The Death of Perry Many Paws (19 page)

“I can’t see that happening …”

“… or at least show enough other possibilities that it won’t look like an open-and-shut case against Ryan. There’s so much going on that has absolutely nothing to do with Ryan, stuff that happened before he was even born. We need to really pick Claudia’s brain …”

“Such a bad idea …”

“… and find out what sort of person Franklin really was. Then maybe we can find a motive for his murder. We have to do this for Ryan. And to save my marriage. I can’t see how Hugh and I will ever come out of this intact if Ryan goes to jail for murder. I know deep down that he isn’t a murderer. If he had it in him to kill someone,
I
would be the one who was dead and ...” Grace took a deep breath and leaned forward to continue.

I interrupted. “The boys were obviously up to some mischief at the cottage. Maybe a prank gone bad?”

“According to Ryan, the boys were sneaking into his house to see how far inside they could get without him seeing them. I can see how Franklin might have chased after them and fallen and fatally hit his
head or something. But to end up with a letter opener in his neck? And he was seated in his chair, not chasing anyone. It just doesn’t seem like a prank gone badly to me.” Grace sat back in her chair.

“I know. I agree. I truly don’t feel Ryan hurt Franklin on purpose. I suppose the letter opener in the neck would be hard to do by mistake …” I laughed grimly.

“Obviously. There has to be another answer that probably has nothing to do with anyone we know. Someone out of Franklin’s past or maybe a recent acquaintance.”

“But he never went anywhere or ever talked to anyone,” I protested.

“Anyone that you know of. What about the times you and Cam are away? Or even when you’re home? Someone could be visiting Franklin in the cottage.”

“I think we would know if someone was out there.”

“You never knew Ryan and his friends were there, did you?” Grace asked.

“Well, no …”

“So who knows who else might have come and gone when you weren’t home, or even late at night? People could have been slipping in and out of the cottage all the time and, if they were trying to avoid being seen, you probably wouldn’t have known.”

“But why would they try to avoid being seen? We would’ve encouraged any guests or friendships Franklin might’ve had.” Thinking of him sitting out there alone day after day made us feel guilty, but we could never get him to come to the house for dinner or to visit with us. We would have loved to know he had someone to talk to.

“Maybe they weren’t friends,” Grace said. “If he was being harassed by someone from his past, would he have told you?”

“Hardly. He never talked to us.”

“Exactly. Who knew what was going on in that cottage. Maybe there was something he didn’t want you to see.”

“So the hermit act was just that, an act? He did that to keep us away from the cottage so he could do nefarious things out there? Like what? Operate a still? Grow pot? Run a prostitution ring? Launder money? We didn’t see any signs of anything other than an old man living a simple existence,” I said.

“Maybe the murderer got rid of all the signs that something was going on out there. Franklin was killed before he went to bed, after you and Cam would’ve checked up on him for the evening, so the murderer had all night to clean up. He knew no one else would be at the cottage. He had hours and hours. And the cottage is small. It wouldn’t have taken long.”

“I still can’t envision what kind of secret activities Franklin would’ve had going on out there. It couldn’t be anything that involved many people because we would’ve noticed that.”

“That kills off the prostitution ring. I think Ryan and his friends might have noticed something like that when they were spying on him,” Grace said. It was good to see her getting her sense of humor back.

“Definitely not a prostitution ring. And definitely not pot unless he was growing it in clay pots in his windows. The police would’ve noticed marijuana plants out there.”

“Likewise a still. OK, enough stupid ideas. We need to get serious.” Grace pulled the legal pad back and began making a list. “Tell me all the weird things you can think of connected to Franklin’s murder. I already wrote down how he was a hermit.”

“Put down that he was a normal kid until he was about fifteen.”

“Ryan’s age …”

“… and then he became more and more reclusive. Put down ‘mono’ with a question mark.”

“OK. I’m putting down the piles of newspapers, one from each year, all the April 1 editions. We really need to look at those …”

“I’ll do it,” I agreed. “What about the photo of Hetty Foster and Syra not acknowledging her as her mother? That’s very strange.”

“Right. Got it. I still think we need to tackle Bing on that …”

“… when Syra isn’t around.”

“Yes. Show him the photo and get him to talk about his mother.” Grace flipped over the sheet of paper and started a second one.

“Write down the break-in and put down handkerchief with a question mark. Also note that nothing was taken, therefore someone must have been looking for something that wasn’t found.”

“Like what?”

“No idea. And put a line for Sylvie. Not sure if that has to do with anything but it is an odd story and the handkerchief is creepy. Oh, and put down this quote.” I added.

“Do you have it with you?” Grace wrote the word “quote” and then made a big box.

“Yes, I have a copy in my purse. I brought it to show Hiram to see if he knew anything about the story it was taken from.”

“Okay. I’ll make a copy of it and tape it in here,” she said tapping the box with her pen. “What else?”

“We have to put in about Ryan and his friends and the shirt, don’t you think?” I asked tentatively.

“Yeah, I guess so. What else?”

“Write down ‘attic’. I want to see if there’s more up there that might tell us about Franklin as a child.” I hesitated and then took the plunge. “I guess you need to write Claudia’s name and star that. She’s our best source of information about Franklin’s youth, even though she seems so self-absorbed that I’m not sure she was paying much attention. But who knows.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t remember things. She’s getting old.”

“Claudia remembers what she wants to. It’s just that if it doesn’t directly affect her, she doesn’t think it’s worth remembering. But we can try.”

A knock at the back door made us both jump. There are two doors to Grace’s office, one leading directly into the bookstore and the other leading to a hallway that attaches her store to Hugh’s antiques shop next door. At one time these two stores were one but when Grace’s grandfather bought the building, he divided the space and rented out the shop next door. He built a hallway between the two shops and that is where Grace had her office and a storage room for the bookstore and Hugh had his office and storage space behind his store. Grace was actually Hugh’s landlord as well as the landlord for the two apartments on the second floor of the building.

The door opened and Hugh came into the office, obviously startled to see me sitting there. He’s a large man, big-boned and carrying a lot of muscle and a lot of weight. Grace and I agreed that he would be an excellent representative of the Gentle Giant society, if there were such a thing. We smiled at each other and then he looked at Grace. I immediately knew that their marriage was not in as much trouble as Grace thought it was. I was embarrassed to witness the tenderness and love in his expression as he bent down to kiss the top of her head. She returned the same look to him.

“I should get going.”

“No, no,” they both protested. Hugh pulled up a chair and looked at the pad in front of Grace.

“Ah, interesting. I see what you two have been up to this morning.” Hugh wiggled around and pulled a folded up sheet of paper from his back pocket. He spread it out on the table. It looked similar to ours.

“You two
are
soul mates,” I said. They both smiled at me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to leave?”

“Absolutely not,” Hugh said. “I want to compare notes.” Hugh wasn’t as well informed as Grace and I but he had written a detailed timeline of Ryan’s involvement. Grace added dates and times onto our sheet as well as some detailed descriptions of what Franklin had been
doing each of the times the boys were there. It was obvious that there wasn’t much going on at Franklin’s cottage in the evenings other than reading, eating dinner, doing the dishes and snoozing in his chair. The boys had never seen another person remotely near the cottage or ever seen Franklin leave the cottage. There wasn’t a TV out there, so his evenings were spent reading.

I pointed to Hugh’s list. “What does this mean, ‘read/w’?”

“Reading and writing. Ryan said Franklin was either reading in his chair or writing at his desk,” Hugh explained.

“Writing what?” I’d never seen Franklin writing anything.

Hugh shrugged. “No idea. Ryan just said he was either reading or writing in the evenings. Sometimes they walked by early enough to see him sitting in the kitchen eating. Then he would do all the dishes and go into his study for the night. He read or wrote. That’s it.”

Grace and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. We hadn’t found any sign in the cottage that indicated Franklin had written much of anything. No journal. No letters. No papers with his writing on them at all. Not even a list. Cam and I shopped for him and usually he asked for the same things each week. If he wanted anything different— and he rarely did— he told us. He never gave us a list or wrote us a note. So what was he writing? And where was it now?

There’s only so much you can discuss when you don’t know anything. We went around and around about Franklin and the writing and got nowhere. Hugh promised to question Ryan again to make sure he wasn’t mistaken about it although I’m not sure what else it would be that Franklin was doing that would make it look as if he were writing. Drawing? That was even stranger. Coloring? Stranger still. Grace and Hugh were both interested in talking more about Ryan so I left to talk to Hiram about the Poe quote.

Hiram’s work space is behind a bookcase of travel books that towers about six feet high. On top of the bookcase are old boats—ferries,
sailboats and pirate ships—as well as some old trains and a couple of World War I vintage planes. My favorite transportation piece is a hot-air balloon filled with waving dolls, one of whom holds a cat and is waving its paw. Cam and I have always talked of going up in a balloon someday. I stood there staring at the balloon and picturing Cam and me in there, Cam holding Mycroft and waving his paw to our friends on the ground.

It suddenly occurred to me that Perry Many Paws and his friends could take a hot-air balloon ride! The balloon would give an opportunity for lots of bright-colored illustrations, something that is often missing when you have a bear, a squirrel and a frog in every picture. Plus, flying over farms and towns and various other types of landscape could be educational. Yes, a balloon ride would be perfect and, I think, Tim would even agree to let the characters out of the forest and away from the cave for that. Suddenly a shadow appeared over my shoulder.

“Hiram! You startled me.”

“Sorry.” His eyes went left and right and then to somewhere over my shoulder while his hands fidgeted in his pockets. He was the thinnest man I knew. His skin was stretched so tightly over his face that it looked like it could tear if you dared to touch it. Which I didn’t. It occurred to me that if he wanted a face lift he would be out of luck because his skin couldn’t get any tighter than it was now. He wore a baggy suit, completely overdressed for his job, and it hung on him like it was still in his closet. He was literally a human clothes hanger.

“Well …” He turned around to go back into his cubicle behind the bookcase. Whatever he’d planned to do when he came out and startled me had been forgotten in his desire to return to the safety of his space. I hope he hadn’t been on his way to the bathroom.

“Wait. Can I ask you a question?

He stared at me warily. “What kind?”

“Literary.”

“Of course.” He bowed elegantly and ushered me into his work area. It always surprised me to see the laptop computer glowing on his desk. He looked like he spent his days with his head in a musty old book. He indicated that I was to sit in the bright blue velvet overstuffed chair while he sat back at his desk.

“Yes?”

I felt like I was with a psychiatrist. His eyes were a dark gray and matched his hair. He had a full head of hair that he didn’t get cut very often so it tended to sort of fall every which way on his face. Either it was unmanageable or just unmanaged. He was clean shaven, which must have been an easy task considering how tight his skin was. Probably never had a razor nick in his life. His nose was rather long and pointy but then everything on his face looked pointy including his cheekbones and his chin.

“Yes?”

He was also very patient. “Hiram, I found a quote and I was wondering if you could help me with it.”

“You want to know the author?”

“Well, I know it’s from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. But I’m not familiar with the story and I wonder if you could tell me anything about it. Here.” I handed him the paper I had copied from Franklin’s note.

         
There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told … mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave
.

         
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Man of the Crowd,” 1840

“Ah, this is an excerpt of the actual quote. One assumes the person who copied it was only quoting the part that pertained to them,” Hiram said. He stared at my feet, waiting for me to speak.

“Um, yes, one assumes so.”

“This story, “The Man of the Crowd,” isn’t one of Poe’s best known. But it’s a good story nevertheless. One of my favorites. It gives you a lot to think about.” He handed me back my paper and looked over my shoulder. I was not too impressed. I knew the name of the story from which the quote was taken and I knew the author. It was written right under the quote. And I’d never heard of the short story so I knew it wasn’t one of Poe’s well-known ones.