Died in the Wool (16 page)

“So,” she said. “I really do look as bad as I feel.”

“I didn't say anything,” I said.

“Your expression says it all,” she said, and smiled. “Actually, I feel really lucky and happy and exhilarated. I'm alive. And you brought me roses!”

I smiled and handed them to her.

“And they're
my
roses,” she said, breathing their scent in deeply. Then she added, “I know that whole exhilarated part is hard to believe, but it's true.”

This time I laughed. “You scared us,” I said.

“I scared myself. Look, Torie,” she said, reaching out with one hand. I took her hand in mine and she squeezed. “I can never thank you enough.”

“All I did was show up unannounced,” I said. “Everybody else cusses me out for that.”

“You acted quickly,” she said. “That and coincidence saved me.”

“It really was just my nosy nature that saved you. I didn't want to wait until the next day to find out what you were going to tell me.”

“Well, see there? Don't ever be ashamed of who you are, then. It saved my life.”

“Maddie, do you have any idea how this happened?” I asked.

“Who knows,” she said. “Strychnine is used in lots of things. You know, they used to use it for medicinal purposes way back when.”

“The doctor said you got a very small dose,” I said.

“Yeah, so I think I just got into something … you know, in the garage or something. I don't specifically remember anything that could have had strychnine in it, but who really knows.”

“Well, I'm glad you're back with us,” I said.

“Listen, Torie, what I wanted to tell you was about Glory Kendall.”

“What about her?”

“The other night when I was getting Glory's quilt top ready to give to you for the display, I kept thinking about my grandma, trying to remember anything she might have said about the Kendall family. My grandmother was one of Glory's best and only friends. She said Glory was lonely, I remember that. The girl only had a handful of friends, and she pretty much was not allowed out of the house. I mean, she went out some, but I got the feeling that Glory just didn't go anywhere very often. Grandma said she almost always went to Glory's house to visit, not the other way around.”

“Why the tight reins on Glory?”

“My grandma said that Glory had a lover. Young man who lived in Wisteria, I think, or somewhere close by. When her father and brothers found out, they forbade her to see him, and she just never went many places after that. Now, this is all secondhand and coming through the interpretation of my grandma, so take it with a grain of salt.”

Maddie's breathing seemed more labored, so I didn't want to stay much longer. Her eyes had dark, purple shadows beneath them. It looked as though even blinking was difficult. “When do you get to go home?”

“They won't say. I'm thinking a week, maybe sooner if I start flirting with the doctor,” she said, and winked.

“Look, Maddie, I know you're tired, and my son probably has the nurse tied up by now, so I'm going to head out,” I said. “I'll come by again tomorrow.”

“Thank you so much for the roses,” she said. “I came close to never smelling a rose again.”

“You're welcome,” I said. “Hope you don't mind that I cut them from your bushes.”

“That's what they're for,” she said.

As I was headed out the door, a man about Maddie's age came in with a bright yellow
GET WELL
balloon and a box of chocolates. “This is my brother, Kevin,” she said.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, then turned to leave.

“Oh, Torie, one more thing,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“One other thing I do remember my grandmother saying, and I remember it because she said it more than once. In fact, she said it pretty much every time the Kendall family came up. She used to say that she couldn't stand the oldest brother. I can't remember his name…”

“Whalen?”

“Yes, Whalen. She said he was a no-account. Whatever a no-account is. She really didn't like that man,” she said.

“Thanks a bunch, Maddie. I'll see you later.”

When I went out to the nurse's station to retrieve my son, the nurse looked both entertained and irritated. My son will talk a person's leg off. Whenever he gets around people that are not his two sisters, I think, he realizes that this is his chance to say everything he's ever wanted to say, and so he just dumps sentence after sentence with incredible determination. He will talk over people. He'll even talk while two other people are talking, all the while thinking he's part of the conversation, even though what he's talking about has nothing to do with what they're talking about. So the nurse looked quite overwhelmed, as though her circuits were on overload and if she heard one more word her brain would fry. At the same time, she was smiling. He is cute, after all. Of course, he can only ride on his looks for so long.

I thanked the desk nurse for watching Matthew, and we left.

*   *   *

The work week had gone by fairly quickly. Maddie continued to get stronger and the majority of my time had been taken up by Rachel's play. If I wasn't running to the school with items to use as props, I was taking food to the cast members. Now, I'm not a good cook, mind you, but all the kids sung my praises when I showed up with homemade mostaccioli. They're high school kids, what do you expect?

I had gone to Marty Tarullo's house on Wednesday but nobody was home. So I thought I'd try again today. I pulled up at my mother's house and went inside to drop Matthew off with her. Her house smelled so good, I could have started eating the first thing I found. She was making her homemade vegetable soup.

I kissed Matthew good-bye, and then Colin came running down the hallway with one shoe on and one shoe in his hand. “Wait, wait, wait,” he said.

“What?”

“I'm going with you.”

“Going where?” I said. “Colin, I'm going to work.”

My mother gave me her best
read my mind
look, but I couldn't for the life of me read her mind. All I managed to accomplish was to realize that she was trying to silently tell me something, and that got me even more confused. “Where are you going to work?” he asked.

“The Gaheimer House,” I said. “Where I always work.”

His shoulders slumped. “When I was sheriff, you rarely ever worked at your office. You were always out in cemeteries and stuffy old courthouses and … places.”

I gaped at him.

“You mean to tell me you're not going
anywhere
today other than the Gaheimer House?” he asked, clearly irritated.

I glanced at my mother, who nodded her head, albeit casually.

“Uh … well, I was going to meet with a man named Marty Tarullo, since I was going to be in Wisteria already. He lives here. Then … I was going to go by the Kendall house. There's something I wanted to … check out. Colin, why do you care?”

“Hang on one second,” he said. He ran back down the hallway with his shoe in his hand.

When he was out of earshot, my mother took the opportunity to finally talk. “Torie, please let him go with you,” she said. “He's driving me crazy. He wants to do something so badly. He is going stir-crazy with this new job. He keeps reaching for his holster, but he doesn't wear one anymore! He listens to the police radio. All night! If I'd known he would be this miserable being mayor…”

“Is he really that miserable being mayor, or is it that he's more miserable not being sheriff?”

“Whichever. Please, Torie. For your poor, handicapped mother, please take my husband with you!”

“Well, well,” I said, crossing my arms.

“This is not funny,” she said. “I'll bake you a pie.”

“A pie? You think putting up with Colin all day is worth a measly pie?”

“Hey, I already babysit your son, isn't that worth something?”

“Yes, but I pay you for that!” I said.

“Okay, two pies.”

“No, Mom, there are no pies in the world worth having to put up with Colin. You don't understand,” I said. “I just got to a point where I don't have to deal with him. I finally got a new sheriff in town, who actually likes me. He actually listens to me and considers my input.”

“I'll bake you a homemade banana cake,” she said.

“Oh, you're evil.”

We stared at each other for a good thirty seconds.

“All right, it's a deal,” I said.

Colin came back out wearing his sunglasses and a hat and both shoes this time. “All right, I'm ready,” he said.

“Torie, are you sure it's all right if Colin tags along?” my mother said, smiling.

Banana cake. Remember I'm getting homemade banana cake. I can do this.

May as well start calling me Faust.

Fourteen

“So where are we headed?” Colin asked as we got in my car.

“A man named Marty Tarullo's house,” I said. Last night I'd checked the white pages and found an address for him on Canon Avenue.

“And who is he?”

“He's a man who puts flowers on the grave of Glory Anne Kendall every June. Even though she's been dead for eighty-plus years.”

“Why?”

“If I knew that I wouldn't be going to see him, now would I?” I said. I made a turn onto Wyatt Drive and then went down two streets and made a right. “I'm hoping he's not dead. The man has to be ancient, but Father Bingham said he saw him just last year.”

Colin was quiet a moment, filling the space in my front seat with determined reflection. After a moment he spoke. “Who's Glory Anne Kendall?”

I rubbed my forehead and tried to fill him in best as I could before I pulled into Mr. Tarullo's driveway. I only had a few short minutes, because Mr. Tarullo lived just eight or nine blocks from my mother and Colin.

The story-and-a-half white house was quaint, with a small front porch and a round window where the attic should be. I love round windows—I suppose because they defy what “normal” windows are supposed to be. Maybe they remind me of Hobbit houses and windows. Or maybe they're just cute. At any rate, the window lent a certain charm to the house, and there was an enormous weeping willow tree in the front yard that sort of capped it all off. Along the sidewalk, somebody had painstakingly planted petunias or pansies; I'm not sure which. They both sort of look the same to me. I just knew that they were colorful and low to the ground.

I grabbed my purse and gave Colin last-minute instructions. “Listen, let me do the talking,” I said.

He puffed his chest as if he were about to start beating it. I added, “Look, you're not the sheriff anymore, you're not in uniform, and you're kinda big and scary, so if you go in there being all aggressive, you're liable to freak him out. Me, I'm little and unassuming. So let me do this.”

Colin chuckled a bit, most likely because of my “little and unassuming” remark. I just glared at him.

“Right,” he said after a few moments.

I rang the doorbell, and the door was answered by a woman who looked to be in her late fifties or sixties. Her hair color came from a bottle—it had sort of a pinkish tint to it, and last I checked, that particular hue didn't appear in nature. “Yes?” she said.

“Hi, I'm Torie O'Shea, the historian over in New Kassel. Father Bingham at the Catholic church told me that Mr. Tarullo could most likely help me on a matter that happened almost eighty years ago. Is Mr. Tarullo home so that I could speak with him?”

“Dad's out back in the garden,” she said.

“In the garden?” I asked.

“Fell and broke his hip three years ago pulling weeds. Can't get that man to listen to nobody,” she said. She stepped outside onto the porch and then down the steps to lead us around to the backyard. “I keep telling him, ‘Dad, you're ninety-four years old. You need to let one of your grandkids pull the weeds.' But he won't listen. Then again, maybe he's lived this long by doing all of his own yard work. My grandpa worked every day until he was eighty-nine. Three days after he decided to stop working, he dropped dead. So maybe Dad has the right idea,” she said.

“Well, maybe,” I said, smiling at her.

She opened the gate to the backyard and sure enough, there was an old man, bent way over his walker, tugging on some stupid weed that was encroaching on his tomato plants. The vegetable garden was pretty big, I'd say twenty feet by thirty feet, and along the fence there were several rows of what looked like blackberries or raspberries. I used to help my grandma pick berries when I was a kid. I always ate more than I put in the bucket.

“Dad, there are people here to see you from New Kassel,” the woman said. “A historian who wants to ask you some questions. Father Bingham sent them.”

Marty Tarullo either didn't hear her or didn't care. His daughter smiled at me while waiting for her father to acknowledge our presence. “Oh, I'm Connie,” she said.

I shook her hand. “This is my stepfather, Colin Brooke.”

“Oh,” she said. “Ex-sheriff Brooke? How's the new job?”

“Different,” he said.

“I like the new sheriff,” she said. “He seems good for the community.”

Colin smiled at her, but I could have sworn I heard his teeth grinding in the process.

Marty Tarullo stood up then. It seemed to take him a whole two minutes just to straighten his back. He moved his walker around and came toward us.

“Dad?” Her voice got a notch louder. “I said, there are two people here—”

“I heard you,” he said. He waved at Colin and me and then motioned to several Adirondack chairs on the back patio. “Have a seat.”

“Would you all like something to drink?” Connie asked.

“Water for me,” I said.

“Any sort of soda,” Colin said.