Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 05 - Just Ducky (13 page)

After serving a pork roast with all the trimmings to the Spurleys, and two other young couples, who were traveling together from Florida and had checked in late that Friday afternoon, Stone asked me to join him on the back porch for a cup of coffee. The idea of relaxing over a cup of coffee greatly appealed to me, as it always did, but the conversation about my actions that day that was sure to accompany it, did not.

Stone had arrived at Bo’s place about twenty minutes after he’d hung up on me. He’d been able to jimmy the lock with a special tool he’d kept from his days as a reserve police officer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He made no comment when he opened the bathroom door, but no words were necessary. The look he gave me spoke volumes.

I followed him silently through the trailer, past Bo, who was snoring loudly on the couch, and out the front door. Stone’s pickup was parked behind my car in the driveway. He pointed at the harrow in the yard, and said, “I trust that harrow doesn’t belong to you now. I’ve no doubt you’ve purchased the damn thing if that’s what it took to get Bo to talk to you.”

“No, of course I didn’t purchase the harrow, but something just occurred to me now as I’m looking at it again. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“What’s that?”

“I could have driven right by this place without stopping and known there was very little chance Bo could have had anything to do with killing his ex-wife, unless he had an accomplice, of course.”

“Go on,” Stone said.

“Anybody who would display a ‘Four Cell’ sign in his yard could never have created the suicide note left on Ducky’s chair. Nor do I think Bo could have stayed sober long enough to come up with a plan of action like that, and then execute the plan without a hitch,” I explained. “After what Quentin Duckworthy told me, I’m more apt to think it’s he who might have been behind her death, and he’d definitely be more capable of pulling off such a stunt. I’m still on the fence about Quentin.”

“My God, Lexie! You went to the Duckworthy’s home too? You never left Rockdale at all today, did you?” Stone asked, not waiting for a reply. “You obviously had no intention of going shopping in Kansas City. You know, I knew what I was getting into when I married you, but I’d hoped that out of respect for me, you’d stop and think about the risks involved before doing something utterly ridiculous like this.”

“I’m so sorry, Stone.” I watched his light blue eyes darken in anger. The lecture from Stone had commenced, and the crying and pleading by me was about to. “I just feel like Ducky deserves justice if she didn’t really take her own life. And there’s no one else willing to dig deeper into the situation. I was afraid you’d try to stop me if you knew I was going to do a little investigating on my own.”

“You got that part right!”

“I’m very appreciative of your concern for me, but I also feel a sense of obligation to Ducky.” I wiped a tear off my cheek, and continued. “Please try to understand how important it is to me that the truth about her death be confirmed, with no lingering doubt by me that she didn’t commit suicide. From everything I’ve seen so far, I just can’t accept that she did.”

“I understand how you feel, Lexie. I have my doubts too. But I don’t feel like you should put your life on the line to avenge hers.”

“If I promise to be completely open and honest with you, will you help me look into the matter? I just want to see if I can uncover any evidence substantial enough to force the police department to reopen the case. Wyatt promised me they would if anything came up to indicate a murder may have taken place in the library Tuesday night.”

Stone opened my car door for me, and before walking over to his truck to lead me home, said, “We’ll talk about it tonight at home.”

* * *

Now, as I walked out to the back porch, balancing a tray holding two cups of coffee, and a tiny pitcher of creamer for Stone, I was certain I knew how Daniel had felt as he’d entered the lion’s den. The lion in my case was already sitting at the new patio table we’d just purchased at Home Depot the previous week. He had a very thoughtful look on his face as he watched me place the tray I was carrying on the table.

Stone poured creamer in his cup and slowly stirred his coffee without saying a word. My anxiety level was going up with every rotation of his spoon. I felt a little queasy, as if the fried chicken I’d eaten for supper was coming back to life and trying desperately to escape my stomach.

Finally, he looked up, straight into my eyes, and spoke. For the umpteenth time since I’d met this man, he surprised me by doing the very last thing I’d imagine he’d do. He apologized.

“Honey, I’m sorry I spoke to you the way I did today. You shouldn’t have to be afraid of how I’ll respond if you tell me the truth about how you feel, and how you want to react to it. I want you to feel like you can come to me with any concern you might have. I can’t change your caring nature, no matter how reckless it might sometimes make you. Nor do I feel like I should. I love you for who you are, and I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

Wide-eyed from being taken completely off guard, I set my coffee down on the table, and was rendered speechless. Stone reached out and took my hand before continuing to speak.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought and decided I’d help you in any way I can, as long as you never take any potentially dangerous actions without discussing them with me first. My main concern is your safety, but I also want to be there for you. Sometimes two minds working together can accomplish more than one mind working alone.”

“Oh, Stone, I love you so much,” I gushed. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have a man like you by my side. I know I don’t deserve someone like you, but I am very, very grateful to be your wife. Thank you so much for understanding. I promise I’ll run anything I plan to do by you if I think it might potentially land me in hot water.”

“Thank you, honey. That’s all I’m asking.”

We held hands for a few minutes while sipping coffee and discussing everything I’d discovered from my conversations with Quentin and Bo. Stone agreed with me that the next plan of action should be finding a way to speak with both Elroy Traylor, the Rockdale City Manager, and my new boss, Colby Tucker, again. Both men seemed to have an ax to grind with Ducky, and either man may have taken their dissension with her a step further.

* * *

Friday evening found me passing out oranges and bananas, and occasionally a half-fermented apple, to some very disappointed trick-or-treaters. I’d been so preoccupied with Ducky’s death I’d forgotten it was Halloween. The last bunch of ghosts and goblins had loose change dropped into their bags after the fruit supply dried up. They didn’t seem half as disgruntled with money, as the earlier ones had with old fruit. At least they could buy candy with the change I gave them.

I had considered just leaving the porch light off and pretending no one was home at the inn. But it didn’t seem very hospitable for our bed and breakfast to completely stiff the neighborhood children. We depended on a good reputation in town to encourage locals to recommend our lodging establishment to visiting friends and relatives.

However, I was beginning to think the kids felt worse than stiffed. They felt as if they’d been duped into making the long trek up our driveway for a worthless piece of health food. What kind of witch would hand out fruit, some that was a bit past its prime, instead of something that would raise their blood sugar levels at least three hundred points?

If looks could actually kill, there was one extremely disgusted Princess Nala, who would have left me in the same condition as Ducky. If you’ve seen
The Lion King,
you know this is one bad-ass princess. After all, these kids were on a mission to accumulate as much candy as they could in order to quell their sugar addictions. They could get an orange anytime they wanted one from their mother. But a king-sized Hershey’s bar? Not so likely.

* * *

“Mom? Where are you?” I heard Wendy hollering from the kitchen early the next morning.

“I’m in the parlor, sweetheart. I’ll be right there,” I called out. Stone had installed a pellet stove insert in the fireplace because he found it easier and cleaner than burning wood. It was a cool morning, so I was firing it up to take the chill off. The parlor at Alexandria Inn was a popular place for guests to gather, imbibe in a cocktail or two, gather around the grand piano to listen to music, or just enjoy visiting with Stone, me, and other guests of the inn.

We had six guests currently staying at the inn, and I thought they might enjoy their morning coffee in front of the fireplace, while I prepared french toast and sausage links for breakfast. The Spurleys were already sitting on the sofa discussing some political fundraiser the Nebraska Senator and his wife were planning to attend on Sunday. I exchanged a few pleasantries with the couple and then joined my daughter in the kitchen.

“Hey Mom,” Wendy said. “Did you know there are three bananas and a rotten apple in the front yard?”

“No, but I’m not surprised. A banana takes up a lot of valuable candy space. But I assure you, the apple was still edible.”

“Okay,” she said. “Not even going to ask.”

While I cracked eggs into a bowl, I listened to Wendy rattle on about the pair of alpaca babies, or crias, as she called them, that Stone’s nephew, Andy, had purchased to raise on his ranch near Atchison, Kansas. The crias were an extremely rare set of twins, Wendy told me. “The female alpaca, called a hembra, almost always has a single cria. Andy is bottle-feeding the crias because they were born prematurely and barely weighed enough at birth to survive. They are the cutest little things I’ve ever seen.”

“How interesting,” I said, with a smile. As usual, when Wendy was excited about something, she began talking nonstop, rarely pausing long enough to breathe. I waited for her to nearly turn purple from lack of oxygen before cutting in. “We haven’t seen Andy in ages. You two will have to join us for supper one of these nights.”

“Or, better yet, you and Stone need to come out to the ranch to see the crias that we named Mork and Mindy. Andy still loves watching old reruns of that show from way, way back, like in the seventies,” Wendy said.

I graduated from high school in the seventies, but Wendy made it sound like it was before Thomas Edison had invented the light bulb. She had a way of making me feel like I should stop whatever I was doing and get my affairs in order, just in case my crusty, rickety old body gave up the ghost before sundown. I wanted to flip off my own daughter just then.

Wendy and Andy had recently become an official couple, which pleased Stone and me tremendously. She’d even given up her apartment in St. Joseph and moved in with Andy after he’d finished renovating the old farmhouse on the property he’d purchased almost a year ago. Andy had taken to ranching like he’d been born with a pair of cowboy boots on, even though he’d spent the last decade making a living as a charter pilot on the East Coast. Wendy’s commute to the county coroner’s office now was a long one, but she seemed to think being with Andy was worth the sacrifice, and I had to agree with her.

Wendy and I chatted over coffee for an hour. It was Saturday morning and she was off for the day, unless she got called in for an emergency autopsy, which rarely happened. Stone and I had decided to keep our investigative efforts to ourselves until we happened upon a break in the case that would warrant us taking the new evidence to the police.

We even thought that keeping Wendy and Detective Johnston in the dark about our efforts was in our best interest. Neither one of them would be happy to hear we were taking it upon ourselves to search for clues proving Ducky’s death was no suicide.

So Wendy and I discussed the weather, the price of gas, the hideous hairpiece Senator Spurley was donning, and which brand of vanilla wafers tasted the best with bananas, even if the only ones we had left were scattered out on the lawn. She even embarked on a long-winded recital of the rare parasite involving the gall bladder, called a lancet liver fluke, which had taken the life of the oldest citizen in Rockdale the previous day.

As she described the process of dissecting the old gal’s withered body, I tried to determine if the deceased lady actually
was
born before the invention of the light bulb. Then I began to mentally schedule the tasks I hoped to accomplish over the weekend, calculating the amount of lodging tax I would need to pay that quarter, and debating on what to fix for supper. I wanted to keep my mind on something besides what Wendy was talking about. I always attempted to show interest in my daughter’s occupation without actually visualizing the gruesome details on which she loved to elaborate.

“We determined the ants she digested were in the angel food cake we found in her stomach contents,” Wendy said. Now she had my attention whether I liked it or not. Was the ingestion of diseased ants a chronic health issue? I wondered.

“It’s not normally fatal,” she continued. “But because of the victim’s age and the ensuing diarrhea, the frail one-hundred-and four year-old lady’s C.O.D. was actually dehydration.”

“That’s very sad, and incredibly gross,” I said. “But, as fascinating as this conversation is, I need to get started preparing breakfast for our guests. Hopefully there are no ants in the french toast batter.”

Just then, Stone walked in the kitchen with Detective Johnston in his wake. After I poured them each a cup of coffee and refilled Wendy’s, I got to hear the entire liver fluke, death-by-ant-ingestion story again, and in even greater detail this time. My mind quickly went back to how I could make the most of my time throughout the weekend, shutting out the disagreeable conversation. When Wendy launched into a description of a two-foot long tapeworm she’d once removed from a cadaver’s digestive tract, even Wyatt, who’d surely witnessed unimaginable guts and gore at the scene of car accidents, began to look like he wouldn’t be able to finish the fourth doughnut he was busy devouring. Wyatt managed to down it, however.