Shadow of a Spout (10 page)

She paused by a rosebush, breathing deeply the heady fragrance of an old, open type of rose that had thorns thickly strewn all the way up each stem. It was a divine scent, and she closed her eyes, close and distant sounds washing over her. Traffic, someone laughing somewhere, a dog barking, people arguing.

Arguing? The patio and garden appeared deserted, but the voices were close and sounded like they were raised in anger.

“Wonder what’s going on,” Sophie said to SuLinn, as she led the way along the winding paths through the garden, past a clump of tall ornamental grasses that swayed in a sudden breeze.

As they rounded a bend in the walkway, Bertie Handler, the inn owner, strode past them, his expression grim. Sophie turned and watched him storm off, then followed the path. Pastor Frank was sitting alone on a bench, his head in his hands. At the sound of their scuffling feet he looked up, tears on his cheeks.

SuLinn dashed toward him. “Mr. Barlow, are you all right?”

He looked up at her with a lost expression in his eyes. “I s’pose.” He pulled off his steel-framed glasses and knuckled his eyes, sniffing miserably.

Sophie approached behind her friend, who had pulled a tissue from her handbag and gave it to him. “Pastor, were you and Bertie Handler arguing about something? Is everything all right?”

“He was mad because . . . because of that incident in the dining room, I guess,” he said, his gaze shifting back and forth. He hung his head. “I feel so alone!”

Sophie sat down on a chair by the bench he sat on. Remembering the pastor’s outburst in the dining room, she gently said, “You can talk to us, Mr. Barlow. You must be devastated by Zunia Pettigrew’s death; you were so close, in the same group and all.”

“We
were
close!” the pastor exclaimed, his eyes watering behind his glasses. He dabbed at his eyes with the tissue SuLinn had given him, shoving the glasses up on his forehead so he could dry his welling tears. “
So
close! No one understood her. She was magnificent, fiery, so passionate and full of life. But I shouldn’t say another word. It’s not my place.” He eyed SuLinn, who stood nearby.

Sophie exchanged a look with SuLinn and faintly motioned with her head for SuLinn to leave them alone. She knew it was easier sometimes to confide in a stranger than someone you may actually see again.

“I want to call my husband,” she said, “so I think I’ll just go over to the picnic table there and do that.” She took out her cell phone and retreated.

“Mr. Barlow, I’m so sorry,” Sophie said, leaning over and patting him on the back. “It’s much harder on you because you were close with Zunia, and maybe no one understands
how
close.” She wasn’t sure how to bring up what she had heard in the dining room.

“We were. I’ve only known her a year or two, but I’m the one who really understood her. Better than her own husband!”

“I didn’t know the woman at all, but from what I’ve heard she didn’t seem to have a lot of friends. Why is that?”

“People were jealous. After she won the presidency of the division last year all the infighting escalated. Rhiannon was the worst—so petty! Zunia was just trying to save her hurt feelings because the girl didn’t have a chance, you know. Not against Zunia.” He snuffled and his chin trembled, a low moan escaping him. He swept back a long hank of gray hair and sighed. “My poor darling Zunia!”

His anguish seemed so extreme that Sophie wondered, was it fake? It felt over-the-top, but she had known many people who indulged their emotions to an extent that it seemed they were putting on a show when they were being as genuine as they could ever be. The pastor might be one of those.

Or
he could be lying through his teeth. But why would he lie about having an affair with her? That put him square in the police’s sights as someone who had an intimate relationship with Zunia. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. You seem more heartbroken than even her husband.”

The pastor nodded as he took his glasses off, wiping the lenses with the tail of his plaid shirt. “That’s something we shared, Zunia and me; we both felt things deeply, you know, and so few people really do.” He shoved his glasses back on, clenched his fist and hammered his chest, leaving his hand there. “We
both
had big hearts, full to overflowing. I don’t think I’ll ever get over this, and I want whoever did it to pay.”

“The police will find the guilty party.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shook his head, but stayed silent.

“Who do you think did it? Do you have any ideas?”

Crickets nearby chirped, as he looked off into the gloom. A rumble of thunder rolled across the heavens. “I don’t want to point fingers.”

So he
did
have an idea. “It won’t go any further,” Sophie said, softly. “I don’t know any of these folks. I’m only here to support my grandmother, who I know for sure would never do anything like that. Who are you thinking?”

He looked to the right and left, and whispered, “I think that Orlando is in over his head, you know? He should
never
have married Zunia . . . not man enough for her. She was dissatisfied, and I know for a fact
he
was regretting it, too.”

“But why would he try to place the blame on my grandmother? Whoever did it stole the teapot from my grandmother’s room and used it to kill Zunia.”

He choked on a sob. “I don’t know. I just don’t
know
!”

“Mr. Barlow, my godmother told me that there were rumors going around last year that Rhiannon Galway was having an affair with Mr. Sommer.” She felt disloyal to her friend even saying such a thing. Her intent was not to paint Rhiannon as the villain, though; it was to get more information on the dynamics of this odd group. “What did you think of that?”

“Oh, that was
true
!” Barlow said. He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead again and used his wrist to stanch the flow of tears, which never seemed to stop. He took in a deep, shaky breath. “Zunia was appalled! I didn’t want to say it earlier, but that is precisely why she tried to save the girl trouble. She very wisely convinced Rhiannon to withdraw from the division president election rather than let it get around. Better for everyone, you know.” He settled his glasses back down on his nose and nodded. “Better for
everyone
.”

Blackmail as a public service: That was a new one. But Sophie was not going to say what she really felt, that Zunia sounded like a poisonous witch with a
b
. “I felt sorry for you when the detective came up to you in the dining room and escorted you away in front of everyone. What on earth did he want?”

“He just had a few questions, that’s all. I . . . I had better get going,” he said, standing and brushing off his slacks.

He seemed nervous all of a sudden. “Mr. Barlow, why did Mr. Pettigrew say his wife was not going to leave him for you, in the dining room, just before the detective came in?” Sophie examined his face in the yellow glow of the one of the lamps that lined the pathway.

“That is private business,” he said, his voice trembling. “Between me and Orlando.”

“Unfortunately everyone must be talking about it because he made quite a big deal out of it in front of everyone. That’s so awkward for you. Where were
you
last night when everything was happening?” Sophie asked, hoping to force an answer while he was flustered.

“I was, uh . . . tied up. Busy. Look, I’ve got to go. Excuse me.” He backed away, then whirled and bustled down the path a ways. But he stopped and turned back to her. “I don’t care what Orlando says; it’s true: Zunia and I were planning on running away together. We were just going to get this conference out of the way, and she was going to tell him.” His voice broke. “She was too good for him!” He whirled and strode off to the side door of the inn and disappeared.

SuLinn, slipping her phone in her shorts pocket, strolled toward Sophie. “What the heck was that all about?”

Sophie told her what they had talked of. “I wasn’t sure about the rest, but that last bit sounded like the truth. She really was planning on running away with him.”

“Or at least he
thought
she was,” SuLinn said.

“Good point. And as long as he was convinced it was so, he would sound that sure.” Would a woman as ambitious as Zunia Pettigrew really give up everything to run away with Pastor Frank Barlow? He just did not seem like the type to incite the kind of passion that would overwhelm a sensible woman’s judgment, and she’d be trading down from Orlando Pettigrew, even though that guy didn’t seem like much of a prize to Sophie. She considered Barlow’s certainty, and remembered from a long-ago job at a restaurant in Little Italy a woman who had all the staff crazy for her. She played them off against one another and each fellow was sure of her affection for him until she finally ran away with the restaurant owner.

That guy gave up everything—his family, his business, his kids—just to be with her. But then they divorced within a year and he came slinking back to his wife, who remarried him. Was this a similar case? She shook her head. There didn’t seem to be a thing to support that. Except . . . Her eyes widened as she considered the presence of Pettigrew’s ex-wife in town. Where did she fit into the puzzle?

“You’re not trying to figure out who did it, are you?” SuLinn asked, watching her.

“I can’t leave it alone, not when Nana’s teapot was used as a weapon. She’s really upset about it, and I won’t have her used like that.” Sophie’s heart thudded. She had been accused before of feeling like she needed to correct everything, wanting to make everything right for everyone. It had backfired innumerable times in her career, but she kept making the same mistakes. This time, though, there was no question it was right to want to help her grandmother.

“SuLinn, someone with murder on their mind snuck into my grandmother’s room when she wasn’t there, stole that teapot, then killed Zunia Pettigrew with it. They went out of their
way
to make it look like she did it.” She nodded sharply. “So yes, I’m going to do my
darnedest
to figure out who did it and make sure they go to jail.”

As they walked back into the inn one thing bothered Sophie about the conversation she had just had. If Pastor Frank had nothing to do with Zunia’s murder, then why didn’t he answer her innocent question about where he was? Granted he didn’t owe her an explanation, and she had no real right to ask, but still . . . why not just tell her where he was instead of evading the question?

Chapter 11

T
helma Mae Earnshaw didn’t like feeling bad about her behavior. Sometime in the last few months she had grown a conscience, and that was an uncomfortable thing to own, like having a parrot on your shoulder that only ever squawked when you did something wrong. Now she felt bad for talking trash at the convention, spreading that stupid stuff about Rose Freemont being a dangerous sort. But who would have thought that bunch of ninnies would believe that sweet little grandmotherly Rose Freemont would be a killer? And how was Thelma to know Zunia Pettigrew would up and get herself murdered straight away?
With
Rose’s banged-up ugly old teapot?

It was like the good Lord was testing Thelma, and she did not appreciate it. After a lifetime of hardship, she and He were already on uneasy terms, and it didn’t appear that it was going to get any better. He needed to start cooperating or it would be no wonder that she kept choo-choo-chugging off the rails.

There was only one way to feel good again and that was to figure out who did it, then march right up to that O’Hooligan, or whatever his name was, and tell him. So Thelma was skulking, trying to find clues. She had skulked in the coffee shop to no avail, lingering behind booths and listening in on a few of the teapot convention folks’ conversations until an exasperated waitress asked her if she was ill. Now she was skulking behind a bamboo bush in the lobby. Everyone knew the husband was always the first suspect, and right now Zunia Pettigrew’s husband . . . What the heck
was
his name? She couldn’t remember, except that it was a city. No one ought to be named after a city. That would be like calling her Nimrod Earnshaw, after the town in Oregon where a niece of hers lived, or Elephant Butte Earnshaw, after the park in New Mexico where her cousin three times removed got stuck in a crevasse.

Whatever-His-Name-Was Pettigrew was on his cell phone, which, by the way, was the devil’s own invention. If God had meant man to be able to talk to others wherever they were, he would have made them telepathetic!

Orlando—
that
was Pettigrew’s name. Orlando, as in Florida. Thelma skulked closer, and the fellow’s voice was clear as a bell. Why a bell? she wondered, distracted once again. Was a bell clearer than a foghorn or a bassoon? No one said “as clear as a foghorn,” but you sure could hear one a ways away.

Anyhoo, Pettigrew was talking, kind of sobbing. “I’m going crazy with grief! What am I going to do without my Zunia?”

Thelma clasped her hands to her bosom and snuck closer. Poor fella! A waitress passed by going from the dining room toward the door and gave her an odd look, but Thelma put one finger to her lips. The woman smiled and continued on her way.

“I don’t know
what
the cops are doing. They keep asking me the same questions, over and over: Where was I? What was I doing? Why was Zunia out of the room? Didn’t I know where my own wife was?”

Thelma crept closer and the bush rustled a bit, but she stilled and the noise stopped.

“No, I told them about that. I
knew
she was involved with someone else, but it was going to blow over. You had to understand Zunia; she got caught up in this other guy’s fantasy and went along for the ride, but that was finished.”

Thelma almost fell off her orthopedic loafers. So the woman was having an affair and the husband knew about it? Seemed like a good motive for murder.

“No, she wasn’t about to leave me. She told me that herself.” He paused. “Yes, I’m sure. We talked about it, and she was going to put an end to it. She was beginning to be concerned about the guy. He scared her.” He paused. “Why? You mean why was she scared? She said he was far too serious.”

Thelma tried to get closer but bumped into one of the chairs by the fake palm and stumbled sideways. Pettigrew bolted up out of his chair and whirled around.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” he said, grabbing her arm with his free hand and guiding her to the chair.

“Just a little light-headed, you know.” She stared up at him. “I should be asking if
you’re
okay, having just lost your wife and all.”

He looked awful, with bags under his bloodshot eyes, clothes rumpled, chin stubbled with a day’s growth of whiskers and some bruising underneath it from the confrontation the night before with the weird pastor. “It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I keep thinking, what if we hadn’t come to the conference? What if I had been awake when she left the room? What if . . .” He shook his head and passed one hand over his face. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got to get back to my call,” he said, raising the cell phone to his ear.

“Who you talking to?” she asked.

He looked taken aback and put one hand over the phone. “Uh . . . a friend back home. I have to tell folks, you know.”

She nodded. “I guess we’ll need a new president, right? Not to be indelicate.”

He looked mortified, gray eyes wide, grimace on his lips. “This is
certainly
not the time to be talking about this.” He moved away, speaking rapidly in a mutter to his friend on the phone, then he touched the screen and put the phone in his pocket as he headed for the elevator.

Well, that got her a big fat nothing, except she knew that the dead woman was afraid of her boyfriend. Could be something there. But who was her boyfriend? That babbling pastor? No one would be afraid of that guy.

*   *   *

S
ophie had returned to the inn room. Nana was sitting up in bed reading a mystery. She looked tired, but worse than that, she looked pensive and worried, her round face lined and weary under her tousled head of fluffy white curls. Sophie sat cross-legged on the end of the bed and shared a look of concern with Laverne, who was rubbing lotion into her elbows. “How are you, Nana?”

“I’m just fine, my Sophie girl. Now don’t you go getting that mother-hen look with me. I’m old enough to be your grandmother,” she joked.

“She won’t tell you how worried she is about all this,” Laverne said, pausing and eyeing her old friend. “Will you, Rose?”

“Now, Laverne, you hush. I’m just fine, and I’m plenty old enough to look after myself.” She examined her granddaughter’s expression. “Talk to me,” she commanded Sophie.

“I don’t know if you really want to talk about this awful business or not.”

Sophie almost thought Nana hid a smile, but she simply said, “I want to see that whoever did this using my poor teapot is caught. We might not still hang murderers, but he or she can spend the rest of their life in jail. I sometimes think that’s worse than a quick death at the end of a rope.”

“Whoever strikes a man—or woman—so that he dies shall be put to death,” Laverne said.

“Vengeance is mine, says the Lord,” Nana said, smiling over at her friend.

Laverne chuckled. “Just testing your knowledge of the good book.”

It was an oft-repeated conversation, since Laverne was an active churchwoman and Nana preferred to do her praying at home, as she said each time the subject came up. Sophie could see that Laverne was purposely keeping the atmosphere light.

“Tell us what you’ve learned,” Nana said, sticking a Stone and Scone Inn pamphlet in the book, a large-print Agatha Christie from the Gracious Grove library, and closing it.

Sophie went over the two encounters she had, with Dahlia and Emma Pettigrew, and with Pastor Frank Barlow.

“That doesn’t really explain what Orlando Pettigrew said to him in the dining room,” Nana commented.

“No, but isn’t the husband always the last to know when a wife is leaving? I’ve had a few male friends blindsided by divorce,” Sophie said. “One said he never saw it coming until the day his wife served him with papers and moved out. Maybe Frank is right; maybe she
was
going to leave Orlando for him.”

“Maybe,” Nana said, but didn’t sound convinced.

“What do you think about Emma’s mother being in the area?” Sophie asked them both.

“She may have just come today in response to this happening,” Laverne said, putting the last dollop of body lotion on her elbows and capping the tube. “Like Josh’s mom.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s possible, isn’t it?”

There was a tentative tap at the door. Sophie jumped up and crossed the floor. Josh stood in the doorway, looking a little embarrassed. She invited him in but he shook his head, and she didn’t want to mortify him further. She stepped out into the dim hallway. “What’s up? Is your mom coming back to stay tonight?”

“No, luckily. I love my mom, but she worries so much! I did what you said, told her you were here, and she seemed better about it. Anyway, I hung out with some of the staff here and they said Emma was always bumming smokes off them and talking about how awful her stepmom was . . . before the convention started, I mean. I guess the Pettigrews came the night before, like, Thursday, so that Mrs. Pettigrew could set up the meeting room for the seminar and stuff. I saw Emma for a bit but then she took off, said she was meeting her mom.”

Sophie told him how she had bumped into the mother and daughter at the drugstore. “But the mom was in a hurry. I wonder if Emma called her to come to Butterhill.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “No, that’s not how it happened. Mrs. Pettigrew was already in the area. Guess what for?”

Sophie shrugged. “I can’t guess. Tell me.”

“She’s checking out Cruickshank College for Emma. She came down the
same day
as they did, and I think she’s staying at the college!”

Sophie was stunned. From being at the bottom, Dahlia Pettigrew was making the ascent up the list of possible suspects. “Do people stay at the college while they’re checking it out?”

He nodded. “Sure. They use the dorm rooms, sometimes. I went to visit an out-of-state college with my mom and dad and we stayed overnight.”

Sophie pondered that. “So Emma’s mom
could
have been here at the inn last night when all the excitement happened.”

“But she wouldn’t
kill
Emma’s stepmom, would she?”

Sophie didn’t want to enlighten him on the complicated world of adult relationships. She had never felt the urge to murder, but one of her more unstable acquaintances had trashed her ex’s car, shredded his clothing and destroyed his prized old movie collection. Sophie had backed away from that friendship, not sure how to deal with someone like that. The ex–Mrs. Pettigrew sure seemed to still be upset about the divorce. “Who knows what she’d do? Probably not, but it’s one more person to add to the list. I wonder how we can find out if she’s involved somehow.”

“Maybe you could call Mr. Murphy,” Josh offered hesitantly. “He could help you figure out if she was there at the college that night.”

It was a good idea, but how would she ask him for information like that? Would he even know? “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Thanks for the info. Good night, Josh.”

He headed down the hall to his room and she stood watching, wondering what he made of the adults he had encountered at this, his first collectors’ conference. Just then Thelma Mae Earnshaw trudged down the hall from the elevator, looking as if she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Nana and Thelma may have mended fences and come to uneasy terms over an invitation to join the Silver Spouts teapot collectors society, but Thelma was still Thelma. Nana had told Sophie all about what she suspected and knew for certain that Thelma had whispered among the other convention attendees, but it mystified Sophie that she would say such things.

Thelma saw her as she reached her own room and came to a halt. “Thought you ought to know, I saw that fella, that Pettigrew fella. He didn’t see me, though. He was talking on the phone and he told somebody that he knew his wife was cheating on him, but he didn’t care because she was done with the other guy and was even scared of him.”

Sophie stuttered, “Uh, thanks for the information, Mrs. Earnshaw.”

“Then he saw me and he told me he was real tore up. Got huffy when I just mentioned that we’d be needing a new president for the group, though. Don’t know why.” She sagged against the door frame as she rustled around in her huge bag for the room key.

“Are you okay?”

“I never complain,” she grumbled. “Nobody ever asks about my health, and I don’t complain.”

“Are you not feeling well?” Sophie asked, coming over to her. “Would you like me to call Cissy, see if she can come to visit you?”

“No, that’s okay.” She reached out, her eyes watering, and touched Sophie’s wrist. “You’re a nice girl, Sophie Taylor. Never did like your brothers, but you’re a nice girl and a credit to your grandma. Just like my Cissy.” She fumbled with the key, opened the door and entered, slamming the door behind her.

Sophie returned to make up her little cot by the window. She had moved the table and chairs to the center of the room so they could still be used. Nana was reading again, while Laverne had the TV on, watching CNN. There was a political scandal somewhere, a financial crisis loomed, and one analyst was saying the current government was the worst they had ever had and was going to be the death of democracy and end civilization as they knew it. Or something like that. It wasn’t that Sophie was cynical, but she was young and yet had lived long enough to hear the same guff over and over since she was a child.