Three Sisters (40 page)

The man in the wheelchair looked up at his cheerful wife, blinked as if full comprehension of her proposal was just dawning on him. Andrew Turner repeated, word for word, what she had said, turned Bea’s enthusiastic statement into an apprehensive question: “We’re going on a picnic?”

“Right-o. A good stiff dose of the out-of-doors is precisely what you need.” Beatrice offered up a bright, encouraging smile. “It will do you a world of good.”

“But I just got home from the hosp—”

“Hold on to this while I push.” She plopped a wicker basket onto his lap. The lid was closed. “And no peeking inside.”

His curiosity aroused, the patient sniffed. “Fried chicken?”

She laughed. “It would appear that your nose is not working.”

Thus challenged, he sniffed again. “Baked ham?”

Bea pushed him toward the open door. “Wrong again. And you’ll never guess what’s for dessert.”

Turner gave it a try: “Apple pie.”

“Afraid not.”

As they passed the garage, he glanced over his shoulder. “We’re not going somewhere in the car—like to the park in Granite Creek?”

“Certainly not. I know of a much better spot.”

As they crossed over the driveway, approached a sturdy redwood picnic table that was sensibly placed in a sunny, hedge-edged oval of lawn, the weak fellow smiled, and felt the initial twang of a manly appetite. When his wife passed this opportunity by, he frowned. “Where are you taking me, Bea?”

“Into yon quiet forest glen, where goat’s-beard moss grows pearly moist and emerald green, where sprightly fairies dance and lithesome elves do pipe and sing.”

The snobby wife was always quoting some dead person. “Who said that?”

“I blush to admit—’tis mine own.” The handsome woman tossed her head in a gesture that could only be described as haughty.

They passed through a cluster of youthful aspens where a thousand-thousand waxy leaves glittered and chattered in the mild breeze and freckles of filtered sunlight sparkled on the forest floor. It was a delightful little grove, which terminated abruptly as they entered the old-growth forest, where a thick stand of blue-black spruce blocked the sunshine, producing a diffuse, eternal twilight from morning tonight. As they proceeded, the silence thickened, burdened the atmosphere with a chill, gray heaviness. Moreover, the path narrowed.

This was not that Narrow Path recommended by the Teacher from Nazareth.

As their way became slightly steep, Beatrice’s exertion in pushing the wheelchair was replaced by a struggle to hold it back. She began to sing. “It’s a long way down…to old Chinatown…a long, long way to go.”

Feeling better by the minute, her husband began to grin. After the long, dreary stay in the hospital it was good to be home again.
Maybe I should think about settling down for a while—behaving myself. At least until I can walk again. And while I recuperate, I’ll have ample opportunity to make plans for the future.
The grin became a broad smile, exposing his perfect teeth.
Like what I should do with you, my healthy, wealthy wife.

Down, down they went. A long way down. But not toward old Chinatown. The footpath intersected a long-abandoned logging road, and Bea, just as if she had been there many times before, did not hesitate. Decisively, she took a turn to the left.

Andrew Spencer did not know when he had lost the grin, but it no longer curled the slit between his nose and chin. “Ah…we’ve come quite a distance.”

“Yes.” His wife was absolutely—No, “cheerful” does not adequately describe her frame of mind. And the dignified, cultured woman could certainly not be portrayed as “chirpy,” which suggests a frivolous, birdlike gaiety. There is no other word for her hale and hearty good humor—“chipper” is what she was.

It is not going too far to assert that even on his best day, Andrew Turner did not appreciate chipper women. It is, in fact, not going far enough. He detested them. Her jollity put him off. To put the thing bluntly, it
rankled
.

“Bea, I think we’ve gone quite far enough. Let’s stop here and have a bite—”

“Oh, don’t be such an old party-pooper.” She removed one hand from the wheelchair, used it to pat his head. “We’re just about there.”

“We are?”

“Certainly.”

And they were. Only a few yards down the logging road, the trail abruptly ended in what folks in Kentucky and Tennessee refer to as a “holler.” She brought the wheelchair to a halt in a lovely little meadow that might have amounted to an acre. It was known, to those very few who had been there, as The Bottom. And indeed it was. From this place, every pathway, be it for quadruped or biped, was uphill.

Andrew Turner blinked at his surroundings and was pleasantly surprised. A small willow-bordered stream rippled along a bed of smooth, shiny rocks, terminated in a mirroring pool encased by clusters of cattails. “It’s very nice.”

“When we were little girls—Astrid and Cassie and me—we used to come here with our father. We would pick flowers and play hide-and-seek, and in the summertime Daddy would let us wade in the water.” Beatrice took the picnic basket from his lap, began to remove the contents.

Terrifically innervated by the flower-scented air, the sweet chirping of innumerable unseen feathered friends, and his delightful imaginings of whatever delicacies his wife had prepared—especially the mystery dessert(!), the invalid was beginning to salivate. He watched his wife unfold a navy-blue cotton bedsheet, which would presumably serve as a tablecloth. But instead of stretching it out on the moist grass, she set it aside on a flat-topped granite boulder.

As she reached into the basket again, Turner leaned to see what she would produce.

Bea smiled at her famished husband and said, “Honey.” No, she was not addressing her spouse. What the lady had removed was a pound-and-a-half jar of—that is correct. Honey. Tule Creek brand, of course.

Assuming (correctly) that this had something to do with the mystery dessert, Andrew smiled back. Sweets were fine at the proper time, but what he wanted up front was meat. Potatoes. Deviled eggs. Bread. Cheese. “Where’s the stick-to-your-ribs grub?”

“Patience.” The wife twisted the lid from the jar. While her astonished husband watched, she began to pour it out—onto a fungus-encrusted pine stump.

Turner detested waste, also puzzling behavior—and he was not one of those timid persons who prefer ignorance to asking straight-out. “What are you doing that for?”

She ignored this perfectly reasonable question.

Which struck him as bordering on rudeness. “I don’t see why you’re dumping perfectly good honey onto a—”

“I’ve been doing this every day since Charlie Moon found you alive.”

His pleasant hunger was suddenly replaced by a cold, clammy unease that began to curdle in his gut. The acre of meadow had shrank to a tiny cell. The tall spruce, seemingly loose from their roots, were closing in on him. “Uh—Bea?”

She was screwing the lid onto the almost-empty jar. “Yes, dear?”

Assaulted by a sudden rush of claustrophobic fear, Mr. Turner attempted to clear the sawdust from his throat. “I don’t know what’s the matter…but all of a sudden, I’m not feeling so good.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I think we should go home now.”

She turned wide eyes on her husband. “What about our lovely picnic?”

“I’m sorry, precious. I seem to have lost my appetite.”

Her tone was mildly scolding: “After all the trouble I’ve gone to?”

He patted his flat tummy. “I’m feeling kind of…well…queasy.”

“Poor thing.” She had switched to a cooing, motherly sympathy. “You really don’t want anything to eat?”

Thinking that perhaps he ought to humor this strange creature, Turner forced a faint smile. “Well, maybe just a little dessert.”

“Dear me—haven’t you guessed?” She removed a second jar of honey from the basket.

“Guessed
what
?”

“I am disappointed in you, Andrew.” Beatrice was now behind him. “You should have figured it out by now.” Unscrewing the lid from the second jar of Charlie Moon’s favorite brand of honey, she said, “
You
are dessert.” She tilted the jar. A long, amber stream of honey dribbled down. Onto his head. Over his forehead. Along the back of his neck.

His voice cracked: “Bea…what on earth are you doing?”

“In your natural state, you are hardly sweet enough to be considered tasty.” She watched gravity pull at the viscous liquid. “If you were not such a self-centered oaf—
Andrew
—you might have realized that I was onto you. Ever since that last day of our honeymoon—when you told me that Astrid snacked on strawberries—I have not once addressed you as ‘Andy.’”

“I don’t understand.” This was half true. Under the circumstances, the wife’s reference to Astrid and strawberries was downright alarming. As to her abandonment of the familiar “Andy,” he had thought that odd, almost too formal—even for Bea. But, like many husbands, Andrew Turner had given up trying to understand his wife. This was to be his downfall. “Listen to me, precious—whatever is bothering you, I’m sure we can talk it out.” He took a lick at honey dribbling down his nose, dripping over his lips.

Beatrice was putting the empty jars into the picnic basket. “As delightful as it would be to chat for a while, I must be leaving.” She glanced at the darkening sky. “Bears are very punctual creatures. They will be coming soon—looking for their nightly snack on the stump.” She offered a rhetorical question: “Won’t they be pleasantly surprised to find what’s new on the menu.”

Turner’s white-knuckled hands gripped the wheelchair arms. He searched for a suitable protest, came up with the timeworn “You’ll never get away with it!”

“You don’t think so?” The lady’s brow furrowed with concentration, as she reviewed her plot. “I do not wish to be argumentative, but I am inclined to disagree—having worked this out with considerable care, I believe my chances are rather good. I have prepared and rehearsed so many plausible explanations for this terrible tragedy that I can hardly decide which one suits me best. I do admit this—when your remains are discovered and the grisly similarity between your fate and Astrid’s becomes apparent, it is probable that suspicions will be raised. But there will be no evidence whatever of my involvement in your untimely passing.” She smiled at her wild-eyed husband. “You, on the other hand, do not have—what is the quaint expression? Oh yes, ‘a snowball’s chance in hell.’ You will be ripped to shreds well before the sun comes up again.” Bea heard a twig break in the forest. “Perhaps even before it goes down.” She patted his hand. “Well, I must be off now—talley-ho.” She started to go, paused, leaned close to her wedded mate. “When the beasts come, and start licking the honey off your face—” she licked a drop off his ear, “I hope you will remember poor Astrid, and the strawberries you used to lure the bears into her bedroom.” She stood up straight. “If you had taken proper interest in my sister, you might have learned that your lovely wife was extremely allergic to strawberries.”

So that’s it. But how was I supposed to know
…. “Bea, please listen to me—”

“Andrew, I am not the least bit interested in anything you have to say.” She bit her lower lip. “Unless you wish to make a full confession of your misdeeds.”

The drowning man grabbed at this sliver of driftwood. “If I did admit to doing some things that I very much regret, would you—”

“Would I reconsider my plan to leave you to the mercy of the wild animals?” She seemed to mull it over. “Yes. Yes, I suppose there’s a small chance that I might.”

“Okay, then.” He took a deep breath. “I hardly know where to start.”

She made a suggestion: “Begin with your first wife.”

This was like a slap in the face. “Why—whatever do you mean?”

“You know very well that I refer to April Valentine.”

“Oh—
that
first wife.” Never a quitter, the desperate fellow gave it his best shot: “I can explain why I thought it unwise to mention poor April—”

“Oh, shut up, Andrew.”
Perhaps I should have just pushed his wheelchair into the Devil’s Mouth
. “On the day when Cassie saw us off on our honeymoon, April’s mother showed up at the airport. Mrs. Florence Valentine gave my sister a bag of newspaper clippings. Most were about the horrid death of her daughter. But not all. Some were of happier times. One of them had your picture, with April. The ecstatic bride and her smiling groom. If the poor woman had only known that she was marrying a cold-blooded—”

“Bea, April’s mother is certifiably insane.” He pointed a trembling finger at his accuser. “There was not a
shred
of evidence to support her preposterous suspicions that I was responsible for her daughter’s tragic death. April must have fainted when she was feeding the pigs, and fallen into the pen.” Seeing just a hint of doubt on Beatrice’s face, he pressed the point: “Ask any insurance company actuary—they’ll tell you farmwork is among the most dangerous occupations.”

“Your first wife’s death could have accidental.”
Not that I believe it for a minute.
“It is entirely possible that you had nothing to do with it.”

“Your sister must have realized that.” He trembled with inner rage. “But Cassandra was determined to create a scandal—publicly humiliate me.”

Beatrice nodded. “Cassie was always terribly impetuous. I tried to talk her out of her absurd scheme. Imagine, pretending that she was communing with your first wife’s vengeful spirit. But she thought that if she managed to unsettle you, you might do something foolish—something that would provide evidence of your guilt.” She closed the lid on the picnic basket. “But you didn’t react as Cassie had hoped. Rather than panic, you decided to discredit our family psychic. You sent Cassie that phony e-mail—announcing your death by violence. What did you have in mind? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You planned to wait until Sis had received the phony ‘message’—which she would assume had been forwarded by Nicky Moxon. I’m guessing you would have been across the street from her home, in the Corner Bar, watching your victim on TV—waiting for her to make the dramatic announcement of your death. No doubt, you and some of your boozy friends would have a good laugh at my sister’s expense. And then, you would have crossed the street, entered Cassie’s home to announce that reports of your demise were ‘greatly exaggerated.’” When he opened his mouth to protest, she said, “Don’t bother to deny that you sent the e-mail, Andrew. That devious little plot had your grubby fingerprints all over it.” Her eyes were orbs of blue ice. “It was quite a coincidence that, on that particular evening, your prophecy came so close to being fulfilled.”
And should have been.
“By the way, if you don’t mind satisfying my curiosity—how did you discover that Cassie was receiving clandestine messages from Nicky Moxon?”