Valentine Murder (19 page)

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Authors: Leslie Meier

BOOK: Valentine Murder
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Fairy Godmother waved her wand again, and the pumpkin was transformed into a beautiful coach.
A
fter Barney left, Lucy dried her eyes and began tidying up the lunch dishes. She appreciated his warning, but at the moment she was concerned with a more immediate problem: how to tell Bill about the car. She was afraid he might not take it well.
But when she finally screwed up her courage to tell him, after making sure he was sitting down with a beer near at hand, he surprised her.
“Lucy, that car doesn't owe us a thing,” he said, pulling her down on his lap. “Things are just things, but people are people. All I care about is that you and Zoe are okay.” He gave her a squeeze. “It's a good thing you realized something was wrong when you did—it could've been a tragedy.”
“I know.” Lucy fingered his beard. “But what will I do now? I don't have a car anymore!”
“I'll call the insurance agent tonight,” said Bill, patting her knee. “We probably won't get much for the car, but we should get a rental car for a few weeks while we look for something new.”
“Really?” Lucy smiled, considering the possibilities.
“Really. Now, where's my supper, woman?”
 
 
“It's my morning at the food pantry, so just call the church if you need me.” Juanita's breath made a cloud in the frosty morning air as she stood on the doorstep the next morning, dropping Sadie off for a playdate.
“We'll be fine,” said Lucy. “Say, can you give me a ride into town when you pick up Sadie?”
“Sure. You've got car trouble?”
“You could say that. The car caught fire yesterday.”
“It did? Is everybody all right?”
“Zoe and I got a little scare, that's all.”
“You're lucky nobody was hurt. How'd it happen?”
“I wish I knew. The car was going great until I noticed the smoke.” She shook her head. “They tell me it's a complete loss. I'm supposed to pick up a copy of the accident report at the police station, and I have to pick up a rental car. The insurance will pay for it—thank goodness.”
“Well, that's one good thing,” said Juanita brightly, but her big brown eyes were solemn. “I'll take you wherever you need to go. See you later.”
 
 
After she left and the girls went upstairs to Zoe's room to play, Lucy decided to give Chuck a call. The sooner she got to the bottom of this mess, she realized, the happier she'd feel.
The motherly voice that answered his phone assured her that Mr. Canaday would certainly be delighted to meet with her, but unfortunately he was not in his office. She might be able to reach him at home, the voice said, rattling off the number. Or on his car phone—Lucy should definitely try that. And of course, she could always dial his pager. That would probably be best.
Lucy hung up and looked at the numbers she had scrawled down on her notepad. She dialed Chuck's home number and got his machine: “You know what to do. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.”
She left a message, asking him to call her, and dialed the car phone, but couldn't get through. An operator thanked her for trying but said a connection could not be established at this time.
As a last resort she tried the pager. A recorded voice told her to punch in her phone number, and she did, but doubted Chuck would respond to a number he didn't recognize.
That done, there was nothing to do but wait. In the meantime, she could mix up some cookie dough for the girls. She was just putting it in the refrigerator to chill when the phone rang.
“Lucy, it's Chuck, returning your call.”
“Thanks for calling back so quickly,” began Lucy. “Something's happened and I'd like to get together with you to discuss the library.” An odd thought occurred to her and she digressed. “I mean, Gerald isn't still president, is he?”
“Actually, he is,” said Chuck. “I checked the bylaws and we have to have a board meeting and vote on a new president.”
“Can we do that? Do we still have a quorum?”
“I'm not sure,” admitted Chuck. “I think we do as long as everybody comes. There are still five of us, right?”
“Yup. You, Corney, Ed, Miss Tilley, and me . . . but I have to tell you I had a close call yesterday.”
“What happened?” He sounded genuinely concerned.
“My car burst into flames.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—are you okay?”
“Yup. The car's gone, though.”
“Well, that can be replaced.” He paused. “I think we better talk. Can you come into the office?”
“Sure, I'm picking up a rental today. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings are best for me.”
“How about ten tomorrow—Wednesday morning? If we don't have that storm they're predicting.”
“That's fine with me.” Lucy paused, then asked, “What storm?”
“It's supposed to be a big nor'easter—but they've been saying that all winter. I swear they do it just to encourage business—everybody runs to the store and stocks up on batteries and stuff and we just get a few more inches of snow.”
“Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed just in case,” said Lucy. “See you tomorrow.”
 
 
“Wow! Valentine cookies,” enthused Juanita when she arrived at a little after one. “Did you help?”
Sadie pointed out a particularly large, lopsided heart thickly covered with bright red icing and silver dragées. “I made that one for you.”
“For me? It's beautiful! Thank you!”
Lucy smiled as Sadie, beaming with pride, presented her mother with the cookie. “That one is too beautiful to eat, so you'll have to take some of the others, too.” She filled a plastic bag with cookies, glancing at Zoe as she worked. She'd been doing the same thing all morning, she realized. It was as if she had to reassure herself that Zoe was really all right.
She handed the bag of cookies to Juanita. “We'll just get our coats, okay?”
“Take your time. I'm not in a rush.”
 
 
A half hour later, Juanita dropped Lucy and Zoe at the garage. “I don't mind waiting.” she offered. “Just in case.”
“There's no need. I called this morning and the car's all ready.”
“Okay. See 'ya later . . . and thanks for the cookies.”
“Thanks for the ride,” said Lucy, waving.
She and Zoe went into the office, where Lucy rang the bell for service. She was just opening her checkbook when a kid with long, blond hair appeared. The name embroidered on his shirt was Gary.
“Hi. I've come to pick up a rental car.”
“Okay,” he said, flipping through a pile of invoices. “It's Stone, right?”
“Right,” she said, holding tight to Zoe's hand so she couldn't wander off in the direction of the vending machines.
“Here we go. It's all set with the insurance company.”
“That's great.”
“No problem. Hey, that was some fire you had. That car is toast.”
“You've seen the car?” asked Lucy.
“Yup. Cops impound all the wrecks with us. OUIs, arrests, they all come here. Want to take a look at it?”
Lucy hesitated, remembering the fear she had felt the day before. “I don't think so,” she finally said. “Do you have any idea what caused the fire?”
“Fire marshall's gonna take a look, but I don't think he's gonna be able to tell. There's not much left.” Gary grinned at her as he handed over the keys. “You're sure you don't want a souvenir? I pulled the medallion off.”
“I guess I would,” said Lucy. “Thanks.” She took the little chrome ornament representing the constellation Pleiades and tucked it in her pocket, but she kept her eyes straight ahead as she walked to the rental car, a big Buick sedan. She didn't want to see the burned-out hulk of the Subaru.
As she unlocked the car, Lucy thought of what Barney had said. It would be easy enough to set a car on fire; all it would take was a gas-soaked rag thrown onto the radiator. Anybody could do that in a second, especially since she had been using a bungee cord to hold down the hood since the latch had broken a few months ago.
Maybe she was paranoid, she thought as she opened the car door for Zoe, but it seemed as if a lot of things were going wrong all of a sudden. First there was the near miss with the truck when the kids were sledding, and then the fire yesterday. What is it they say, she wondered as she helped Zoe into the back seat—trouble comes in threes?
Not if she could help it, she decided. From now on she was going to have to be more careful. She could no longer take her safety, or the kids' safety, for granted. She was going to have to take precautions, like locking the house and the car, and keeping a closer eye on the kids.
“There's no seat for me!” Zoe complained as Lucy strapped her in.
“That's right. You know, I think you're big enough now that you don't need one. What do you think?”
“I'm a big girl.”
“So you are,” said Lucy, bending down and kissing her on her head. “Know what? I love my big girl very much.”
“I know.” Zoe smiled the complacent smile of a secure child who is sure of her parents' love and care.
Lucy gave her knee a little pat and got behind the wheel where she adjusted the seat and the mirrors, then started the motor. The roar of the engine startled her; this car was a lot more powerful than the Subaru. She'd have to drive cautiously or she'd be going far too fast, and without four-wheel drive, she reminded herself as she shifted into drive. She inched her way across the lot to the curb cut and stopped there, checking for traffic. She was glad she did, as a huge dump truck zoomed past, going much faster than the speed limit.
She jumped involuntarily, then gave herself a little shake. Being careful was one thing, but she couldn't go on being terrified all the time. She took her foot off the brake and glided out into the road, accelerating gradually. Tomorrow, she remembered, she'd be seeing Canaday. Maybe together they could get to the bottom of this thing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The King and Queen decided it was time for their son, the Prince, to choose a wife.
W
hen Lucy got to Canaday's office the next morning, after leaving Zoe at Kiddie Kollege, she found it was a modern suite located on the second floor of the outlet mall, right above Liz Claiborne and Van Heusen. Canaday wasn't there.
“I'm sorry,” said his secretary, a fiftyish woman with permed gray hair and eyeglasses on a string around her neck, “but Chuck's running late. He said he hoped you'd wait—he'll get here just as soon as he can.”
“No problem,” said Lucy, taking a seat on a rather battered captain's bench and picking up a copy of
People
magazine. She couldn't help staring at the woman; her polyester plaid vest reminded her of someone. “Are you related to Edna Withers?” she finally asked.
“She's my twin sister. I'm Edith and she's Edna, and we're both Withers because we married brothers.” Edith looked at her sharply, over her half-glasses. “And we don't ever swap, so don't bother to ask.”
“It never occurred to me,” said Lucy, her mind boggling at the thought.
“Well, you'd be surprised how many people it does occur to,” insisted Edith. “And they don't mind saying so, either.”
“So your sister is, I mean was, Bitsy Howell's landlady?”
Edith nodded. “Wasn't that terrible? Her getting shot like that? Right in broad daylight? Gives you the creeps.”
“Sure does,” said Lucy.
“And then that family of hers—I never heard of such a thing! ‘Just give everything to the Salvation Army.' That's what they told Edna. It doesn't seem as if they cared somehow.”
“Did she do that? Give everything away?” Lucy was wondering if she could get a peek at Bitsy's apartment—maybe she could find some sort of clue there.
Edith nodded, dashing her hopes. “I spent all weekend helping her clear out the place. That Bitsy, poor thing, she wouldn't have won any prizes for neatness, I can tell you that. Stuff everywhere. So many books—I guess you'd expect that, her being a librarian. And papers scattered everywhere, lots of them filled with nothing but scribbles and numbers. We filled bags and bags with nothing but garbage. Then there were the clothes—they had to be boxed up. And there were her little bits and pieces, jewelry and a Bible and little oddments, you know what I mean. Those we boxed up and sent to her family, even though they said not to. We couldn't quite throw them away. We just couldn't.”
“I think you did the right thing,” said Lucy.
“I hope so.” Edith reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “We decided to keep the furniture, after all. I told Edna that she might as well because she could raise the rent a little bit for a furnished apartment.”
“Might as well,” agreed Lucy.
Hearing footsteps in the vestibule, Edith tilted her head toward the door. “That's him, now,” she said.
“Hi, Edith. How's every little thing?” asked Chuck, shaking a dusting of snow off his overcoat and hanging it on a rack.
“Just fine, Mr. C.” She nodded toward Lucy. “Mrs. Stone is here.”
“Lucy! Thanks for waiting.” He picked a stack of letters off the corner of Edith's desk and glanced through them. “Can I offer you something—coffee? Coke?”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, come on in my office,” he said, opening the door for her. “Edith, no calls, please.”
Lucy took a seat opposite Chuck's desk and looked around his office. She'd never seen anything like it—every surface was covered with piles of papers. Folders were even tucked in the bookcases, stuck between the law books, and spilling out of the lower shelf onto the floor.
“Don't mind the mess,” he said, waving a hand. “I'm more organized than I look. And I'm awfully glad you called. I'm really concerned about the library. Things were bad enough, and now this business with Gerald . . .”
“It came as a complete surprise?”
“You bet it did.
Shock
is more like it.” He propped his elbow on the desk and rested his cheek on his hand, shaking his head. “Mrs. Asquith wants me to defend him, but I had to tell her that it was impossible. I mean, I can't defend him and represent the library's interests, too.” He shrugged. “I gave her some names. I hope the DA's not going to be too hard-nosed about this and is willing to work out a deal with Gerald. They could let him make good the loss and give him a suspended sentence.”
“Unless,” began Lucy, an unbidden thought coming to mind.
“What?”
“I just thought of it. What if Gerald killed Bitsy and Hayden?” said Lucy. “Maybe they figured out that he stole the tankard.”
“Gerald? A murderer?” Chuck snorted. “I don't think so.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Lucy. “But I didn't think he was a gambler, either. Something's at the bottom of this. I mean Bitsy and Hayden, and well, me, too.” She set her jaw, looking at him defensively. “I don't think I'm paranoid but I can't help wondering if my car was set on fire on purpose. Being on this board seems to be awfully dangerous. If it isn't the tankard, what could it be?”
Chuck leaned back awkwardly in his chair and scratched his head, mussing up his hair. “Listen, if you want to quit, I'll understand,” he said.
For a second, Lucy was tempted. “No,” she said. “If someone's trying to scare me off, they picked the wrong person. I don't like being scared. It just makes me mad.”
Chuck grinned. “Well, if you're determined to stick it out, can I ask a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Do you think you could ask your husband to look at some figures for me? He's a contractor, isn't he? He knows about construction costs, right? He'd know if something was out of line or not, wouldn't he?”
“I guess so.”
Chuck began rummaging through the papers on his desk. “See, I'm having a problem with the figures for the library addition. We all got that final accounting at the meeting, and everything looked fine. But after Bitsy was killed I copied all the files in her computer—just to be safe, you know. Just a precaution. And when I was going through them, well, I noticed that her figures didn't match the final accounting.” He stopped shifting the papers around and looked at Lucy. “I'm not saying it means anything. After all, I don't know what her figures were based on. Were they estimates? Were they from invoices? I don't know, and I don't have time to really go into it. But I do know that with Gerald's arrest, Horowitz is going to be asking for the books and I want to know what's in them.”
“Bill's not doing much these days,” admitted Lucy, “because of the weather. I don't think he'd mind. But you know he's already checked the figures for Ed. Everything looked okay to him.”
“I know. I wouldn't even think of asking him except for all that's happened.”
“It's worth a try,” said Lucy, doubtfully.
Chuck poked through a few more files and shook his head helplessly. “Edith!” he yelled. “Where are those library figures?”
She bustled in and zeroed in on the credenza, deftly producing a thick file.
“What would I do without you?” asked Chuck, taking it from her.
Edith smiled at him and clucked her tongue. “You really need to tidy up this office.” She sounded just like a mother telling her son to clean up his room.
“I'll do it tomorrow,” he said, leafing through the folder.
“I've heard that before,” said Edith, going back to her desk.
Chuck looked up and smiled at Lucy, inviting her to share his amusement. She couldn't resist and broke into a smile, too.
“You know, I stopped in at the library—that's why I was late, in fact,” said Chuck. “I thought that with all this upset things might be topsy-turvy. But they weren't. The new librarian has everything running smoothly.”
Lucy nodded. “It's amazing, isn't it? The board's a shambles but it's business as usual in the library. Makes you wonder if we're really needed, doesn't it?”
“I guess somebody has to sign the checks,” observed Chuck. “Thanks for this.” He gave her the folder. “And be careful. We can't keep losing board members at this rate or we won't have a quorum.”
She was sure he meant it as a joke, but it rattled her. Clutching the folder, she hurried out the door and into the hallway, almost bumping into Corney, who was wearing a hat and scarf in a becoming shade of blue that emphasized her eyes, and was carrying a large box, wrapped in a big red ribbon.
“A valentine for Chuck?” asked Lucy, with a big smile.
“Not really,” said Corney, her face reddening. For once she seemed embarrassed. “Actually, he did some work for me, saved me from a bad situation and, well, this is just my way of saying thanks.”
“I'm sure he'll appreciate it,” said Lucy, giving her a little wave and heading down the stairs.
The lingering almond aroma left no doubt in Lucy's mind that Chuck was going to receive a big box of madeleines. Lucy wondered if it was really a thank-you present; hadn't Sue mentioned something about a big lawsuit involving Corney?
Pushing open the door, Lucy saw that snow had started to fall. Forgetting all about her resolution to be more careful, she dashed across the parking lot to the car, never noticing the big, black pick-up truck that was just turning in. Never slowing, it rounded the line of parked cars and pulled up behind the Buick, blocking it in.
Lucy's heart leapt to her mouth, but when she looked up she saw it was only Ed.
“Hi, Lucy. How's it going?”
“Fine.” Lucy nodded, stepping up to the cab of the truck. “Looks like we're going to get that storm after all.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ed. “The wind's pickin up already. S'posed to be one hell of a blow.”
“And we've got a high tide and a full moon. There could be flooding.”
“Well, you're high and dry there on old Red Top. You don't have to worry.” He glanced curiously at the folder she was holding. “What'cha got there? Library business?”
“Oh, no.” Lucy found herself reluctant to admit the truth. “It's just some legal papers for Bill—a disgruntled customer.”
“Wouldn't expect he'd have that sort of problem,” drawled Ed.
“Some people are never satisfied,” shrugged Lucy, backing away from the truck. “Do you mind moving? I've got to get to the IGA before the storm gets any worse.”
“Sure,” said Ed, touching the bill of his cap in a polite farewell. “Didn't realize that was your car. Thought you had a little rice burner. Did something happen to it?”
“I had an accident,” said Lucy, unwilling to go into details.
“That's too bad.” Ed scratched his chin. “Maybe you'd better be more careful.”
“I sure will,” said Lucy, giving him a little wave and climbing into the Buick. She laid the folder down beside her without a glance and settled herself behind the wheel. It was only when she turned to check that everything was clear, before backing up, that she noticed the big magic marker letters on the folder. They spelled out two words: “Library Addition.”
And they must, she realized, have been clearly visible to Ed while she stood chatting with him, the folder clutched to her chest. All the time they were talking he must have known she had lied to him. Why had she done it? She didn't really know. It was just one of those stupid things that get people in trouble, she thought, hoping that by some miracle Ed hadn't noticed.
With more force than was necessary, she jammed the car into gear and reversed out of her parking spot, reminding herself to accelerate cautiously on the increasingly slippery road surface. Now, with a storm coming on, was no time to have an accident.

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