Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(56)

The rain pounding on the roof did nothing to calm her nerves. She could see barely two feet in front of the hood, and after turning into Mary’s driveway, she finally decided that brooding about Danny or fanning the flames of her anger at Norm weren’t doing her any good. She had to be able to think clearly, and her emotions were getting in the way. Easier said than done, she thought, getting out of the car and racing toward the house.

Hank greeted her at the back door, tail wagging. Benjamin, lying nearby on the radiator cover, lifted his sleepy head and blinked at her. Despite her resolve, Edna couldn’t keep her mind off Danny’s disappearance and the image of the green van driving away from Norm’s office. She went into the dining room and sank onto a chair, thinking she might light a small fire in the hearth and warm herself, but at the moment, she didn’t have the energy.

As she sat, her eyes strayed to the yearbooks. Reaching over, she opened the one for Tom’s senior year, idly flipping pages until she came to the shots of the Thanksgiving rally. She studied the picture of the boys climbing the bronze statue and the waiflike face of the young girl who looked so familiar. Daisy, Mary had said her name was, Daisy Farwell. Where have I seen you before?

Curiosity got the better of her, and she roused herself to get a notepad and pencil from beside the phone on one of the divider shelves between kitchen and dining room. Returning to her seat, she pulled over the open book and began to sketch. First some eyes … make them large, thin out the lids, slant the sides, not too much. A nose … a shorter one, skinny and upturned. Sketch another nose and slope it down. Cheeks, chin. She drew a few variations of each facial feature, as she would as an exercise in art class. The ear, she copied exactly as it appeared in the photo. People don’t usually change the shape or size of their ears.

As she doodled, what had been merely an impression became firmer in Edna’s mind. Ripping off the top sheet of the small telephone pad, she put the rounder eyes together with a small straight nose, added fuller cheeks, and surrounded the face with a curly, more modern hair style. When she’d finished, she held the small scrap of paper next to the yearbook photo, comparing what she’d drawn with the face in the picture. What she saw made her gasp.

It didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t she said anything? I must be mistaken, Edna thought. Maybe I’m sketching what I want to see instead of what’s there. She examined her drawing again. No, she didn’t think she’d made a mistake. It was Dee Tolkheim.

Edna tried to remember what Mary had told her about Dee as a girl. Shunned by her classmates, no father, raised by a mother who, apparently, had more than her share of boyfriends. Her mother’s funeral had been the same day as Tom’s graduation. She was the one who had run away with Tom’s friend, Bobby.

Had Tom recognized her? Edna looked at the photo in the yearbook and could understand if he hadn’t. She thought back to Thursday when she had come out of the house and found Dee standing beside Tom. What had they been talking about? All Edna could remember was that Dee had flirted outrageously with him. Had they recognized each other as high school classmates? No, I would have remembered that, she thought.

Dee may have said something when Edna had gone off to get the rue. Maybe she told him then who she was. Is that why he had driven off without saying goodbye to me? Edna wondered. At the thought, she brightened. Dee had to have remembered his mentioning an appointment book. Maybe he had gotten it out after all, after Edna had left the two of them alone. He could have told her where he was going to be Thursday afternoon. It would be natural if he was looking for an available time to fit Dee into his schedule.

Here was another connection to Tom, another lead to follow. Edna hurried to the phone, hope lightening her step. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that Dee would know where Tom had been going when he’d left on Thursday. Picking up the receiver, she pressed buttons for local information, then raised the instrument to her ear. No dial tone.

“Not again,” she wailed. The storm must have knocked out the lines a second time.

Returning to the table, she watched the rain lashing the windows and listened to the wind rattle the shutters while she fiddled absently with the small sketch. I can’t sit here and do nothing, she thought. Shoving the small portrait into the pocket of her slacks, she hurried to get her coat, snatched up the tote bag, and dashed back out to her car.

After a long, harrowing drive through the blinding rain, Edna reached Watch Hill and turned in through the gates of a large white house with a widow’s walk at the top. A tall iron fence separated the property from the road, and just inside it were laurel bushes that provided a noise and privacy barrier. The tarred driveway slanted down toward the house and curved gracefully off to a four-car, detached garage with what looked like a horse stable beyond. She knew from having seen the estate on a clear day that in back of the buildings a gentle slope of lawn continued for several hundred yards down to meet the sea.

The main house looked like a shimmering apparition through the rain sheeting her windshield. As she turned off the ignition, Edna felt her pulse quicken. Was she being too hasty in coming to see Dee? Why hadn’t she said anything about knowing Tom before—or Mary, for that matter? When they’d had lunch together, Edna knew Mary hadn’t recognized her former classmate, nor had Dee mentioned it. Why not?

“Nonsense,” she muttered, getting out of the car. “If she doesn’t want to bring up her past, that’s her decision. All I need to find out is what she knows about last Thursday and Tom’s appointment book.” Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what Dee was hiding—or hiding from, perhaps.