Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(42)

Mary had picked up a platter filled with scrambled eggs, sausage patties and toast that she set in the middle of the table before sitting down opposite Edna. “Nancy probably doesn’t feel much like playing herself. She’s gone through a lot these last few years, what with her mother dying of cancer and now this.”

Edna was reminded of Tom’s remark about how young Nancy had been when she married and became a mother. Falling silent, she slowly helped herself to the food as she thought of the young woman with a child to raise and no mother or father to help her. Nancy would have to grow up very quickly now, Edna thought, before her mind turned to an evening not so long ago, when she’d tried to talk to Nancy.

Mary was quiet as they both began to eat, and Edna mentally worked over how she could word the request that was foremost in her mind. When she’d finished as much of the abundant breakfast as she could manage, Edna laid her napkin beside the plate. Trying to sound nonchalant, she said, “Do you suppose you could get Danny over here for a visit?”

Mary looked at her, frowning.

“I mean alone … without his mother?” The last words were posed as a question.

“I’m not sure.” Mary’s eyes were filled with suspicion. “Nancy doesn’t let Danny out of her sight these days. I think she’s afraid her husband will kidnap him.”

“Has Walt been around here?” Seeing the look on Mary’s face, Edna was relieved to move the subject away from Danny’s visit. She knew what Mary hadn’t said but was probably thinking—that Tom’s daughter didn’t trust Edna with her son either.

“Walt showed up at the house Saturday afternoon. He’d obviously been drinking. Nancy had to call the police. Apparently, she said she wasn’t going to let him in until he sobered up, and he tried to force his way in. When I spoke to her last night, she said he hadn’t been around since then, but I know as well as she that he’ll be back.”

Determined to figure out a way soon to see Danny without his mother, Edna abstractedly nodded in sympathy at Mary’s pronouncement and reached for one of the yearbooks. “Tell me about Tom’s and your school days.”

Fifteen

“What do you want to know?” Mary said, rising to clear away the dishes.

“What was he like as a boy? How did you two get to be friends?” Edna knew she was on a fishing expedition, but if she was to get to the reason for Tom’s murder, she had to know as much about him as possible. Perhaps somewhere there was a clue, if only she could find a thread.

Just then, the long, florescent ceiling fixture in the kitchen came to life, filling the room with a glaring white light. “At last,” Mary said and leaned forward to blow out a candle.

“Is the phone working?”

Plucking the receiver off its cradle on her way to the kitchen, Mary shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

Edna felt frustrated anew at not being able to contact Albert or Starling. She stood up and extinguished the remaining candles on the table, then helped clean up the dishes. When that was done, Mary suggested they have another cup of coffee in front of the fire.

“It’ll be a while before those old radiators warm up the rest of the house. Besides, you wanted to know about Tom.” Sparks flew up the chimney as she added another log to the fire, then arranged chairs on either side of the hearth. Edna picked up Tom’s yearbook and sat down with it as Mary began talking about her school days.

“I didn’t really know him until I was in ninth grade. That’s when Jenny came to our school. She and her parents moved here from Indiana that summer when her father got a job at the university.”

Edna assumed the reference was to the University of Rhode Island in nearby Kingston. She didn’t interrupt but continued to leaf slowly through the book as Mary spoke, glancing up now and then to murmur something appropriate and show she was paying attention.

“Other kids in school ignored Jenny at first. I don’t know if they didn’t like her because she was new or afraid to approach her because she was so pretty. She was tall, too. Tall as me,” Mary added with a self-conscious laugh. “She was the first girl I ever met that was even close to my height, but she was a lot better looking. I think we became friends because we could see each other over the heads of the other kids in class.”

“When did she and Tom meet?”

“I’m trying to remember exactly,” Mary said, pausing to stare into the fire. “It seems like he was always around, but I think maybe it was at the Thanksgiving pep rally. That was always our biggest event of the whole school year. Everybody went. Even Bobby used to go to those.”

“Bobby?”

“Yeah. Bobby O’Brien. He was Tom’s best friend. Bobby hardly ever went to stuff after school ‘cause he had to work. He and his father didn’t have much money.”

Oh, boy, Edna thought, this is going to be a long story. “So, Tom and Jenny met at the rally?” She eased Mary back to the main subject.

“Yeah. He really liked her, almost right from when they first saw each other. I could tell. That was okay with me, because we still hung out together, Jenny and I. Tom worked almost as much as Bobby. They both worked after school and on weekends to make extra money. Bobby was a mechanic at the garage in town, and Tom worked on old man Hoxie’s farm. It sorta made them outsiders at school, because they didn’t play sports or join clubs or do stuff like most of the rest of the boys did. But after Tom met Jenny, he and Bobby started sitting with us at lunch whenever they saw us in the cafeteria.”