Much Ado About Muffin (6 page)

We finished in the kitchen, which was basically gutted. Shilo had a table and chairs set up, and a long, scarred table that held a microwave, coffeemaker, and hot plate. She made a pot of herbal tea and sat cross-legged on the fifties dinette chair, while Magic snuffled around the room, hopping from place to place, leaving dark pellets behind. I reminded myself to never walk barefoot in her home.

I apologized for having been gone so long and seeming so distant on the phone. “Shilo, you deserved better. You
all
deserved better. I was selfish, caught up in my own needs; I'm so sorry.”

She hugged me again and patted my shoulder, her eyes shining with tears. “I know, Merry, I know. We—Pish and I—did understand, but it hurt.”

“Am I forgiven?”

She nodded. Shilo and Pish both knew my past, and understood that when I left to go to Maria's deathbed, I hadn't much hope of a true reconciliation. “But Maria had changed a lot over the years,” I said. “She regretted how she had ostracized me. I now get that part of that was Miguel's responsibility. He should have been willing to stand up to his mother for my sake; it would have made a difference. I felt guilty about feeling that way, but it was a legitimate response that I had been too afraid of losing Miguel to express.”

“So what about Virgil?” she asked.

I sighed. “I need to apologize properly to him, and then I think we have some talking to do.” I left it at that. “How about you and Jack? You doing okay?” I was looking for a way to open up a conversation about the people who were worried about her. So far she had been nothing but cheerful, but it did feel like there was something just under the surface.

And there it was: something
was
wrong. She didn't meet my eyes, as she tried to smile. Examining her face even as she looked away, I noticed that she was pale and seemed even thinner than usual. “Are you okay, Shilo? Is anything wrong?”

She shook her head. “No way. Jack adores me, Magic is alive, and I'm fine! What could be wrong?”

Despite her jaunty attitude, my bull-crap alarm was going off. She was agitated, though, and I didn't want to make our first get-together in months into an uncomfortable inquisition. I let it go for the moment. “So Rusty has his business going again! I'm so happy. And you and Jack hired them to do some of the work?”

“We've only been in here for a couple of weeks, and Rusty's guys only started working yesterday.” She jumped up to move Magic away from an extension cord, then unplugged it and wound it up. “They're going to have the veranda restructured by next week, then they're going to paint the whole house for us. I can do a lot of the interior stuff, and Jack is handy, but there's so much to do we need help.”

“The one guy, Dewayne, seems like a nice dude.”

Her eyes sparkled, and she plunked down in the chair across from me. “You'll never guess who he is.”

“Tell me!”

“He's Minnie Urquhart's new boyfriend! They met on a dating website, and he moved here to be closer to her!”

“Holy crap, really?”

“Jack and I came out to the castle to talk to Pish, but he wasn't there. When we told Roma about Dewayne and Pete helping us on the house, she said she'd seen Dewayne around. I guess he was at the post office talking to Minnie, and she figured out their relationship. As normal as he looked, Roma said, there must be something seriously wrong with him to go out with Minnie.” Her smile faltered. “And then she said some rude things about Minnie's size and her name and her age. It was kind of awful.”

“And Pish wasn't there to hear it. That's how she operates. She knows Pish doesn't like cattiness, so she never says stuff when he might hear and see her for what she really is.”

“He may be catching on to her ways, though,” she said with a sly smile. “I take it Pish hasn't told you about some of Roma's exploits around town? She's got half of Autumn Vale up in arms at her.”

I felt the cold hand of dread clutch at my stomach. I've been trying desperately to get the folks of Autumn Vale on my side. Another rude guest at the castle was not going to help. “I've heard some stuff from Mabel Thorpe and Janice Grover—and Doc, too—but not from Pish. He's been too
busy trying to make us bestest friends to tell me about her failings. What's gone on?”

“You've gotta hear this one. It involved Roma and
Minnie
, of all people.”

“Battle royale, I'm assuming, given both of their characters.”

Shilo had witnessed this incident firsthand. Pish had kept up my tea parties, trying to make nice with the natives, he called it, meaning the Autumn Vale townies, who were still split on whether I was a blessing or a blister on their fair town. A week or two ago Pish had one to which he invited Minnie, in the mistaken belief that it would endear her to me and my tenure at Wynter Castle.

“So Minnie was at the same table as Roma. Roma had just performed something in Italian or Spanish I didn't recognize, and returned to her table,” Shilo said. “I was there to help serve, and I was close enough that I heard what Minnie said; she told Roma she had strangled cats that sounded prettier than her. Roma got all red in the face and said Minnie probably
sat
on the cat and killed it, rather than strangling it. Pish somehow managed to calm them both down, but as everyone was leaving, Minnie was in the great hall, bent over, huffing and puffing, tying her shoes, when Roma came down the big staircase with what everyone thought was a dagger raised above her head.”

“Oh no! What happened?”

“Roma let out a high-C screech, said she'd slash her throat for insulting her singing, and fell on Minnie. It wasn't a knife, though, or a real dagger, just an antique letter opener; she has a whole collection of them, I guess.”

“Was Minnie hurt?”

She shrugged. “Not that I saw. Roma slashed at her, but in a kind of wild way. I don't think she actually intended to do any damage, she was just going through the emotions.”

I smiled at her verbal slip, but felt like it described Roma appropriately, always “going through the emotions.”

Shilo frowned and thought for a moment. “I kind of feel like Roma has spent her whole career trying to behave like people expect from an opera diva, you know?”

“I would have kicked her out, if I'd been there. I've worked too hard on the people of Autumn Vale to have Roma destroy it all. I know Minnie doesn't like me, but the last thing I need is for her to have more fuel for gossip about me and mine.”

“Don't blame Pish,” Shilo said softly. “He's trying to help.”

Bringing Roma to Wynter Castle was in no way helpful to
me
, but I couldn't say that. I owed Pish so much in my life that he could ask anything of me, and I'd do it. I took a deep breath. I would try again to get along with Roma. I'd try very,
very
hard, for Pish's sake. “Let's talk about
you
,” I said to my best girlfriend. I searched her dark eyes and saw a misty cloud of some unexpressed pain. How to press her without upsetting her? “You tell me you're happy, and I can see how you love this house, but what about everything else?” I wondered if I ought to mention what Doc had seen, but it was our first visit, and I didn't want to rock the boat. I'd wait to see if she brought up the stranger she was talking to.

She took my hand and said, “Merry, please . . . everything is good. There is not a thing any of you could possibly do to make me happier.”

I wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer, but an hour later, after talking over all her plans for the house, I left, with a promise to talk in a couple of days.

I
was seething
about the whole Roma/Minnie thing by the time I got home, but fortunately Pish was closeted in the library with Roma trying to get something on tape, so I had time to calm down. During dinner I edged the conversation toward the confrontation between Roma and Minnie. Pish gave me a look, so I stopped. As much as I was going to try to get along with her, we would have to have a serious chat about his protégé.

Tony texted me that afternoon in response to my question about my luggage, that he had shipped it with a tracking number, as he'd said he would. On his end the tracking showed that it was in Autumn Vale. It was quite possible that Minnie was messing with me; it wouldn't be the first time. It was Tuesday; the post office closed early Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I glanced at the clock, but I still had time, so just before closing I called and asked Minnie if my luggage had arrived.

“No,” she said abruptly.

“My brother-in-law said that the tracking app shows that it
has
arrived in Autumn Vale.”

“Well, it hasn't. You saying I'm lying? Wanna make something of it?”

I was taken aback; I had not been rude, just forthright. I heard a murmur in the background. Who was she talking to in the post office? “Minnie, it has to be there. Who should I believe, you or the U.S. postal service app?”

“Hey, don't you threaten me!” she yelled.

“Threaten? I didn't—”

“That's enough outta you, Merry Wynter; I don't have to listen to your bull. Come in tomorrow and see for yourself!” She hung up.

I stomped around and pushed a vacuum cleaner upstairs for a while, then went out and called Becket, to no avail. Later I called Gogi to vent. She had her own campaign going against Minnie, and was sympathetic. I cheered up when we made plans to go shopping in Rochester the next day. I wanted to go to Lane Bryant, so we decided on the Mall at Greece Ridge in Greece, a suburb of Rochester, because they also have a Charlotte Russe, which has gorgeous plus-size clothes, and an Ashley Stewart, a plus-size store. My sweet Shilo calls me “plush-size”; leave it to her to find some cute way to put it. Gogi wanted to hit Christopher & Banks, which was having a BOGO sale. She was looking for work-appropriate dresses, but she doesn't do fuddy-duddy sixty-plus women's wear. Of course, we'd also stop at Barnes & Noble—I planned to buy new bestsellers for the library—and Sears.

*   *   *

The next morning I drank my coffee while sending texts to some New York friends to fill them in on my return from Spain, then got myself going. It was Wednesday . . . Hump Day for the five-day-a-week workers of the world. I grabbed my purse and headed through the dark
great hall toward the big double oak doors, but one creaked open as I approached. Roma entered, swiftly and quietly, turning and stealthily closing it. Odd. Roma was a sleep-in-late kind of woman.

“What are you doing up and about at such an early hour?” I asked.

She jumped and whirled, leaning back against the door. “Uh, I was out walking,” she said, nerves fraying her voice. “Trying to . . . to expand my lungs, you know, to get more air in them. We're doing another session this morning.”

“Okay.”

She seemed alarmed and was breathing fast, almost panting.

“Were you jogging? You seem out of breath.”

“I was just walking fast around the field, by the woods. Gathering solace from nature!” She brushed past me and clattered up the stairs, disappearing along the gloomy gallery to her room, her high-heeled boots making clomping sounds.

I left the castle, shaking my head in perplexity, but paused by my car and listened to the quietude: crickets, a couple of crows cawing, and not much else. Except for an odd
tick-tick-tick
sound. I glanced around. Some new insect? Weird.

It was humid, so there was a heavy mist over everything, fog clinging in drifting layers to the wood's edge. I contemplated my property, thinking back to when I first arrived. I often saw a flash of orange, but didn't know for a time that it was probably my late uncle's cat, Becket, who had disappeared after Melvyn died. Was he doing the same now, creeping close and watching the castle? I strolled to the edge of the parking area and peered through the mist toward the woods. Was that a hint of orange in the distance? “Becket!” I called, but if it
was
him, he disappeared. It hurt to think
he felt I'd abandoned him. I would take some treats into the woods and find him.

Gogi awaited me at the front door of Golden Acres. I watched her buckle the seat belt, then looked at my watch as I pulled away from the curb. “If you don't mind, I'd like to stop at the post office and see if my luggage has arrived yet,” I said. “That episode on the phone with Minnie has left me uneasy. I don't know why.
Despite
her being a jerk, I'd still like to apologize for Roma's behavior.”

“Right, the operatic scene at the tea party,” Gogi said, glancing over at me. “I wasn't there but heard all about it.”

I eased around the corner onto Abenaki as I told her my theory about Roma trying desperately to live up to the legendary divas of opera and their infamously touchy temperaments. “It's like she goes out of her way to stage scenes.”

“On the other hand, she could just be spoiled rotten.”

I parked across from the post office. As I got out of the car I waved to Binny, who was in her bakery window changing out the display. She waved and went back to work, trading back-to-school décor for fallish fake autumn leaves and gourds. Down the street, a couple of townies entered the Vale Variety and Lunch; morning coffee there is a tradition for many folks and more reliable than the newspaper for local gossip.

I crossed the quiet street. Just one car was parked in front of mine, and there was no traffic but a tractor that slowly chugged through town. A male jogger in black bike shorts and a T-shirt disappeared around a corner. As I approached the tiny post office, I was puzzled; Minnie was never late to work, and yet the post office was dark. I rattled the door. Locked. I cupped my hands and peered in. Nothing. There was a faint glimmer of light through the darkness—a room in back?

Gogi joined me. “Minnie hasn't opened yet? That's unusual.”

“But it looks like she's there. Look . . . you can see a light at the back. Maybe something delayed her from opening.”

“Let's go around and talk to her. You can at least ask about your luggage.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. I didn't want to disturb Minnie in the middle of work, but I did want to make my apology while I still felt apologetic.

Gogi led the way down the alley between the post office and another vacant, boarded-up storefront, and around to the back, which was plain brick with an unpainted steel door and no windows. There was a parking lane that ran behind the row of shops, just as there was for the shops across the street.

“There's her car,” she said, pointing to a run-down gold-hued Buick LeSabre with a peeling vinyl roof. The lone vehicle parked there, it was low to the ground, like the suspension had been beaten up and had no will to live, or lift.

I approached the door and knocked. “Minnie, you there?”

The near silence was deafening; even the crickets had stopped. I ignored a tingle of uneasiness as I tried the handle of the door and pushed. It opened; the lights were on in the room beyond the door, so I stepped through to a smallish space lined with pigeonholes and metal shelves loaded with packages and envelopes. Several mailbags were on the floor, newly arrived, I assumed.

“Is she there?” Gogi asked.

I didn't answer as I tiptoed in, with her close behind me. Something was off; my scalp prickled. There was a terrible odor in the air, the smell tangible even to my tastebuds, as if I were holding a hairpin in my mouth. Gogi gagged and made a retching sound. I turned and saw what she saw.

Minnie Urquhart's large body was partially stuffed in a big canvas postal sack, blood dripping from a dagger stuck right through her blue golf shirt. I moaned, covering my mouth, my stomach twisting, but in those few seconds,
stunned and revolted and afraid as I was, I still recognized the weapon.
Not
a dagger; it was a decorative letter opener that had been jammed into her side.

Gogi cried out and I swore, both at the same time—a delayed response of horror warring with disbelief. Gogi, though, with more presence of mind than I, pushed past me and pulled the canvas sack aside until she found Minnie's neck. She touched her carotid artery, feeling for a pulse, while I stifled the urge to vomit or run.

Gogi turned and looked at me, shaking her head. “She's dead.”

“Are you sure?”

She moved out of the way and I saw Minnie's eyes, wide and staring, pupils dilated. Her double chins were flaccid and sagging, her mouth gaping open, some kind of white powder coating the sprouting hairs on her chin. Blood was everywhere; she was soaked in it. There was no expression on her familiar face. Tears welled in my eyes, but Gogi grabbed my forearms and backed me out.

“Merry, she's been murdered,” she said, her voice guttural and trembling. “We need to get out of here, in case the murderer is still inside, and call Virgil!”

She pushed me out and we stood in the back alley, shivering even on a warm, humid September day. “Go get your phone and call Virgil.” I took a deep breath. “I'll stay here and make sure no one goes in . . . or out.”

She paused, shook her head. “No, Merry, what if—”

“No one would stick around after . . . after doing that,” I said, my voice getting steadier now that I couldn't see poor Minnie.

“You're right. I'm going to get my cell phone, but I am going to call
while
I'm walking back to you.”

Gogi walked swiftly along the back of the post office and disappeared around the side. I had become less squeamish in the last year, but still, my stomach churned as I stepped
back through the door. I had to look, I just had to! Poor Minnie. Poor,
poor
woman. I may not have liked her, but she was an Autumn Vale citizen and cared about our town.

I took a deep trembling breath and examined the scene. On closer look, Minnie wasn't actually stuffed in the mailbag; that would have been impossible. She was slumped on the floor, and now that I was looking for them, I saw spatters of blood across the floor and on the other canvas mail sacks that were lined up for processing. She was in a heap, one arm was in a mailbag, and there was another empty mailbag partially pulled over her. Her uniform was a pale bluish golf shirt that blended with the stained dull gray of the canvas postal bag.
Everything
had blood on it; she must have been stabbed more than once, judging by the multiple bloody spots on her body. Her hands, too . . . There were cuts and bruises on the one palm that I could see. I held back the violent urge to throw up, my stomach roiling at the smell and the blood. Poor woman, to have suffered such horror in her last minutes on Earth. Who would do such an awful thing? Tears wet my eyes.

There was blood soaking through the canvas bag that Minnie was partially in, her right arm and shoulder concealed. The letter opener was jammed into her right side, under her breast and through her uniform shirt, with a big patch of blood soaking the shirt around it. It had looked like a dagger at first because it had a brass hilt and steel blade, like a tiny version of a Musketeer sword from the movies, with a miniaturized knuckle guard that protected the hand when the sword was held, and a small silk tassel, now soaked in blood.

I heard the distant wail of a siren and took one last long look, then stepped out the back door, standing in front of it, swaying in revulsion and fear, trying to assemble my face in some kind of stoic expression. My mind raced. Roma. Did she? Didn't she?
Could
she have?

Impossible. Wynter Castle was a long way from the scene.
Roma didn't own a car and perhaps didn't even drive; many New Yorkers don't. Minnie hadn't been dead that long, I didn't think, judging by the smell, the sight and her habits. By my estimate it could have been a half hour, maybe more, given what I knew about her arrival, usually about ten minutes before she was to open, and the fact that she hadn't turned on the lights or opened the actual post office.

She must have been killed shortly after she arrived, but before she started opening up for the day's business. The killer must have been someone who knew her schedule, though that pretty much covered the whole town. For all her many faults, she was as regular as clockwork when it came to opening and closing. I hadn't thought to see if I could tell if the day's fresh mail had been delivered by truck yet. Maybe the delivery guy had seen her and could provide a time frame.

The siren was closer; did I have time for one more look inside to see if I could tell if there was fresh mail? Gogi, her face pale as bleached linen, came around the corner, cell phone in hand, as a sheriff's department car, driven by Virgil, screamed down the back lane by the post office. He jumped out, drew his gun, and ran to his mother first. “You okay?” he asked, hand on her shoulder. She nodded. He looked over at me, his expression unreadable. “Merry?”