Deader Homes and Gardens Part 20

Felicia was the only one who looked shocked. "Is this true?"

"No way," Ethan said. "You're off your meds."

I waggled my finger at him. "I was going to get around to you later, but now's as good a time as any. You were having an affair with Angela Delmond." I paused to make sure I had everyone's attention. "You two met at Winston's house whenever you could. She had to be cautious because of the divorce. I'd like to think that Pandora was home while you were carrying on with Angela. You do have a responsibility to your children." Who might burn the house down, left unattended. "It was convenient, wasn't it, Ethan?"

Charles leaped to his feet, his fist raised. "Blasphemy, Mrs. Malloy! Husbands and wives do not violate the sanct.i.ty of their vows! Furthermore, Ethan is a direct descendant of Colonel Moses Ambrose Hollow. He would never sully the family's name!"

This time Felicia bonked him on the head with a saucer. "If you don't shut your mouth and sit down, the conversation's going to get a lot more interesting. I'm not the one who has an account at Victoria's Secret."

Her unspoken threat was effective. Charles plopped down like a sack of turnips and gazed at the floor.

Ethan was not so easily cowed. "You have no evidence. You need to be restrained in a padded room until you're coherent. As Uncle Charles said, I'm a married man with a family."

"You're right about the evidence," I said, "but the police are thorough. Are you going to be able to explain why your fingerprints are on the bedside table? There might be DNA in the silk sheets." I politely disregarded his expletive. "It took me a while to realize that you had to be Angela's lover. You saw her SUV turn on the driveway to Winston's house, and you were worried. You made a call to Angela on her cell, probably demanding an explanation or threatening to expose the affair, and told her to meet you at your house immediately. She must have thought she could deal with you and be back at the house in less than five minutes. Otherwise, she would have fetched me and coughed up a plausible reason for us to leave."

"Ethan?" Margaret Louise said. "Is this true?"

He tried to stare me down, but he was woefully inept. "So we were sleeping together. No big deal. Pandora insists that we adhere to the Kama Sutra. It's fine if you're twenty years old, but I work all day at the nursery, lifting heavy plants and weeding on my hands and knees. It was nice not to have to contort myself like a three-legged pretzel."

Charles's ears quivered, but he kept his head lowered. Felicia covered her mouth to keep from laughing. Margaret Louise felt no such restraints. Only Nattie watched somberly from her position near the sink.

"If I may continue," I said, "Ethan lured Angela away from the house and bashed her with a shovel. Her SUV was put on a truck and abandoned in Maxwell County. Her body was stashed in the outbuilding with the cooling unit. When I started asking questions, Ethan buried her in the pot patch. Did you hope that you could implicate Pandora?"

Ethan was too stunned to offer a reb.u.t.tal. I allowed him to squirm while I listened for cars pulling up outside. I heard a whip-poor-will and a tree frog. I furtively glanced at my watch. Jorgeson should have arrived ten minutes earlier. Nattie's unblinking stare unnerved me. I had no choice but to continue.

Meeting her stare, I said, "Winston must have confided his suspicions to you. You lured him to the stream. Everything was fine until you and Ethan found out about the deed that gave Terry the right of survivors.h.i.+p. Maybe Winston had told you about his concerns, or maybe not. Terry was a threat, because he was going to sell the house to the wife of the deputy chief." I was loath to delegate myself to a subsidiary menace, but I had to admit it made for a better story. A story that I needed to keep unraveling until the police arrived.

Nattie raised her eyebrows. "I do think that I should call an ambulance. You're making no sense, Claire."

"Moses rarely made sense, did he? You told me several times to ignore his garrulous ramblings, and most of the time I did. He did, however, have lucid moments. When Terry was on the kitchen floor, writhing from the onset of the poison, I saw Moses on the terrace. I asked him later why he'd been there, and he told me that he wanted to have a word with Terry. He must have known that Terry had arrived the previous night. I could offer a hypothesis of what he wanted to tell Terry, but it doesn't really matter. It was about nine o'clock at night when Terry got to the house, and I showed up soon after that. Moses wandered home to the Old Tavern to have his milk and cookies before bedtime. The only person with whom he might have shared his news was his devoted caretaker."

Felicia, Charles, and Margaret Louise were watching with perplexed expressions. Rather than confront Nattie, I looked at them. "Nattie had access to the house, as all of you did. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but she's the only one with the knowledge to poison the vodka with an elusive substance. Earlier in the week, Lieutenant Jorgeson told me that the lab had ruled out the garden-variety poisons. He meant a.r.s.enic, strychnine, and cyanide, things like that. When more testing is done, I believe it will actually be something from the garden. You were digging up daffodil bulbs this afternoon, Nattie. Were some slivers destined for my next cup of tea?"

Margaret Louise stood up. "I can't listen to this any longer. If what Claire said is true, you should be ashamed of yourself, Nattie!" She left through the kitchen door.

Nattie shrugged. "I would never poison your tea, Claire. If you'd ask for a vodka and tonic, well, I can't make any promises. It's not as easy as you think. One has to grate the bulbs, let the pulp diffuse in vodka for weeks, and then meticulously strain it. I keep a variety of my herbal concoctions in a cabinet in the garden shed. One never knows when one might need to ... modify the situation. Terry would have lived a long and happy life if he'd stayed away. It wasn't my fault that he popped up like a ragweed stalk. That was your fault, Claire."

I had a confession, but I had no idea what to do with it. Felicia was gaping at Nattie, and Charles was too stunned to speak. Ethan appeared to be numb. I began to feel rather idiotic, having gone through the steps for a grand denouement that should have resulted in something more dramatic. I was out of accusations. It seemed prudent to stall.

"What did you put in my tea, Nattie?"

"Calendula and a few sprigs of catnip. The proper dosage is soporific. A little too much is fatal. I wanted to find out what you knew and if you'd said anything before"-she shrugged-"I adjusted the dosage."

"When I met you, I hoped we could be friends," I said with a trace of umbrage. "You're not like these people."

She took a step toward me. "Nevertheless, I am a Hollow. That's why I cannot allow you to repeat these accusations to anyone."

"It's too late. The police are on the way."

"Are they? I haven't heard anything outside." Her hand was behind her back as she continued to move toward me.

"Don't make things worse," I warned her as I inched backward, feeling for the doork.n.o.b.

"What's wrong with you, Nattie?" Felicia asked suddenly. "Is what she said true? You killed Winston? How could you?"

Nattie's eyes brimmed with tears. "I didn't mean for him to die. I've loved him since I was fourteen. He loved me, too, although he was too awkward to show it. We read poetry together next to the stream. I could hear the emotion in his voice, the yearning to embrace me with all his heart. When he tried to explain why he couldn't, I could see the confusion on his face. All I could do was wait for him to cast away his tangled fantasy and come home to me."

"He was gay," I said.

"No, he wasn't! He was confused, that's all. That's why I waited twenty years for him. He loved me, and I knew he would come home." Her voice grew raspy. "Then when he did, he brought Terry with him. Do you know why he did it? To get back at the family! He wanted"-she turned to face Charles-"to rub their faces in the dirt. Don't you understand that it was a ruse? He wanted revenge."

"He was a pervert," Charles croaked.

Her eyes blazing, Nattie slapped his face. "How dare you! Winston was pretending, that's all. You have no right to speak ill of him. He was a better man than you. That's why you banished him from Hollow Valley. But he came back, didn't he? He laughed at you, he mocked you. You were an object of his contempt. He saw through your pretenses. He knew that you beat Esther until you drove her away."

"That's a lie!"

"Winston never told lies, you hypocrite!"

I decided to intervene before things got out of hand. "Was he lying when he told you that he loved Terry?"

Nattie turned on me. "Winston loved me, but he couldn't admit it. I tried so hard to explain it to him that dreadful day. I got on my knees and begged him to be honest. Instead, he sighed and stood up."

"Then you pushed him," I said softly.

"I tried to grab his arm to keep him from walking away. He jerked back and slipped in the mud. I never meant to hurt him, Claire."

"Then who put the fis.h.i.+ng gear and wine bottles on the bank?" asked Felicia.

She rubbed her temples. "I don't remember. Maybe I did."

"Moses probably contributed the wine bottles," I said. "I suspect he saw the whole thing from his vantage point in the orchard and wandered down later to get a better look. That's why he had to die."

Nattie shook her head. "No, he was old and his time had come. He deserved the dignity of dying peacefully in his own bed. I took him cookies and a nice gla.s.s of milk. I was a little worried the milk might taste funny because of the poppy sap, but he drank it and fell asleep."

Ethan came out of his stupor and banged a fist on the table. "You put Moses down like an old dog? How could you, Nattie?"

"He was an old dog-incontinent, s...o...b..ry, smelly. How many times did you offer to take him to the doctor or clean up his puke? I couldn't let him go around blabbing about what he knew."

"Then you should have confined him."

"Where? In your guest bedroom? Margaret Louise didn't offer, nor did Charles and Felicia. Should I have locked him in the attic?"

Ethan was nonplussed. "Well, it would have been better than poisoning him."

"He was the patriarch," harrumphed Charles.

Felicia's smile was wicked. "Will you be wearing a red negligee to your coronation, Charles?"

"What is wrong with you?" he demanded. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No, I've found my spirit."

I was all for them getting into an extended argument. Unfortunately, Nattie did not join in the fun. She took another step in my direction. I took a step backward, wondering where the h.e.l.l the door was. I was convinced that whatever she was holding behind her back was not a benign tea bag. I shoved Ethan out of his chair. He was so startled that he sprawled on the floor. Nattie smiled at me as she stepped over his body.

"I don't believe that the police are coming," she said. "Perhaps you're not as smart as you think you are, Claire."

"There are witnesses. You aren't going to get away with any more violence, Nattie." Somehow I'd misgauged the location of the door. I b.u.mped against the stone fireplace. "The police are coming. You need to give up, Nattie."

"Do I?" she purred, advancing like a feral cat. She put out her arm to show me a very large knife.

My memory was beyond reproach, most of the time. I felt behind me until I found the poker, clenched it in my fist, and said, "Yes." I then whacked her across the head with calculated force. She crumpled to the floor.

"Well done," said a voice from the doorway. It was not Jorgeson, or one of his minions. I launched myself into Peter's arms and buried my face against his shoulder.

"About time, Sherlock," I muttered.

18.

Two days later, after I'd been sequestered in Jorgeson's office for many hours to explain my incomparable deductions and a few minor glitches, Peter and I escaped for lunch at the sort of restaurant where one does not use one's cell phone without overt disapproval from the maitre d'. We'd already had the usual conversation about my selfless, civic-minded contributions to the successful solution of the crimes. For some reason, he seemed to think that I'd promised not to meddle with the subterfuge occurring at Hollow Valley. Peter's only flaw is his single-mindedness. I try to overlook it.

After he'd ordered wine, he said, "How long is Jordan staying with us?"

"Her parents will be home in two weeks. For once in her life, Caron has been a good role model. Jordan's acting like a normal pain-in-the-a.s.s teenager. Besides, we can't send her back to Aunt Margaret Louise. She's probably in Brazil or one of those countries without an extradition treaty. She warned me that they underestimated her. She had ten minutes to transfer every dollar of the Hollow Valley Nursery business account to the Caymans, jump in her car, and peel out before you arrived. Rather impressive. I don't know how to balance my checkbook without a calculator."

"Felicia's the only one in the clear," Peter said. "Ethan and Charles are in federal custody, and Nattie's scheduled for a psych evaluation. We'll attempt to extradite Margaret Louise if or when we find her. Jorgeson's busy dealing with the ATF, the FBI, the ME, and the chief-who is not happy with me."

"I tried to keep you out of it. I fully intended to have everything neatly wrapped up before your plane landed. If Jorgeson had been less patient with the state lab, he would have figured it out himself. I have chigger bites and an excruciatingly painful ankle because he was willing to wait for weeks to get the results. I didn't enjoy crawling through weeds, you know. I could have come face-to-face with a mountain lion!"

The maitre d' shot us a dark look as he oversaw the uncorking of the wine. I lowered my voice. "Have the police located Pandora b.u.t.terfly?"

"Not yet, but they're watching the bars and dives. Her children are in temporary foster care. Their caseworker put in for early retirement this morning."

I didn't bother to roll my eyes. "It's for the best. Even if Pandora is detained, she won't demand that they be returned to her. Felicia called me this morning. She and her daughter have plans to meet. If Charles gets out on bail, he may find himself home alone, unable to use a can opener or the microwave. At least he can have potluck meals at his church once a week."

A waiter appeared to take our orders. After some prodding from me, Peter told me about the hijacking in Missouri. He gave me an annoyed look when I innocently inquired if it had taken place near Cuba. "Or Mexico," I added. "One of those foreign places."

"The truck was full of cases of cigarettes. The potential profit was enormous. All Ethan had to do was put counterfeit tax stamps on the packs so they would appear to be legal. There's a term for that. It's called 'b.u.t.t-legging.'"

My laughter warranted a frown from the maitre d'. "Is that all you learned at ATF camp?"

Peter looked at me across the table with his mola.s.ses-colored eyes. "Let's have a peaceful lunch. I'll be at the PD the rest of the day. Don't you have an appointment this afternoon with a lawyer with a bizarre name?"

"We have an appointment," I said firmly. "Cancel your plans for the rest of the day. I intend to be inconsolable." I came close to bursting into tears but caught myself before the maitre d' descended on us once again.

Peter picked me up at three, and we drove in silence to Link Cranberry's office. I'd prepared myself by rehearsing mild expressions of disappointment and cramming tissues in my purse. My darling husband seemed grim, although I doubted he would create a scene. I reminded myself that I most certainly would prefer not to.

Once we were seated in her office, she flipped through some papers and said, "Terry insisted on signing a simple will that named me as the executor of his estate. I filed it Monday morning, so it's a matter of public record. Everything of value, including Winston's art, goes to charities."

My composure was going south. Peter squeezed my hand until I was able to say, "That's good."

Cranberry took off her gla.s.ses and gave me a quirky little smile. "He left a stipulation that if he died unexpectedly, he wanted you to have the house. I don't think we need to worry about the lawsuit, since the plaintiffs have more pressing concerns. You'll have to pay fair market value."

I bit down on my lip as I stared at Peter. "The neighborhood is much improved. None of the Hollows will sell their property, so we'll have complete privacy. The nursery is bankrupt. We can move in immediately."

"If that's what you want," my handsome, adorable, lovable husband said before he leaned over and kissed me.

There are moments when he can read my mind.

ALSO BY JOAN HESS.

THE ARLY HANKS MYSTERIES.

Malice in MagG.o.dy.

Mischief in MagG.o.dy Much Ado in MagG.o.dy.

Madness in MagG.o.dy Mortal Remains in MagG.o.dy.

MagG.o.dy in Manhattan O Little Town of MagG.o.dy.

Martians in MagG.o.dy Miracles in MagG.o.dy.

The MagG.o.dy Militia Misery Loves MagG.o.dy.

MagG.o.dy and the Moonbeams Muletrain to MagG.o.dy Malpractice in MagG.o.dy.

The Merry Wives of MagG.o.dy THE CLAIRE MALLOY MYSTERIES.

Strangled Prose The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn.