A Most Curious Murder (18 page)

Abigail called at eight thirty that evening.

“Jenny Weston?” The voice was cool. She didn’t give her name, as if expecting Jenny would, of course, know who was calling.

“I don’t mean to be cryptic, Jenny,” she went on. “I told your mother I would call you back when I could. What I meant by that was, when I was alone. I do seem to have people around me at all times. They mean well. Alfred and Carmen take such good care of me, but there are moments . . . well . . . when I do have private business to attend to. Not that I’m complaining. Please don’t think I don’t value the friendships that I have. Especially after, well, my brothers let me down so badly, turning on the family the way they did.”

“Did you want to come here and talk?” Jenny finally broke in, afraid the woman would wander forever and never get to the point. There was something almost charming about Abigail’s meanderings—an open, talking-to-remind-herself feeling to it.

“Yes. That’s why I called. I’m very sorry your little friend’s been dragged into all of this. I truly doubt she has anything to do with my brothers’ deaths. The story goes back such a long way. But I’m puzzled, truly puzzled, how it came to this. I’ve
been racking my brains. Over and over again I’ve been asking myself, is there something different I could have done? They were always such independent thinkers, you know. I’ve done my best, but that’s neither here nor there. What I was contemplating was, my dear girl . . . I hope you appreciate how difficult this is for me . . .”

“What’s difficult, Ms. Cane?”

“Why, everything I’ve been telling you. Haven’t you been listening?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Then you should understand why I’m being so cloak-and-dagger. I must protect my family’s reputation. Murder’s never been a part of our lineage. I hope you understand and respect that fact, even as we speak of murder.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Cane. I—”

“I will be over to see you tomorrow evening. Precisely eight o’clock. That is unless my companions have other plans for me. They do carry on about my health and welfare—especially at times like this, when I’m under such stress. But then, I can come up with reasons to go off on my own for an hour or two. I’m not a prisoner, you understand. Nothing of the sort. Just . . . when people care for you as deeply as my secretary and attorney care for me, well, you understand. I don’t like to disappoint them. But this is different. So much history. And you do understand, I hope, not a word of anything I divulge to you can be passed to another living soul. I’ve chosen you because you’ve somehow insinuated yourself into the middle of Cane business.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Jenny protested.

“No blame on your side. How could I blame you for having this whole ugly business thrust on you? Why—”

Enough was enough. “I’ll see you at eight o’clock tomorrow evening. You know where we—?”

“Don’t be silly. I know everyone in town. Eight o’clock.” Abigail hung up.

When Jenny told Dora that Abigail was coming the following evening, Dora was thrust into a frenzy of vacuuming, baking, and dusting.

“What time did you say she was coming? Eight o’clock? That doesn’t give me near enough time. I should make new cushions for the rockers. What kind of tea does she drink, do you think?”

“Mom, enough. She’ll never notice.”

“But this is the first time she’s come here.” Dora wrung her hands. “Abigail Cane! Why, that’s like the Queen of England visiting. Everything must be right.”

She headed toward the kitchen. “Queen Abigail of Bear Falls—for heaven’s sake. Imagine that. Coming here. How Jim would laugh at me.”

She muttered all the way out to scour her teapot.

When she awoke to screaming, Jenny thought it was a part of her dream: she’d been swimming beside a boat headed for Guatemala. The water was so cold it could have been the Arctic Ocean. Her legs hurt from kicking. Her arms were about to give up and let her sink. She thought the screams were her own.

“Help!” The word came again in a high, squeaky voice. Then unintelligible words. Then barking.

Zoe!

She hopped out of bed and, in only her very short pajamas, ran out into the hall and into Dora, fumbling an arm into a proper housecoat.

“It’s Zoe,” Jenny yelled at her. “Call the police. I’m going over there.”

“Oh, don’t, Jenny. Wait . . .”

She was outside and through the trees. She ran into Zoe, whose arms were waving wildly.

Fida leaped and barked around her.

Jenny grabbed an arm. “What happened? What’s going on? Zoe? Zoe! Mom’s calling the police.”

“Someone’s in my house. I heard him. I got up and saw him in my living room. He was tearing things apart. You should just see. I yelled, and he ran out the back door. I thought he came this way . . . did you see anybody?”

Jenny shook her head. “No one,” she said. “There’s no one. Let’s go to my house until the police get here.”

Zoe didn’t like the idea at all, trying to pull away to go chasing nothing in the dark, but she gave in and went back to Jenny’s.

***

Ed Warner stood in the archway of Zoe’s living room surveying the damage. Pillows and books were thrown everywhere. Drawers were pulled from tables and dumped on the floor.

In the kitchen, every cupboard had been ransacked. Even the refrigerator door stood open, with dishes moved aside, packages of meat from the freezer taken out and left on the counter. A deputy took photographs. Another deputy dusted for fingerprints, sneezing with every sweep of his brush.

“So you didn’t see who did this, even though you were in the house with your dog—which barks at everything, far as I’ve heard—sleeping beside you in the bed?” Ed made notes. “Can’t find any forced entry. Nobody saw who did it.”

The chief shook his head.

“I told you, I didn’t hear anything. When I did, I yelled, and he scrambled across my living room and out the kitchen door. I didn’t really see him. But at least I heard him.”

“What was the guy after, you think?” Ed was skeptical.

Zoe shrugged. “I know Tony and Jenny brought you those letters we found at Aaron’s. I can’t imagine what else someone would be hunting for. I just don’t know what it means.”

Ed shook his head. “Doesn’t mean anything, far as I can tell. And those letters—looks like they were threatening both
men over something. Can’t tell what. And a letter from Aaron Cane’s attorney. Your fingerprints all over them. And Tony Ralenti’s and Jenny’s. Sure wish you hadn’t messed ’em up like that. Another strike against you, Ms. Zola, if you ask me.”

He eyed her closely. “You take a copy or something—I mean of those letters? You’ve got no business interfering the way you have been.”

Zoe looked from Ed to Jenny and back.

“I copied them, Chief,” Jenny spoke up.

“Sticking your nose in everywhere—both of you.” Ed showed as much emotion as Jenny’d ever seen him show. If what she’d done was a criminal offense, she wasn’t sorry. Helping Zoe was more important than any slight miscalculation—or deliberate act—on her part.

“Anything else you keeping from me?” Ed looked from Zoe to Jenny.

Zoe was slow to shake her head. Jenny said nothing.

“If there is, you’d better hand it over pretty quick. Don’t like to say this, but with your prints all over Aaron’s house, the fights with Adam Cane, the letter we found in his house . . . things aren’t exactly looking up for you, Ms. Zola.” He shook his head. “And I’m not convinced anybody was in here tonight. Could’ve done all this yourself to throw me off.”

Ed looked closely at Zoe’s indignant face.

“Could’ve been your dog, nosing around while you were sleeping.”

“Have to be a lot bigger than she is,” Zoe muttered.

He leaned in closer. “Could have been nothing at all.”

Zoe’s eyes, when she looked up at Ed Warner, gleamed with tears. “Wish you didn’t hate me like this, Chief.” Her voice was tiny.

Ed stood back, blinking hard and shaking his head as if trying to get things inside to fall back into place. “Sorry, Ms. Zola. I didn’t mean all that. Don’t usually go around hollering at people. Just, well, I’m starting to feel like I’m chasing my own tail.”

He left soon afterward, leaving a trio of depressed women behind.

At first, the three stood staring at the mess around them.

“I’ll help you clean,” Dora offered and began picking up jars of spices from the floor where they’d been dropped.

Zoe didn’t answer. When she looked around at Jenny, her face was pale. She bit at her lip harder and harder.

Jenny put out a hand. “What is it, Zoe? Something else you remembered? What’s wrong?”

“The key,” Zoe whispered. “I didn’t tell him.”

Jenny held her breath. Last she knew, Zoe had it in her hand, wondering what it belonged to and why someone had taped it to Fida’s collar.

Dora stopped arranging silverware in the drawer. “I forgot about that key. I’m forgetting everything—so much going on.” Her eyes were wide. “Maybe we should turn it over to Ed. It’s just—well—Fida. The way things were, I wasn’t thinking murder. I was just thinking somebody doing something to the poor dog.”

“Don’t worry, Dora,” Zoe said as she pulled up to her full height, arms crossed in front of her. “I still have it . . . or I had it.”

“Where?” Jenny asked.

Zoe walked across the kitchen, shuffling through the mess on the floor. She left the room and was gone for only a minute.

When she came back, she held a book in her hands. A gray book. Very old and ornately decorated.

Zoe ran her fingers on a cover with gold-embossed diamond shapes in the form of two columns and what looked like a fat rabbit between the columns. She held the book up carefully to show Dora and Jenny, her face radiant, almost beatific.

“
Alice in Wonderland
. A very special, very old copy.”

“Lovely, dear,” Dora smiled sweetly at her. “But—”

“The key’s in here.” She set the book on the table and opened it carefully, one finger turning page after page until she came to a drawing of a small glass table with a key on top.

Stuck in the gutter, between the two pages, lay a glassine envelope.

Dora and Jenny hovered over Zoe as she pulled the envelope carefully from the book and opened it. The key fell into her hand.

There was a sigh of relief from each of them.

“That’s what he was after.” Zoe looked at the key with a kind of wonder.

Zoe slipped the key back into its envelope, then set it in the gutter of the book. “Alice will guard it for us.”

“Call Tony,” Jenny said. “He e-mailed a photo of it to a friend. A locksmith. Maybe he’s heard something.”

“I hope so. It seems to be important, doesn’t it? Most especially to me.” Zoe turned in the doorway, her round face deadly serious. “And I didn’t make up somebody in the house. He was here. Or she was here. Somebody was definitely in here. I’ll bet anything they’re coming back for this.”

She held up the gray book, gold embossing sparkling for just a moment in the artificial light of the kitchen fixture.

“Penelope called.” Zoe was at the breakfast table in Dora’s house, where she’d spent the night. “She heard about the break-in. Want to meet her at Myrtle’s for dinner?” Zoe looked to both of them, her bright face hopeful.

Jenny asked, “What time? Remember, Abigail’s coming at eight.” Dora broke in to say good-bye. She was off to find very special teas.

Tony, invited to breakfast to talk about the break-in, glanced up from the iPad he was using as though his mind was elsewhere.

“She said six thirty. Maybe she’s got something new.” Zoe, book in her hands, sat back on her stack of phonebooks, legs straight out in front of her. She leafed through the book of fairy tale characters she wanted to trace and paint on the pole of the children’s house.

“Fine with me,” Tony said.

“Me too,” Jenny, going over the copies of Aaron’s letters, answered absentmindedly.

“Want to hear what the locksmith has to say about Fida’s key?” Tony looked up from his screen, stopping as if to tease.

He turned the iPad to the others and pointed to an antique humpback chest on the screen.

“That’s it? The key fits that chest?” Zoe asked.

Tony shrugged. “Or one like it. My friend says this particular key is from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.”

Tony used the eraser of a pencil to point out places on the image of the key.

“See the shaft? Three decorative circlets on a bow end. No collar. My friend says it’s a simple key. From the size, probably opens a wooden box or small chest—like the one pictured.”

“Great,” Zoe groused. “How many of those you see around these days?”

“This could be what the killer’s after. First thing to look for,” Tony said. “Or he could have the chest and needs the key to open it. Nah—in that case, he’d just smash it open. So maybe he doesn’t have the chest.” He snapped the iPad case closed. “Finding this box is crucial. And finding it quick, before the killer does.”

“So,” Zoe thought out loud. “It’s definitely got something to do with the Canes. It’s the Cane men who are dead, after all.”

Tony nodded at her. “And it’s the Cane men who each got a letter.”

“And look what they say . . .” Jenny pointed to the letter she was holding, then read aloud. “‘You boys can’t cheat us anymore. I hear you’ve got what I’m after but you’re hiding it. All three of you in on cheating us, just like him. A pack of cheaters. Time’s up on that. You cheated her way too long and now you’re cheating me.’” Zoe was lost in her head for a while.

“Were the boys in on something with their sister?” Zoe asked but didn’t appear to be listening to herself. “Abigail got all the money. I don’t get it.”

Jenny was thinking hard. “It sounds as if whoever wrote the letters knows the Canes pretty well. Calls Adam and Aaron ‘the boys.’”

“Everybody in town calls them that,” Tony said.

“Not really. Only people who have lived here a long time.” Zoe frowned.

“Or who know the family pretty well,” Jenny added. “A family friend. An old teacher.”

“A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker,” Zoe said.

“So,” Jenny put in, “somebody who’s been around a while. Other than Abigail, I can’t think of anybody in that circle, except for some very elderly folks. How about Carmen Volker, her secretary?”

“She’s not that old. And she’s not from here.”

“Anyway, you think she’d want to jeopardize her job?” Tony asked. “Doesn’t look like the type to give up her little bit of safety.”

“I wonder why Adam or Aaron didn’t go to the police when they got their letter,” Zoe said.

“Maybe they did,” Jenny said, feeling as if they were all trapped in a circle, running hard to stay in place. “Maybe Ed couldn’t find anything wrong. Or he didn’t trust them. He said Adam was always coming in to make a complaint about a neighbor.”

“Where are we then?” Zoe, shoulders sagging, looked over at Tony and Jenny. “Anywhere?”

“Here’s where I think we are,” Tony said. “Aaron and Adam must have known who wrote these letters. Maybe there were other, earlier letters. The writer wants something. It doesn’t seem to be money, though.” Tony hesitated, then looked hard at Jenny. “No dollar figures in here. Was there ever a question about their father’s death?”

Jenny shrugged. “I remember a big funeral. Two statues of him going up: one in Cane Park and the other at the cemetery. Lots of dignitaries. Police escort, that kind of thing. I’ll have to ask my mom if there was gossip at the time.”

“Yeah, do that,” Tony said. “Still, from what I found out, the only one to profit after their father died was Abigail. Adam and Aaron got nothing.”

“You know Abigail didn’t write these letters,” Jenny said. “Nothing points to her.”

“Still,” Zoe said, “if Abigail did write these letters, maybe her brothers were trying to blackmail her with something and she wanted it back. I’m still thinking there’s a later will.”

“Then took Fida with her?” Jenny snorted. “Rushed out to kill Aaron? You see Abigail doing something like that?”

“Why would anyone take Fida?” Zoe was almost moaning. “Except to make me look guilty.”

“Because she barks?” Jenny said.

Tony nodded. “Could be. Grab her first. Put her in your car. Then you’re stuck with her, so why not take her with you? Maybe Fida was what got him into Aaron’s house. Who knows?”

“Ed doesn’t really like thinking you’re the one who did it,” Jenny said. “He’s not a bad guy.”

“He’s grasping at anything just to get this behind him,” Tony said. “Kind of feel sorry for him.”

“My head hurts,” Zoe said and slid off her chair. “I’ll tell Penelope six thirty at Myrtle’s will be fine. I want her to know about the key and the box. She’ll go right after it. Funny how some people start looking better to you all the time.”