Howloween Murder Page 7

  Becky’s eyes narrowed. “Bill tried to calm her down, but she wasn’t having it. Madison threatened to sue us for leaving a dangerous object lying around. Right in our own yard! Can you believe that?”

  “It does sound kind of nutty,” I admitted.

  “So I threatened to sue Ralph right back for trespassing. ‘Tit for tat,’ ” I told her. “ ‘And we’ll see you in court.’ ”

  “Did she sue you?” I asked.

  “Oh hell, no. That woman doesn’t have the brains God gave a pig. She probably consulted some ambulance-chasing lawyer, who told her she didn’t have a hope of making the complaint stick.”

  Becky sat back in her seat, looking pleased. She’d enjoyed telling her story, and highlighting the part she’d played in it. Her gaze flicked once more toward the television, where a commercial was now playing. A harried-looking housewife was trying to sell soap.

  “Wait a minute!” Becky suddenly straightened. “You shouldn’t have let me get sidetracked like that. You said you had something to tell me about Harriet. She’s in trouble, right?”

  “I’m afraid she is. The police spoke with some of Ralph’s neighbors. Did they talk to you too?”

  She nodded.

  “Did they mention how he died?”

  “No. I just know he was in the hospital. I figured Ralph died of insanity. Or maybe general orneriness.”

  “That wasn’t it,” I told her. “He was poisoned. He died after eating one of Harriet’s marshmallow puffs.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Becky grinned. “Way to go, Harriet.”

  “Except that Harriet wasn’t responsible.”

  Her grin died. Becky liked her own version of events better than mine. “Then who was?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what the police are trying to determine.”

  “What does that have to do with you?”

  There didn’t seem to be any point in admitting that I was on Harriet’s side, and trying to help her. So instead I said, “Harriet told me that she’d handed out several batches of marshmallow puffs to her neighbors.”

  “She did,” Becky agreed. “We got one too.”

  “I need to get them back,” I said.

  “Oh no, you don’t. Halloween’s coming and I––” Abruptly Becky stopped speaking. “Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me that my puffs might be poisoned too?”

  The end of her question ended on a sharp scream. Before I could answer, she’d already jumped to her feet.

  “Probably not,” I said. “It’s just a––”

  Before I could finish, Becky had already run from the room. Her kitchen was right around the corner. I heard the sound of a freezer door opening, then slamming shut.

  Seconds later, she was back. Becky was carrying a large plastic tub in her arms. There was frozen condensation on the sides, and the container’s top was sealed tight.

  “Here. Take it! Get it out of my house!”

  She thrust the heavy tub at me. When I didn’t raise my hands fast enough, she tossed the container in my direction. I just managed to grab it before it fell.

  Becky ran to the door and yanked it open. “Get out! And take that poison with you!”

  I was barely on the stoop before she slammed the door behind me. The pane of glass rattled in its frame. She was lucky it didn’t shatter.

  Faith was sitting up on the Volvo’s backseat. She watched me walk down the sidewalk to the car. I suspected she’d been sitting up for a while, and that she’d seen me get thrown out of Becky Gruber’s house.

  When I opened the Volvo door and set the plastic container on the floor behind the front seat, the big Poodle bounced up and down in place. I could have sworn she was laughing at me.

  “Don’t you dare say a word,” I told her.

  Faith was the soul of discretion. Her tail whipped madly back and forth, but otherwise she kept her thoughts to herself.

  Good dog.

  * * *

  Kevin’s playdate was at a home in backcountry Greenwich. By coincidence, that was also where Aunt Peg lived. I hadn’t spoken to her in twenty-four hours. By now, she would be champing at the bit to find out what was happening.

  I thanked Kev’s hostess profusely and promised to reciprocate soon. As I buckled him into his booster seat, Kev sat back and demanded, “Where to next?”

  Life with a busy mother has taught my son that we are almost always on the run to somewhere else.

  “We’re going to stop and see Aunt Peg,” I said.

  “Yippee!” Kevin’s shriek was loud enough to make Faith’s ears flatten against her head. “Will she have cake?”

  Aunt Peg was almost as famous for her addiction to sugar as she was for her line of Cedar Crest Standard Poodles. She always had something sweet on hand to offer guests. Even ones who showed up unexpectedly.

  “You don’t need to have cake in the middle of the afternoon,” I told him.

  “That’s not what Aunt Peg says.”

  “Aunt Peg isn’t a growing boy.”

  “Aunt Peg is huge,” Kev pointed out. “She ate cake and she grew plenty.”

  Aunt Peg stood nearly six feet tall and had shoulders that would do a shot-putter proud. She could lift a fifty-pound Standard Poodle with one arm, and she slept fewer hours a night than I did. So clearly I was losing this argument.

  “Aunt Peg is an exception,” I said.

  “To what?”

  I sighed. “Everything.”

  Aunt Peg’s home was a restored farmhouse that had once been the nucleus of a working farm. The five acres of land that remained with it gave her plenty of room for the handful of dogs that currently lived with her. A busy dog show judge, she was on the road for much of the year. Now she only had one Standard Poodle “in hair,” a young bitch named Coral, whom Davey was handling in the ring.

  “That’s odd,” I said. I had parked the Volvo in Aunt Peg’s driveway, but no Poodle posse had come flying down the steps of the house to greet us. Aunt Peg’s canine alarm system kept her apprised of all visitors. She usually had the door open before I’d even turned off the car. “Maybe she’s not home.”

  “Nope,” said Kevin. “She’s home. She’s eating cake.”

  Maybe. But that wouldn’t have kept Aunt Peg from coming to the door. On the console beside me, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Aunt Peg.

  Saw you drive in. Be right there.

  Where are you? I texted back. She didn’t answer. Typical.

  Kevin, Faith, and I were standing beside the car a minute later when I heard the sound of spinning gravel. I looked out toward the road and saw Aunt Peg go flying past the end of the driveway on a bicycle.

  She was steering with one hand on the handlebars. The other hand was clutching the end of a long leash. The leash was attached to Coral, who was trotting along smartly beside her.

  “Wheee!” she cried as she went speeding by.

  “Wow!” Davey’s eyes widened. “Aunt Peg’s riding a bike. Cool.”

  My stomach dropped. That was so not cool.

  Roadworking a dog built muscle and fitness for the show ring. There were different methods, but most people now used treadmills. Roadworking a dog from a bicycle was a young person’s game. Aunt Peg was seventy. She could kill herself doing that.

  Kevin, Faith, and I ran to the end of the driveway together. Kev was clapping his hands with glee. Faith wanted to go run with Coral. I was just hoping I wouldn’t have to scrape Aunt Peg off the macadam when we got there.

  The pair traveled another quarter mile down the quiet lane before making a graceful turnaround. Then they came heading back in our direction. It made me nervous to watch Aunt Peg, so I focused on Coral instead. The Poodle bitch had a beautiful way of moving. She was so well balanced that her stride appeared to cover the ground effortlessly.

  Coral was wearing the continental clip. The front half of her body was covered by a dense coat of black hair. Her face, hindquarter, legs, and feet were shaved to the skin, except for rosettes on
her hips and rounded bracelets on her lower legs.

  In the show ring, the long hair on Coral’s head would have been banded and sprayed into a high, towering topknot. Now it was wrapped and bound up in ponytails to keep it out of her way. The big Poodle appeared to be enjoying her exercise.

  Aunt Peg coasted the last twenty feet between us. When the bike came to a stop, she removed her feet from the pedals and braced the frame on either side. Coral waited impatiently until Aunt Peg had unsnapped her leash. Then she came bounding over to us.

  Faith and Coral had met many times before. Now the two Poodles only touched noses briefly before spinning around and dashing away. Kevin went running after them.

  “Whew.” Aunt Peg expelled a long breath. “That was fun.”

  “Fun?” I stared at her. “Are you crazy?”

  “I sincerely doubt it.”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I sincerely doubt that too.” Aunt Peg hopped off the seat. She grasped the bike’s handlebars and began to walk up the driveway. “Hardly anybody dies from riding a bike up and down a quiet lane.”

  “They might if they were attached to a dog. You’re not even wearing a helmet.”

  She gave me a baleful look. “I rode bicycles for decades before people even knew what helmets were. I think I know what I’m doing.”

  That was the problem with Aunt Peg. She always thought she knew what she was doing.

  “What if Coral saw a squirrel and took off? She could have pulled you right over.”

  “That wasn’t going to happen,” Aunt Peg said calmly.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I train my Poodles to listen to me, like any responsible dog owner should do. Seriously, Melanie, are you sure you want to continue this conversation?”

  Actually, I wasn’t. For one thing, any minute it was going to turn into a lecture. And for another, now that Aunt Peg had both feet on the ground and I knew she was safe, I was feeling much better.

  It was probably wiser to simply put the whole alarming episode behind me. Pretend it had never happened—or at least that I’d never seen it happen.

  Aunt Peg wasn’t going to take my advice. She never did.

  “You’re right,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s just go eat cake.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Tell me everything,” Aunt Peg said.

  We were settled at her kitchen table. Her Standard Poodles and Faith were milling around the room. A mocha cake was on the tabletop in front of us.

  “Cake first,” Kev piped up.

  Aunt Peg paused in the act of cutting the cake to dab a smear of icing on his nose. Kev giggled happily. The two of them made a fine pair.

  “I was talking to your mother,” Aunt Peg told him. “She and I have important things to discuss. Shall I set you up in the other room with a tray and a cartoon?”

  “Yes, please.” Kevin slid down off his chair. “Can the dogs come too?”

  “Only if you promise not to feed them cake.” Aunt Peg winked at him as they left the room. “Otherwise there won’t be enough for the rest of us.”

  “You’re a bad influence,” I told her when she returned. “Cake? Midafternoon television? Reckless bike riding?”

  “Oh pish,” she replied. “I did all that when I was his age, and I survived.”

  Of course she had. Aunt Peg would probably survive a zombie apocalypse. And emerge unscathed at the end as the fearless leader.

  While she was gone, I’d cut two more slices of cake and placed them on the plates in front of us. “Talk,” Aunt Peg commanded as she picked up her fork and dug in.

  Quickly I summed up everything that had happened since we’d last spoken. Had it truly been less than a single day? It seemed much longer than that.

  “Harriet’s in quite a quandary,” Aunt Peg said at the end. “Do you think Russell would really fire her?”

  “I don’t know. He depends on her. We all do. But Mr. Hanover would do anything to protect Howard Academy. If it came down to having to choose between the school’s well-being or Harriet’s, well . . .” I stopped and sighed. “He might feel forced into doing it, whether he wanted to or not.”

  We pondered that and ate more cake.

  “Tell me more about John Vidal,” Aunt Peg said after a minute. “I like the sound of him.”

  “He applied for a scholarship to Howard Academy and didn’t get one.” I was talking and eating at the same time. Thank goodness Kev wasn’t there to see it. One bad influence a day was plenty.

  “Pity, that. He sounds like a bright young man.”

  “He is. Apparently he knows just about everything there is to know about computers.”

  “I think you should introduce me,” Aunt Peg decided. “I’d imagine he’s a useful person to know.”

  “Maybe you and he can bond over a plate of Harriet’s marshmallow puffs,” I suggested.

  “I’m game if he is.” She eyed the cake as if debating helping herself to another piece, then pushed her plate away. “So now what?”

  “Back to school tomorrow morning,” I told her. “I’ll check in with Harriet. I want to see if she has a lawyer yet. I also need to find out what she wants me to do with the puffs I’m gathering up. I expect to retrieve the remaining batches tomorrow afternoon.”

  Aunt Peg smiled. “It’s nice to see you’re keeping yourself busy.”

  * * *

  The previous morning, Harriet had been waiting in my classroom when I arrived. This morning, I returned the favor. Since she and I were supposed to be working as a team, it made sense for me to keep her up to date on what I was doing.

  First I dropped Kev off in the kindergarten classroom with a juice box and an apple. Jill was busy getting things set up for the day. She said she wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on him.

  Then Faith and I went to the front hall and waited for Harriet to appear. I knew she’d be early. She always was. Harriet was already shedding her woolen coat as she entered the mansion. I stood up and forestalled that.

  “Let’s walk,” I said, offering her a choice of the two coffees I’d picked up at Starbucks.

  Harriet grabbed the espresso, leaving me with the mocha latte. She held the front door open for Faith and me. Of one accord, we headed down the hill toward the athletic fields. This time of morning, they were deserted. When Faith grabbed a stick off the ground and ran on ahead of us, I let her go.

  “Have you met with your lawyer yet?” I asked.

  “Yes. Yesterday afternoon.” Harriet removed the plastic top from her cup and took a sip, then nodded her head in approval.

  “What’s he like?”

  “Stern. Serious. Well educated. His name is Reginald Gordon and it suits him. He looks like a man who means business.”

  “Good. That’s what you need.” The latte had left a trail of froth across my upper lip. I paused to lick it off. “Will he sit in while Detective Young interrogates you?”

  Harriet nodded. She flashed a brief smile. “Except that he called it an interview, not an interrogation. Mr. Gordon was very clear about that. He was also adamant that I’m not supposed to say anything to anyone about the case.”

  “Including me?”

  She hesitated, then replied, “Technically, yes. But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. After all, I can hardly refuse to answer your questions, can I? Not when we’re working together on the case.”

  Harriet stopped walking, so I did too. Together we stared out over the school’s extensive grounds and the town of Greenwich beyond them. From this high vantage point, we could see the traffic on the Post Road.

  “Did you find out anything yesterday afternoon?” she asked.

  “I talked to your sister. And I met Hugh.”

  “Bernie’s boyfriend.” Harriet’s lips thinned. “What did you think of him?”

  “He seemed nice enough.”

  “He is that.” She shrugged. “Nice, I mean. I just hope Bernie isn’t letting herself get too involved.�
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  “How come?”

  “My sister is a babe in the woods when it comes to men. I guess she probably told you about Seth?”

  I nodded. “She mentioned him.”

  “They were married for nearly thirty years. They met very young. It was the only serious relationship Bernie’s ever had with a man. After Seth died, there wasn’t anyone else. Not for years.”

  Harriet sighed. “Then I got home from work one day and Hugh was there. Bernie was fluttering around him, acting as giddy as a girl. It all seemed rather sudden to me. She thinks things are serious between them, but I’m not sure Hugh feels the same way. She’s happy now, but I’d hate to see her get hurt.”

  Faith dove beneath a nearby hedge and came up with a lacrosse ball in her mouth. We both watched as she tossed her prize up in the air, then ran after it when it bounced away.

  “After I talked to Bernie, I met your neighbor John Vidal,” I said.

  “He’s a good kid.”

  “That was my impression too.” My latte was cooling. I took a long swallow. “He wouldn’t give back your marshmallow puffs, though. He said he’d already eaten some and he wanted to finish the rest.”

  Harriet laughed. “That sounds like John. He sees himself as a contrarian. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  “Becky Gruber had the opposite reaction. She just about threw the puffs at me when I told her why I needed them.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that. Becky can be a piece of work,” Harriet said. “Some days I wonder how Bill puts up with her. The only reason I give her any marshmallow puffs at all is because it helps me stay on her good side. Especially in a small neighborhood like mine, she’s not the kind of woman I’d want to have as an enemy.”

  Faith was still playing with the ball. She brought it to me and I threw it back in the direction of the school. It was time for us to head inside. The Poodle went flying up the incline. Harriet and I followed more sedately.

  “I’ll have more time this afternoon,” I said. “I’m planning to pick up the other batches you handed out. What do you want me to do with them?”

  “Just drop them back at my house.” Harriet shook her head. I imagined she was thinking of all her hard work going to waste. “I guess I’ll have to throw them all in the trash.”