How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law (30 page)

What were Eudora and I to do? Was
murder
too strong a word for what Pamela had done in tampering with the brakes of the bike and trusting to a steep stretch of road and Lady Kitty’s high blood pressure to produce a fatal outcome? A case of wishful thinking at its worst, no doubt, but did the girl with the big brown eyes and wistful ponytails deserve to be locked up for life for mother-in-law murder?

It was in a mood of deep gloom that I ascended the stairs. I looked for Mum and the twins in the nursery before finding the three of them in her tower bedroom. Abbey and Tam were happily engaged in lining up Grandma’s shoes on the bed, an activity I would have expected her to veto on the grounds of hygiene. From the looks of her, however, Mum had something else on her mind. And the moment she spotted me, she let me know what was wrong.

“I can’t find my mantilla.”

“That black lace thing you wear to church?”

“I’m not blaming you, Ellie.” She went right on lifting up candlesticks and peeking under doilies. “All I know is it was in my suitcase when I arrived and now it’s gone.”

“But who would touch it?” I asked as Tam staggered towards me with his arms outstretched and the biggest grin on his face. “The children wouldn’t have been up here on their own.”

“I expect that cat of yours made off with it.” Admitting defeat, Mum put the powder bowl back in position on the dressing table. “Sweetie knows better than to pull a stunt like this.”

Were we talking about the same dog who had fled into the great outdoors a few days earlier with poor St. Francis clenched between her thieving jaws? Never mind, I had no doubt the mantilla would turn up safe and sound in a drawer and Tobias’s good name would be cleared. My cat had his weaknesses, but ladies’ finery was not one of them.

“Did you have a nice time around the shops?” Mum asked with no more than a token sniff as she began reclaiming her shoes from Abbey, who had been trying one of them on her head.

“I had a couple of errands to run, nothing exciting. And now I’m ready for a cup of tea. Would you like one?”

“Not just now, if you don’t mind.” Magdalene squared her skimpy shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’ve a million things to do up here before I can enjoy a sit-down. But don’t let me stop you from taking things easy.”

“Then I’ll get the twins out from under.” I took hold of Tam’s hand and reached towards Abbey. “We’ll be just downstairs.”

“That’s nice to know.” Mum put a real effort into her smile. “And don’t think I’m criticizing, Ellie, when I say it’s time you did something about that ladder the window cleaner left up against the house. It’s not what you could call an ornament, and it’s smack-bang next to my window.”

“I’ll telephone Mr. Watkins.”

“One more thing, Ellie.” She had the wardrobe door open and was stowing away her shoes. “Perhaps
this afternoon, when those two are taking their naps, you and me could do something nice together?”

“Anything you like.”

“I could show you how to make jam tarts”—she picked up another pair of shoes—“the proper way.”

“That would be lovely.”

If life could only be the way it sounds, I thought sadly as I returned with Tam and Abbey to the kitchen with its shining copper pans and the rocking chair drawn up in friendly fashion to the hearth. But anytime now Eudora would come knocking on the door and there would be no shutting out the grim reality that Pamela had done something that could not be dismissed as naughty. It would no longer seem monumentally important that Mum had brushed some rouge on her cheeks and done rather a good job with green eye shadow. It wouldn’t count in the scheme of things that Tobias and Sweetie would seem to have signed a truce and were now lying in a comfortable heap over by the Welsh dresser.

There was no point in wishing that Pamela and Lady Kitty could have reached some sort of understanding. It was equally futile to wish that I had never gone to the Dark Horse and talked a lot of boozy twaddle with three other miserable, frustrated women. What’s done was done, and all the tears and feelings of guilt wouldn’t change a thing. I was telling myself off in no uncertain terms, to the great concern of the twins, when I realized that my sniffles and smarting eyes were being exacerbated by whatever Mrs. Pickle had left brewing in the dented old saucepan.

What could she be cooking that made me feel I had overdosed on smelling salts? Whatever it was had cooked down to a dried-out white paste with cracks all over its surface. I was gingerly removing the saucepan from the heat, when Mrs. Pickle came into the kitchen at what for her was a run.

“There I was, dusting around all them doilies in the front room, when I remembered I’d left that stuff
bubbling away.” She moved up close to me to peer down at the cake of plaster of Paris with what appeared to be a practiced eye.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Bicarbonate of soda and ammonia.” Mrs. Pickle spoke with ill-disguised pride. “Works miracles, it does, for getting the burnt off the bottom of a saucepan.”

“You’re full of nifty ideas!” Some idiot I was to have thought for one moment that this twentieth-century daily, with her tightly wrapped curlers and faded floral apron, was practicing witchcraft in my kitchen. And all because she was descended from a woman accused of having the evil eye at a time when such bigotry was politically correct.

I was about to ask Mrs. Pickle if she would like to brew us up a cup of tea while I gave Abbey and Tam each a glass of milk, when from somewhere above us came a shuddering crash, followed by a piercing scream from Mum.

“You stay with the children,” I told Mrs. Pickle as I fled the kitchen. Terror clutched my heart and my legs seemed to be treading water, so that it took me what seemed like forever to get up first one flight of stairs, then the next. With every agonizing breath I was more sure of what I would find on reaching Mum’s bedroom. That monstrous ceiling-high dresser would be spread out across the floor, and she would be pinned underneath with only her fingertips showing. I should have had it moved out of the room, hacked into a thousand pieces, if that’s what was needed to get it out the door. Instead, I had trusted my own assurances that it was safe and solid and no more likely to come tumbling down than Mount Everest.

My hands were so slippery, I couldn’t turn the doorknob without using the front end of my blouse for traction, but at last I was inside the room. What I saw almost brought me to my knees. The killer dresser hadn’t moved from the wall and Mum stood safe—if
not completely sound—by an overturned chair and the smashed remains of the dressing table mirror.

“Are you all right?” I asked as I tiptoed towards her.

“I’ve had a terrible fright,” she whimpered. Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes.

“I know! I know!” My arms went around her, and she nestled up close to me just as Abbey or Tam might have after a bad scare. “Come over to the bed and sit down.”

“I don’t think I can move!”

“Then we’ll stay right here for a bit.”

“Don’t go thinking it’s your fault, Ellie, but I could see a rim of dust on the top of the wardrobe. And when I pulled up a chair and climbed up to do a thorough cleaning all along the ledge, I found …” She started to tremble.

“What did you find?”

“That dreadful thing—over by the fireplace. I dropped it, along with the duster, when I fell off the chair and cracked into the dressing table, bringing the mirror down.”

“Let me look,” I said, moving over to the hearth.

“Don’t touch it, Ellie!” Mum was wringing her hands. “I don’t want you contaminated. At my age what do I matter? But you have to think about Ben and the children.”

My mind reeled with the possibilities of what I would find. Top on my list of horrors was a dead mouse, but when I edged the cloth away and got a look at what was underneath, I couldn’t have been more shocked if you’d paid me.

“It’s a doll.” I picked it up. “A Barbie doll.”

“But look what it’s wearing!”

“A dress made out of your black lace mantilla,” I whispered.

“And a little beret just like the one I was wearing when I arrived.”

“Awful!” I inched up a finger to touch the hair
that had been hacked to wispy shreds and tinted a mouse grey; but what held me mesmerized was the metal meat skewer that had been plunged through the doll’s plastic bosom.

“She’s me!”

“The resemblance is only superficial.” I was able to say this truthfully, seeing that Mum had the far more compact figure of the two. It was also on the tip of my tongue to console her with the reminder that voodoo is not an exact science, but she asked the question that had to be faced.

“Who would do this?”

“Mrs. Pickle.” Even as I spoke, I hoped the accusation was as erroneous as my suspicions over the brew-up in the saucepan a few minutes ago; but the evidence was overwhelming. Young Dawn Taffer’s Barbie dolls had disappeared yesterday and she had accused a certain person of taking them. I also remembered that Mrs. Pickle had appeared on the doorstep with her bottles of dandelion wine immediately after my in-laws arrived, when Mum had been wearing her beret.

“It makes no sense, Ellie!” Shock had given way to outrage. “The woman hardly knows me, and it’s not like I’ve had a run-in with her like happened with that Mrs. Malloy.”

“Maybe that’s it,” I said.

“Meaning what?”

“That Mrs. Pickle is seeking revenge on behalf of her friend. But rather than standing here guessing, let’s go down and have it out with the witch.”

“Before we go”—Mum made a brave attempt at sounding casual—“would you pull out that skewer? The power of evil is a frightening force, as you would know, Ellie, if you attended the Catholic Church. Don’t get all worked up, but I’ve been getting these palpitations.”

And so, I hoped, would Mrs. Pickle when confronted with the work of her hands. But when we met
up with her in the kitchen, I was the one to panic. I didn’t see the twins.

She read my face with surprising speed. “Don’t you go worrying, Mrs. Haskell. Jonas come along and took the kiddies outside.”

“That’s one mystery cleared up; and now perhaps you will explain the meaning of this!” With Mum treading all over my heels, I held out the mutilated doll.

“You wasn’t meant to find it.” Mrs. Pickle sank down onto a chair and began twisting the front of her apron. “I put it in as high a place as I could reach.”

“What made you do it?”

“It were because of Jonas.” She kept her head bent. “I’ve had me hopes for ever so long that him and me would click. And when I found out he was thinking about setting up shop with a glamour girl from London, I was a mite put out, so to speak.”

“You were jealous of
me
?” Mum sounded dazed, as well she might.

“Jonas never once noticed I was wearing me new curlers.”

“That’s a poor excuse for what you did. And what I would like to know”—I folded my arms—“is why you took more than one of Dawn Taffer’s Barbie dolls.”

“I never did nothing of the sort.” Mrs. Pickle looked up at me with her first show of defiance. “That kiddie is a wicked little liar if ever I saw one. A real nasty piece of work. You should hear how she talks back to her gran.”

Before I could respond, Mum touched my arm. In as gentle a voice as I had ever heard her use, she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, Ellie, but I think you’re being too hard on Mrs. Pickle. Jealousy is a dreadful thing. It gets you by the throat and won’t let go. It turns your whole world inside out. It makes you act like a crazy person.”

Was it possible, I thought, looking down at the little voodoo doll, that the black magic had backfired, and what we had instead was a miracle?

H
appy is she who walks the path of righteousness to weekly Bible class—save for the occasional night off for good behaviour and the unmissable TV program. Believe me, I did not take my reward lightly. But I wasn’t so far gone with excitement at the possibility of Mum reuniting with Dad that I now saw Pamela Pomeroy’s role in the demise of Lady Kitty as a mere social gaffe. And I wasn’t without feeling for the lovesick Mrs. Pickle when she left us in disgrace. That’s the trouble with life. It’s so rarely all of a piece. Sometimes all you can do is pick out the raisins—enjoy them, however few, and forget the bun is stale.

I was about to suggest to Mum that my new see-through nightie would be just the thing for a naughty weekend with Dad at the Dark Horse, when Jonas came in from the garden with the twins. From the looks of them, all three had been digging in the flower beds with their bare hands.

“We been looking for that statue of St. Francis”—
Jonas completed the ruin of his toilet by touching his forelock—“but he b’ain’t nowhere to be seen.”

“God does not judge by results,” Mum told him, and I wondered if he realized from the sad edge to her smile that she was lost to him and there would be no more morning walks through the dewy grass. To ease the moment, I made a big production out of lifting first Abbey, then Tam onto the working surface next to the sink. Over their squealing protests at the appearance of the dreaded face cloth, I heard Jonas say that he was going back out to have a word with his forget-me-nots. Ever faithful, ever true, are those little flowers of blue.