The Feed Store Floozy (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series) (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

With the new school year in full swing, it seemed to Penelope that things settled back into the way they’d always been. The old feed store remained closed. People talked about the murders and the fire for a while and then put it away. It was almost as if Brice Dolan had never come back to Amaryllis or brought in Wally
Powers and Jill Jerome.

Rosabel announced she was planning a Thanksgiving wedding since the work at the house they’d bought was ahead of schedule. Shana spent Saturdays in
Little Rock with Peter and Tabby, and on Sundays, father and daughter hung out in Amaryllis. She wasn’t specific about wedding plans but said it would happen. The Bainbridges remained out of the picture, but there was no doubt they were lurking in the shadows.

Penelope counted two weeks since she’d seen or heard from Sam. She alternated between fury and abject despair, knowing she hid it successfully from everyone but Jake.

Mary Lynn met with the teachers at the elementary school and talked up a Christmas program to be performed in the auditorium of the old school. “Winter’s not a good time to open anything,” she told Penelope, “but we’ve got to get things started sometime.” Meanwhile, she opened the doors to a group of quilters who needed a place to leave their equipment set up, and a group of scrap bookers who brought their own cabinets for storing supplies.

The boiler came on and off without a problem. It appeared, Mary Lynn said—not altogether as a joke—that Jeremiah Bowden and company had left the building. Miss Maude Pendleton, who came to Amaryllis the first year the new school opened, volunteered her literary abilities to write brief explanatory notes for the photography exhibit, as the fledgling museum began to take shape on the second floor.

If Harvey Hadden came to town again, no one saw him. More disturbing to Penelope, was Brice Dolan’s absence. Then one morning toward the end of October, the doorbell rang, and a woman introduced herself as Darby Dolan, Brice’s wife. Dreading what might come, Penelope invited her in for coffee.

Darby sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and looking at Penelope out of green eyes framed by frosted hair, cut short and brushed away from her face. “I heard you got hurt because of all this mess.”

Penelope shrugged. “Nothing serious.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe it was. I went along with Brice’s idea to buy the building here and open a store. In fact, I gave him the money.” She didn’t shift her gaze. “I have an income from a family inheritance, not enough to classify us a ‘wealthy’, but it paid for the kids’ college and a little extra.”

“I knew you and Brice had two children.”

“Two daughters. Sara works for an advertising firm in
New York, and Sydney’s in the music business in Nashville. But back to the business at hand. I told Brice he was doing well enough in Little Rock, and he was. He is. I work with him, so the business has gone on without him.”

“And you really don’t know where he is? No offense.”

“None taken. No, I really don’t know. I won’t say I don’t care, but things hadn’t been good between us for a long time. All we had in common were the girls and the business.”

“I got the impression he was a happily married man.”

“He didn’t say that, I’m sure. But that’s not why I came. All our property is held jointly, so I can dispose of the things in the store here. Actually, I’ve finally gotten around seeing what kind of shape they’re in after the fire and either get rid of them at rock-bottom prices or send them back to Little Rock.”

“Have you been inside?”

“Not yet. I understand the damage was confined to the second floor. My insurance agent is meeting me here today to take a look.”

“Brad—my son—said the floors would probably need to be replaced, but he didn’t think anything else was damaged. It was a pretty amateurish arson.”

“When Brice told me what he found upstairs, I thought it was pretty funny. I suggested he clean things up and give tours. Then I realized that might be offensive to people in a small town.”

“Offensive to some anyway. Did you know he was bringing in Wally
Powers?”

“He told me, and I didn’t think too much of that either, not until the man made himself obnoxious. But I did know about Jill. I knew she and Brice had a thing in college. He said she was trying to get something started up again, but he wasn’t interested. That’s what he said.”

“I can’t help you there.”

“Oh, I don’t care, not really. He’s strayed before.”

Penelope felt a rush of sympathy for the attractive woman. “I’ve been down that path.”

“Brice mentioned Travis Pembroke to me. I’m sorry.”

“Life happens, and I have my son.”

“Yes, I consider myself lucky to have the girls.”

“Have you talked to Bradley?”

“Several times. He’s a nice young man, and I expect he’s a good cop. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

“Yes, he does.”

“We seem to be straying from the subject at hand which is the store. I understand you and Mayor Hargrove’s wife have renovated an old school as a community center, with a museum upstairs.”

“The museum doesn’t have much in it, just some old photography equipment.”

“I’d like for you to have everything upstairs.”

“That’s generous of you, Darby, but I’m not sure Mary Lynn would want a display of a…um…”

“I know about her husband’s family’s connection to the building.”

Not all of it.
“I see. Then you understand why she might object to accepting your gift.”

Darby laughed. “Would it have to be displayed as an ‘um’?”

“I guess not, but don’t museums usually tell where something came from?”

“It’s called
provenance
. Yes, but they’re not always specific.”

“I see what you mean. Well, I’ll certainly talk to Mary Lynn.”

“Good. You can have everything. Have you ever been up there?”

Not quite.
“No, but I’ll admit I’ve been curious.”

“Let me get back to you after the insurance adjuster has been there. I talked to the fire chief. He said he’d go up with us.  The floor’s charred but not unstable.”

“They built things to last back then, didn’t they?”

“Nothing lasts these days, does it?”

The two women locked eyes and sighed.

****

“No! Never in a million years!” Mary Lynn sprang from the chair and began to pace the kitchen of the B&B.

“Be reasonable, Mary Lynn. It’s all period stuff. We don’t have to tell exactly where it came from.”
             

“People will know. They’ll put two and two together and…”

“All right, forget about it. I’m in no mood to argue with you. Just forget it. I’ll call Darby and tell her no deal.”

“Pen, you’ve got to understand how I feel, how Harry feels.”

“I don’t give a flip how his grandfather made his money, and I’m willing to bet nobody else does either. Harry’s been mayor of Amaryllis for ten years, and before that, he was everybody’s favorite lawyer because he knew his stuff and did it right. People trusted him not to do anything questionable. Who the heck cares what blessed happened  a hundred years ago? Or even fifty or sixty or seventy years ago?”

Mary Lynn grabbed her zebra-striped purse from the cabinet where she’d tossed it when she came in. “You don’t understand. You don’t even want to understand.” The screen door banged behind her.

Penelope sighed.
Lord, You know I love her, but she’s the stubbornest gal in town.
She reached for the phone and dialed Darby Dolan’s number. When she didn’t get an answer, not even an answering machine, she hung up and walked through the dining room into the wide hall. Sinking down on the stairs, reminiscent of the way she’d taken refuge there as a child, she tried to sort out her thoughts.

Two murders and a fire, and nobody arrested. Daddy says they’ll never find Harvey
Hadden, which is okay with me as long as he stays out of town. But what about Brice Dolan? Darby doesn’t seem too worried about him, but maybe she should be.

The doorbell pealed, causing her to jump forward and graze her head on the newel post.
Darn. Darn darn darn!

Darby stood on the porch clutching a large manila envelope in her hand. Penelope’s mouth dropped open.

“May I come in?”

“Sorry, of course” Penelope unlatched the screen door. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.” Darby held up the envelope, a little scorched at the corners but definitely intact.

“You don’t know? Where did it come from?”

“I found it on my front porch when I went out to get the paper this morning.”

“Why did you bring it here?”

Darby’s bottom lip trembled. “I don’t know that either, but I couldn’t stand just looking at it and being afraid to open it.” She followed Penelope through to the kitchen and set the envelope down as if it were burning her fingers.

I should call Bradley. I know that’s the right thing to do, but—
She poured two mugs of coffee. “Please—sit down before you fall down.”

Darby collapsed into a chair. “It had to come out of the fire, didn’t it?”

Penelope eyed the singed edges of the manila envelope and sniffed. “It probably did. Do you think Brice left it?”

Darby’s eyes filled with tears. “Last night I dreamed he came home.”

Penelope covered Darby’s hands with hers. “Do you want him to?”

“I don’t know. Did you ever…”

“All the time, even though I knew he’d leave again, and nothing would change.”

“The girls are urging me to file for divorce.”

“You do what you have to do. I just tried calling you to tell you that Mary Lynn turned down the offer of the furniture and other things from upstairs at the store.”

“I’ll do something else with them then. I hired a truck to come take everything out of the downstairs. Once I get it to the antique mall in
Little Rock, I’ll see what needs to be done. A good airing out will probably fix most of the pieces.”

Penelope fought a losing battle with her conscience. “Two of our local observant citizens saw Jill Jerome coming out of the bank with a similar envelope in her hand the morning before she was killed. She met Harvey
Hadden behind the store, and they assume she handed it to him. I guess she took it upstairs instead.”

“I just don’t want to know if she and Brice were getting it on again. I really don’t.”

“Do you want me to open it?”

“I think so.”

“I really should call my son and give it to him.”

“I guess you really should.”

The two women looked at each other. In a few seconds, Penelope had slit the top with a kitchen knife and dumped the contents onto the table.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Mother, you should have called me as soon as Mrs. Dolan came with this. You shouldn’t have opened it.”

Penelope crossed her arms defiantly. “It’s not evidence, Bradley. Everything in there is old Madeline Hadden’s insurance policy.”

“Insurance policy, my foot,” Brad snorted. “It
’s her daybook—or night book might be more appropriate. She wrote down the name of every man who darkened the doorway of that place over the years.”

Penelope nodded. “Clever of her, wasn’t it?”

Darby Dolan covered her mouth and tried not to laugh out loud. Brad turned his police-detective glare on her. “Mrs. Dolan, you had to know this had something to do with the fire and maybe with the murders.”

“How could I know that?”

“You should’ve known it was important.”

“I did, but I thought it was personal. I brought it to your mother because we have some important common ground. I knew she’d understand.”

Brad started to gather up the pages which were loosening from their binding and crumbling at the edges.

“Wait a minute, Bradley. It’s almost noon. I’ll make some sandwiches. Let’s talk about all this.”

“Mother, I’m not here to eat. I’m…” His voice trailed off. “What kind of sandwiches do you have?”

“Cold roast beef.”

Amaryllis’s only police detective sat down like an obedient child.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this at all, much less in front of Mrs. Dolan,” Bradley said through a mouthful of tender roast beef on wheat.

“I guess you can read me my rights and threaten to lock me up if I say anything,” Darby replied.

Penelope plopped her menu-planning notebook onto the table and turned to a clean page. “Okay, let’s look at this logically. Brice buys the store and discovers what’s upstairs.” She drew a long line across the empty paper and made a note at the beginning. “Then he goes to Wally
Powers—or Wally Powers comes to him—and offers to do a story that might make them both some money. Well, it would make money for Wally, and Brice would get the publicity.” She scribbled something else. “Then Wally brings in Jill Jerome, knowing full well that she and Brice had a history in college.”

Penelope chewed the end of her pencil. “Next, Wally starts making everybody mad, Hal Greene scoops him, and he, Hal, and Harry have a public brawl. Next thing we know, Wally’s been shot. I’m curious—same gun that killed Jill?’

Brad hesitated, then nodded. “I didn’t say it.”

“Okay. Now Hal gets a threatening note after he finds the body, and everybody thinks it’s from Harry because it’s on city stationery, but it’s not. Then Jill accuses me of stealing her pictures…”

“She did what?” Darby asked.

“She was blowing smoke,” Penelope said. “And the same night, Parnell finds Brice passed out under the pool table at the Sit-n-Swill.”

“Where?” Darby’s eyes widened.

“The local bar,” Penelope said.

Brad put down his sandwich. “Parnell thought he smelled hooch on Brice, not the real stuff,” he said.

Penelope smiled. “Harvey
Hadden makes hooch.”

Darby frowned. “I’m so confused.”

“Hang in there,” Penelope said, making more notes. “Then we find out Harvey’s been hanging around the back of the feed store. I follow him, and he runs me off the road. Then Sam finds Jill’s body on the second floor.”

“Who’s Sam?” Darby asked.

Penelope waved her hand dismissively. “But before that, she was seen coming out of the bank with a manila envelope very similar to this one.”

“Bob Franklin at the bank said she’d rented a safe deposit box right after she came to town,” Bradley said. “Mother, we should
not
be talking about all this.”

“You’re on lunch break. Off duty.”

He sighed.

“Sam suggests I do some research, and I find out all that stuff about Madeline
Hadden and the store, then someone pours kerosene on the second floor and strikes a match. You and I are standing there looking at the building later, and somebody tries to run us down.” She leaned across the table. “Bradley, you know I’m not dumb about guns. The gunshots I heard came from a small caliber handgun, and I don’t think you fired yours.”

“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t get off a clear shot.”

“Harvey Hadden uses a hunting rifle or a shotgun.”

“He probably does.”

“Before that, Brice disappears, and then Harvey disappears, and low and behold, history repeats itself when the wife of the proprietor turns up and decides to close the place down, much like Malachi Sanborn’s wife did after Daniel Dolan shot him.”

Darby choked. “What?”

“I’ll explain all of that later,” Penelope said. “So history repeats itself, right?” She looked at Brad.

“If you say so, Mother.”

“I can hear the wheels turning, Bradley. You agree with everything I’ve said. Finally, the envelope we all assumed Jill gave to Harvey turns up on the porch of said proprietor’s wife, looking like it’s been through a fire. She brings it to me, and we find out what Wally Powers and Jill knew, what would’ve blown the lid off this town if he’d written his story. I recognize a lot of those names, Bradley, and so do you.”

He glared at her again.

“The question is, where did Wally get Madeline Hadden’s daybook? Did her great-grandson, aka Harvey Hadden, give it to him for some quick cash? Did Wally stiff Harvey, so Harvey wanted it back? Did he get into it with Wally and kill him? Did he try to get it back from Jill and end up killing her?”

“He wouldn’t have had to shoot either one of them,” Bradley said. “
Harvey’s so big he could’ve wrung their necks like chickens.”

“I agree.”

Bradley turned to Darby. “Did Brice own a gun? When I questioned him after Wally Powers’ murder, he said he didn’t.”

“He kept one at our store in Little Rock. I can call someone to check if it’s missing.”

Bradley pulled out his cell phone and handed it to her. “Do it.”

After Darby confirmed that the gun wasn’t in Brice’s office, Brad gathered up everything. “We never had this conversation,” he said, confiscating the notes Penelope made.

“Maybe we had it, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about,” Darby said.

Penelope reached up and patted her son’s cheek. “Have a good afternoon, Bradley.”

****

“Brice’s wife Darby—not from around here, is she?” Jake asked as Penelope ladled spaghetti onto his plate.

“No.”

“That was a rhetorical question. What did you think of her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“As in?”

“As in, it seems odd she came to see me in the first place.”

“Brice probably mentioned you to her.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I can see why she wouldn’t have gone to Mary Lynn about what’s up on the second floor.”

“How would she even know how Mary Lynn felt about that?”

“I guess she wouldn’t.”

Penelope twirled a strand of spaghetti around her fork. “Maybe she was setting me up. Maybe she had Madeline Hadden’s book all the time.”

“Whose names were in there?”

“Just about every name that shouldn’t be. And that was only on the first few pages.”

“Families still here, huh?”

“Right. Including a Pendleton or two.” Penelope tried to stifle a giggle and couldn’t.

“That so?” Jake’s face split in a wide grin. “Well, well.”

“If Miss Maude ever found out…”

“She won’t. It might’ve embarrassed some other folks, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world for them.”

“Maybe for Harry.”

“Not even Harry.”

“Unless…do you think there’s more to it, Daddy?”

“I can’t even b
egin to think what it would be. Everybody likes Harry.”

“Brice Dolan didn’t.”

“That was back in high school.” Jake helped himself to more garlic bread. “And he apologized to Harry, didn’t he?”

“Well, yes.”

“I rest my case.”

Penelope put down her fork. “So why is Mary Lynn still so nutty about all this?”

“That I couldn’t tell you.”

“Something’s not right, Daddy. I just feel it.”

“In your bones? That’s what my mamma used to say. She was always feeling something in her bones.”

Penelope shook her head. “I guess that describes it as well as anything. I just know something’s not right.”