Still proceeding
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW?” MAGGIE asked, once I was belted into the front seat of her car.
“You might say I was caught somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.”
Maggie gasped. “You were trespassing?”
“That's what the judge called it. He also charged me with breaking and entering.” I described my ridiculous adventure to Maggie.
When I was through, she said, “There are two things you need to keep in mind about Lickin Creek, Tori. First, the Lickin Creek Grapevine spreads gossip faster than the speed of light, so you can't do anything wrong and not expect to get caught.”
“I am fully aware that the news of my arrest is spreading through town, even as we speak,” I said.
Maggie laughed. “Not to mention what the gossips are saying about Matavious's affair with his married receptionist. The other thing you have to be aware of is the extent of the old boys’ network. All those good old boys who are descendants of the town's founders.” She glanced sideways at me. “Like Judge Fetterhoff and Matavious Clopper and-”
“Let me guess… Stanley Roadcap.”
Maggie nodded. “Yup. And Marvin Bumbaugh, of course. Even Jackson Clopper. They stick together against outsiders, Tori, no matter what they think of each other.”
“When you say outsiders, you mean me, don't you?”
“Right. You've upset a lot of important people in the past few days. They aren't going to let you get away with it.” She giggled and changed the subject abruptly. “Now, tell me what Matavious looks like naked.”
“You really don't want to go there, Maggie.” I tried to speak flippantly, but I was concerned. Not only had I angered the old boys’ network, but someone was scared enough about what I'd been doing to leave the bean-bag cat on my door as a threat. Was it one of them? I was quiet for the rest of the short drive home.
“Here we are,” Maggie said cheerfully. “Going to offer me a cuppa coffee?”
“Isn't Bill waiting for you?” I asked ungraciously. I really wanted to be alone with my thoughts.
“He left for the Poconos right after the parade. To set up a Christmas reenactment camp. I'm going to join him there on Christmas Eve, if the weather holds out.”
“Then please come in.” A cup of coffee was the least I could do to show my appreciation for her driving me home.
As we stepped into the warm kitchen, Noel came over to rub against my legs. I bent over to pat her and whispered, “Did Fred come home?”
I knew he hadn't. If he was home he'd be at the door to greet me.
A delicious aroma tantalized my nose. “What smells so good?” I asked Praxythea, who was once again in her domestic goddess role.
She looked up from dipping a piece of white cheesecloth in a bowl and said, “I baked my fruitcakes this morning.” She wrapped one of three loaves in a brandy-soaked cheesecloth, laid several slices of apple on top, and wound aluminum foil around the whole thing.
“Brandy?” Maggie asked.
Praxythea nodded. “Sometimes I use rum.”
“It's her old family recipe,” I said to Maggie, as I filled two mugs from the pot of coffee on the back of the stove.
“I never liked fruitcake very much,” Maggie said. “Heard too many jokes about using them for doorstops.”
“You'll like mine,” Praxythea said, not at all insulted. “Even people who don't care for fruitcake rave about it.”
I flipped through the day's mail. Christmas catalogs were still coming in. Who was disorganized enough to order gifts four days before Christmas?
“Anything interesting?” Maggie asked.
I shook my head and burned my tongue with the big gulp of coffee I took to hide my distress. The counterirritant was a good remedy for self-pity.
Praxythea handed me a plate of her homemade crescent cookies, saying, “The powdered sugar will cool your mouth.”
It did, and I ate several, vowing to restart my diet immediately after Christmas.
At Maggie's insistence, I once again told of my afternoon's adventures. Praxythea listened with a bemused look, which turned to a small frown when Maggie told her about my having rankled the members of the old boys’ network.
“I can't help worrying,” Praxythea said. “I thought all day about that nasty stuffed cat. Someone is out to frighten you away.”
“Or worse,” Maggie said.
“Thanks to both of you for making me feel so good,” I grumbled. “Does your psychic power tell you who that someone is?” I asked Praxythea.
“That's not the kind of thing I do,” she said. Before I could make a snide remark, she added, “But why don't we look at what we know and try to figure it out?”
“Good idea.” Maggie jumped to her feet. “Got some paper? I'll make notes.”
It wasn't a bad idea, I thought. Two heads (or in this case three) are usually better than one, and I've always found that talking something out helps me focus in on what's important. I found a yellow legal pad in the drawer near the phone and handed it to Maggie.
“Okay,” I said. “Who wants to start?”
“You're the one who's been doing all the snooping,” Maggie said with pencil poised. “Tell us what you've found out.”
“We know that Bernice and Oretta were murdered,” I said.
They nodded.
“What we don't know is if they were murdered by one person or by two.”
“I'm betting on one,” Maggie said. “This is a small town. It's hard enough to imagine a murderer on the loose, much less two.”
“Strong, strong vibrations tell me both murders were done by the same person.” Praxythea finished wrapping the last of her fruitcakes and daintily wiped her fingers on a paper napkin.
I went on. “We do know Bernice was poisoned, most likely by cyanide, and-”
“What makes you think it was cyanide?” Maggie asked.
“Certain obvious signs. Her color, the smell, the speed with which it killed her. I've asked Luscious to have the lab check for it. And we know Oretta was shot, but the gun has disappeared. It would help to know what weapon was used.”
I thought for a minute. “The disemboweled cat with its attached threatening note tells me the murderer is frightened of me. It means I'm getting close to the killer, even if I don't know yet what it is I know.
“Although I've talked to a lot of people, I can't see that I've learned anything. The boyfriend, VeeKay Kaltenbaugh, appears to be a logical suspect, at least in Bernice's death, but all I can tell you about him is that he's very rich and that his rehab romance with Bernice was on the skids.”
Maggie said as she wrote on the legal pad, “VeeKay Kaltenbaugh. Could have killed Bernice in a fit of passionate rage over their relationship breaking up.”
I repressed a grin at Maggie's efforts to solve the crime. VeeKay didn't look like the kind of man who'd get excited over much of anything except his restaurant and maybe his muscles, and although I'd seen little of Bernice she didn't strike me as a woman who could inspire passionate rage in anybody. Hiding my skepticism, I continued.
“Stanley Roadcap said he loved Bernice and was trying to save his marriage-”
“That's what he says,” Maggie interrupted. “How do you know he's telling the truth?”
“For now, that's all I have to go on,” I pointed out.
Maggie licked her pencil and wrote Stanley Roadcap's name. “I'll just put ditto marks under what I put for VeeKay.”
“I guess that's all right.” If we agreed that Bernice was capable of inspiring passionate rage in one man, then why not two? Or maybe even five or six? Who knows what kind of temptress lurked beneath that boozy, middle-aged exterior? “However,” I pointed out, “neither Stanley nor VeeKay had a motive to kill Oretta, and we've practically decided both women were killed by the same person.”
“I could be wrong about that,” Praxythea said.
“You? Admitting you're wrong? I'm amazed.”
“No need to be sarcastic, Tori. I sometimes get interfering vibrations that can cloud an issue. How about some more cookies?”
I was surprised to notice the plate was empty. I couldn't possibly have eaten them all, or had I?
“They're good brain food,” Praxythea said, placing another heaping platter of cookies on the table in front of me.
“We're getting off track,” Maggie said. “What about Matavious Clopper?”
“Before he caught me in his closet, I overheard him say he was with his receptionist the night Oretta died,” I said.
“Couldn't he have killed her first, then joined Debbie for a night of passion?” Maggie asked.
“And his reason for murdering his wife was…?” Praxythea asked.
“I dunno.” Maggie looked at me. “What do you think, Tori?”
“From what I heard, I don't think he had any real desire to marry Debbie. But even if he did, there was no need to murder his wife. He could have simply divorced her.”
“Unless there was something about their relationship you don't know,” Praxythea pointed out.
“I'm sure there's lots of things I don't know about them, Praxythea,” I responded. “Wait! I just thought of something else. Bernice overheard him and Debbie in the office last Wednesday. Maybe Matavious killed her to prevent her from telling Oretta about his affair.”
“That makes about as much sense as someone murdering his wife instead of asking for a divorce,” Prax-ythea sniffed.
Maggie scribbled as fast as she could, then read, “‘Matavious Clopper. Motive to kill wife-she wouldn't give him a divorce. Motive to kill Bernice-to hide his affair. Both motives-highly unlikely.’”
“Okay. Let's move on,” I said. “There's Debbie, the receptionist. What if she wanted to marry Matavious so badly, she decided to get Oretta out of the way?”
Maggie looked up. “And she killed Bernice first, to keep her from blabbing to Oretta.”
“Write that down,” I said.
When Maggie was finished writing, she said, “You haven't mentioned the other branch of the Clopper family. Weezie and Jackson. They had reason to resent both Oretta and Bernice. Bernice, because the town's too small for two big shopping malls, and she was rushing to build her shopping center downtown before they could sell their land to a developer. And Oretta, because she persuaded Matavious to put his land in a conservation bank, making it nearly impossible for Jackson to sell his land to anybody in the future.”
Since I really disliked Weezie, I agreed with Maggie that the Cloppers were likely suspects.
“What about that nutty group Bernice belonged to?” Maggie asked. “You know, the witchie-poos.”
“What makes you think she was a member of the coven?” I asked.
“You're not the only one who can play Nancy Drew. Besides, it's hard to keep a thing like a witches’ coven a secret in a gossip-loving town like Lickin Creek.”
“I don't think they had anything to do with her death,” I said. I didn't want either woman to know I planned a sneak visit to tonight's coven meeting, for I knew they'd try to stop me.
“Okay, then. Here's the list.” Maggie ripped the top page off the legal pad and handed it to me. I studied it and decided it was a good start, but that was all it was. There was nothing definite to go by, and there could be many other people we simply hadn't thought about. The clown, for instance. Who was he? And what, if anything, did he have to do with all this?
“What's missing is a connection between the two women,” I announced. “Find that, and we find the killer.”
“We can start another list.” Maggie licked the end of her pencil. “I'll start with the Christmas pageant.”
“I nearly forgot your hunch that there's a serial killer out there bumping off sugar plum fairies,” I said with a giggle.
“Don't be so nonchalant about it,” Maggie warned. “I still think you could be next.”
The back door burst open, admitting Luscious Miller and putting a stop to our list-making.
Luscious tossed my truck keys on the table, then helped himself to coffee.
“Thanks,” I said meekly.
“Don't mention it.” He sat down without removing his jacket and sipped from his mug.
I figured he had something to say to me, and I hoped he wouldn't be too harsh in front of my friends. He surprised me, though, by not even mentioning my afternoon's escapade.
“I had a call from the medical examiner's office in Harrisburg.”
“So soon?” Usually it took a week or more to hear anything from that busy place.
“I think they were trying to clear their desks before Christmas.”
That I could understand. “Whom were they calling about, Bernice or Oretta?”
“Both,” Luscious said. “You were right about the cyanide, Tori. Bernice drank enough of it to kill a horse.”
“How could she?” Maggie shuddered. “Wouldn't it have a bad taste?”
“The cyanide was in spiced cider, which she laced liberally with gin,” I reminded them. “And she was already looped when she arrived, so she probably didn't even notice the taste.”
“That's true,” Maggie said. “Once, not too long ago, I was at a party where Stanley accused her of drinking anything if it had booze in it.”
“Many alcoholics will do that.” I remembered a few times when my mother drank aftershave, mouthwash, and even vanilla extract after my father and I had emptied the liquor cabinet.
“I wonder where you can buy cyanide?” I mused.
“Lots of places, I should think,” Maggie said.
“Name one.”
“How about a drugstore?”
Praxythea laughed out loud. “I can just see someone walking in and saying ‘Hello, Mr. Pharmacist, I'd like a gallon of your very best cyanide.’”
Maggie protested. “What I meant was it's probably used in mixing medicines or something.”
I remembered when I was a kid living in some third world country, I forget which, the missionaries used to use a strychnine-based medicine as a dewormer, but I couldn't think of anything with cyanide in it. I could ask a pharmacist.
“And I think you can buy it in a garden shop,” Maggie went on. “Isn't it used in bug killers?”
“Do you want me to check that out?” I asked Luscious. I would anyway, but I thought it would be good for his self-image if I involved him.
“Go ahead, do what you want. Just stay out of trouble, please.”
“What about the bullet that killed Oretta?” I asked. “Was the lab able to determine what kind of gun was used?”
Luscious nodded and drained his coffee. Praxythea leaped up to refill the mug, earning an adoring smile from the young man. With the addition of a little tail, he'd make a perfect puppy dog.
“The bullet,” I prompted.
“It was a forty-four caliber. You don't see many of them in use anymore. Ballistics said it came from an early Colt, probably the model 1860.”
“Find any traces of black powder?” Maggie asked.
Luscious nodded in agreement.
I stared at her in awe.
“My fiance's a Civil War reenactor,” Maggie reminded me. “And he's taught me more about guns than I ever wanted to know. The Colt model 1860 was the most common sidearm used during the war. Reenactors use them a lot.”
I grabbed Luscious's arm. “The Civil War items that were found in the manger yesterday morning… in the square… were there any guns?”
“You mean that stuff that belonged to Cletus Wilson? Sure there were guns.” Luscious paused, and I could tell that he and I were thinking along the same lines. “Damn! I gave everything back to him. What if there were fingerprints?”
“I wouldn't worry too much about that,” I assured him. “Everything there had been handled by the church group. Fingerprints wouldn't tell you anything.”
“I'd better go talk to Cletus,” Luscious said, standing. “Maybe he has some ideas about who broke into his house.”
“Good idea,” I said. “There's always the possibility he made up the story about a robbery as a cover-up.” I tried to recall when he'd reported the burglary. Then I remembered-the dentist claimed his home had been broken into on Wednesday, the day of Bernice's murder.