Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(104)

she said.

Sue looked at her oddly. “I’m going to talk to some people, see if we can’t get some start-up money from the Seaman’s Bank. Maybe the church. Maybe the town, even. There’s definitely a need here.”

Toby was squirming, trying to get out of the high chair. “I guess it’s time to go,” said Lucy, reluctantly. “We ought to do this again. It’s been great to have an adult conversation.”

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Sue smiled. “Men don’t count, do they?”

“No,” said Lucy, grinning. “But they are good for killing spiders, opening jars, and heavy lifting.”

“I’ll call you,” promised Sue.

Toby seemed to have lots of energy so Lucy decided to take him for a little walk before putting him back in the car seat for the ride home. It was a typically gray December day, the temperature was around the freezing mark and the snow lingered on lawns and was piled alongside the cleared roads and sidewalks. She held Toby’s little mittened hand tightly as they walked along Main Street, careful not to step on any cracks, just like in the A.A. Milne poem. They played the name game as they walked along, naming the colors of cars, the kinds of stores and the items displayed in their windows, the shapes of the signs. But all the while, Lucy’s mind was busy mulling over the information she’d uncovered in her investigation. Everything she’d learned so far pointed to two suspects: Judge Tilley himself and Emil Boott. Mrs. Sprout, the cook, was out for the simple reason that Lucy liked her daughter, Hannah, and found her account of life in the Tilley household entirely believable. She was also inclined to cross the nurse, Angela DeRosa, off the list of suspects. Nobody seemed to have a bad word to say about her. And then there was Miss Peach, Katharine Kaiser. Nobody seemed to have a good word to say about her, but Lucy didn’t have a sense that anybody suspected her of murdering Mrs. Tilley. Lucy was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, especially since she’d been pregnant at the time. She found it hard to believe that a woman could be both a creator and a destroyer of life, especially at the same time. But maybe that was a fallacious assumption, she told herself, especially considering Miss Kaiser’s self-indulgent and independent lifestyle. But there was an even more compelling reason to cross her off the list: Miss Kaiser had been out of town, purportedly caring for a sick relative, when Mrs. Tilley died.

CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST

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It wasn’t long before they reached the library and Lucy decided to pay a visit to Miss Tilley. She wanted to update her on the progress of her investigation, but she wanted to do it as delicately as possible. After all, a father’s infidelity would be a sensitive subject for anyone.

Miss Tilley was sitting in her usual spot at the circulation desk when Lucy and Toby entered and greeted them warmly.

As far as Lucy could see there wasn’t anybody else in the library, so she could talk frankly. She pulled off Toby’s hat and mittens and unzipped his jacket and let him loose in the children’s corner, where he made a beeline for the box of toys and began pulling them out and tossing them over his shoulder.

“Toby! That’s no way to play,” she reminded him.

“Never mind,” said Miss Tilley. “We’ll help him tidy up afterward.” She leaned forward. “How’s the investigation going? I’m eager to hear what you’ve learned.”

Lucy looked at Miss Tilley, taking in her frail, birdlike shape and her wispy white hair, caught in a bun that barely held together despite an enormous quantity of hairpins. She seemed the very model of a typical old maid, right down to the cameo pin that caught both wings of her starched white lace collar. Suddenly Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted to bring up such a sexually charged topic as Judge Tilley’s infidelity.

“I understand you’ve been talking to Hannah Sprout,”

coaxed Miss Tilley.

“That’s right,” admitted Lucy, wondering if she was doing the investigating or being investigated. “How did you know that?”

“I ran into Emily Miller at the IGA. This is a small town, you know, and all we really have to talk about is each other.”

It was true. Lucy thought of the “Social Events” column in the weekly Pennysaver newspaper that included items such as “Mrs.William Mason and her daughter, Mrs. Henry Tubbs, entertained Mrs. Hildegarde Wilson and Miss Susan Wilson for tea on Wednesday afternoon,” and “Mr. and Mrs. James 348

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Nesmith recently took a motor trip to Prince Edward Island in Canada where they visited with Mrs. Nesmith’s cousin, Winifred MacDonald.” She always read it, finding it oddly fascinating since she rarely recognized any of the names.

“Well, she’s right. I did talk to Hannah Sprout at the coffee hour after church on Sunday… .”

“So you’re a churchgoer?” inquired Miss Tilley.

“Occasionally,” said Lucy. “It was the Christmas pageant.

I think the whole town was there.”

“Not me,” said Miss Tilley. “I’m boycotting.”

Lucy was surprised. “Why?”

“Oh, something that happened a long time ago. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“Okay.” Now Lucy was truly flummoxed. She’d been encouraged by the fact that Miss Tilley probably knew all about her conversation with Hannah Sprout, but now it seemed the librarian was setting limits and she was afraid once again of offending her. “Well,” she began, blurting it out all at once, “Hannah Sprout said her mother thought your father was having an affair with his secretary, and she left town for six months because she was pregnant with his child.”