Shadow of a Spout (21 page)

Chapter 21

T
he evening meal in the dining room was interesting. As much as Sophie tried to concentrate on looking around at the other convention goers to figure out who killed Zunia, she was too involved with the food and wondering how the fellows were doing in the kitchen. Service was still slow, but when she ordered the special she had helped them put together, a salmon steak with a simple maple Dijon sauce and the green beans amandine, she was thrilled with the result and so were the diners around her. She had warned Lenny to keep the entrees simple while they were shorthanded and figuring things out. Salmon, so delicate and fragile, could be overcooked in minutes, but hers was perfect.

The beef special looked good. Laverne marveled over it. “It’s as if they got a new cook between last night and tonight,” she said.

Sophie smiled inwardly, a glow of satisfaction warming her. Lenny, though relatively inexperienced, was an engaged and interested cook, which meant he could become a great chef if he wanted to. The other two fellows were good helpers.

But after the first edge of her hunger was sated, her mind inevitably returned to the mystery in which they were embroiled, and Bertie’s confession. She eyed Nora and Walter, who sat alone, silent and ignoring each other. Josh was eating with Emma and Orlando Pettigrew, while Pastor Frank sat with the two sisters and Penelope Daley, who all but cut his steak for him. Jemima and Faye Alice dined with Nana’s group.

“I’m staying tonight but leaving in the morning,” Faye Alice said. “And I don’t know if I’m going to stay with the ITCS.”

“Don’t quit the group because of this,” Nana said.

“Oh, it’s not Zunia’s murder,” the woman replied, forking up the last of her maple salmon with gusto. She chewed, swallowed and continued. “It’s the Sommers. It just seems no one has their head screwed on straight. What is Nora thinking, foisting Frank Barlow on us as chapter president? That man is a wreck. I wasn’t here last year or I never would have let them rush Zunia through as president. I would have run myself just to avoid it. Zunia Pettigrew got on my last twitchy nerve.”

“She got on everyone’s last nerve,” Laverne said. “Which is why it’s so hard to figure out who killed her.”

The topic rested as everyone finished their food.

Nana had been speaking with Malcolm and Horace through part of dinner. The two gentlemen had decided to eschew dessert, since neither was much into sweets, and stated their intention to take another walk, long and slow, now that the day was beginning to cool a bit. Laverne fussed over her father, making sure he had his wrist gadget on, the one that let him call for help from wherever he was. He sighed but let her fidget, then made his way out with his old friend, arm in arm. It was nice that the two gents had each other, Sophie thought.

Nana beckoned to Sophie when dinner was done and the dessert course about to be served. Sophie joined her at her end of the table, taking Horace Brubaker’s empty chair. “What’s up?”

“At the end of the meeting this afternoon, Malcolm and Horace spent some time with Orlando and Walter. Horace told me just now that Walter admitted that he wouldn’t really know if Nora was out of the room or not. They sleep in separate beds.”

“Ah. Well.” Sophie paused for a moment, but then divulged what Bertie had told her about his affair with Nora, and their rendezvous that night.

Nana looked stunned, her creased face frozen in an openmouthed expression of disbelief. “I would never have guessed that in a hundred years,” she finally said.

“I don’t believe it,” Laverne said flatly, leaning into the discussion.

“Me neither. I’ve known Nora for a few years and it just doesn’t fit,” Nana added, her palm flat on the table, patting as she did when thinking deeply. “She’s too . . .” She paused as she lined up her silverware. “She’s just too
dignified
to cheat with an innkeeper.”

Laverne nodded. “Exactly! I was trying to think what I meant, but you hit it on the head, Rose. If she was going to cheat, it wouldn’t be with Bertie.”

Thelma, who was leaning across the table, ear toward them, listening in, snorted and said, “Don’t put it past her! These women going through the change . . . They’ll do anything to feel young again.”

“Thelma Mae Earnshaw, you don’t even know her!” Laverne said.

“Human nature,” she said, settling back in her chair. “My father always said never overestimate human character and never underestimate how low folks can sink.”

“That explains a lot,” Laverne said, exchanging a look with Sophie and Nana.

Dessert arrived and effectively stopped conversation. The rustic apple tart with locally made vanilla bean ice cream was an enormous success.

*   *   *

A
n hour later Dana, Cissy and Sophie were holed up in SuLinn and Thelma’s room while those two ladies were downstairs with Laverne and Rose at the last formal meeting of the convention. Sophie checked through her purse, then took out what she needed: her cell phone, lip gloss and Nana’s room key.

“So tell me again why you called Jason and why you’re meeting him to go for a drive in the middle of trying to solve the murder?” Dana was lying back on SuLinn’s bed, her bare foot in the air, examining her toenail polish, which she was touching up.

Cissy, who sat on her grandmother’s bed, turned her back as she continued to talk to Wally. She had called him ostensibly to ask him to check in on Gilda Bachman at La Belle Époque, but her friends knew it was really so she could exchange telephone kisses with him. A text saying
“I love you”
and a string of hearts just wasn’t enough. Sophie was happy for Cissy, who had finally woken up to the good guy right in front of her who only wanted to love her and take care of her.

“I just figure an outsider’s perspective might help me figure this out some. I want to bounce ideas off him.”

Dana smirked. “What else do you want to bounce off him?”

“Dana Saunders, you be quiet or I will begin to ask why you felt it necessary to dab extra perfume on your neck before going into the coffee shop, where you knew a certain detective was having his dinner.” They had briefly joined Eli Hodge for coffee after dinner, Dana sliding into the booth seat next to him, but he had kept it strictly professional, except just before they parted ways he asked for Dana’s cell phone number “in case he needed to get in touch.”

Dana laughed out loud. “Busted. Go on, have your talk and be sure to park somewhere dark so no one will see if your chitchat involves more than just lip service.”

Sophie swiftly wound her hair up in a messy bun, eyed her makeup in the vanity mirror and slid her feet into sandals. She said good-bye and slipped out of the room. As she ambled down the hallway she came across Orlando Pettigrew at the door to his room. He was fumbling with the key and sneezing repeatedly.

“Can I help you, Mr. Pettigrew?” she asked, rushing over to the poor man.

He took a tissue out of his pocket and sneezed again, giving up on the key but leaving it in the lock. “Darned allergies!” he groaned, mopping at his nose. “I was at the meeting, but my sneezing and hacking was disrupting things. Besides, I just didn’t feel like being there. I need to take my pills and lie down; I’m not good for anything once I take those things.”

She turned the key in the lock and opened the door for him. He shuffled into the room, so she took the keys out of the lock and followed. “Can I get you anything? A drink of water to take your pills?”

He dropped onto his bed and fished a bottle of scotch out of a bag, looking around for a glass. She went to the sideboard, where the hospitality tray was, and retrieved one for him.

“I don’t understand why the police keep asking me the same questions over and over. I’ve been down at the police station three times trying to find out what they think, but they just keep . . .” He sighed deeply and passed one hand over his face. He grabbed a bottle of pills from the nightstand and opened them, shaking two out into his palm and looking around.

She handed him the glass.

“Do you mind getting me some water?”

Either Melissa or Dom had been there, so the room was spotless, and there was a fresh thermal carafe of water on the hospitality table. She crossed the room again and poured some cold water into the glass and brought it back to him.

“
What
do they keep doing, Mr. Pettigrew?” Sophie asked, as he took the glass, poured a large shot of scotch into it and then downed some, swallowing the pills. She picked up the bottle of allergy meds and looked at the warning label. It distinctly said not to take it with alcohol, but it appeared to be something he did all the time.

“They keep asking how could I not notice she wasn’t in our room. I told them I sleep soundly.”

There was a faint hum from the television and Sophie picked up the remote. It was not turned off properly. She wondered how long it had been like that, as she clicked it off. “Do your allergy meds make you sleep even more deeply?”

“I suppose.”

“Did you take your meds with alcohol that evening?”

He nodded.

“Was that after the fight with Pastor Barlow?”

He nodded again. “Zunia was in the room at that point, that’s all I can say. But she was pretty peeved at Frank by then. Told him she wasn’t going to run away with him; it was all a little joke on Zunia’s part from the start. Frank’s got no sense of humor.”

“Did you tell the police that you take your allergy meds with scotch?”

He shook his head, turning his dull gaze to her. “Do you think I should?”

“If that contributed to you sleeping so soundly that you didn’t notice Zunia had left the room, I would, if I were you.” She sat down on the other bed opposite him. “Mr. Pettigrew, it’s just such a puzzle. Who do
you
think killed your wife?”

He shrugged. “She was always making someone mad. In the time we were together I never did figure out how to keep her happy.”

She hesitated, but then plunged ahead. “I met your ex-wife, Dahlia. What a coincidence that she’s in town right now.”

“It’s no coincidence,” he said, slipping his watch off and setting it aside on the nightstand. He loosened his tie. “She made darn sure she was close by. She didn’t trust Zunia and Emma stuck together for three days.”

So clearly the trip to Cruickshank had been planned by Dahlia ahead of time. “Why was that?”

“Those two hated each other. This weekend was supposed to be about building a stepmom-stepdaughter bond.”

“Was that something Zunia wanted?”

He yawned. “I don’t know. Emma wouldn’t give Zunia a chance, and Zunia just made things worse. Then there was my ex . . . Dahlia tried to get Zunia in trouble just after we got together. She was so bitter about our divorce! I tried to be generous, but no amount of money was enough to get her to leave us alone.”

Well, duh! It wasn’t money she wanted; she wanted her family back.
“What do you mean, she tried to get Zunia in trouble?”

“Emma told her mother that Zunia slapped her in a quarrel.”

“Did she?”

“Of course not!” He slumped and shook his head, knitting his brow. “Or . . . Zunia told me she didn’t. And I believed her.” He paused. “At first.”

“I heard someone say that Zunia hit
you
sometimes.”

“She was such a little thing, but a spitfire. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

“So she
did
hit you.”

“Well, yes, but it didn’t hurt.”

“Did you hit her back?”

He turned bloodshot eyes on her. “Why would you ask that?”

There was a trace of anger in his tone, and she thought carefully before she went on. She got up and moved toward the door, turning the knob. “Just wondering,” she said. “You said your ex-wife tried to get Zunia in trouble. Did Dahlia report Zunia to the police?”

He nodded, watching her, his eyelids getting heavy. He yawned. “Zunia was fiery, and she and Emma butted heads all the time, but my daughter is a bit of a fibber, Miss Taylor. I would not believe anything she says.”

A bit of a fibber? Since Sophie had already established where Emma was it didn’t seem possible that she was the killer, but there were ways she could have fiddled with the time a bit, she supposed. They only had Len’s word for it that Emma was where she said she was at the time she said. He might not be the most reliable guy when it came to watching the time. Was Orlando throwing his daughter under the bus by implying she was lying about where she was at the time of Zunia’s murder? Hard to tell. Cautiously, she asked, “Do you often call your daughter a liar, Mr. Pettigrew?”

He shook his head but seemed confused. “I’m so tired.”

“Mr. Pettigrew, I was told that you were talking about leaving Zunia. Is that true?”

Again, he shook his head. Sophie couldn’t tell if he had heard her and was saying no, or if he just was getting so sleepy he didn’t understand what she was asking.

He glanced around. “How odd to be back in here, but without Zzzunia.” He was beginning to slur his words. He used his toes to push his dress shoes off, kicking them aside, then he slumped down on the bed, flinging his arms out. “I need to go to sssleep.”