A Truth for a Truth (25 page)

“Everything looks scrumptious,” I told her. “You did a beautiful job.”

Her eyes were sad. “I worked all day yesterday, and I’ve been here since six.”

I was so relieved she was speaking to me that I didn’t know what to say. I pulled myself together. “I would love some of that punch.”

“You’ll be the first.” She looked even sadder.

“I’m sure you’ll be swamped in a moment. People just don’t seem to be in a hurry to come inside.”

“None of the children are coming at all.”

I had to admit it seemed strange no children were here. I’d noticed it myself and wondered. “Maybe classes are taking longer than usual.”

“One of the teachers told Yvonne they would be serving the children outdoors today. A special treat, she said.”

“Oh, maybe they want this to be an adults-only event.”

She shook her head. “You’re certain you want
my
punch?”

“Of course I do. Who else’s would I want?”

“Anyone’s, it seems.” She picked up a cup.

I felt chastised, and for good reason. I started to apologize, then and there, but Hildy was looking into the distance.

“Anyone who isn’t accused of poisoning her husband,” she continued. “Anyone whose punch is safe to drink.”

I stared at her. “No . . .” I shook my head incredulously. “I’m sure that has nothing to do with it,” although even as I said it, I wondered. Could all these people possibly be staying away because they thought that they, like Win, might be poisoned by something Hildy had prepared with her own hands?

“Yes, it does,” Hildy said. “I heard a couple talking. People are afraid I might be planning to take out the whole congregation, like that crazy Jim Jones in Guyana with his poison Kool-Aid.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She lifted her chin. “I know what I heard.”

“Not you, Hildy,
you’re
not ridiculous. The sentiment. And I bet whoever said it was exaggerating.” Of course if this was true, it would explain why the sandwiches Yvonne had prepared had been eaten before landing on the table.

She poured punch in the glass and held it against her chest. “They said I had prepared the punch myself, and that nobody should assume it was safe. And here it is, looking so delicious in this beautiful punch bowl, and no one will even have a taste.”

I couldn’t help myself. My gaze drifted down to the bowl. Bathed in light from the nearest window, it seemed to wink malevolently at me, as if to take credit for scaring everyone away.

“Make mine a full cup,” I said. “And I believe I’ll stand right here and have several. All that smoke last night made me thirsty.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Of course I don’t. I’m being entirely selfish. I need punch, and lots of it.”

Hildy sighed and handed me the cup. I smiled at her, then I turned with my back to the table and made a point of drinking it, smacking my lips, as if I was actually living in a country where an audible concert of enjoyment was considered the height of good manners.

“Hildy,” I practically shouted, “this is the best punch I’ve ever had. I have got to have this recipe. What did you put in it?”

“Arsenic. Strychnine. Lye.”

She’d spoken low enough no one could have heard her words but me. I turned and glared. “Don’t you do this. There are always a couple of doubting Thomases. Don’t play to them.”

“My life has been a terrible failure.”

“I need more of this,” I said loudly, for everyone else’s ears. “I could drink the whole punch bowl dry.”

“You’ll have ample opportunity,” she said.

“Yvonne!” I waved with the resolve of a navy signal man. Yvonne, who was delivering another plate of sandwiches to the wolves, turned to stare at me. Yvonne was the mother of Hildy’s lawyer. She, of all people, would be on Hildy’s side.

She started over, then she saw my empty glass. She glanced at Hildy, then back at me, and suddenly I saw recognition dawn in her eyes.

“I am
so
thirsty,” she said at top volume while she was more than ten feet away. She began fanning herself. “Will you pour me a cup, too?”

Hildy’s eyes misted over, but she did. Yvonne downed it in one gulp. “I think I need some of your wonderful food to go with it,” she said. “Aggie, dear, will you make me a plate while I have another cup of Hildy’s fabulous punch?”

“I’ll make us both one.” I went to the end of the table and started distributing items on two pastel paper plates. Tiny quiches. More sandwiches. A mixture of spiced nuts and dried fruit. Vegetable crudités.

No shrimp dip, thank the good Lord. I’m loyal and faithful, but I’m not stupid.

I brought a plate back to Yvonne, and we stood side by side eating and laughing too loudly. When we had finished, we held out our glasses to Hildy and asked for another round.

Yvonne drank hers in one big swallow, although by now, she was looking both bloated and glassy-eyed. I waved her back to the kitchen, and I asked for yet another.

John Hammond came through the door and straight over to the table. He didn’t ask for punch. He circled the table and put his arms around Hildy for a long hug. Then he reached around her, once he’d released her, and poured his own cup. He held it out in toast, then drank it dry.

“I’ll have another, too,” I said, since more people were coming into the room. “John, will you fill my glass?”

By this time I’d had enough liquid to irrigate a grove of olive trees. I hoped that if and when I was able to turn over the drinking of the poison punch to willing members whose bladders were not yet stretched to capacity, I’d have a clear path to the downstairs restroom. There was no way I’d make it one step farther.

I saw Ed come into the room, and I beckoned wildly. He frowned, but he made his way in our direction. The room was beginning to fill up now. Some hardy souls were even hovering nearby, but as yet had not dived into the available goodies.

“Ed,” I said with unusual volume and exuberance, “you have to try this punch. Hildy made it, and it’s delicious.”

Ed’s no dummy. He understood immediately. He stepped up to the table and took a glass. “Make mine a double,” he boomed. “And pour me one for Teddy. She loves punch. I’ll take it outside.”

I could swear the room went silent for a moment. Nothing is louder than the complete absence of speech when a room’s been buzzing. I even thought I could hear atoms colliding or splitting, or whatever atoms do when they think nobody’s listening.

Then the noise began again, and more people started toward our table.

I recognized a choir member, a woman on the board, a man who trims the shrubs and plants our flowerbeds in spring. They got into line and held out cups for Hildy to fill.

Then, and only then, did I make my beeline for the door.

And just in the nick of time.

After that I didn’t have a chance to talk to Hildy again, but the reception was enough of a success that I hoped she felt vindicated and supported. I doubted it. Unfortunately, now she knew that some people in the church suspected her of her husband’s murder, at least enough not to take chances. I was sure the punch bowl had whispered doubts loudly enough to be heard, but punch bowl perfidy is hard to prove. Believe me, I’ve tried.

We had what was for our family, an uneventful afternoon. I didn’t find clues or question suspects. The board prez didn’t arrive to tell Ed that half the congregation thought his sermons were too intellectual and the other half thought they weren’t intellectual enough. Deena didn’t ask to have her tongue pierced, and Teddy didn’t tell her father all the answers on the
New York Times
crossword puzzle before he opened the paper.

Lucy arrived an hour before dinner with a panini grill a client had given her as a thank-you gift for selling his house. Lucy doesn’t cook, so she offered to give it to me if I would make paninis for dinner and invite her to stay. Since she has a standing invitation to dinner, this was no hardship. We set it up in the dining room and experimented for the next hour with different breads, spreads, and cheese, then when every combination had been consumed, I pulled out my Jane Austen video tapes. Lucy, Deena, and I settled in for the night, and Ed and Teddy went upstairs to disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity.

At some point Deena went to bed. At some point I threw Lucy an afghan, because the evenings can still be cold this time of year, and we are too aware of the church finance committee poring over our gas and electric bills to heat the parsonage unless we absolutely have to.

I woke up when the telephone rang. Disoriented, I sat up slowly. On television someone in silly-looking Regency garb was expounding about the latest fashion. This, of course, wasn’t much of a clue about which novel we’d graduated to. The phone rang again, as I remembered where it was and how to answer. I saw that Lucy was waking up, too. The clock insisted it was almost midnight. Or possibly noon, although that seemed unlikely.

I caught the phone right after the fourth ring, and to my credit, I remembered what I was supposed to say, although it came out as a croak.

“H’lo.” I cleared my throat.

“Aggie? Mrs. Wilcox?”

I am actually Aggie Sloan-Wilcox, but it was too late at night to explain the importance of not getting absorbed into the identity of one’s spouse. “That’s right.” I cleared my throat a second time.

“This is Florence Everett. From Russell House? Ellen Hardiger’s friend?”

“Of course, Flo.” I was beginning to sound less like a beached whale and more like a sentient human being. Flo just sounded worried. “What’s up?”

“I hate to trouble you, but I just got a frantic call from Zoey. She was planning to leave tomorrow evening, on the same plane from Columbus as her mother’s body, you know, but she thinks maybe she saw Craig outside my friend’s house.”

I tried to piece this together. “Her ex?”

“Yes.”

I remembered that Zoey was staying with a friend of Flo’s, to thwart her maniac ex, in case he learned she had come back to Emerald Springs.

“How would he trace her there?” I asked.

“Who knows? He might have seen her at the funeral home or elsewhere, and followed her back. Or maybe somebody else did. He had friends, macho guys just like him. One of them might have spotted her and told him.”

“But it’s been years since she lived here.”

“Anyone who knew her well would probably recognize her.”

“Did she call the police?”

“They drove around the neighborhood. They didn’t see anyone or anything. They said they’ll come back in a couple of hours, just to make sure. But Zoey’s really spooked.”

“I can understand that.” And I could. After what she’d been through, this must feel like dropping back into a nightmare.

“I hate to ask, but Zoey wants to go to Columbus tonight and wait for her flight at a hotel there. My husband and I can’t drive her, because that’s too obvious. Someone might be watching us. My friend, same thing. But she liked you. She said you really were trying to find out what had happened to her mother. If you could do it . . .”

How could I say no? Zoey had been through enough, and I wasn’t about to hang back while her ex moved in for the kill. “How can we get her out of the house without being seen?”

“If you park on the street behind the house, Zoey thinks she can sneak out the back way next time the police drive by. We’ll tell them what we’re doing, and ask them to stop at the house. That should scare away anybody who’s watching. Then Zoey can just cut through the yard and the neighbor’s behind it, and you can whisk her away. I think you’ll be safe. I wouldn’t ask if I thought different. I have a neighbor who would do it, only he has problems with his night vision and can’t drive after dark anymore.”

I
needed someone with good night vision to help keep watch while Zoey sprinted to my car. I wondered if I should wake my husband and ask him to come along. But Ed was exhausted, and he’d made that drive to and from Columbus on Saturday. Lucy was frowning in my direction. I covered the receiver.

“Want to help me whisk a woman out of town under the nose of her abusive ex?”

Lucy’s eyes lit up. She can always be counted on if adrenaline’s involved. I uncovered the receiver. “When should we come and where?” I jotted details on the pad beside the phone, then I scrawled a note to Ed, who might wake up and wonder where I’d gone.

I hung up, and filled Lucy in.

Lucy is happiest if she’s able to dress for a part. In this case that meant ninja costumes, maybe, or Army Rangers. Just to please her I found a dark shirt of Ed’s to put over her much too sparkly tunic, and I fished a black T-shirt out of the clean laundry I hadn’t yet taken upstairs. The shirt reads “Two-for-one burgers on Wednesday,” which is an odd thing for a vegetarian to wear, but it was free, and I’m neither proud nor fanatical.

We were ready when the phone rang again. Zoey had called the police station, and they’d agreed to send an officer by the house as cover while she stole out the back. Afterwards, the officer would meet us on the street behind Zoey’s and escort us out of town. I figured that the local cops had wanted to escort me out of town any number of times, and this was no hardship. I told Flo what we would be driving—Lucy’s red Concorde—and hung up. I put Ed’s note on the banister, and off we went.