Dying to Remember Read online

  “And that will be the answer to the question I’ve been asking myself since yesterday,” I said, spellbound by the primitive drawing. Ray had drawn an arrow pointing at Alana’s neck, and another one pointing at her long jacket. There was Alana’s scarf—not wrapped around her neck but blown back, as Ray had written—the short-handled knife protruding from the right side of her neck, and her dress, which came just below her knees. Her jacket was unbuttoned, but it was much more askew than Ray had described it. And then . . . I leaned in.

  “Minette, there’s no heart necklace in this drawing. That’s why Ray drew an arrow pointing to her neck.”

  “Someone took it after Ray of the Forest saw it.”

  “Yes, and Ray remembered Alana’s jacket unbuttoned but neat. Not like this—wide open and sloppy. The killer left it neat—or if not the killer, someone else did. I wonder if Ray wrote ‘Coffee’ in his memoirs just before he gave the manuscript to me, and then made this drawing a couple hours later, when he thought something might happen to him. It looks like it was done very quickly.”

  “Someone is coming now,” Minette said.

  I was about to ask what she meant when the doorbell rang.

  “How do you do that?” I said, getting to my feet. “I didn’t hear anything until the bell rang.”

  “Fairies hear better than humans.”

  “They sure do. That’s Emily, I think. I’m sorry, but you have to hide while she’s here. I can’t tell her about you. It’s not that I don’t trust her, but it’s too soon to say anything.”

  “You must not tell,” Minette said. She lifted off from the table, hovering an instant, her emerald eyes peering into mine.

  “Where are you—”

  Before I could finish, Minette went horizontal and took off in a blur for the living room.

  CHAPTER 14

  I tucked Ray’s drawing in my jeans pocket and checked the peephole before I opened my front door. Emily looked about ready to burst with news. Grinning and holding up a quart jug of my favorite cranberry-apple drink—the one I went nuts for every October—she strode directly to my couch, pivoted, and dropped, one hand still on the jug. “Got glasses? I have fresh information.”

  “I have some of my own. You first, but hang on a sec.”

  I took down a couple glasses from a cabinet, went back to the living room, and sat at the opposite end of the couch, angling my body to face her. “You talk, I’ll pour.”

  “That argument Sheila Abbottson was having with Alana the night before she died? It was about Nick Foley.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Rebecca, the woman who sold me that cranmac, heard most of the argument. Okay, let me get this right,” Emily said, her eyes momentarily lifting to the ceiling. “Sheila warned Alana to stay away from Nick. Rebecca remembers her saying something like, ‘I’m dead serious. If you think I’m not, try me.’”

  “That’s creepy.” I handed Emily a glass, poured my own, and put the jug on the end table behind me.

  “That’s not all. Sheila accused Alana of playing games with Nick and ruining his future. Rebecca remembers that word—ruining. Sheila said she knew Alana wasn’t serious about Nick and she was going to tell him that and make sure he broke it off with her.”

  “Good heavens. Was Sheila interested in Nick too?”

  “She may have been interested in him, but how likely is it that her feelings were returned? Sheila’s at least five years older than Nick, and Alana was twenty-four when she died. It’s a sad fact of life that Alana had a much better shot at him. Nick was in his early or mid-thirties at the time.”

  “Something like that.” I took a sip of my cranmac while trying and failing—thankfully—to imagine Sheila Abbottson dating Nick Foley. “Maybe they weren’t talking about dating or love.”

  “Though it sounds like it was a leave-my-man-alone fight, and it was bad enough for the police to be called.”

  “It must have been wild. What else did you find out?”

  “You first.”

  My news was terrible, but Emily had to know. “Ray was suffocated to death.” The pain I’d suppressed since hearing of Ray’s death rose to my throat, swelling it. I had to force my remaining words out. “Probably at his kitchen table, though Detective Rancourt wouldn’t confirm that. That’s my guess.”

  Emily grimaced. “How could someone do that? He was so kind and gentle. Suffocated. What was he suffocated with?”

  “Rancourt wouldn’t say. I was surprised he talked to me at all.”

  Next I told Emily how strangely Nick, Conner Welch, and Irene Carrick had behaved when I’d questioned them. And how Rancourt, at first forthcoming, had started to shut down when I told him Ray disagreed with him on some facts of the case, and how he’d then thrown me out of his office when I asked to speak to Marie St. Peter. “I can’t decide if he’s hiding something or just being a good, closed-mouth detective. I also discovered something at Ray’s house.” I dug the drawing out of my pocket, unfolded it, and gave it to her.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “In Ray’s sugar canister.”

  “Why on earth?” Emily glanced up at me.

  “It’s a long story. The important thing is, Ray used that drawing to illustrate how his recollection of Alana’s murder scene differed from Detective Rancourt’s. Look here,” I said, tapping the arrows on the drawing. “Ray remembered a heart-shaped necklace, which is missing in this drawing. Rancourt must have claimed he never saw it. And Alana’s jacket isn’t as neat and smooth as when Ray saw it. They disagreed about those two things.”

  “Ray left this for you, Kate. You two and your crime thrillers—he knew you’d find it.”

  “Between the time Ray found Alana’s body and the police arrived, who took the necklace? I see only three possibilities. The killer, the police, or someone lurking in the woods, like another forager. Ray felt he may have been watched, but . . .” I shook my head. “I think it was his nerves. I don’t see the killer or a hiker or anyone else hanging around to steal from a murder victim.”

  “Do you think the necklace was a gift?” Emily asked, handing back the drawing.

  “I think we should ask Nick Foley that very thing,” I replied. “Tomorrow morning. He got very nervous when I asked him about Alana. He even got nervous when I asked to see his orchids.”

  “Did you honestly buy one?”

  “Sure.”

  “You? Since when are you interested in orchids?”

  I lifted a shoulder and issued a noncommittal mumble. “Anyway, Irene said the same thing about Ray as Sheila did—that he was getting senile.”

  “What a load of baloney.”

  “And Norma, Irene’s friend, thought it was possible he was getting dementia because he was—”

  I put my hand to my mouth. I’d almost let it slip.

  “What is it, Kate?”

  How was I going to explain myself without giving up Ray’s secret, and mine? I longed to tell Emily, the only person I could trust with such a revelation, but Minette’s safety was paramount. So I fudged the truth. “Ray told them he believed in fairies.”

  “Oh, that’s nothing. He told you and me that too. He told a lot of people that. It was his sweet imagination—and those fairyland woods across the street. Sometimes I think I can see fairies there.”

  “Emily, he told Irene he saw them. Really and truly saw them and talked to them.”

  “Oh.” A second later, it sank in. “Ohhh.”

  “Irene was worried about Ray living alone. And by the way, I don’t think she’s our killer. She’s got to be in her mid-seventies now, and I don’t picture her winning a battle with Alana, or even smothering Ray. Besides, I think she cared for him a great deal.”

  “Wow.”

  Emily was still processing the seeing-fairies thing.

  “Are you sure Ray wasn’t kidding Irene?” she asked, brushing her short, coppery bangs from her forehead.

  “Not according to Irene.”

&nbs
p; “He always had a twinkle in his eyes when he talked about fairies. I didn’t realize he thought he saw them. Maybe he was a little, kind of, getting older.”

  My heart sank. “Not you too.”

  “You have to admit, it’s a little out there.”

  Wanting to defend Ray, but knowing that for now I couldn’t, I steered our conversation to the subject of Ray’s memoirs. “Drink the rest of your cranmac,” I said. “I need to finish chapter 14. Ray wrote more than the five or six paragraphs I’ve seen so far.”

  “When you’ve finished, you can give me a run-down. Where’s this orchid?”

  Thankfully, Minette had flown for the living room when Emily rang the doorbell, not settled herself inside one of my Wedgwood teacups. “It’s in the kitchen, on the table.”

  Minette had probably whooshed up the flue again. Or maybe she was upstairs. I hoped the latter. I knew she could take care of herself, but now that Ray was gone, I felt responsible for her, almost as if Ray himself had placed that responsibility on my shoulders.

  I turned to chapter 14 in Ray’s memoirs and picked up where I’d stopped reading. “I believe the police focused on a man being the murderer,” he wrote, “but I think that was shortsighted. There were no drag marks, as I noted earlier. She wasn’t dragged to the spot, which would have required more strength. Even the disturbed leaves I saw and thought at the time were signs of a small struggle, might have been disturbed only when Alana fell and made her final movements before dying. There was no way to tell. And anyone can wield a knife.”

  “Why was Alana in the woods to begin with?” Ray went on. “Who would she follow there? In reality, the answer is almost anyone. Ours was, and is, a small and friendly town. So Alana might have followed a man as well as a woman. I have also wondered about the murder weapon. I found from talking to someone two weeks later (he was not supposed to tell me this, so I will leave out his name) that short-handled knife had a long and thin blade. The murderer hit the carotid artery and she bled internally. The only good thing that can be said is that she died very quickly.”

  Emily emerged from the kitchen carrying her glass and my Paphiopedilum Maudiae. She placed the orchid on the table at her end of the couch and said, “It’s such a delicate flower.” Enthralled by its beautiful bloom, she ran her finger over its lower, pouch-like petal. “I can see why you bought it. Where are you going to keep it?”

  “In the kitchen, probably. On the hutch. There’s plenty of light, and it looks good with the cups and teapots.” I went back to Ray’s memoirs and read his final paragraph on Alana. “After writing this, I think I have found something I can do with my days. I have always enjoyed a good thriller with a good puzzle, and now I will turn my thoughts and efforts to the puzzle of Alana Williams’s death. There’s no better way to spend my time than trying to bring peace to Alana’s loved ones. And if I can enlist the help of my thriller-loving neighbor, Kate Brewer, who knows what we may discover?”

  Tears welling in my eyes, I set his manuscript on the couch next to me.

  “Are you all right?” Emily asked me.

  I nodded. “Let’s go to Ray’s house. Right now. I want to find out who drove up while I was there getting that drawing.” I paused, checked momentarily by the look of apprehension on Emily’s face. “You don’t have to go, but I’m going. And I’m going to knock on the front door this time.”

  CHAPTER 15

  As Emily downed the last of her cranmac, I grabbed my car keys in the kitchen and hurried back to the living room to listen briefly for Minette. She’d probably exited the flue, but not having seen or heard her for a little while, I was beginning to worry. The little creature had loved Ray, and I think in a funny way she had felt protective of him. I hoped she hadn’t heard me talking about how he died. I had wanted to spare her that.

  “Can’t find your keys?” Emily said.

  I wheeled back. “No, no. I’ve got them.”

  “Why are you so jumpy lately?”

  “I’m not jumpy,” I said, marching back into the kitchen and outside to the garage.

  Emily and I climbed into my Jeep and I backed down the driveway until I hit the turnaround.

  “I’ve known you for as long as you’ve lived next door,” Emily said. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “Why do you say that?” I maneuvered the Jeep around and drove for Birch Street, fighting to keep my voice and expression neutral.

  “It’s a very strong feeling. Don’t avoid the question and don’t tell me I’m imagining things, Kate Brewer.”

  Seconds later I swung right onto Ray’s driveway. “They’re tossing his things,” I said.

  “And don’t change the subject.”

  “No, look.” At the top of the driveway, feet away from Ray’s front door, was a large brown dumpster, and next to it a small van. “At this hour?”

  Making my way up the drive, I passed a car parked in the grass. I came to a stop behind the van just as a tall man wearing bib overalls was exiting the house, a wooden chair in each hand. He glanced up at me, hoisted the chairs chest-high, and then unceremoniously dropped them into the dumpster.

  I strode through the open front door, ignoring the pointed stares of another man inside the house, and marched from the living room to the kitchen.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  I turned. The man who had stared at me in the living room was staring again, confusion lining his face.

  “Are you with Central Maine Realty?” he asked me.

  “No, I’m Kate Brewer. Who are you and what are you doing with Ray Landry’s things?”

  He frowned and pulled in his chin. “You mean the guy who lived here? Um, dumping ’em. That’s what we were told to do.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. “First the Ball jars and now this.”

  “Yeah, those jars in the kitchen,” the man said. “I’ll bet you can get canning jars pretty cheap at Marden’s.”

  I opened my eyes. Ray’s jars were more than canning jars. Michael and I had helped him fill some of those jars. We’d picked and dried blueberries, raspberries, and garlic mustard for him as a thanks for teaching us to forage. Those jars held memories.

  “Sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t know anyone wanted them. We’re doing what we were hired to do, that’s all. And the realtor said they looked junky.”

  “Sheila Abbottson?”

  “Yeah, she’s the one. They’re listing this house tomorrow afternoon. She’s upstairs if you want to talk to her.”

  “Oh, you bet I do.”

  “I’m Carl, by the way.”

  “Sorry.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Kate, Ray’s neighbor.” I looked past him to where Emily was standing to one side of the door, trying to keep out of the other dumpster man’s way. “There was a photo in a small frame on the console table in the living room. Please don’t throw it out.”

  He twisted back. “If there’s anything you want, just take it,” he said with a sweep of his arm. “Please. It’ll save us the work.”

  “What about Ray’s son?” Emily asked. “Doesn’t he want anything?”

  “We’ve already boxed what he asked for. Mostly photo albums. I guess he can’t ferry too much all the way back to California.”

  “So Sheila told you to throw away everything? What a waste.”

  “No, we’re taking some things to the Salvation Army. That’s why the van’s out there.”

  On the console table behind the couch, I saw the photo I had taken of Ray and Michael in the woods, foraging for wild carrots. How I remembered that day two springs ago. Just a week earlier Michael had been diagnosed with cancer, but he wouldn’t say no to Ray’s invitation to hunt the woods. He wouldn’t give up. He never did give up—not until the last two weeks of his life. I ran my finger over the glass in the frame, wishing I could reach right through it—enter it—and touch him. “This is the photo,” I said. “I’m taking it out to my car.”

  “And I’m taking this.�
� Emily snatched a watercolor painting from the wall, yanking it with such force that she pulled the nail out with it, and the two of us stowed our treasures in my Jeep.

  When I walked back to the house, Carl, wearing a bemused look, said, “The realtor should have held a garage sale. You’re not the only neighbor who was here tonight.”

  “Who was it?” I asked. “An older woman? A man? A cop?”

  I’m afraid I sounded rather breathless and a little kooky, because Carl hesitated to answer me at first. He silently watched his co-worker roll up a frayed area rug from the living room and take it out of the house before answering me.

  “It was a man,” he said.

  “A cop?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Was his name Nick Foley?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Kind of muscular looking, with brown hair?”

  “Nope. Kind of a chubby, weaselly guy with no sideburns.”

  “Conner Welch? Our town manager?”

  “Dunno. I don’t live in Smithwell.” Carl shot Emily a sideways glance. “Was I wrong to let him in?”

  I moved swiftly, closing the space between me and Carl in a few strides. “Did he take anything?”

  “He took a photo frame, like you. He looked around a lot, though, and he seemed to know Sheila Abbottson.”

  “They’re sister and brother,” I said. “Where was he looking?”

  “Everywhere. He looked like he was assessing the place. Like money-wise.” Carl fixed his eyes on me. “Listen, this is more trouble than we’re getting paid for.”

  The poor man looked completely baffled. I took a large backward step. “Never mind, I’m sorry. I know you’re only doing your job. I’m upset because the man who lived here was more than a neighbor. He was a friend.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “And we were surprised to see all this—”

  “Going on at his house.”

  “At night,” I added.

  “We needed to clear everything out before the cleaners got here. But I get it, I get it.” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the stairs. “You ought to talk to the realtor lady. And if you want anything else from the house, just take it. As I say, you’re only helping us. But grab it quick.”