnished living room. Hildy had once instructed me that when choosing furniture, a minister’s family needed to be sure their choices were both reasonably priced—or parishioners would think the minister was paid too much—and comfortable—so that anybody who dropped by would feel welcome. I might be welcome this evening, but I sure felt uncomfortable.

“This could wait,” I said, after Hildy pulled a pillow behind her back, and rested her head against the sofa. “That must have been draining.”

“No, I thought about this before that terrible interview with the detective. And I’ve come to a conclusion. I know you’ve been involved in several murder cases, and you seem to have a talent for finding murderers. But Aggie, I’m going to ask you to stay out of this one. You’ve dealt so kindly with me, and with Win’s memory, as well, and you’ll be blessed for that. But I can’t ask more of you. You can’t be tainted by what’s happening to me.”

I should have expected this. Hildy was still taking care of others. Even though her entire future was in jeopardy, she wanted to be sure that I would be all right. I felt my first real surge of affection for her. Yes, she could be overbearing, too certain she was right, too willing to instruct when it wasn’t wanted or needed. But saying she had a good heart was a terrible understatement. This was a woman who genuinely cared about the welfare of others.

So how could I, the wife of her husband’s successor, be any different?

I took her hand and rubbed it, the way I’d wanted to at the station. “Don’t ask me to stay out of this and leave you to face everything alone, Hildy. Whatever you have to go through in the coming weeks, I’ll go through it with you. Don’t forget, your church is my church. Your friends are my friends. The religion that tells you to take care of others is my religion, too.”

She was silent, but her eyes filled with tears. I squeezed her hand. “Tomorrow we’ll talk about what to do next. Have some soup and get some sleep. Or come back to the parsonage and let us take care of you.”

“I’ll be fine here.” Hildy enclosed my hand in hers. “Thank you, Aggie.”

I told her everything was going to be okay, but on the way home I didn’t have a clue how to make sure I was right.

Last year the
Flow
, our local newspaper, put the story of a local farmer who grew a potato that resembled the Virgin Mary on page one, and the Minnesota bridge collapse on page two. The
Flow
will never replace the
Washington Post
or the
Boston Globe
in my heart.

Nevertheless, on the morning after I’d assured Hildy I was on her side, I sat alone and bleary-eyed at the breakfast table, drinking a second cup of coffee while I tried to focus on our local headlines. I had slept poorly, thoughts of Hildy in an orange jumpsuit whizzing through my head. By the time the rest of the family got up, I had baked a blueberry coffee cake, cleaned the kitchen again, and made the day’s grocery list. Now they were gone, and I pondered going back to bed.

With no enthusiasm, I scanned stories about a summit meeting and a local debate by representatives of our two major political parties on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Debate made me think about Deena and wonder, again, if I was doing the right thing by not confronting the issue of Stephen Collins head-on.

At the bottom of the page I zipped through an article about a hit-and-run that had resulted in the death of a former Emerald Springs resident. I had nearly turned to the comics, when the woman’s name jumped off the page at me.

“Ellen Hardiger.”

The name seemed familiar, although I couldn’t remember why. I got the church directory out of the drawer by the telephone and flipped to the
H
s on my way back to the table. No Hardiger. I was relieved, although not very. Some poor woman named Ellen Hardiger had died, whether she was a member of our congregation or not.

I went back to read the article more carefully. I was finishing my last swallow when I realized why the name had grabbed my attention. According to the article, Ellen Hardiger had been the director of nursing at Russell House.

Ellen Hardiger had spoken to me after Win’s memorial service. Hadn’t she even said she planned to stick around to see him buried?

I read the article one more time, then I set the paper down. Ellen Hardiger was a runner. Yesterday morning she had gone for a run on a rural road outside of town, and somebody had hit and killed her instantly. The police had no leads, and were asking anybody with information to come forward immediately. The
Flow
reported that Ellen had been wearing headphones connected to an MP3 player, and the police thought she might have strayed into the car’s path without hearing it approach.

According to the article, Ellen was seventy-three. She had run for more than forty years, although a former colleague and friend, Florence Everett, reported that these days, she hadn’t run far or fast.

I wondered how the police could seriously believe that a woman who had been running on the side of the road for as many years as Ellen would make the mistake of turning up the volume on her headphones so she couldn’t hear a car approach. Granted, some of the new hybrids were nearly silent, but on a deserted road, wouldn’t anybody who saw a woman along the edge swerve into the next lane to avoid her? Since nobody else had come forward, most likely the road
had
been deserted and the lanes wide open.

Was there a connection here to Win’s death?

I’d had one brief conversation with Ellen, and I’d nearly forgotten it. Just because she had come to town to hear Win preach, then stayed on for his memorial service and lengthened her stay to make certain he was properly buried didn’t mean there was any link between Win’s murder and her fatal accident.

Of course hit-and-runs aren’t always accidents, are they? Vehicular homicide is a convenient way to kill. Particularly in the early morning on a deserted rural road.

I wasn’t going to let this go. I could no more ignore this development than I could serve a steak dinner to my vegetarian family. And I could start with her former colleague. This time when I got up, I pulled out our local white pages and looked for
Everett
. There were four listed, all preceded by initials or men’s names. The first two didn’t turn up a Florence, but the third one did, although she told me she preferred Flo. I told her who I was and asked if we could talk in person. She gave me directions to her house, and told me to come soon, since she was working the night shift this week and needed to get to bed.