Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(43)

“Did Tom have any brothers or sisters?” Edna asked, looking up from the book where she’d found his formal senior picture. He had been a good-looking young man with an Elvis style pompadour, complete with the curl falling onto his forehead.

“Yes. He had an older sister. She was married and had moved away before I got to know Tom, but he used to talk about her. I think she lives in Michigan. She has a son—Tom used to talk about his nephew a lot—but I don’t know if she had any other kids.”

Edna didn’t think any of this was helping to discover who wanted Tom dead or why. She tried another tack. “Did he ever get into fights, that you know about? Did he have a temper?”

“Tom?” Mary seemed surprised at the question. “Not Tom. Never. Tom was a gentle man, kind. Bobby was the one who got into fights. Tom usually broke ‘em up. Bobby was big, but Tom was bigger—stronger too. I guess you have to be pretty strong to throw hay bales around,” she said and grinned. “I don’t know why Bobby never resented Tom pulling him off of other guys, but he never did. They stayed good friends all through their senior year.”

Edna turned a few pages in the yearbook and found Bobby’s class picture. Robert P. O’Brien, coolest car, read the caption. He was a handsome boy with curly dark hair. Even in the black-and-white photo, she could see the twinkle in his eyes and the mischief in his smile. He and Tom could probably have passed for brothers, she thought.

“So Bobby was a fighter?”

“Oh, yeah.” Mary rolled her eyes. “Boy, did he have a temper. I heard someone say once that Bobby was like a stick of dy***ite with a short fuse. I think the other kids teased him just to see him get mad.”

“What did they tease him about?”

“His father, mostly. Bobby’s dad was an alcoholic. Most of the time, he was in some bar instead of working. That’s why Bobby had to work. Jenny told me once that Bobby’s old man would beat Bobby when he got drunk. Maybe that’s why Bobby hit other kids. Maybe it was because he couldn’t hit his father.” Mary looked quizzically at Edna, as if Edna could affirm her belief.

“What about his mother?” Edna asked. “Couldn’t she stop Bobby’s father from beating him?”

“She died when Bobby was born. There was only the two of them, Bobby and his father.”

Edna felt like she was getting off the track, but she had a growing suspicion that Tom’s friend might somehow be significant. “You said Bobby worked as a mechanic?”

“Yeah, at Kiley’s gas station in town.” Then Mary’s face brightened and her eyes glowed. “He had a neat car, a baby blue Chevy convertible. You know, one of those with the big fins and chrome rocker panels. Nineteen fifty-seven, I think it was. It was the greatest. I got to ride in it a few times. Hardly anybody else at school did, except for Tom and Jenny and me.”

Edna smiled at Mary’s excitement over the memory. That must have been one of the best years of Mary’s young life, Edna thought, remembering that it must have been only two or three years later that Mary’s father had suffered his stroke. Her curiosity growing, Edna asked, “Does Bobby still live around here?”

“No,” Mary replied. “He ran away. As a matter of fact, it was just after he and Tom graduated from high school that year.”

“Ran away?” Edna sensed a change in Mary’s mood, a sudden reluctance to talk about her old classmates. “Why? Was he in some sort of trouble?”

Mary played with her fingers, refusing to meet Edna’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I promised Jenny and Tom I would never tell anyone, ever.”

“But Jenny and Tom are dead,” Edna protested. “What difference does it make now? Besides, we’re talking about something that happened forty years ago, aren’t we?” Sensing the first bit of intrigue surrounding someone in Tom’s life, Edna didn’t want Mary to clam up now. What if this were the thread she was looking for, the one to lead her to Tom’s killer?

Mary stared into the fire for a long time before answering. “Maybe you’re right.” Still, she hesitated before going on. “Bobby ran off with one of the girls in my class. Her name was Daisy Farwell. She was only fifteen.”

“So she was underage. Did her parents go after them?”

Mary shook her head, still showing a reluctance to speak. “Daisy’s mother died just before graduation that year. Nobody ever knew Mr. Farwell, as far as I know.”

“Didn’t Daisy have other relatives?”

“Not that I ever knew about. There was just her and her mother. Just like there was only Bobby and his father. Maybe that’s what drew them together.”

“If there was nobody to object, why the big secret? Why did you promise not to ever talk about it?”

“Nobody knew that Bobby and Daisy left together. Nobody but Tom and Jenny. I heard it from Jenny that Bobby and Daisy got married and drove off for California in that baby blue Chevy convertible.” Mary’s eyes took on a faraway look, as if remembering her own rides in her school friend’s “neat car.”

“But why the secret, if there was nobody around to object?” Edna persisted, causing Mary’s smile to fade and her attention to return to Edna’s question.

“My father probably would have tried to stop them—and some of the other men in town. You know, the pillars of the community. They’d wanted to find a foster home for Daisy, since she was still so young. I heard Father talking on the phone to one of his friends about her, heard him say he thought Mr. Henry ought to adopt her.”