Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(44)

Edna’s heart went out to a fifteen-year-old she would never know. The girl must have felt very alone after losing her mother. Edna wondered why the young teen had run away rather than live with one of the local families. “Did you say Jenny told you about Bobby and Daisy getting married? How did she know?”

“Because she was there,” Mary answered with a conspiratorial smile. “Jenny and Tom went up to Providence with them to a justice of the peace. Bobby asked Tom if he’d stand up for him, you know, be his best man. I don’t think that Jenny knew Daisy all that well, but since Tom and Jenny were almost inseparable by then, Jenny went along to be Daisy’s maid of honor. Jenny said they got to the courthouse in Providence almost too late. The offices were closing, but the justice told them they could come in. Jenny said it was about the world’s fastest ceremony.” Mary gave a girlish giggle, probably at the memory of Jenny’s confidence.

Edna was still trying to understand why the two young people left the area. “If they were married, why leave town? Couldn’t they have found a place to live here?”

“I don’t know. Jenny never told me that part. Maybe Bobby thought someone would have the marriage annulled. Maybe he wanted to get away from his father. Who knows?” Mary shrugged.

Nothing worth murdering for there, Edna thought and searched for a different approach. “So, Bobby must be the friend Tom told me about, the one he wanted to bring back for his fortieth reunion. Wasn’t it you who gave Tom the name of a private detective?”

“Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that,” Mary said and grinned. “Carter Stuart must have been a friend of my parents. I found his card in Father’s desk one day when I was looking for some writing paper. When Tom told me he wished he knew where Bobby was, I gave him Mr. Stuart’s phone number.” She frowned slightly. “I wonder if Tom ever called him.”

About then, Edna turned a page in the yearbook and discovered a series of pictures taken at the Thanksgiving rally, according to the captions. This is when Tom met Jenny, she thought. She examined shots of students grouped around a bonfire, cheerleaders posing for the camera, and a group of boys climbing on a bigger-than-life bronze statue of a man holding an open book in his hands. Mary was in a couple of the photos. As a young girl, she had tried to restrain her curly red hair in pigtails, but wisps still sprang wildly around her face.

One of the pictures must have caught Mary’s eye because she bent forward, pointing to a pretty brunette with a ponytail. “That’s Jenny.”

“Who’s this?” Edna turned the book so Mary could see better and pointed to a girl standing beside the base of the bronze statue. Wearing a tight sweater and a straight skirt that looked too big for her small frame, she was staring up at the boys with no readable expression on her face. No other student was near her, and it looked almost as if she had walked into the picture by mistake.

Mary took the book and turned it so more light fell on the page. Handing it back, she said, “That’s her. That’s Daisy Farwell, the girl Bobby married.”

“Why does she look familiar? I’m assuming she didn’t come back to town, if Bobby didn’t, but does she have relatives in the area?”

“Not that I know of.” Mary sat back in her chair and looked at the fire. “As I told you already, as far as anyone knew, there was just her and her mother.”

Edna examined the skinny teenager, trying to think of whom she resembled. In the yearbook picture, her shoulder-length brown hair was parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears. Her eyes were large with dark smudges beneath, as if she were ill, but Edna saw a fragile beauty in the young face. “What else can you tell me about her?” Edna’s interest had more to do with curiosity over the fate of a child than with Tom’s death.

Mary slouched in her seat and tipped her head to look up at the beamed ceiling. “She kept to herself mostly. Didn’t talk much, as I remember. She was shy, I think. I didn’t remember her being at that rally. She usually didn’t go to school functions.”

“She looks as if she had a chronic illness. Was she sick?”

“I don’t know. She looked like that all the time. They were poor, she and her mom, and probably didn’t eat well. I wasn’t allowed to play with her. Not many kids were.”

“Why? Because she wasn’t part of your social group?”

“No, not really. I think it was more because of her mother’s boyfriends.”

“Oh?” Edna thought she knew what Mary was alluding to, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she said, “You said you thought your father’s friend was going to adopt her. Any particular reason he would want to adopt a fifteen-year-old?”

“I don’t know. Maybe my father and he were trying to save her from becoming like her mother.”

When she realized how reluctant Mary was to say any more about Daisy, Edna switched the subject. “Did you say Daisy’s mother died right around graduation? In nineteen …” She turned to the cover of the yearbook. “… nineteen fifty-nine?”

“That’s right. Her funeral was the same day as Tom’s graduation. I remember, because Jenny said she was sorry none of us could go to the cemetery with Daisy, because of graduation and all.”

Before Edna could ask her next question, Hank leaped up and began to bark. The women froze, startled by the dog’s sudden agitation. Then, the doorbell rang.