Murder on Parade (7 page)

“She actually bought the last bottle of Summer Gardenia perfume. It’s the same scent that Herb’s bimbo wears. Imagine going to such lengths to keep a man.”

Chelsea was a bimbo because she was sleeping with a married man, but also because she had quit Girl Scouts while Bess was leading the troop and we all knew that girls who left the scouts came to a bad end eventually.

I nodded solemnly, my sympathy real. Laurie Dillon’s humiliation was something I understood firsthand. That didn’t mean that I was forgetting that Herb Dillon had reeked of perfume when we pulled his body from the parade car. We now had two candidates for killer who wore this scent. Of course, anyone with any ambition could have discovered the name of Chelsea’s perfume and bought a bottle somewhere else. Assuming they couldn’t get a sample of the new gardenia perfume from my aunt as Herb’s sister had done. I wished the drugstore had a tester so I could compare scents.

“Chloe, I was wondering….” Bess paused as she rang up my purchase.

“Yes?”

“I can’t seem to find my snow shovel. I haven’t seen it since last year.” She paused, not asking if I knew where it was but hoping I would volunteer the information.

“Did you loan it to Jeff Talbot?” Jeff was the Boy Scout next door to Bess and Raymond who often volunteered to help out his elderly neighbors with household chores, which was very thoughtful. But along with being considerate, he was also very forgetful about returning things.

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “That must be where it is. I’ll call Jeff when I get home.”

We exchanged happy smiles, glad to have been of service to one another.

“Well, I need to get going. I still need to pick up a few things for dinner.” And I needed to call the chief and tell him what I had learned. He could also pass on the news about the Viagra to the coroner.

My next stop was to see Mary Grady, David’s secretary. As I suspected, David was out of the office on a very long lunch hour and I was able to have an uninterrupted visit with Mary. David treats his employees as badly as he treated me so Mary is only too happy to accidently leave files open where I can see information the police should know.

I explained about Herb Dillon and she got the file, thoughtfully turning the document to the right page, and then left to go make coffee. I read through the legalese Dave had drawn up when Herb made his sister the loan on the tree farm. As I had expected, the loan was forgiven at his death. Herb hadn’t been a nice man but at least he believed in carrying rancor—or avariciousness—to the grave but no further.

Since Linda and her husband had signed it, they had to know about this clause too. And even if Herb hadn’t told his wife, her best friend had probably explained things to her.

Sighing, I closed the file. I didn’t want to know incriminating things about either woman.

I thanked Mary, took a coffee to go, and then went back to the station. The chief wasn’t happy to see me so soon since it could only be bad news, but he nodded thoughtfully as I explained what I had learned.

Feeling I had done my duty for the day and suddenly becoming aware that I was ravenous, I placed a call to Alex and asked if he wanted to meet me at the pizza parlor. He had also been engrossed in work and not eaten, so we agreed to meet and stuff ourselves on calzone.  I had leftovers at home but I was tired of my own cooking.

Chapter 10

The snowman in Laurie Dillon’s yard made me sad. Not that Herb would be needing his scarf, hat and mittens, but it disturbed me to see the dead man’s frozen things just standing there. And if the cold effigy bothered me, what must Mrs. Dillon feel?

Perhaps nothing, or she would have taken it down.

Or could she feel that it would be disrespectful? Death made people think strange things.

“Damn.” Should I offer to take down the snowman for her? No—no, I would not get involved. But my mom could. She and Laurie were in the same garden club—and I could explain to Mom about how I was concerned with her friend’s mental state and Mom and Aunt Dot could rush right over and be nosy for me while they were there.

I turned to ask Blue for her opinion but she wasn’t there. Frowning, I turned on my cell.

It’s probably just my perception, filtered through my mother’s conversation, but it seemed like the garden club really liked funerals. Certainly they are always the first to arrive with casseroles for the grieving. And they do make really nice floral tributes for the memorials.

Mom assured me that she and Aunt Dot would be over to visit Laurie that afternoon, and wasn’t I thoughtful to have considered their friend. Mom prefers to put the best possible light on my motives when I am being nosy. I explained about the snowman and how I thought they needed to feel her out about this strange
memento mori
wearing her husband’s clothes. I would have preferred to do it myself but Mom and Aunt Dot would actually be better at reading their friend than I would be, so I decided to get their report before storming those ramparts. I’ve questioned wronged widows before and it isn’t pleasant.

Since it wasn’t too much off my route and the road was open, I decided to swing by the tree farm and see if they were having any after Christmas sales on greenery. I wanted some fresh greens for the new year. This wasn’t a spurious excuse. I actually do like to keep my decorations up until after Twelfth Night. Because I am lazy and also because I just like them.

Linda wasn’t there, since she was offering aid and comfort to her sister-in-law, but Tom Borders was huddled in his shack, sitting almost on top of a space heater. Tom is usually a nice man, but he smelled like he had been drinking beer for breakfast. For a guy who had just been freed of a burdensome debt, he didn’t look very happy.

He did give me some holly and spruce boughs though when I asked for them, and said all the right things when I offered condolences on his brother-in-law’s passing.

“Chloe…” Tom hesitated as he arranged the greenery on the seat of my vehicle. I couldn’t tell if he was tentative because he was just uncomfortable with asking me something that forced an indirect acknowledgment of my gift, or if he was uneasy for some other reason. “I heard you were the one who took Herb to the hospital.”

“Yes.” I waited, suddenly wishing that Blue was with me. Tom wasn’t being threatening, but we were alone in a wood and no one knew I was there.

“Was there anything….  I mean, well….” Tom sighed and finished lamely. “Did he suffer?”

I decided to be blunt.

“I don’t know, Tom. He wasn’t thrashing around or screaming or someone would have noticed. But his asthma was bad and a heart attack can be painful.”

“Asthma?” His red eyes were definitely worried. “But he had medication. And a thing to suck on if he had an attack.”

“Yes. But I don’t think that the perfume on his coat and the empty rescue inhaler helped in the slightest.”

Tom’s face was chapped and red from being out in the cold, but I swear he went white under all that winter weathering. He muttered something about ‘not meaning it’ and stumbled away.

“Damn it,” I said, suspecting I was looking at worry and fear for himself and his wife, and not compassion for a man Tom didn’t particularly like, suffering in his final minutes.

That didn’t necessarily mean guilt though. At some time or other I think all of us have wished someone dead. Few of us ever progress beyond hoping for a stray bolt of lightning to find our tormentors. Tom was a gentle man, at least by reputation. He might have had strong words with his brother-in-law and now be regretting them. I hoped that this was what it all meant.

Mom called me just as I was leaving the farm and told me that she and Aunt Dot were done ladling on the tea and sympathy since Linda was there being a prop and mainstay, and that the memorial service would be held the next morning at ten. The coroner would not release the body, but Laurie wanted to go ahead and get the ceremony over with. Mom didn’t ask why the body was being held. She tries not to acknowledge ugly realities, but she knew that the body being held for more tests wasn’t a good thing. Mom complained about the dry cleaner being closed and then wanted to know if I was coming to the funeral and I said that I would have to ask the chief for time off.

Did I want to go to another funeral? Of course not. But there was always a chance of learning something. And it was also just part of small town life. You have to take the rough with the smooth. This could be tough though, if I discovered anything during the service. Mom would not be happy if I pointed an official finger at Laurie Dillon. Of course, she wouldn’t be happy if the finger moved Linda Borders’ way either. The only one I could blame with impunity was Chelsea Towers. Maybe I should be looking more closely at her.

I had traded in my electric cart for my own car since it was still too icy for my bike. My car started, but it was making unhappy wheezing noises. Perhaps it had caught pneumonia of the sparkplugs or something. Since machines tend to die around me, I decided to heed the warning and called my father.

He and Alex were together doing something to spruce up Dad’s Facebook page— Dad had gone high tech after the Youtube thing crushed his political rival and Alex was helping him. I suggested that he stay to dinner and look at my poor car. Dad said it sounded like a good deal.

A look at the sky told me that the clouds were closing in again, so low that they were snagging on the trees that ran along the western crest. Temperatures were dropping and it felt like we would either have snow or an ice fog. It might be time to break down and watch a weather report. Alex and I don’t watch a lot of the television shows that are part of the mainstream entertainment diet, especially the news. We prefer to read in the evening. But the weather could kill you and it happened locally, not just in big cities. We would watch it— at nine though. Not during dinner.

And speaking of dinner, what was I to fix? Dad and Alex had probably finished the leftovers at lunch. Was it too soon to fix spaghetti again?

Chapter 11

The next few days passed quickly. I went to the funeral but learned nothing except that too many women were wearing gardenia perfume. It did come in two distinct varieties which could be identified easily enough when someone with a dead nose went overboard with the spray. I eventually labeled the two smells ‘jungle’ and ‘domestic’. I had been certain that the perfume I smelled on Herb Dillon was the jungle variety but had to admit that between all the candy-canes and spilled hot chocolate that perhaps my nose was compromised.

Chelsea was at the funeral but kept well to the back and away from Laurie. Her dress was black but a feat of architectural engineering that hadn’t happened locally. She was not as modestly endowed as I am, but the dress made her look more than appropriately abundant. Fertility goddesses didn’t have such large breasts. I told myself not to be catty and that as Herb’s secretary she had every right to be there, but in my heart of hearts I wrote her off as something other than a class act.

I didn’t write a lot of parking tickets that Christmas week. The tourists had mostly cleared out when the roads opened and the locals were doing the majority of their shopping on foot. The after Christmas madness had passed and people were beginning to confront the reality of their credit card bills and dining more on leftovers than in restaurants.

The coroner would not— or could not— say if Herb Dillon’s death was murder or an accident. My gut said homicide so the chief asked the coroner to hold off making an official announcement until after the new year. If something didn’t turn up by then it was likely that person or persons unknown were going to get away with their crime. The chief didn’t blame me for this, but the shadow hung over me.

Alex was having fun helping Dad design his soon-to-be mayoral website, which was already popular because Dad encouraged people to write in with concerns and everyone loves to complain. Alex was also helping my father learn the ins and outs of things like Twitter. We didn’t talk about the murder but Alex knew it was on my mind. Dad was wholly taken up with his potential new job, forgetting that the election had not in actual fact happened yet and that he was not really the new king.

Finally it was New Year’s Eve. Dancing with excitement I packed an overnight bag and put my mask into one of my grandmother’s hat boxes. With less enthusiasm, I took Blue to my father’s for an overnight because the inn wasn’t taking reservations for dogs at the ball.

I love the Morningside Inn but it is a bit shocking on first view. It was built in the day when skilled labor was cheap and no one had thought up income or property tax, so why not build larger and grander than rival lumber barons? And architects? Well, that was just a silly expense indulged in by men who were filled with self-doubt. And not using one made for much more creative designs which, to this day, encouraged the weaker minded to see ghosts.

The current owners were only slightly mad—and in a good way. But looking at the imbalance of furniture in the lobby—big chairs, little table and giant paintings hung over mini-rugs—I always had to wonder about their design inspiration. It made me think of certain Tim Burton films and I wondered if they were also seeing spirits who were handing out strange decorating advice.

“It looks like an opium den,” Alex breathed in happy awe.

Though I didn’t disagree aloud, based on the photos I have seen of the old opium dens, I think it looked a lot more like some Belle Epoch bordello in New York. Opium dens in the old west were the crack houses of their days—frequented by poor workers rather than pashas and Victorian gentlemen being serviced by beautiful dragon ladies.

“But that staircase.” Alex pointed. “It’s wrong. Why does it look like that?”

“It’s built widdershins to confuse the ghosts. The builder was a southpaw and I suspect also dyslexic. Rumor has it that he was also….” I lowered my voice when I realized other guests were listening. “He was haunted by two ghosts that followed him everywhere like extra shadows. They were supposedly business partners that died under suspicious circumstances and haunted their betrayer.”