Fruit of All Evil (19 page)

She blinked. “Well, if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was probably someone she foreclosed on, someone who was angry at her.” She squirmed. I'd just thrown a wrench into the middle of the carefree fun we'd been having.

“Maybe. Did you know Jeanine Baker is missing?”

“No. Really? Do you think she had something to do with Madeline?” Linda squirmed some more.

I told Linda what I'd done with Madeline's phone. I told her that somehow curiosity had taken away my intelligence and good sense. I told her about not seeing her phone number on the call list despite Madeline's insistence that she'd called Linda numerous times. I told her I saw Ian's number and Jeanine's name. I explained what I knew about Ian's involvement with Madeline, and I told her about my trip with Sam out to Jeanine's farm. I was practicing the same method with her that I'd practiced earlier with Sam. If I shared some things with her, maybe she'd find it easy to share something with me; something she didn't want to share with anyone. It was rotten of me to pull such a maneuver on a friend, but time was ticking by.

“Okay, so for some reason Madeline called Jeanine on the day she was killed, and now Jeanine's missing. I don't think that means Jeanine had something to do with the murder, Becca. Do you? Frankly, I'm worried about Jeanine's safety.”

“Me, too, but her disappearance does look kind of fishy,” I said.

“Sure. Sort of, but Jeanine is Jeanine. She makes things fishy.” Linda's face scrunched up as she thought. “But Jeanine couldn't have done what . . . what was done to Madeline.”

“Probably not.”

“Their phone calls must have been about bank business. I can't see them being friends,” Linda theorized.

“Me either. Anyone else come to mind? Besides a bank customer, I mean. What about the cousins?” I asked over the brim of my latte.

“Oh, Becca, I don't think the family was involved at all,” Linda said. “We were all questioned and released that night. Sam told us he'd check our alibis. I know Drew and I were together. No one has been arrested. I'm sure we'd have heard if any of the cousins had been taken into custody.”

“Do you know what their alibis are?”

Linda shook her head. “Not really.”

“Who was at Madeline's when you got there?”

“Everyone but you and Ian.”

That was consistent with what Sally had said.

“You and Drew came together?”

“Yes. We were together, like I told you.”

“All afternoon?”

“Yes . . . Becca, you don't think Drew was involved, do you?” Linda's cheeks were pink, but this time it had nothing to do with blushing.

I didn't say anything for a second, and for the first time in our friendship, I wondered if Linda was about to get angry at me. We were long past most of the things people get angry at each other about. We were both content in our own lives and enjoyed each other's company enough to look past minor irritations.

“No,” I finally said, hesitantly. “No, Linda.”

“You wonder, though, don't you?”

I put my latte down and reached over the table to put a hand over one of hers. “Listen. No, I don't think Drew killed his mother. But if—this is a big if—if he was involved, I for sure don't want my best friend marrying him.”

Ka-boom.
So much for wanting to be a good Number One. Talk about a one-eighty. I'd lured her out to shop for wedding things and then thrown a bomb of accusation right into the middle of one of the best friendships I'd ever had.

“I see.” Linda pulled her hand out from under mine. “Becca, I appreciate what you're saying to me. I appreciate that you think you're being a good friend, but Drew couldn't have killed his mother. He wouldn't have.”

“Good, I'm very glad to hear that.” I gulped. Would we be able to move forward from this moment?

Even if I'd damaged our friendship, maybe Linda would make certain that she knew Drew hadn't been involved in Madeline's murder before she married him. If she was telling the truth about him being with her, as her vivid blushing had indicated, I was thrilled. But if she wasn't, maybe my words would make her think twice and she'd come to her senses before it was too late.

“Linda, I'm sorry if I said something that . . . well, it wasn't my intention,” I lied. “We were having such a good time. I got carried away with . . . with investigating, I guess. Your happiness is very important to me. Please forgive me if I offended you.” I wasn't lying about that.

“No, it's all right.” She forced a smile. “But I really need to get home now. Shall we?”

The ride back to her house was quiet and strained. I wanted us to talk further, but nothing I could say sounded right. Unless she fired me from my Number One duties, I'd still be there for her in every way. I was still going to make her wedding the surprise of a lifetime, if Drew wasn't a killer, and if she forgave me.

What I wanted to tell her was that I was doing all I could to rule people out, and this was the only way I could think of to rule Drew out. She claimed he was with her—and she was the only one that I knew of who could dispute that.

I wasn't equipped to deal with the possibility that she had been the killer or had been in on the murder. I didn't accept either of those because I knew her so well and cared for her so much. If she'd been involved, I would be devastated.

Linda seemed less icy by the time I dropped her off, but not back to normal.

As I drove away from her cottage, my phone rang.

This time, Sam was calling me.

“Madeline was strangled,” Sam said. “Asphyxiation, defi
nitely. Why?” He'd called me to ask where Sally was staying. After I told him, I asked him what the official cause of Madeline's death was.

“I thought as much,” I said, noting silently that knowing didn't tell me anything more than I knew. I wasn't sure what I was hoping for, but if nothing else, Sam hadn't put up a fight about giving me the information. I was almost feeling downright official. “What about the blood and the lines of wounds on her hands? What were those?”

“We're not sure, but we think they're defensive wounds of some sort. We're working on putting together a sequence of events, but don't have it yet.”

“So someone strangled her with a checkered scarf.” I said it aloud but was talking to myself more than to Sam.

“Scarf? That's right, that's what you thought it was. No, Becca, that wasn't a scarf, it was a shirt—a T-shirt. I didn't tell you before, but I don't suppose there's any harm in you having that information now.”

“A T-shirt?” I couldn't identify what I'd seen around Madeline's neck as being a T-shirt. “Was it Madeline's?”

“We have no idea. It was a size Large, but we don't know if it was a man's or a woman's shirt. We're trying to track down the manufacturer and where it is or was sold. It's actually pretty old, and the only mark it has is the L on the tag. Madeline wasn't a Large, but the shirt looked like it would fit her just fine.”

“Someone strangled her with a shirt?” I repeated. Whether it was a T-shirt or a scarf, the person who did the deed had to have been pretty strong to pull off such a maneuver.

“Yes. There were no finger-shaped contusions on her throat or neck. A sleeve was tied to the hem, and then pulled tight to cause the asphyxiation.”

I veered my truck to the left, onto a road I hadn't traveled in some time. It was a road that would eventually lead to Columbia, the route that Sally would take when she went home. I hadn't been to Columbia in over a year, and I wasn't going today. I had another destination in mind and it, coincidentally, was on the same road, though not far from town.

“Whoever killed her must have been pretty strong.” I voiced what I'd been thinking a moment before. “Sam, that would have to rule out Jeanine Baker. She's strong, very strong, but she's smaller than Madeline, and she couldn't possibly handle all that must have gone on in that room.”

“I've thought of that, Becca, but you never know. I'd still like to find her and talk to her.”

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me.

“Have you talked to Levi, the cook?” I asked.

“He's the only person who admits to being in the house during the time of the murder, but we don't have any evidence that he was involved. Plus, we don't think he was. He'd worked for her for a long time, and she paid him very well. If you remember, Madeline's room and the kitchen are not only on separate floors, but at opposite ends of that huge house. It's more than conceivable that the murder occurred without Levi hearing much of anything. Someone could have come in through the front door, and Levi wouldn't have seen a thing. If, as he says, he was in the kitchen the whole time, other than going out to the garage in search of pastries, I understand how he might have missed any commotion. He's pretty upset.”

“His apron, his clothes were stained. At the time, I thought they were food stains, but they could have been more than that.”

“We examined and tested his clothes and apron. There was no blood, human or otherwise.”

“No chance he was involved?”

Sam paused, then said, “It isn't wise to totally disregard anyone at this point, but I don't think so.”

I sighed. “Anything else on the bank customers?”

“Since the last time we talked? No.”

I'd repeated the question with the hope that I'd push some button about Jeanine's foreclosure notice, but my method didn't work. It was time for me to strongly urge Allison to tell Sam what she knew.

“Well, she didn't just kill herself,” I said.

“That would be correct.”

“Do you have any leads you're following more than the others?”

“Maybe.”

Excitement zipped through me. Was it possible that the police were on to something, something I was still grasping to find? “Come on, tell me
that,
please. Do you think you might have this solved quickly?”

“I want to solve any murder quickly, but I'm definitely not going to tell you what we think are the best leads at this point. That would be very irresponsible.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Gotta go, Becca.”

I closed my phone, slipped it into my pocket, and made my way toward my next destination: Loder Dairy.

I had a sketchy memory of touring it when I was a child. Even though she homeschooled Allison and me, our mother made sure we took the same field trips that other elementary school-age children did. Loder Dairy was always a big one.

I remembered lots of cows, lots of strong scents, lots of mooing, and lots of people in white coats and white shower caps. I also remembered what a shock it was to see where the milk that was delivered to our home originated. It was one thing to look at a picture book about cows and their milk, but it was a totally different thing to see machines hooked up to udders and making plenty of noise as they pulled the milk from the cows. In fact, I had been momentarily traumatized by the whole thing, thinking the cows didn't look like cows but space aliens. Allison had rolled her eyes at my horror and my mother smiled and held my hand a little tighter.

At the end of the tour, the guide allowed Allison and me to milk a cow by hand. That took away the fear, and I still had a clear memory of the cow turning her head to look at me as I milked her, or attempted to. I was certain that she smiled, which made the whole trip worthwhile. A cow had smiled at me! How many people could say that?

And though Loder Dairy was a Monson-area landmark, it originally gained its stellar reputation because of its ever-present delivery trucks and delivery people. Beginning very early in the morning, the simple white trucks with pictures of a smiling cows on the panels were all over Monson and the surrounding countryside. The drivers were friendly and courteous, and quickly got from their trucks to customers' front porches and back to their trucks again. I hadn't had milk or butter delivered since I was a child.

I stopped my truck across the road in front of the dairy. It was an impressive facility that took up at least a hundred acres. Most of the buildings were white, except for a tall, round, bright blue silo behind one of the smaller buildings.

There was a small number of black-and-white cows in the very green pasture to the east of the buildings. Though the pasture was lush, there was an area right next to a large barn that was well trampled and, from my vantage point, looked muddy.

Visiting Loder Dairy was another way for me to get to know Madeline's family better. Sally had said that Shawn and Mid had been ungrateful kids but had turned humble when given the dairy. I couldn't imagine giving something so magnificent to someone I didn't like, even if they were family.