Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(41)

“I put the spare back when I came over this afternoon,” Mary announced to the room.

Grayson frowned at her. “Spare?”

“Yeah, the extra key. Edna keeps it in one of those hidey things that looks like a rock. It’s out behind the bench in the rock garden. Want me to show you?”

Instead of answering, Grayson turned to Edna. “You keep a key out in the garden?”

“Yes, but it’s well hidden.” She noticed the look that passed between the two men and felt her neck start to burn.

“Who else knows about it?”

“Only my cleaning women.”

The sky was brighter by the time the uniformed officers finished their inquiries and checked to see that the spare key was, in fact, safely in its place in the imitation rock behind the wooden bench. Before leaving, Russell asked Edna if there was anyone she could stay with or someone who could move in for a few days until her husband got home.

“She can stay with me,” Mary answered before Edna had a chance to reply.

When Edna didn’t object, the man nodded. “We’ll see that your road is patrolled more often for the next few days, but I think whoever was here is long gone.” He tugged briefly on the brim of his hat and followed his partner out the door.

Edna, still in her bathrobe and having put her soft-soled moccasins back on her feet, asked Mary to wait while she went upstairs to change. When she was ready, the little troop set off across the lawn, Mary and Hank leading the way with Edna closely behind, carrying Benjamin inside her belted raincoat. The cat, whose head showed beneath her chin, seemed to be the only one enjoying himself.

Edna had never been inside Mary’s house before, and she liked what she saw. Built at the turn of the twentieth century, the rooms were large with low ceilings. The kitchen ran perpendicular to the dining room at the south end of the house. Against the outside wall of the dining room stood an immense stone fireplace in which Mary had just set a match to a small fire. In the corner beside the moss rock and all across the west wall were long, narrow, multi-paned windows. On a clear day, the room would have been bright and cheerful, but on this blustery morning, the storm obliterated the light and rattled the glass. Most of the brightness in the room came from eight candles in the middle of the cherry wood banquet table.

A wide archway, the sides of which consisted of narrow, see-through shelves, separated the dining area from the kitchen. Looking at the appliances, white metal cupboards and stainless steel counter tops, Edna figured the room had last been renovated sometime in the nineteen fifties.

Mary lit two Coleman lanterns, placing one near the stove and the other beside the sink, before setting a kettle and a frying pan on the gas burners to begin making breakfast. Edna, edgy from the night’s adventure and the lack of sleep, couldn’t sit still. Instead, she wandered toward the back door at the far end of the kitchen. Her flashlight picked out a set of narrow stairs leading to the floors above. Opposite the stairs, a short, wide window looked east over the tree-lined gravel drive. Inside, beneath the window sill, stood an old-fashioned radiator enclosed in a wooden frame, the top of which would be warm and cozy when the heat was on. A good place for bread loaves to rise, Edna thought. Now, atop this shelf, on an old towel-wrapped pillow, Benjamin had curled up for his morning nap. On a large, round dog’s bed in front of the heater lay Hank, head on his paws, watching Edna with tired, blinking eyes. Like the cat, he, too, would soon be asleep.

“Come, pour yourself a cup of coffee,” Mary said, smiling. “Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

She looks as if she’s having fun, Edna thought, certain her neighbor didn’t often entertain company. The way Mary bustled around the kitchen, one would think she was catering a party.

When she sat down at the dining room table, Edna noticed that two high school yearbooks had been pushed aside to make room for the place settings Mary laid out. The books were dated nineteen fifty-nine and nineteen sixty-two. She picked up the top volume, the older one. “Are these yours?”

From the kitchen, Mary glanced over her shoulder while she buttered a slice of toast. “Nancy gave those to me when she brought Hank over. They belonged to Tom and Jenny. Nancy said she found them beside her father’s favorite chair and thought I might like to have them.”

Edna remembered Tom telling her that Mary had been in the same class as his wife, Jenny. The book she was holding must be from his senior year. Putting it back, she said, “How’s Danny? Did you see him?”

“Yes, he came with Nancy to drop Hank off.” Mary thought for several seconds before going on. “As to how he is, that’s hard to say. He was very quiet, but he’s never been a very talkative little guy.”

“I wish Nancy had let him keep Hank,” Edna said and sighed. “It must be tough on Danny with both his grandfather and Hank gone.”

“Yeah,” Mary agreed, setting a plate in front of Edna. “He’s been carrying a picture of Tom around with him. Nancy says he won’t let go of it. It’s one of those wallet-sized ones. Nancy said she finally had to put it in a plastic baggie, it was getting so soiled. Even when she sends him to his room to play, all he does is sit and stare at that picture.” Tears had brimmed in Mary’s eyes, and she turned to wipe them away, but not before Edna noticed.

“Well, no wonder,” Edna hurriedly remarked to give Mary time to recover. “The poor little boy. He’s going through a lot right now. Do you know if Nancy plays with him or reads him stories?”