Murder on Old Main Street (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (6 page)

“Huh! Everybody knows everything in a small town.”

“I still don’t see how the police have enough to arrest you. After all, you were the one that kept Prudy employed, even though she was a lousy waitress. There must be something else the police know that we don’t.”

“I know what it is.” Abby leaned back in her chair and met my eyes. “Prudy was blackmailing me, and the police found out about it. They looked into my books, and there were discrepancies …”
 
Her voice trailed off.

Well, that would explain why you kept her on the payroll
, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut and waited.

Pure hatred blazed from Abby’s eyes. “Prudence Crane was a vicious, scheming, horror of a woman, but the plain fact is, without her on my side, I would have lost the diner, and I need this business.”

“Because of your mother?” I prompted.

Abby nodded. “When Frank was alive, he helped out a lot. When he became so ill, I took on Prudy because I needed the help, but the only person that harpy ever helped was herself.” She laughed without humor. “One day, I had to leave her in charge for the dinner rush. Frank had been rushed to the hospital again, and he needed me with him. It was very late when I got back to the diner. It had been closed for hours.” She paused as if weighing the wisdom of confiding in me further. Then she made her decision.

“Prudy greeted me at the door that night. She had the register tapes and the order slips from the previous week spread out on the counter. They didn’t match. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out that a lot of the cash business had never gone through the register.” Abruptly, she stood and resumed her restless pacing, or maybe she simply didn’t want to look at me as she continued.

“My expenses were through the roof. There was the medicine and all of the other things Mom needed. Extra help in the house while I was with Frank so much. And of course, he wasn’t able to help financially any longer. So I started pocketing most of the cash from the orders I took myself, not reporting it to the government. I believe they call it income tax fraud,” she said. Her expression was bleak. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought it would just be for a few weeks, a couple of months, maybe. And then it went on and on, and I forgot to throw out the order slips for the cash I’d skimmed, and, well …” She turned to face me.

“There’s no way to excuse it. I just did it, that’s all, and Prudy found out about it and announced that she would keep my little secret if I’d keep hers. I asked her what she meant, but she just smiled to herself and didn’t say anything.” Abby dropped back into her chair and rubbed her temples.

I felt myself staring in disbelief and consciously rearranged my features into what I hoped was a compassionate expression. Poor Abby. What a spot to be in, held over a barrel by a blackmailer. “Did you ever find out what Prudy meant, what her secret was?”

“Oh, yes,” Abby assured me. “For a few days after that, I was too rattled to pay much attention to what was going on around me. Mostly, I just tried to keep out of Prudy’s way. But I guess my brain was working in spite of myself, and it started keeping track of her activities pretty closely. It took a while, but I finally noticed that we had several regular customers every weeknight who always sat at Prudy’s station. That in itself was hard to explain, her being such a bad waitress and all. But what really caught my attention was that most of them only ordered coffee.”

“What’s so strange about that? Maybe they knew that was about all she could handle and played it safe.”

“It wasn’t the coffee. It was the fact that they almost never drank it, and then there was the way they paid for it—with big bills, always with big bills. One night, I saw Prudy slide a fifty-dollar bill into the pocket of that ratty old sweater she always wore around here. It never made it into the cash register. Being experienced at that sort of thing myself by that time, I got her alone and confronted her. She just grinned at me with those bad teeth of hers. ‘We all have our little secrets now, don’t we, Miz Stoddard?’ she said.

“After that, she didn’t bother to hide it from me. She and I were the only ones behind the counter most nights, and two or three nights a week, her victims paid her off in cash. They just put the cash under their checks and walked out. A lot of our regulars leave cash on the counter, so I never thought anything of it until I saw her pocket that fifty.”

“Understandable,” I said, although my head was reeling. I thought carefully before asking my next question. “Who was she blackmailing besides you, Abby, and why?”

“I don’t know why, but I know who, or at least I know who some of her victims were. The thing is, I don’t want to tell the police unless I absolutely have to. You know how small towns are. You just gave me an example. Everybody knows everybody else’s business and gossips like crazy about it. My telling the police that Prudy was blackmailing these folks would be just the same as accusing each and every one of them of murder.” She dropped her hands from her temples and leaned forward. “For myself, it doesn’t matter so much. Half the people in this town probably wonder why it took me so long to do that woman in and figure I’ll plead temporary insanity or something. But the others … even if they’re never charged with murder, the fact that they had secrets dark enough that they submitted to blackmail will ruin them.”

I nodded in agreement, knowing what she said was true. These fifth- and sixth-generation New Englanders wouldn’t do business with anyone who had submitted to blackmail. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and all that. “Why are you telling me all this, Abby? What do you want me to do?”

Then Abby did something I never would have expected. She reached over the desk and covered my hand with her own. “I didn’t kill Prudy, Kate, but someone did. The other people she was blackmailing are the most likely candidates I can think of, but right now, I’m the only one the police know about. I’m their only suspect. To clear myself without implicating anyone else, I’ve got to find out which of her blackmail victims really did it. I heard you investigated something like this before, so you’d know what to do.” Her eyes sought mine. “Can you help me out?”

A long minute passed while all the reasons why I shouldn’t become involved in this mess whirled through my head. None of them seemed terribly compelling compared to the tacit plea in Abby’s eyes.

“Yes,” I said. “Who were Prudy’s other victims, Abby?”

Still, she hesitated.

“I promise you that I’ll reveal nothing that I don’t absolutely have to.”

“Not even to me,” she insisted. “I honestly don’t want to know my customers’ secrets.”

I knew what she meant. Already, I dreaded the burden of knowing what I was about to learn about my neighbors. Generally speaking, I’m happier operating on a need-to-know basis when it comes to the details of other people’s lives. “Not even to you,” I assured her.

Abby reached into her apron pocked and watched my face closely as she handed me a folded scrap of white paper.
She’s the one in big trouble here,
I thought,
but she looks as if she’s feeling sorry for me.
And then I understood why.

On the paper were written three names: Ephraim Marsh, Mavis Griswold, and Emma Lawrence.

Four

I was rehashing the surprising developments of the afternoon with Margo. I had promised Abby I would discuss it with no one else, but I needed Margo’s advice. For all of her libidinous, southern belle affectations, Margo Farnsworth was one of the most levelheaded people I knew. Besides, she had been through a murder investigation with me once before, when one of the partners at the law firm for which we both worked turned up dead.

We were sitting at each end of the sofa in my family room, Rhett Butler lolling luxuriously between us, his head in Margo’s lap. As long as he remained motionless, which he seemed happy to do, Jasmine and Simon accepted his presence warily from where they were curled up, rump to rump, in front of the fireplace; but if he lifted his head, I knew they would evanesce in the way that cats can. A piece of driftwood Armando had picked up during one of our walks on the beach at Harkness Memorial Park last summer added snap and color to the blaze, a welcome distraction from the darkness that came on fast. In another few weeks Daylight Saving Time would end, and the dark season would be upon us in earnest.

Margo took a long, unladylike pull from the bottle of beer she held. I sipped more cautiously at an excellent Pinot Grigio. “No matter how hard I try, I cannot cast Abigail Stoddard as anyone’s cold-blooded murderer, not even Prudy’s,” I said wearily. “I can believe she would lash out against someone who was threatening her life or her mother’s, or even her dog’s, if it came to that. But not premeditated murder, uh-uh.”

“So we assume it’s not Abby, but can you honestly picture any of the three people whose names are on that piece of paper stabbin’ Prudence Crane to death and then hackin’ out her tongue? Oh, sorry, Sugar,” she apologized hastily as I covered my mouth with my hand and set my wineglass down hard. “It’s difficult to believe that the mother of two can go all wobbly durin’ any discussion involvin’ blood.”

“Margo!”

“Okay, okay. All I mean is, if it’s not Abby, then who could it be? The minister’s wife? That absolutely lovely man who owns the drugstore? Way too Gothic for me, hon. Or how about your own daughter as a likely suspect? What in the world is Emma doin’ on that list anyway?”

“Believe me, she and I are going to have a conversation about that very soon,” I assured her. “Obviously, it’s a mistake of some kind. Abby thought she saw something she didn’t, that’s all. I hope,” I muttered into my wineglass.

Margo drained her bottle of beer and belched genteelly. “Well, naturally,” she said and then got down to business in typical Margo fashion. “Now tell me, Sugar. How can I help?”

“I only wish I knew,” I said, then almost immediately had an idea. “We need information that will keep Abby from being arrested, and that means redirecting the police department’s attention, right?”

Margo’s eyes began to glitter lasciviously. “Why, I believe I’ve redirected the attention of a police officer or two in my time,” she smiled.

“Mmmm, I’ll bet you have,” I agreed, “and I need you to do it again. Do you remember my telling you about John Harkness, or Lieutenant Hardnose, as he’s known around town?”

Margo nodded. “That nice young Fletcher fellow’s boss, the one who’s directin’ the investigation.”

“That’s the one. Harkness has a reputation for being close-mouthed, won’t talk to the press any more than absolutely necessary, that sort of thing. So the public, which in this case is us, knows very little about the progress of the investigation. Oh, we know the approximate time and cause of death, what the medical examiner had to say, the stuff that’s public information, but beyond that, we’re clueless. We don’t know how close they are to making an arrest, or who besides Abby might be considered a suspect or even anyone else who’s been questioned. We don’t know what Prudy’s movements were the night she was killed or who else might have been with her. For that matter, we don’t know if the police know she was blackmailing anybody besides Abby, because Abby hasn’t told them yet.”

“And you want to know if they already know that.”

“Yep. Because if they do, then there’s no percentage in Abby keeping what she knows about these other people to herself. In fact, keeping her mouth shut could make her look like Prudy’s accomplice.”

“You’re not makin’ any sense, hon. How could Abby be accused of bein’ Prudy’s accomplice and her murderer at the same time? Oh!” she said as she suddenly understood what I meant.

“That’s right. What better motive for murder than getting rid of your partner in extortion and keeping all the payoffs for yourself?”

“I do see your point.” Thoughtfully, Margo stroked Rhett between his silky ears. He groaned with pleasure, causing Jasmine and Simon to open their eyes and assess the situation. The dog didn’t move, and the cats downgraded from orange alert to yellow caution.

“So what do you think? Can you manage to get an interview with Harkness on some ruse or other and loosen up his tongue so we have a better idea of where to go on this thing?”

Margo held her empty beer bottle out to me, and I rose to get her another. “That extraordinarily good-lookin’ lieutenant?” She winked. “Why it’ll be like fallin’ off a log, Sugar. You just leave the good commander to me.

I had no doubt that Margo’s conversation with Lieutenant Harkness would be productive, but my own conversation with Emma didn’t go exactly as I had hoped. The next day was particularly rushed, it being the last week of the month, and I practically had to drag Emma out of the Law Barn for a mother-daughter
tête-a-tête.
We were further delayed by Emma’s detour to put out some peanuts for Fat Squirrel, another of her rehab cases. The peanuts were his reward on days when he stayed out of the Law Barn’s trash cans, which he raided regularly. Emma had decided to try positive reinforcement. I had my doubts.