Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(67)

“Come in and warm yourself,” Edna said, holding out a hand for Mary’s cape. “I’ve just made a fresh pot of tea.”

“From a recipe of old Mrs. Rabichek’s, I hope.” Mary grinned as she passed her wrap over so Edna could hang it on one of the wooden pegs beside the back door.

Seated at the kitchen table with filled tea mugs warming their hands, the two women fell silent. Edna thought it was enough to relax in Mary’s company. At the moment, she felt no need to rehash the day’s event. After several minutes, she took one last sip and set her cup down before asking, “You don’t think Nancy will eventually want Hank back for Danny?”

Mary shook her head as she put her own cup on the table. “No, I doubt it. It’s strange.” She paused briefly, as if trying to find the words to explain. “I think Hank makes Danny feel closer to Tom, but it makes Nancy cry to see the dog wandering around the house in search of his master.” Tears glistened in Mary’s own eyes.

With a voice that was unsteady at first, she went on. “I’m like Danny. Hank makes me feel close to Tom somehow.” Her smile was sad as she looked at Edna. “When my father died, Tom promised he’d always be around to look in on me.” She gulped and said with a half-sob, half-laugh, “Pretty silly thing to promise, isn’t it?”

Edna remembered Mary’s outburst at the restaurant just as their waiter had arrived. So that had been Tom’s promise, not of marriage, as Edna had suspected at the time, but a pact of friendship. “I think he’d be pleased to know that you and Hank are looking after each other,” she said in a quiet tone.

As if hearing his name once too often, the black Lab, who had been lying on the floor near Mary’s chair, stood and nudged his mistress’s elbow with his nose. Wagging his tail and backing up, he bobbed his head as if to say, “Come on. Cheer up, and let’s go for a walk.”

The women laughed, and Mary swiped the tears from beneath her eyes with the knuckle of a finger. “We’d better go. I hadn’t planned on staying this long. We just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Edna watched the tall redhead and the stocky black dog head for home before closing the door and returning to the kitchen. She was considering whether or not to pour herself another cup of tea when, from the window over the sink, she saw Charlie Rogers drive up. Inviting him in, she fetched another cup and set a plate of homemade cookies on the table between them.

“Shoes is singing like a canary, as they say in the movies,” Charlie said, after filling her in on the details of the arrests. “My guess is that Joel Tolkheim’s son will request an exhumation and autopsy when he learns about Dee’s arrest for murder. If it turns out that she killed her husband, too, it won’t diminish Junior’s grief, but at least the widow won’t be able to use the inheritance to pay for her lawyers.”

Setting her cup down, Edna said, “And will you look for Bobby O’Brien? He was Dee’s first husband, you know. There might be a forty-year-old unsolved death in Albuquerque as well, or else there’s a mighty fine mechanic working somewhere in Arizona. If he’s alive, I think he’ll want to know what’s happened.”

Charlie made a note on the small pad he’d pulled from his jacket pocket.

“She used yew to kill Tom, you know,” Edna said in a low voice, still trying to fathom what would drive a person to such evil.

“I know. We found bits of it in your canister. I had the lab compare what was in the tin with the sample I’d taken last Friday. They were different. The mix in the canisters contained ground up bits of evergreen needles and bark the lab boys identified as coming from a yew tree. I thought something was awfully fishy about your break-in Sunday night. Someone wanted you dead, too, and now we know who.”

Edna shivered at the thought. “Dee confessed everything to me about Tom, Bobby, the robberies, but it was Shoes who told me about Dee and him being here on Sunday. She probably knew he wouldn’t help her get into my house if she wanted to poison me.” She shuddered at the idea she might have unwittingly brewed someone a poisoned cup of tea—or had one herself. “It’s a very good thing you took those canisters, Charlie,” she said, feeling thankful indeed. “Will there be a trial? Will I have to testify?”

“Don’t worry about it right now. I’ll let you know. Oh, by the way,” he said, putting the notebook and pen back into his pocket, “we found Tom’s appointment book in Dee’s house in a bookcase. Her name was penned in for Thursday afternoon, just as you suspected.” He drank the last of his tea in one quick gulp and pushed himself up from the table. “I’d better get back to work.”

“Work? I thought you were done for the day. Aren’t you going home?” She walked him to the door.

“Naw, too much paperwork left to do. I want to get a head start on it tonight.”

Edna saw her chance. “What about your family? Doesn’t your wife object to your working such long hours?” Starling, you owe me for this, she thought, smiling at Charlie.

“She probably would, if I had one.” He stepped out onto the granite stoop and half turned, hesitating before looking into her eyes. His grin was boyish, almost shy. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to give your daughter a call sometime.”

“It would be fine with me, and I have a feeling she’d like that, too.” Edna waved in response to his upraised hand. As she closed the door on the detective’s retreating back, the phone rang. It was Albert.