Chapter & Hearse (16 page)

As though reading her mind, Miss Marple said “
Yow
!”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. According to Christopher, you’re the one I love best.”

“
Yow!
” Miss Marple replied.

“And I know you love me best.”

Again, Miss Marple agreed.

“Then we’ll spend my birthday together. Just the two of us.”

And didn’t that sound like loads of fun?

Tricia fingered the chain around her neck. It was long past time to stop thinking about the past—and hoping for a future with someone who had made the choice of a life of solitude. Except for the note that came with the locket, she hadn’t heard from Christopher in eighteen months. He might have moved on and found someone else, and sending the locket was his final message, telling her to move on as well.

That decided, she reached for the clasp on the chain—then thought better of it. The locket was meant to be a birthday gift. She’d wear it until Wednesday, then put it away with the rest of Christopher’s gifts in the back of her closet.

Again she fingered the chain, felt the weight of the locket that hung between her breasts—close to her heart. Was that the reason Christopher had chosen such a gift? She much preferred it to a sifter. But then, she wasn’t likely to get any other gifts on her birthday.

“Come Wednesday, we will
not
have a pity party. Maybe I’ll buy a precooked lobster and one of Nikki’s mini cakes. You like lobster and frosting,” Tricia told Miss Marple, who agreed by purring.

“Then it’s decided,” Tricia said, with just the slightest catch in her voice. The plan sounded good—but she had a feeling that despite her resolve, a pity party might still be on the agenda. She would just have to resist the temptation.

The door rattled and Angelica returned, clutching a battered and discolored metal sifter that had obviously seen heavy use. “Look, Trish, it belonged to Grandma Miles,” she said, handing it over.

Tricia examined the sifter and smiled, remembering how she’d watched her grandmother use it when making cakes.

“I want you to have it,” Angelica said.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Tricia said and tried to hand the sifter back. “I know how much it means to you.”

Angelica refused to take it. “You don’t know how much it means to me to know you’re interested in baking. I want to encourage that in you.”

Tricia swallowed a lump in her throat and gazed at the worn red wooden handle. “Thank you, Ange. This is the nicest gift you could have given me.” A sentiment she would not have believed five minutes earlier.

Angelica beamed. “Let’s get to baking!”

And for the first time in her adult life, Tricia enjoyed it.

SIXTEEN

Tricia was
up early the next morning, but when she called to wish Angelica a safe trip, she found her sister had already hit the road for her next round of book signings.

After her usual stint on the treadmill, a leisurely shower, and a cup of coffee, Tricia gathered her purse and the plate of big, beautiful muffins covered in plastic wrap, and headed down to Haven’t Got a Clue, with Miss Marple following her. Although it was only nine thirty, she decided to get to Jim Roth’s wake early, figuring Frannie might need help to get things set up. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she told the cat, backed out the door, and locked it.

As she turned around, Tricia saw a SALE PENDING sticker had been plastered across the Kelly Realty FOR SALE sign. She turned right around, unlocked the door, and reentered Haven’t Got a Clue. Miss Marple still sat where Tricia had left her mere seconds before, and gazed at Tricia quizzically.

“I know, I know—but I’ve got to make a call,” she said, put her purse and the muffins on the counter, picked up the receiver, and dialed the old-fashioned rotary phone.

Bob Kelly answered on the fourth ring. “Hello,” he barked.

Tricia put on her sunniest voice. “Hi, Bob, it’s Tricia. I thought I’d give you a call to see how you’re feeling.”

“Fine,” he said succinctly.

“Do you need anything?” Tricia asked.

“No, thank you.” The man was positively infuriating.

“Will you be coming to Jim Roth’s memorial service this morning?”

“No. I’m not feeling well.”

He’d just said he was feeling fine. Tricia plowed ahead. “I see you’ve put a Sale Pending sign up on the lot on Main Street. I’m surprised it sold so fast. You put the For Sale sign up only yesterday. That was rather quick, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Tricia ground her teeth to keep her anger from seething. “Do you mind if I ask who bought it?”

“Some development company. I never heard of them before.”

“And they are?”

He sighed. “An outfit called Nigela Ricita Associates. Their representative contacted me last night. They want to sign the paperwork as soon as possible.”

“Sounds like a woman-owned business,” Tricia said.

“I don’t care who owns it, just as long as they pay me so I can dump the property. I don’t want to be associated with it.”

“Why not? It wasn’t your fault someone tampered with the gas meter.” She decided to push in the knife—just a little. “Was it?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you being so coy about what you were doing at History Repeats Itself the night of the explosion?”

“I’m not being coy. I was there to collect the rent. Period.”

“And did Jim pay you?”

“We hadn’t gotten that far.”

“Witnesses put you at the store for some time before the explosion.”

“What witnesses?” Bob demanded.

Okay, just one witness—Ginny. But Tricia wasn’t about to tell him that. “You’ll have to ask Captain Baker about that. But, come on, Bob, you know that keeping mum on what you were doing there just makes you look bad. You can’t afford a tarnished reputation.”

“My reputation is sterling.”

“Well, it won’t stay that way if it looks like you have something to hide.”

“This conversation is going nowhere,” Bob said. “Goodbye, Tricia.” Tricia heard a click, and then the line went dead. She replaced the receiver in its cradle.

“Yow!”
Miss Marple said.

“Yes, he
is
being a big pill! I don’t know how Angelica can stand him.”

“Brrrrp!”
Miss Marple agreed.

Tricia glanced at her watch. If she was lucky, she could make it to the inn in time for the . . . service? That didn’t seem the right word. Perhaps celebration of Jim’s life was a better description. “You’re in charge, Miss Marple,” she told the cat, collected her purse and the muffins once again, and struck out for the Brookview Inn.

It was exactly nine fifty-five when Tricia pulled into the Brookview Inn’s already full parking lot. Parked in a tow-away zone was a Sheriff’s Department cruiser. Had Captain Baker decided to attend the gathering—or had he sent one of his underlings to scope out the mourners?

There was one vehicle parked in the lot that Tricia had hoped she wouldn’t see: Russ’s junky old pickup truck. She’d been right: he’d made bail.
I am not going to let his presence bother me. I won’t
, Tricia told herself, but she didn’t feel all that confident. Still, perhaps he wouldn’t behave like a horse’s ass at what was supposed to be a solemn occasion.

Tricia grabbed the plate of muffins, closed the car door, and walked around to the front of the inn. The Robert Paige Memorial Dialysis Center was under construction across the street. The lovely, peaceful woods had been bulldozed, and only the bones of the new building stood in the morning sunshine. It was hard to believe the gutted landscape would ever look like the attractive architectural drawing on the sign out front.

As Tricia walked up the flagstone path that led to the inn’s entrance, she noticed there were no flowers. The previous spring, pink begonias had welcomed the inn’s visitors. No window boxes full of geraniums brightened the long porch, and it looked like the paint was beginning to peel along some of the clapboards.

Tricia entered the lobby and headed for the reception desk. Thankfully, everything around her looked as lovely as usual, and she could hear the buzz of voices coming from the conference room.

“Tricia, it’s good to see you,” called Eleanor, the inn’s receptionist. “It’s been too long.”

“Yes, it has. I’ve been busy. I thought I’d stop and say hello before I joined the rest of the group.” Gosh, that made it sound like she was attending some kind of business meeting—not a memorial.

“It’s terrible about poor Mr. Roth,” Eleanor said. “I didn’t know him well, but we spoke sometimes when he’d arrive early for Chamber meetings.” Eleanor leaned in. “Although sad as the occasion is, we’re happy to have the business. Things haven’t been good lately. Bookings are down. We’re seeing less trade in the dining room. We’ve had to let one of the maids go, and even the weekend sous-chef. That’s why we’ve dropped our Sunday breakfast buffet.”

No wonder they had allowed Frannie to bring food to Jim’s wake. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Tricia said sympathetically.

“There’s even talk the inn may go up for sale,” Eleanor said with a catch in her voice.

Tricia’s mouth dropped. “I had no idea things were this bad.”

Eleanor nodded. “In the past, we’ve been able to weather these things—but this time. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Stoneham without the Brookview Inn? The thought was too painful to contemplate. “Can’t you hang on until the new dialysis center is built?” Tricia asked.

“It’s one of the reasons we’re doing so badly. The construction is very noisy. Guests come to the inn for peace and quiet. The sound of cement mixers and dump trucks starting at seven in the morning has been a real turnoff for our guests. The construction is due to last all summer and into the fall. The only saving grace is they don’t work weekends. To add another nail in the inn’s coffin, there’s talk a low-cost motel chain is interested in buying the Full Moon Nudist Camp to build a hundred-unit structure.”

“Do you think they’d sell the camp? I mean, after all the hoops they jumped through to develop that property?”

“Money talks,” Eleanor said. “If a motel is built, it would absolutely kill us.”

Tricia shook her head. “There will always be people interested in more than just low cost when it comes to travel. And I’ve heard there’s a developer looking into buying properties here in Stoneham,” she said. “Maybe they’d be interested in investing in the inn.”

“I hadn’t heard about that,” Eleanor said. “I’ll mention it to my boss. Do you know the name of the developer?”

“Nigela Ricita Associates, but I don’t know how you’d contact them.”

“Don’t worry—I’ll find out. Thanks for the tip.” Eleanor leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Did you hear the latest? The convenience store up by the highway sold the winning Powerball lottery ticket, and the prize was twenty million dollars.”

“That’s terrific news. Maybe that’ll bring some welcome relief to the local economy. Who won?” Tricia asked.

“I hope it’s me—but my tickets are at home. I’ll have to wait until my lunch break to check them.”

“Good luck,” Tricia said, giving Eleanor a thumbs-up.

Eleanor smiled hopefully, and waved a hand in the direction of the inn’s large conference room. “You can go straight in.”

Tricia nodded and headed in that direction. The murmur of voices grew louder as she approached. Since the parking lot had been full, she guessed it had been filled with Jim’s friends and not the inn’s guests. Clutching her plate of muffins, Tricia entered the conference room. A large easel stood just inside the door with a poster-sized print of Jim’s smiling face set up to greet the mourners. Talk about disconcerting! Her gaze immediately zeroed in on Russ. He didn’t notice her, since he was busy talking with Joyce Widman from the romance bookstore and jotting notes in his ever-present steno notebook. The puffy mouse below his left eye was an off-putting shade of purple. Served him right for being such a jerk the night before. Now, if he would just behave himself during the next hour—and not cross paths with Captain Baker.

Dressed in civvies, Baker stood at the sidelines along with a uniformed Deputy Henderson, watching the crowd. Had Baker brought along backup in case Russ stepped out of line? Baker caught sight of Tricia and nodded in her direction, but his face remained impassive. She acknowledged him, too, then caught sight of the elderly Dexter twins, again dressed identically—this time somber black dresses, dark hose, and dark shoes. They wore little pillbox hats with veils that had been popular nearly fifty years before. Could they have known Jim Roth, or were they looking for more signatures for their petition? Tricia looked closer, and sure enough, Midge was holding her clipboard. How rude of them to crash Jim’s memorial. Then again, what better place to make their case?

Tricia stepped over to the refreshment table to drop off her contribution. The assembled pastries, muffins, and fruit trays rivaled the best the inn had ever offered. But the pièce de résistance was the multilayered cake frosted in pastel yellow. It looked like . . . a wedding cake, complete with basket weave design, plastic pillars supporting each layer, and a fresh flower garnish. The only thing missing was the bride and groom topper.

Several sprays of flowers stood to one side. Tricia checked the cards. Several booksellers had gone in on each, and the bouquet of yellow roses from the staff at Haven’t Got a Clue was simple yet dignified. Conspicuously absent was an official remembrance from the Stoneham Chamber of Commerce. Did that mean Frannie’s replacement wasn’t on top of things, or that because of her “rules are rules” attitude, she—and Bob Kelly—had withheld such a gesture out of pure spite?

The room was quite crowded, with knots of people Tricia didn’t know. They didn’t seem to be mingling with the other booksellers and Chamber members. Most of the booksellers had little time for social lives. Perhaps they were friends of Jim’s from out of town.

Tricia caught sight of her friend Deborah Black, clad in a floral dress made tight by the fact that she hadn’t quite lost all of her pregnancy weight. Tricia waggled her fingers in a wave, and Deborah broke away from the group she’d been chatting with, meeting Tricia halfway. “Good turnout, huh?” she said.

“Yes. Jim would’ve been proud,” Tricia agreed.

Deborah searched the faces in the room. “Is Angelica coming?”

“No, she had to go back on the road promoting her book. She should be back on Friday.”

“Good. I’ve ordered ten copies of her cookbook, and I’d like to have her sign them for my customers.”

“I’m sure she’d love to.”

Deborah nodded in the direction of the crowd she’d just left. “What’s with Frannie and that outfit?”

Had Frannie attended the wake in her usual dark slacks and a colorful aloha shirt? Tricia craned her neck, but all she could see was the back of Frannie’s dark head.

“I know black is no longer a funeral requirement, but surely that outfit she’s wearing is more appropriate for a wedding—in fact, more suited for the mature bride.”

Tricia frowned. Frannie
had
hoped to be Jim’s bride. She wouldn’t have worn—she couldn’t . . . .

She had.

Frannie stepped away from the others, revealing white shoes and a white linen dress with a pink carnation pinned to the lapel of the matching jacket.

“And did you get a load of that cake?” Deborah said under her breath.

Tricia braved a smile. “It’s lovely.”

“I’ll bet it’s white cake under that frosting,” Deborah muttered. “What’s going on?”

“I really don’t know,” Tricia lied.

“And what’s
he
doing here?” Deborah asked.

Tricia followed her gaze to Captain Baker, who now stood alone at the side of the room. Since she’d entered the room, he’d lost the deputy and acquired a glass of punch and a plate of pastries. He looked uncomfortable. Was he off duty, or just trying to blend in with the crowd?