A Body in the Bargain: A Kate & Kylie Mystery Read online

  “What girl?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

  “You mean you don’t know?” she asked, delighted with herself. “It was sweet little Mary Jane Pendleton who went down there and said she spent the whole night with him.”

  I had no idea who sweet little Mary Jane Pendleton was, but I didn’t find out then because Jabari had just come up the driveway pulling his mower and was ready to start on my yard.

  I suddenly remembered where I had heard his name. I told him that Josh Miller was singing his praises for his sports writing, and he shrugged and smiled.

  “Are you planning to be a sports writer as a career?” I asked.

  “No way,” he said with a confident smile. “I just like sports and I like to make money. I’m going to journalism school and get into television.”

  I believed him.

  Later I called my mother to tell her happy birthday. First, she thanked me for the flowers. Then told me that Dad had given her a cocker spaniel puppy for her birthday and they had named him Cash.

  Then she told me that they had finally settled on a Winnebago and it was on special order.

  “So your Dad says the puppy’s all the cash we’re going to have for a while,” she said, with a laugh. “Or at least until we sell the house. In a couple of weeks we’re going to start a trip all across the country,” she said. “And we’ll probably come to River Valley first!”

  I hadn’t told either of my parents about the house being robbed, and I didn’t tell her over the phone either. I figured they’d both handle it better if the house was furnished before they arrived.

  I did tell her about my doing some writing for The Register and she said, “Oh, dear, and we just canceled our subscription, but, honey, keep us copies of everything you write.”

  I spoke to my dad after that, and the first thing he said was “Our last copy of The Register just got here today, and I read that Meredith Merkle was murdered, and some women found her inside a sofa. Have they caught anybody yet?”

  I told him a simplified version, and he said, “Well, at least they’ve finally got old Waterfield to retire and got a professional running the department.”

  My mother got back on the phone and asked, “How are you liking being back in River Valley? I hope it’s not too, too boring for you,” and I said, “Fine. I went to the Kiwanis Fish Fry last night.”

  She said, “Oh that was always so much fun.”

  I heard a knock on the door and said, “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a kid to pay for mowing the lawn.”

  “Oh, Katie! Good for you!” Mom said. “Keeping the lawn mowed!”

  She always sounds surprised that I’ve grown up.

  Then I called Kylie and asked, “Who’s Mary Jane Pendleton?”

  “She’s the Pendletons’ daughter,” Kylie said. “The youngest one I think. Why?”

  “Who are the Pendletons?”

  “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know them. He’s the manager at Georgia Trust Bank now. His wife teaches at the high school. They go to our church. What about Mary Jane?”

  “Well, I just heard that Mary Jane Pendleton was the one who got David Dabney out of jail by giving him an alibi.”

  “NO!” Kylie said, sounding shocked. “That can’t be right.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Well, her folks are so nice, and she’s such a quiet, sort of mousey little thing. I thought she was in college, anyway.”

  “Spring break?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kylie said. “That just doesn’t sound right. Where’d you hear it?”

  “From Sally Turbo,” I admitted.

  Kylie laughed out loud and said, “Kate, you ought to know better than to believe anything Sally Turbo says.”

  That evening, I made prints of the photos I had taken of the barn, and they looked pretty good. I thought about starting a sketch of the old barn, crumpled up the first one and found my sharp edged ruler before starting another. When I haven’t done any art for a while, it always takes me a while to get things going right.

  On Sunday afternoon, Buddy and Kylie came over with the twins. They had my new coffee table in the back of Buddy’s good truck. Kylie came in first with a beautiful ham and broccoli quiche.

  “Mom made two,” Kylie said, “And it’s wonderful, but Buddy won’t touch it, so the boys won’t either.”

  “Well, I am very happy to have it,” I said. “I’ll see if Aunt Verily his home and take part of it to her.”

  Buddy and the boys were already on the porch with my new coffee table. Buddy could have done it himself, and the boys were making things more complicated as usual. Kylie had to get them of the way, while I held the door open. Then she helped him angle it through, and the two of them put it in position in front of the sofa.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “And sturdy, too,” Buddy said proudly.

  “You need to get some wax and give it a good buffing,” Kylie said.

  “No, just leave it like it is,” Buddy said, standing back to admire his work.

  I hugged them both and got them some iced tea. Buddy approved of my sofa but said the chair was just right for him. He sat down and promptly put his big work boots on the coffee table.

  Kylie frowned and said, “Buddy Carson! You don’t do that in somebody else’s house!”

  “Now this,” he said, stretching his arms and relaxing, “Is why I said to leave it alone. It’s the perfect height for a man to relax and put his feet up, and if you start polishing it up, you’ll worry about scuff marks.”

  William sat down on the sofa and propped his sneaker-clad feet on the table. Mark tried it lying down on the floor.

  “See what kind of example you’re setting!” Kylie said to Buddy, but I didn’t mind. I thought the table looked fine——as if it were an old piece that had been around for generations. I could see some possible advantage in having a living room that was comfortable for male human beings.

  After the Carsons had gone, I called Aunt Verily and got a busy signal four or five times in a row.

  When I finally reached her, she answered the phone in a snappy voice, and then—realizing it was me—said, “I’m sorry, Kate. I’m just at my wit’s end.”

  I told her about the quiche, and she cheered up.

  “Oh, that Darlene King could open a restaurant,” she said. “Yes, John Robert’s gone out with some friends, and I was just going to scramble some eggs. I’d love some quiche. I can fix us a salad if you want to come and have supper with me. I’ll try to straighten up a bit in your honor.”

  “Oh, don’t bother!” I said.

  Aunt Verily’s house is a library in its own right, and she has an inclination not to throw things out, which is not that she’s a hoarder, but that she doesn’t get around to throwing things like junk mail and catalogs away.

  She had cleared her dining room table of everything except the old Smith Corona typewriter that stayed permanently at one end. Aunt Verily is the only person I know who still uses a manual typewriter and actually carries on personal correspondences by mail.

  As we ate the quiche, she told me about her great-grandbaby’s christening, and how sweet her children are to her. I told her about my various furniture hunting adventures, about my parents’ plans and other light-hearted topics. She smiled and seemed to enjoy both the food and the company, but I could tell that there was something on her mind.

  Finally, she said, “You know, this dreadful business with Meredith Merkle is just bringing out the worst in some of my busybody friends.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, and waited.

  “Just as soon as I got home, I had this telephone drama going on. First, it was Maxie and then Hester and then Maxie again,” she said, “And I’m afraid I had a bit of a tiff with Maxie. Of course, my temper was short by that time because of Hester and her n
onsense, but Maxie can just get to be like a dog with a bone.”

  “I hope you want to talk about it,” I said with a grin, trying to lighten the mood, “Because now I’m really curious.”

  “It was exasperating,” she said. “But let me go back to the beginning. Laurinda Dove called me on Friday. It turns out she was Meredith’s attorney. She said that Meredith left the house and her whole estate to that women’s college she went to in Virginia, but she left all of her books and personal papers to the library.”

  “Our library?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Aunt Verily said with a sigh, “And I’ve already decided I’m going to write a nice letter to Laurinda and tell her that we can’t accept Meredith’s kind bequest.”

  I must have looked surprised because she explained.

  “I was at her house once or twice,” she said. “Meredith didn’t have a collection, Kate. She was a hoarder, not a reader. She had hundreds of books—things like a complete collection of James Fenimore Cooper, five or six different outdated Encyclopedias, two or three complete Shakespeares. And everything Dickens ever wrote. No author later than 1920. Honestly, Kate! When I was there once, I recognized some of them from our own Library book sales. We have a good classics collection already that nobody ever looks at or borrows, and we have far too little shelf room for all the newer books the Regional Library can share with us. It would just be a complete nuisance, and I don’t want somebody hauling all those boxes of dusty old books to the library.”

  “You said books and personal papers,” I said. “What are the personal papers?”

  “Well, now that’s part of the reason Maxie called,” she said, “She was in the library when Laurinda called me, and I made the mistake of telling her what the call was about. I thought she understood my feeling about the books, but then she called this afternoon and said that she had remembered hearing Meredith talk about having a few valuable first editions and that perhaps if I could get Laurinda to let us into the house, I could at least take a look before turning down the whole collection.

  “Then she said she would be glad to go through Meredith’s personal papers on behalf of the Literary Society. She said she thought Meredith kept everything, and there might be some things for the Literary Society scrapbook.”

  Aunt Verily sighed.

  “So?” I asked.

  “Well, I agreed to that,” she said. “It seemed at the moment that Maxie had good intentions, and it did make sense at least to take a quick look before turning down the whole kit and caboodle. Then she had to go and run her mouth to Hester, and that’s when it started being a headache.”

  I dimly remembered Hester Foley as the organist at the Methodist Church I attended as a church.

  “You know they both live over at Camelot Court now, so they talk all the time, and it seems that Hester already had a bee in her bonnet,” Aunt Verily said, “When Maxie told her she was going to help with the papers, that really set her off. She called and wanted to go with us to Meredith’s house when we went.”

  She paused and frowned.

  “I’m sure you know about Flip Tarver getting arrested for going into Meredith’s house.”

  I nodded and said, “Yes, but it didn’t really amount to anything. He was getting something for her to wear in her casket.”

  “That sounds likely,” Aunt Verily said, “But Hester has this notion that Flip took some valuable vase from the house. She said she wanted to go with us and check the china cabinet to see if this vase was there. This has to do with something Millicent told her a couple of years ago. . Apparently, she’s prepared to talk to the police about it if the silly vase isn’t there, but she doesn’t want to say anything and then have them find it there. In other words, she wants to snoop.”

  “So what did you say?” I asked.

  “I told her I wasn’t getting involved with any of that, and that if she wanted an investigation of the matter, she could bring it up with the police herself, but I wasn’t going to be part of it, and that I had thought about it further, and changed my mind. I said I wasn’t going to go to the house after all—that we didn’t need the books, and the attorney could very well put the personal papers in a box and bring them to me at her convenience.”

  “I can see your point,” I said.

  “Most sensible people would,” she said, “But Hester said goodbye in a very chilly voice. Then she went and told Maxie the whole thing. So Maxie called me back and said she had no idea Hester was going to want to go with us when she brought it up, and that she hoped I hadn’t really changed my mind and was just telling Hester that.”

  I cut her a second slice of quiche, and we ate for a while before she continued.

  “Well, you know there was no way that we were going to go in there without somebody telling Hester, so I told Maxie that I had absolutely decided not to bother with any of it, and then she just flew off the handle. She said that I was letting my personal feelings about Meredith cloud my judgment and that somebody really had to go through the personal papers, and that she happened to know that the reason Meredith and Flip were not on good terms had to do with an argument over a vase. So I told her that if she could work it out with Laurinda Dove to let her poke around in Meredith’s house, that was fine with me.”

  “Were Maxie Lewis and Miss Merkle friends?” I asked.

  “Nobody was friends with Meredith,” Aunt Verily said. “In fact, when Chief O’Reilly came to talk to me about her, I had to tell him that I thought I had more patience with Meredith than any of them.”

  “And to tell you the truth about the vase,” she added, “That whole house is full of bric-a-brac, and I never noticed it.”

  “What kind is it?” I asked.

  “Well, Hester says it’s Sandwich glass, one of those tulip shaped things.”

  I suddenly understood the words that had seemed like nonsense when I heard them in Flip Tarver’s gift shop.

  Sandwich.Tulip shaped. Blue.

  I stopped myself from asking what Sandwich glass was, and whether the vase was blue. I didn’t want to add any more stress to Aunt Verily’s bad afternoon. I could always get on the internet and find out more.

  I changed the subject completely.

  “Let’s go for a ride,” I said. “It’s a beautiful afternoon, and there’s this barn I’m thinking about painting. I’ve taken some photos, but I need some more.”

  “That would be nice!” she said. “Nobody ever just rides around on Sunday afternoon anymore. I’ve seen plenty of the interstate this weekend, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the countryside.”

  After she was in my car and buckled in, she said, “I’ll tell you one more thing that’s been on my mind, and then I’m never going to mention Meredith Merkle again.”

  I grinned and said, “I don’t believe that for a minute, but what’s the one thing?”

  “You know she came to the library that Monday before you two found her body on Tuesday, and I’m afraid I was a little impatient with her. It’s been weighing on my mind. She hardly ever came in except to use the photocopier, and then she never remembered how to use it, so Dylan was going to help her, and he just reached out for whatever she was copying, you know, to do it for her, and she snapped at him, and said it was none of his business what people copied, and he should know that.”

  “Oh, that sounds like her,” I said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have minded for me, but it hurt his feelings,” Aunt Verily said, “He’s just 16. I gave him some money to go and get us both a cold drink, and I told her he was just trying to help, and she shouldn’t have snapped at him that way.”

  “Did she apologize?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Aunt Verily said. “She just sighed, and I told her step-by-step how to use the photocopier, just the way I always have. I guess I just feel sorry that the last thing I ever said to her was something critical like
that. And now I’m turning down her bequest.”

  We drove along in silence for a while, and I asked, “Do you remember what she was wearing?”

  “No,” Aunt Verily said. “One of her pants suits, I suppose. She always picked the worst colors. Why?”

  Later, I sat in a bubble bath and brooded over the whole thing. I had looked up Sandwich Glass on the internet as soon as I got home, and found a blue tulip-shaped vase with an estimated value of $4,500, which was certainly an astonishing amount of money for a vase but didn’t seem to me to be enough to murder somebody over.

  Maybe, I thought, Flip Tarver had expected to inherit the house from his sister despite their estrangement. Maybe if he took it, it wasn’t about the sales value of the vase, but about its being a family heirloom that he just loved and wanted for his own.

  I remembered the appointment I had made with him for Monday morning and wondered if he would still bring in the photo and if he would have written down a few notes about his late sister. Would he still be pretending to be fond of her?

  That night, I dreamed that we were opening that dreadful green sofa, but Miss Merkle just stepped out of it, alive as anything, and said, “Oh, yes, you’re the one who fancies herself a writer and an artist.”

  I was at Tarver’s Gift Shoppe at nine the next morning. At first, Flip Tarver greeted me with the same big smile and then he had a slightly worried look.

  “Did your mother like the flowers?” he asked.

  “Oh, she was very pleased,” I said. “I’m here, well, you remember that you…”

  And then he slapped his forehead and said, “I told you that I’d jot down some notes about Meredith and bring you a photo.”

  I nodded, and he said, “I completely forgot. I said that before I learned that she left all of our mother’s heirlooms to that prissy women’s college she graduated from.