Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (31 page)

And there she was, sitting with her back turned to us at the very tip of the forbidden ledge, hunched over and swaying a little in the bitter wind.

We parked the VW and closed the doors silently. I headed toward the small, forlorn figure. Vern tried to join me, but I vigorously gestured him back.

“No!” he whispered, “Stay back! Wait for the police!”

“Serendipity?” I asked gently on the telephone, “May I come talk to you?”

“You can’t find—” She turned around, wobbling a little, and I gasped, but she retained her seat on the edge of the cliff. She stared blankly at me.

Glancing back over my shoulder, I was relieved to see that Vern had found a hiding place behind the VW. I held out my free hand, palm up, in friendly supplication.

“May I join you?”

I said on the phone, then, taking a chance, I clicked the phone shut and dropped it in my coat pocket. “Please?” I called.

She closed her own phone, turned her back on me, but shrugged, so I took that as assent.

How to do this? Dear Lord, please help me!

Slowly, slowly, I stepped over the low chain that marked the cliff’s edge and got down on my hands and knees. Moving even more slowly, I made my way along the narrow outcropping until I was directly behind the girl.

“Serendipity? Can we talk?”

I suppressed a highly inappropriate giggle. I’d quoted comedienne Joan Rivers just then.

The wind blew my hair across my eyes, and I brushed it back with one hand. This unthinking gesture nearly caused me to lose my balance, and I swayed a little myself, but recovered. “It
is
cold up here, isn’t it?” I shouted with a friendly laugh.

Serendipity pulled her coat tighter about her and said nothing.

There was no room to sit beside her, so I addressed the back of her head as her pale hair whipped around in the sharp, bitter wind. “This is a pretty tough time for you right now, isn’t it?” I said at the top of my voice.

She nodded and said something I couldn’t hear.

“What did you say? Please come back here so we can talk.”

She yelled over her shoulder. “I said, that’s right!”

What to do?
Shortly, the police would arrive and try to extract the girl from this precarious perch, using their own methods. I doubted that any good would come of that.

I decided to lay my cards on the table. “Serendipity, please come back with me! It’s dangerous here, and I don’t want you to get hurt!”

Abruptly, she turned around and shouted in my face, “I already am hurt!”

“I know, dear,” I shouted back, “I know you are. Come on.” I beckoned carefully with one hand.

She looked down at it, pursed her lips and nodded.

Then, very slowly, very gently, we crawled back toward solid ground until we reached the chain. I helped her over.

We sat right down in a snowdrift. She put her head on my shoulder and began to sob.

“Mom’s going to jail. She’s pleading guilty! She’s telling everything she knows so she’ll get a better sentence. What am I going to do?”

Even as I rocked her, stroked her hair and fished in my coat pocket for a tissue, something in the back of my mind said,
If this it true, then perhaps J.T. and Dustin are cleared! Oh, thank you, Lord!

“My life is over,” she said, blowing her nose.

I decided to try some tough love. “Who are you and what did you do with Serendipity Shea?”

That got her attention. “What?”

I was surely winging it now. “Where’s the Serendipity who, uh, led every fashion trend at the high school? Where’s the Serendipity who . . . who . . . ” I groped about in my memory for another one of her attributes, “ . . . whose, um, will and personality were so strong that nobody ever dared call her Dippy, not even in grade school?”

Her eyes widened. “That’s true. How did you know?” She blew her nose.

“Teachers hear things.” I stroked back her tousled hair. “You’re stronger than you think, Serendipity. And no question, you’re smart. You know exactly what you’re doing in my class, don’t you?” I was remembering her crumpling the test paper.

She looked down at the tissue in her hands, sniffed, and hiccoughed. “It is kind of fun pulling your chain sometimes.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see a police car entering the parking lot. Vern approached it and began talking to the officers, gesturing in our direction.

I said, “You know, I looked it up. Serendipity means a fortunate surprise.” I’d paraphrased Webster somewhat, but no matter. “You could surprise a lot of people by going back to school and being the Serendipity we all know.” I added, “With one big exception, of course.”

“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “You want me to study.”

“Why not? That would really surprise everybody, wouldn’t it?”

She gave me the tiniest smile. “I guess so.”

“And I’ll be there to help you any time you need it. I promise.”

She shrugged. It was hard to know if I had reached her, but at least she was safely off the ledge.

Vern approached hesitantly, with a female police officer close behind.

I said, “Now, Serendipity, Surprise Girl, you need to let the police officer take you home. I want you to go back and start helping your dad through this mess. He needs you.”

“I didn’t think about that,” she admitted.

“Well, he does. And your mother does, too, believe it or not. And remember, I’ll be praying for you.”

She nodded. With astonishing meekness, Serendipity allowed herself to be led over to the police car.

The male police officer approached us. “Could you folks meet us back at the station to answer a few questions?”

“Sure,” said Vern. He winked at me. “
Déjà vu,
ain’t it?”

“Sir?”

“Just a little joke, officer,” I said, sighing happily.

Vern had winked! Surely that meant he had forgiven me?

As we headed to the VW, the officer said, “Uh, oh. Looks like you folks have a flat there. Here, I’ll help you change it.”

As the officer and Vern opened the VW’s front trunk, I asked, “Why are you driving this car, anyway, Vern?”

“Martin loaned it to me this morning when I went to visit the guys. Ironically, mine has a flat tire, too. I should’ve expected something like this. This car’s a real piece of junk.”

They began to unfasten the spare tire from its moorings. As they pulled it out, something tiny and metallic bounced off the side of the fender and into the snow.

“I’ll get it.” The officer dug the thing out with his gloved hands and held it up. “What d’you know?” he said, “It’s a bullet!”

North Country natives may recognize the reference to Michigans in
Death Dangles A Participle.
Hester Swanson, who worked for many years at the college cafeteria, came up with this version and dictated it to Amelia. She makes no claims of authenticity, but says, “It surely tastes like what I remember!”

3 lbs finely ground beef, sautéed and well-drained

10 tsp chili powder

14 oz. can Hunt’s tomato sauce (or less)

Scant ¼ cup Frank’s or other good hot sauce (
Not
Tabasco! Even less if your kids will be eating it.)

3 tsp garlic powder

3 tsp onion powder

2 tsp black pepper

3 tsp ground cumin

Make sure the beef is cooked into tiny particles. (Hester uses a pastry cutter to achieve this, chopping the ground beef even more before cooking.) Mixture should ultimately be just barely moistened, so add the tomato sauce very sparingly. Blend all ingredients well before cooking. Cook for two hours, stirring frequently. Results are best if you use non-direct heat, such as a crock pot or double boiler.

There is some controversy about using tomato sauce. Some say there should no tomato in this sauce, but this recipe turns out a very authentic-tasting result. It makes enough to top a whole lot of hot dogs! (At least 25.)

This is best (in Gil’s opinion) if served over a good-quality, steamed hot dog in a bun, topped by a thin line of yellow mustard and sprinkled with coarsely chopped sweet onions. To quote Gil Dickensen, “Ambrosia!”

Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series, Book 3

By E. E. Kennedy

Coming Fall 2014

I wish to state at the outset that, until the day in question, I—Amelia Prentice Dickensen—had never in my life bought a supermarket tabloid.

That’s not to say I never sneaked the occasional surreptitious glance at a lurid headline as I unloaded my grocery cart. And it’s also true that I’d once become so desperate that I actually encouraged one of my more recalcitrant English students to read them, just so he read
something.
Still, as literature, I understand that if you use a little vinegar, they’re great for cleaning windows.

But on that particular evening, as I placed a sack of overpriced seedless red grapes on the conveyor belt and let my eyes drift absently over the rack of colorful papers, magazines, and thin paperback cookbooks, my attention was snagged by a familiar face. Not just a famous one, but an actual, familiar, I-know-that-person face.

My heart made an audible thump. I read the caption: “Charlotte with third husband, Danny diNicco, on their honeymoon. Last year, the theatrical producer was found brutally murdered in his Manhattan office.”

Surely it wasn’t who I thought it was. But how could there be more than one? I looked again.

There he was, grinning into the camera with that wide, sensuous mouth, his hand carelessly draped over Charlotte’s shoulders, some long-ago breeze lifting the dark wave that always dipped just above his forehead. It was a small color picture, printed on cheap newsprint, but those glittering black eyes with the long, black lashes were unmistakable.

I pulled the paper from its metal stand and skimmed the front page. Apparently the murder of an erstwhile husband was just another event in the colorful life of character actress Charlotte Yates who, in the face of overwhelming misfortune, kept picking up the pieces of her life and carrying on, her pointed little chin held high and famous squawking voice ever ready to entrance her audience.

There was a picture of Charlotte with Husband Number One (an acting teacher), from whom she was divorced; and with Husbands Number Two (a stockbroker) and Number Four (a rock musician), who had shuffled off this mortal coil due to motorcycle accident and drug overdose, respectively. More details and photos would be forthcoming on page eight.

Fascinating as that was, it wasn’t Charlotte Yates who interested me. It was her third husband.

“Amelia?” said Gil, “Are you going to buy that, or what?”

I looked up. Apparently all our groceries had been checked, bagged and paid for by my spouse while I was doing my reading. “I’m buying it.” I fished a few dollars from my pocket and tendered them to the clerk, who, I noted with embarrassment, was one of my students, though I hadn’t seen her in a long time.

“That’s a good issue, Miss Prentice,” said Kim Mallard, smiling conspiratorially, “Especially that spinach diet.” She leaned forward, her eyes on my expanding middle. “How’re you feeling? Any more morning sickness?”

Everybody knew everything in a small town. “No, I’m over that now. Just tired all the time. Thanks for asking.”

The girl sighed. “I hear you! Between swollen ankles and trips to the ladies room all day, I’m exhausted!”

That’s when I realized that her loose smock covered the same condition as mine. “Oh, my,” I said.

Kim, by my figuring, was seventeen.

She waved a hand airily. “Oh, it’s okay. Brian ’n me’re getting married as soon as the baby’s born and I can fit into a wedding dress!” She glanced over her shoulder and pointed to a magazine rack. “Hand me that
Modern Wedding
, would’ja?”

When I complied, she eagerly turned to a large full-color illustration of a thin, ethereal-looking young woman in an elaborate, stark-white wedding gown. “That’s it!” She tapped the page with an overlong fingernail decorated with a silver peace sign and turned a glowing smile at me. “Got it on layaway at Formal Dreams over at the Mall.”

“It’s lovely, Kim.”

“This magazine costs fifteen bucks. Better put it away.” Guiltily, she slapped the huge magazine shut and allowed me to replace it. “Of course, it all depends on Brian getting a job at that new foundry.” She looked at me speculatively. “I’m seven and a half months. How far along are you?”

“Eight and a half.” I glanced over my shoulder at the line forming behind me, and then at Gil’s back as he strode out of the store, pushing the cart. “I guess I’d better be going. Good to see you, Kim. Take care of yourself.”

Waving goodbye, I folded my tabloid under one arm and scurried after my husband, who was once again exhibiting the signs of his besetting ailment.

Rather than agoraphobia—fear of the marketplace—Gil suffers from what I call Fear of Shopping. Accurate statistics are hard to come by, but I have it on good authority that approximately half the male population of this country is afflicted. I discovered this terrible secret on our honeymoon, but like the valiant comedienne, Charlotte Yates, I had decided to bravely get on with my life, embracing the good with the bad.

Making this job far easier was Gil’s solid, manly physique and head of thick, semi-silvery hair. Not to mention an IQ roughly the same number as the price of a loaf of multi-grain bread and a smile that—well, considering my condition, you can guess the rest. My students certainly did.