Shadow of a Spout Read online

  “I just figure an outsider’s perspective might help me figure this out some. I want to bounce ideas off him.”

  Dana smirked. “What else do you want to bounce off him?”

  “Dana Saunders, you be quiet or I will begin to ask why you felt it necessary to dab extra perfume on your neck before going into the coffee shop, where you knew a certain detective was having his dinner.” They had briefly joined Eli Hodge for coffee after dinner, Dana sliding into the booth seat next to him, but he had kept it strictly professional, except just before they parted ways he asked for Dana’s cell phone number “in case he needed to get in touch.”

  Dana laughed out loud. “Busted. Go on, have your talk and be sure to park somewhere dark so no one will see if your chitchat involves more than just lip service.”

  Sophie swiftly wound her hair up in a messy bun, eyed her makeup in the vanity mirror and slid her feet into sandals. She said good-bye and slipped out of the room. As she ambled down the hallway she came across Orlando Pettigrew at the door to his room. He was fumbling with the key and sneezing repeatedly.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Pettigrew?” she asked, rushing over to the poor man.

  He took a tissue out of his pocket and sneezed again, giving up on the key but leaving it in the lock. “Darned allergies!” he groaned, mopping at his nose. “I was at the meeting, but my sneezing and hacking was disrupting things. Besides, I just didn’t feel like being there. I need to take my pills and lie down; I’m not good for anything once I take those things.”

  She turned the key in the lock and opened the door for him. He shuffled into the room, so she took the keys out of the lock and followed. “Can I get you anything? A drink of water to take your pills?”

  He dropped onto his bed and fished a bottle of scotch out of a bag, looking around for a glass. She went to the sideboard, where the hospitality tray was, and retrieved one for him.

  “I don’t understand why the police keep asking me the same questions over and over. I’ve been down at the police station three times trying to find out what they think, but they just keep . . .” He sighed deeply and passed one hand over his face. He grabbed a bottle of pills from the nightstand and opened them, shaking two out into his palm and looking around.

  She handed him the glass.

  “Do you mind getting me some water?”

  Either Melissa or Dom had been there, so the room was spotless, and there was a fresh thermal carafe of water on the hospitality table. She crossed the room again and poured some cold water into the glass and brought it back to him.

  “What do they keep doing, Mr. Pettigrew?” Sophie asked, as he took the glass, poured a large shot of scotch into it and then downed some, swallowing the pills. She picked up the bottle of allergy meds and looked at the warning label. It distinctly said not to take it with alcohol, but it appeared to be something he did all the time.

  “They keep asking how could I not notice she wasn’t in our room. I told them I sleep soundly.”

  There was a faint hum from the television and Sophie picked up the remote. It was not turned off properly. She wondered how long it had been like that, as she clicked it off. “Do your allergy meds make you sleep even more deeply?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Did you take your meds with alcohol that evening?”

  He nodded.

  “Was that after the fight with Pastor Barlow?”

  He nodded again. “Zunia was in the room at that point, that’s all I can say. But she was pretty peeved at Frank by then. Told him she wasn’t going to run away with him; it was all a little joke on Zunia’s part from the start. Frank’s got no sense of humor.”

  “Did you tell the police that you take your allergy meds with scotch?”

  He shook his head, turning his dull gaze to her. “Do you think I should?”

  “If that contributed to you sleeping so soundly that you didn’t notice Zunia had left the room, I would, if I were you.” She sat down on the other bed opposite him. “Mr. Pettigrew, it’s just such a puzzle. Who do you think killed your wife?”

  He shrugged. “She was always making someone mad. In the time we were together I never did figure out how to keep her happy.”

  She hesitated, but then plunged ahead. “I met your ex-wife, Dahlia. What a coincidence that she’s in town right now.”

  “It’s no coincidence,” he said, slipping his watch off and setting it aside on the nightstand. He loosened his tie. “She made darn sure she was close by. She didn’t trust Zunia and Emma stuck together for three days.”

  So clearly the trip to Cruickshank had been planned by Dahlia ahead of time. “Why was that?”

  “Those two hated each other. This weekend was supposed to be about building a stepmom-stepdaughter bond.”

  “Was that something Zunia wanted?”

  He yawned. “I don’t know. Emma wouldn’t give Zunia a chance, and Zunia just made things worse. Then there was my ex . . . Dahlia tried to get Zunia in trouble just after we got together. She was so bitter about our divorce! I tried to be generous, but no amount of money was enough to get her to leave us alone.”

  Well, duh! It wasn’t money she wanted; she wanted her family back. “What do you mean, she tried to get Zunia in trouble?”

  “Emma told her mother that Zunia slapped her in a quarrel.”

  “Did she?”

  “Of course not!” He slumped and shook his head, knitting his brow. “Or . . . Zunia told me she didn’t. And I believed her.” He paused. “At first.”

  “I heard someone say that Zunia hit you sometimes.”

  “She was such a little thing, but a spitfire. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “So she did hit you.”

  “Well, yes, but it didn’t hurt.”

  “Did you hit her back?”

  He turned bloodshot eyes on her. “Why would you ask that?”

  There was a trace of anger in his tone, and she thought carefully before she went on. She got up and moved toward the door, turning the knob. “Just wondering,” she said. “You said your ex-wife tried to get Zunia in trouble. Did Dahlia report Zunia to the police?”

  He nodded, watching her, his eyelids getting heavy. He yawned. “Zunia was fiery, and she and Emma butted heads all the time, but my daughter is a bit of a fibber, Miss Taylor. I would not believe anything she says.”

  A bit of a fibber? Since Sophie had already established where Emma was it didn’t seem possible that she was the killer, but there were ways she could have fiddled with the time a bit, she supposed. They only had Len’s word for it that Emma was where she said she was at the time she said. He might not be the most reliable guy when it came to watching the time. Was Orlando throwing his daughter under the bus by implying she was lying about where she was at the time of Zunia’s murder? Hard to tell. Cautiously, she asked, “Do you often call your daughter a liar, Mr. Pettigrew?”

  He shook his head but seemed confused. “I’m so tired.”

  “Mr. Pettigrew, I was told that you were talking about leaving Zunia. Is that true?”

  Again, he shook his head. Sophie couldn’t tell if he had heard her and was saying no, or if he just was getting so sleepy he didn’t understand what she was asking.

  He glanced around. “How odd to be back in here, but without Zzzunia.” He was beginning to slur his words. He used his toes to push his dress shoes off, kicking them aside, then he slumped down on the bed, flinging his arms out. “I need to go to sssleep.”

  She wasn’t going to get anything more from him just then. She watched him from the door. He took the second pillow on the bed and cradled it in his arms. “You must miss her,” she said.

  “Pain in the keester,” he mumbled. “Maybe now I’ll get some rest.” He started snoring.

  She tiptoed from the room, wondering just how sad he was, or if he was dissemblin
g for the benefit of the police, making himself into the bereaved widower when really Zunia’s death was the answer to a prayer. Or the result of active malevolence on his part. Had he really taken meds and booze that night, or was he putting on an act for her benefit, worried that she suspected him? On the whole, though, she thought he really did sleep through his wife leaving his room and getting murdered.

  Police work must be difficult, she realized, with a new appreciation for how much surmise, character study and filtering through conflicting stories must go into an investigation, alongside the mechanical testing of alibis against each other and the collection of evidence. After the murder of a prominent local woman in Thelma’s tearoom in May, Sophie had become fascinated by true crime and watched every true crime show on TV. But as Eli Hodge had said, those were edited for entertainment purposes, and the details had already been figured out and assembled into a logical story line.

  She rode the elevator down and strolled through the lobby. The whole thing was still a bit of a jumble in her mind, but she felt that she had eliminated a few people, at least: Emma because of her quick walk back to the coffeehouse, Dahlia Pettigrew because of the parking lot evidence of when she had arrived back at the campus and Bertie because of his revulsion toward blood. Orlando was likely out of it because if he had been taking his medication with alcohol, as he appeared to have done, he was probably sound asleep.

  Who did that leave? The Sommers, together or individually. Interesting. She had long thought that Walter Sommer would not want Zunia to make a scene. Dead, she couldn’t threaten his lucrative marriage and position in the society anymore. If she believed Bertie that he and Nora were together, then maybe the solution was as simple as the lover, all along. It was getting tangled in her mind, who was where when, and if she could eliminate them or still consider them a suspect.

  She glanced at her phone; it was eight, and Jason had said he’d be there shortly after the hour. She heard another rumble of thunder and hoped it wouldn’t begin raining. Would Jason be borrowing Julia’s convertible again? She hoped not. She was still uneasy at how chummy he seemed with his married colleague. Maybe it was silly, but he and Julia were so perfect for each other, while Sophie and Jason were so different in a lot of ways.

  She went around to the side of the building to wait, lingering in the dark shadows, idly thinking of Jason and pondering how to get him to acknowledge what she felt they both understood: that the past years had seen them both grow emotionally to the point that they could talk about beginning a new relationship. Not that she could even figure out how to raise the topic.

  She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye from the back of the building. What was that? She flattened against the wall in the shadows not touched by the parking lot lighting and watched. She spotted a figure creeping out the basement door. The person—a woman, judging by the outline—paused, then slunk across the parking lot to the shelter of the shadowy trees that lined the edge of the property. She scooted along the tree line until she got to the sidewalk, then she scurried onto the sidewalk and down the street.

  It was Nora Sommer! Why would she be sneaking out of the inn? Curious, Sophie followed, hanging back until she knew which street Nora was turning down. To keep following or not: What was the right decision? She made up her mind and texted Jason, saying that she still wanted to meet him but she was taking care of something. She’d let him know where she was so he could meet her there, instead of at the inn. Then she set out in the direction Nora was going.

  The night was still, and the sound of Nora’s heavy step on the sidewalk drifted back to Sophie; her own sandals were leather-bottomed and fairly silent. She felt at times like someone was following her, but it was probably just a weird echo of Nora’s footsteps. She was unfamiliar with Butterhill, so she only had a vague sense that they were leaving what passed for a downtown district in such a small town.

  She would not have thought twice about Nora going for an evening stroll except for two things: First, she should have been in the evening meeting. There the final decision would be made about the now-vacant presidency of the New York State chapter of the ITCS. Adding to that, Nora had been moving in a stealthy manner. That was not the behavior of someone going for an innocent evening stroll.

  Sophie became more and more nervous as they moved past anything she recognized, and entered a part of town she had never seen. It was residential, a neighborhood that had no streetlights, depending instead on lampposts on each lawn. Trouble was, many folks either didn’t turn them on or had let the bulbs burn out, so there were long stretches that were darker and darker, as twilight became dusk, which rapidly deepened into night.

  And still, she could hear footsteps behind her somewhere. Ahead there was a side street. She ducked down it and hunkered behind some bushes, feeling ridiculous but unnerved by the little follow-the-leader game she had become a part of. She quickly texted Jason, asking if he was in Butterhill yet. She was about to rise but heard another set of footsteps—was this who seemed to be following her?

  She peeked out. It was, of all the people she did not expect, Bertie Handler. She hid back behind the bushes and the innkeeper passed by, his heavy tread echoing in the night.

  Where could those two be going? Was it a lovers’ assignation? Or a coconspirators meeting?

  Chapter 22

  There was only one way to find out. She slipped out of the bushes and went back to the street. She could hear the faint echo of footsteps so she followed and spotted a park in the distance, lit with pathway lanterns. Two figures stood by a swing set.

  Sophie looked around. How could she get close enough to hear their conversation without being seen? There was a brick building near the edge of the park, so Sophie slipped along the dewy grass and behind that building, following the shadows until she got closer to the play equipment. From there she scooted across an open swath of grass to another outbuilding. She slipped along the nubbly brick wall, trying to quiet her breathing.

  They were not going to be able to hear her, anyway, she concluded, as she got closer. They were talking loudly. She didn’t know what preceded it, but Bertie was protesting.

  “I didn’t do it! Why would I kill Zunia?”

  “I know she was threatening you with taking the convention away from the Stone and Scone. And I heard from Walter that she had some ridiculous fake lawsuit cooked up.”

  There was a pause, then Bertie said, “The lawsuit was because she said I sent you an e-mail telling you about her and Walter.”

  Nora’s responding bark of laughter cut through the humid air. “She was just getting my husband to toe the line, or so she thought. She figured I would toss him out on his butt.”

  “She swore you got an e-mail from my e-mail address.”

  “And I did. But I knew right away that she sent it; I told Walter that. He was getting fed up with Zunia’s little tricks and stratagems, but she really thought she could get him to leave me.”

  Sophie inched closer.

  “The lawsuit was a fake,” he said weakly.

  “Of course. I’m never going to let Walter go, but Zunia didn’t know that. When she heard that I knew about them, she was frantic to do damage control. She was an idiot, too stupid to reason with.”

  Bertie replied, “But Zunia couldn’t have sent you that e-mail from my e-mail address.”

  Nora was silent for a few seconds, then said, “If she didn’t, then who did?”

  Sophie thought for a moment, as did they, judging from the silence. The e-mail to Nora could have had a couple of motives; it could indeed have been intended to force Nora to acknowledge the affair and so release Walter from marriage. Or . . . it could have been calculated to get Zunia in trouble. Given Walter’s reliance on Nora’s money and the unlikelihood that she’d leave him, it was most likely going to result in Walter breaking it off with Zunia, and who would want that?

  Pastor Frank, for s
ure. If they were both telling the truth and neither of them had sent the e-mail, nor had Zunia herself, then it had to be Pastor Frank. But he was the one person who did not have a motive to kill Zunia. Or did he?

  Bertie suddenly said, “When did you get that e-mail?”

  Nora abruptly said, “Why does that matter? Look, Bertie, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was, why did you tell that stupid girl we were having an affair? I heard all about it, and I was humiliated!”

  “Who did you hear that from?”

  “Good Lord, I heard it about from everyone! You apparently shouted it out loud enough for everyone to hear.”

  “I didn’t set out to do that!” Bertie whined. “You have to believe me, Nora. It was that wretched old woman, the new one, what is her name?”

  “Thelma Mae Earnshaw,” Nora said. “What has she got to do with anything?”

  “She told people she saw you coming out of my office and that we were having an affair.”

  “And if you’d just kept your mouth shut no one would have believed her! She’s crazy. Everyone knows that after that stunt she pulled, telling everyone Rose Freemont was a dangerous murderer. Ridiculous. No, Bertie, it’s your saying it was true that made folks believe. Why’d you do it?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. It just seemed like an alibi for both of us, to get the police off our tails.”

  “You’re a fool, Bertie Handler. How could it be an alibi if I supposedly went back up to my room before Zunia was killed?”

  So there really was no affair. Just another dumb lie. Had every single person in the case lied about something? Sophie went back to working on the Pastor Frank angle; she remembered it being mentioned, when they were talking about making Frank the new chapter president, that he had been working on the newsletter for the ITCS, and that he had coordinated the e-mail list for Zunia. Was he the source of the e-mail after all?

  She sagged against the nubbly brick wall, wondering how anyone was ever going to sort through all the lies and misleading statements to figure out the truth. Was there one thread she wasn’t getting? One thing that tied it all together?