Monica was setting the table and Greg was ensconced in a chair by the fire with the newspaper when she heard a car coming down the drive.
That was odd—it was an unusual time for a visit. Most people were in the midst of preparing dinner, eating it, or already cleaning up from it if they were early diners.
Monica peered out the back door window as the car came into view. She recognized Dana’s fancy BMW.
She turned down the water she was boiling for the pasta she was planning to cook for dinner and waited for a knock on the door.
Dana’s expression, when Monica opened the door, clearly showed that something was wrong. Her mouth was set in a tight line and her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown.
She was wearing boots this time—Monica recognized them from a display in Danielle’s window.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she said as she wiped her feet on the mat. “Do you mind if I come in?”
Monica held the door wider and showed Dana into the living room. Greg jumped to his feet, the newspaper sliding off his lap and onto the floor in a heap.
“I am interrupting you, I’m afraid,” Dana said but made no move to leave. She perched on the edge of a chair.
“Has something happened?” Monica asked, noting the look of distress on Dana’s face.
“John is in a terrible state, yelling and screaming. He’s absolutely furious.” Dana shuddered.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“You know Marta’s service and burial were scheduled for tomorrow? The police called to say we have to postpone it. They are waiting for permission to do an autopsy on the body after all.”
Greg cleared his throat. “Why don’t I make you a cup of tea?” he said to Dana.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
They were quiet for a moment, listening to the fire crackle and snap in the hearth. They could hear Greg filling the teakettle in the kitchen.
“Why are the police doing an autopsy?” Dana said finally, twisting her gloves around and around in her hands. “Everything was all set. John is absolutely furious. His face went all red when he heard and I was afraid he would have a stroke.”
Greg returned with a mug of tea. “Sugar, no cream, if I remember correctly.” He smiled and put the mug on the table next to Dana’s chair.
“I can’t understand why they’re doing an autopsy at this late date. It’s horribly inconvenient.” Dana picked up the mug. “I was hoping to go back to East Lansing right after the burial.” She shivered. “I don’t feel safe here. I may not remember everything, but I do know someone was trying to kill me. How do I know they’re not going to try again?”
“You don’t remember anything new?” Monica said.
Dana pursed her lips. “Not really. Only the sensation of being in danger and of being pursued. I’m sure that’s why I was driving the way they claim I was and why I had the accident.” She studied her hands.
“You say you remember the feeling of being in danger—”
“Yes. Nothing specific, I’m afraid. Although I have had a flash of someone trying to hit me over the head with something.” She looked away from Monica, out the window. “I’ve been having nightmares about it. I keep thinking I hear someone trying to break into the house.” She shivered. “It’s a dismal place. I don’t know how poor Marta could stand it. I can’t wait to get out of there.”
She looked at Monica, her eyes pleading.
“I can understand how you feel. But the police are doing the autopsy because they’ve found some new evidence,” Monica said.
Dana’s hand jerked and she knocked her mug against the table.
“New evidence? What new evidence?”
Monica couldn’t help but notice the look of fear in Dana’s eyes.
What was she afraid of? Monica wondered. Had she killed Marta herself and blocked out the memory?
And was her brother angry that the funeral and burial had been delayed or was he angry that the police were planning to perform an autopsy that might possibly reveal something damaging to him?
• • •
Kit was at the farm kitchen looking rumpled and bleary-eyed when Monica got there. The door to the storage room was open and she noticed his sleeping bag spread out on the floor. Obviously he’d spent another night bunking on the floor.
“You look like you could use some coffee,” Monica said after saying good morning.
Kit ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it further. “You could say that.”
“Why don’t I put some on then.”
“That’s okay. I’ll do it.” Kit turned away and Monica got the sense that he was glad of the distraction.
Monica tied on her apron and began measuring out flour and sugar for the first batches of cranberry muffins. She was getting butter out of the refrigerator to soften when Kit handed her a steaming cup of coffee.
“This smells heavenly.” Monica took a sip.
She was worried about Kit. His usual ebullient personality was diminished, like a light that had been dimmed. Surely he and Sean had made up by now? Kit was so good-natured, Monica couldn’t imagine his staying angry for long.
“Don’t tell me you and Sean haven’t made up yet?” she said.
Kit looked stricken. His shoulders slumped and his mouth turned down. He held his hands out, palms up.
“We have. There’s just one problem.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“The argument we got into was over a bad investment Sean had made, one he hadn’t told me about.” Kit gulped and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “And now I’m afraid we’ve lost our house.”
“What?” Monica was so startled she nearly dropped her mug. “But how?”
Kit shrugged. “Sean got this stock tip from a friend. Several actually. It was supposed to be foolproof. Guaranteed to earn us money.” He rolled his eyes. “Sean used all our money to buy the shares. Instead of making money, we lost all of our savings. And on top of that, Sean’s been laid off from his job.”
“Oh, no.” Monica knew how tenuous people’s financial circumstances could be. More than once since she’d arrived, Sassamanash Farm had been skating on particularly thin ice. Several times Jeff had been convinced the farm was going to go under but somehow they had always pulled through.
“So you have nowhere to live?” Monica asked in disbelief.
“Not at the moment, although we did come into some luck. And it’s about time.” He tossed his head. “Sean has managed to lease a small apartment above Twilight, Tempest Storm’s shop on Beach Hollow Road. But we won’t be able to move in for a few days.” Kit reached for his apron and tied it on. “Sean is bunking with a friend.” He curled his lip. “I’m afraid this friend of his isn’t a fan of me. I think he and Sean might have been romantically involved at one time, although far be it from me to ask questions.” He pretended to lock his lips. “I decided it would be a good idea for me to camp out here instead.” He made an exaggerated sad face.
“I’m really sorry to hear that. I hate to think of you here all night. Why don’t you come up to the cottage and stay in our guest room?”
“You’re a sweetheart, you really are,” Kit said. “But this is fine as long as it’s temporary. Please don’t worry, darling. It will give you wrinkles.”
• • •
Monica took the last tray of cranberry walnut chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. She’d been so distracted by thoughts of Marta’s death, Dana and autopsies, that she’d burned the previous batch slightly.
She sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d done that and it wouldn’t be the last. The cookies couldn’t be sold—she prided herself on the quality of all of Sassamanash Farm’s products—although they were still edible. She’d save them for Jeff and his crew. They were always happy to eat her missteps or her experiments that didn’t quite work out.
She’d once tried to create a cranberry-based pudding that had sadly been a dismal failure, which she couldn’t pawn off on anyone—including Jeff’s workers.
Monica was transferring the cookies to cooling racks when her cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Monica? This is Tammy Stevens. I wanted to let you know that an autopsy was performed earlier on Marta Kuiper.”
“Can you share the results? Did they find anything new?” Monica held her breath. She knew Stevens wasn’t always at liberty to reveal information during the course of an investigation.
She heard Stevens sigh.
“We’ll be releasing the information to the papers tomorrow, so I suppose it won’t hurt to share it with you now.”
Stevens cleared her throat, and Monica heard papers rustling.
“As I suspected, the body had been embalmed, making a tox screen unreliable. The pathologist performed one anyway, but we don’t have those results back yet. The pathologist was able to determine one thing though.”
Monica held her breath. She hoped the results indicated natural causes—that would put Dana’s mind at rest, assuming she could be convinced of it.
Stevens continued. “It seems the pathologist discovered signs that Marta had been smothered.”
Monica stifled a gasp.
“The ME was in such a hurry that he missed the signs, but the pathologist who is filling in for him while he’s at that conference in Arizona basking in the sun did notice the signs. Granted, they were subtle. If you’re right about the beta blockers, an overdose would have slowed her heart rate and her breathing, making it much easier for someone to smother her. They wouldn’t have needed much strength at all, and she probably wouldn’t have even been able to put up much of a fight.”
• • •
Monica was greeted with delicious smells when she opened the door to her cottage. She’d put a pot roast in her slow cooker that morning and the aroma was heavenly enough to make her mouth water.
Mittens was on hand to greet her too, meowing loudly to indicate that it was time for dinner.
Monica retrieved a can of cat food from the cupboard and, with the cat winding in and out between her legs, managed to open it and spoon it out into Mittens’s bowl.
Mittens gave a satisfactory meow before digging into the meal.
The back door opened, ushering in a blast of frigid air. The wind blew fresh snow across the threshold to the kitchen.
“Is it snowing?” Monica asked, turning her head for a kiss.
Greg’s lips were cold and his hands on her cheeks were even colder. “Yes. It’s started up again, I’m afraid, but it doesn’t look like it will last.”
“Famous last words,” Monica said. “Jeff will be busy plowing tonight, I guess.” Monica took some potatoes from a basket in the pantry, rummaged in a drawer she had vowed a million times to clean out until she found her peeler, and began to peel the potatoes to add to the slow cooker now that the meat was nearly done.
“Do you think the snow is going to stick?” she asked.
Greg shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s fairly light so far.” He opened a cupboard and pulled out two wineglasses. He held one toward Monica and raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, thank you,” Monica said, opening the lid on the slow cooker and adding the potatoes. “I could do with a glass after the day I’ve had.”
“Oh?”
She told Greg about Detective Stevens’s call and the pathologist’s determination that Marta had died by smothering, helped along by a possible overdose of beta blockers.
Greg poured them each a glass of red wine and held one out to Monica. She was raising the glass to her lips when she gasped.
Greg frowned. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
Monica shook her head. “Not wrong, no. But I just remembered something.”
“Oh?” Greg raised his eyebrows.
“The pathologist thinks Marta had been smothered.”
“And?” Greg smiled.
“When Dana and I went to Marta’s house the day we found her body, I noticed a bed pillow was on the floor. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I can’t remember now but either Dana or I picked it up and put it back on the bed.” She looked at Greg. “But what if Marta had struggled and that’s how the pillow ended up on the floor?”
“That could be. But there’s another possible explanation,” Greg said. He put his wineglass down on the counter. “The murderer has the pillow over Marta’s face.” He mimed smothering someone. “Then they hear something. Maybe a car coming down the driveway or someone moving around in the house. So what do they do? They throw the pillow down and run and the pillow ends up on the floor.”
Monica’s face brightened. “Maybe it was Dana they heard.” She paced back and forth in front of the sink. “Dana thought someone was trying to kill her. Maybe they were.” She stood still for a moment, thinking. “Maybe she interrupted the killer while they had the pillow over Marta’s face. They threw the pillow away and went after Dana instead. Maybe they didn’t even know whether or not they’d killed Marta. It wasn’t until afterward that they learned they had.”
“Good thinking, Miss Marple,” Greg said with a grin.
Monica’s expression turned somber. “I shouldn’t be making light of this. It’s not a game—someone is dead.”
“True.” Greg bowed his head. He looked up suddenly. “I do think your hypothesis has merit though. Are you going to share it with Detective Stevens?”
Monica sighed. “I don’t think so. I’ve made enough of a pest of myself already.”
• • •
Monica was up early. The previous day’s snow had stopped but the temperature still wasn’t much above zero degrees. The thought of getting out of her nice warm bed was daunting but she forced herself to throw back the covers and pull on her robe.
She tiptoed down to the kitchen—Greg was still asleep and even Mittens hadn’t stirred off the bed—to make some coffee. As soon as the machine stopped gurgling, she filled her cup and carried it back upstairs. She put her mug down on the edge of the sink and splashed her face with water. She gasped. She should have waited for it to heat up—it was always cold when you ran it first thing in the morning.
She dressed quickly and headed downstairs for breakfast. She wanted to get to the farm kitchen early to begin baking. She was planning on taking some more bread and muffins to the food pantry and she needed some stock for the farm store as well.
After a quick breakfast, Monica headed out, her parka zipped all the way to her chin and a scarf wrapped around her neck.
The sun was just rising, its rays glinting off the new fallen snow into prisms of color. Monica took a deep breath. It was good to be alive.
The door to the storage room was closed when Monica got to the farm kitchen. She supposed Kit was still sleeping—unless he’d found somewhere else to stay?
Nonetheless, she made as little noise as she could, although it was impossible to stifle the noise the mixer made when she turned it on. She was putting the first batches of muffins in the oven when the storage room door creaked open.
Kit stood in the doorway, yawning and scratching his head.
“You’re here early today.”
“I’m baking some things to take to the food pantry.”
“Will you be okay if I run to the gym to take a shower?”
Monica smiled. “Sure. Go ahead.”
Monica finished baking, packed everything into a box and carried it out to her car. It gave her a good feeling to be giving back to the community and helping those less fortunate.
Monica took the winding road that led into town. The wind was blowing from the west and the waves on the lake, which she could see when she crested the hill, were tipped with white foam, and the water in the harbor, under the bridge, was choppy.
A volunteer was unlocking the door to the food pantry when Monica got there. The woman, whose white hair was tinged with lavender, held the door open as Monica carried her box inside.
“You’ve brought more fresh baked goods,” she said with an enormous smile. “How wonderful. I can’t tell you how much it’s appreciated.”
“I’m glad.” Monica put the box on the counter. She recognized the woman as Dorothy, the volunteer she’d spoken to on her earlier visit to the food pantry.
A sudden banging on the front door startled them both.
“Honestly.” Dorothy pursed her lips as the person continued to rattle the doorknob. “What is wrong with some people? The door is open,” she called out.
A man stumbled into the room. As he got closer, a very unpleasant odor washed over Monica. He smelled like Flynn’s, the dive bar next door—whiskey, spilled beer and stale cigarette smoke. His shirt and pants were worn and rumpled and his hair, so greasy he couldn’t possibly have washed it recently, curled over his collar.
Dorothy made a face. “Oh, no, here’s Don again. We haven’t seen him since Marta passed away.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Don said as he wove his way toward the counter.
Dorothy didn’t say anything. She merely tightened her lips and gripped the edge of the counter.
“Can I help you?” she said when Don reached her.
“Gotta get me some food.” He smiled, showing brownish teeth. “I’m a pretty good cook, did I tell you that?”
Dorothy withdrew into herself like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.
“Our volunteers are organizing the shelves,” she said, her lips still clenched together. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a few minutes.”
Don turned to Monica and smiled. “Who’s this? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, sweetheart.”
Monica gave a weak smile and turned to Dorothy for support.
Don’s smile faded and he moved on, lurching toward the chairs in the waiting room.
“Who is that?” Monica said, watching as Don banged his knee against a table before collapsing into a chair.
“He’s the thorn in our side,” Dorothy said. “Everyone says he’s harmless but I’m not so sure. He comes around regularly, usually after spending some time at Flynn’s next door.” She rolled her eyes. “He was particularly drawn to Marta Kuiper, who used to volunteer here.” Dorothy fiddled with a pen on the counter. “Poor Marta! She was terribly quiet, a lovely lady but not very worldly, if you know what I mean.” Dorothy raised an eyebrow at Monica.
Monica nodded.
“So she really didn’t know how to deal with his attentions.” Dorothy gave a half smile. “I would have told him to scram, quite frankly.”
Monica was surprised. Dorothy appeared meek and mild on the surface but obviously she was made of sterner stuff.
“He used to follow Marta around while she stocked the shelves. Patrons aren’t really allowed back there unless they’re picking out their food, and then we only let them go in one at a time, but somehow he always managed to slip in unnoticed.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Was he hostile toward Marta?” Monica said. “Do you think he meant to do her harm?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. For some reason he’d taken a shine to her. Maybe she reminded him of his mother, I don’t know. You never know with people, do you?”
“I guess not.”
“Is he homeless?”
“No. He said he has a room somewhere with a kitchenette. And he has a car, too. The muffler is gone and you can hear him coming from a mile away. When he’s sober enough, he does odd jobs around town.”
Don was now sitting quietly in the waiting room, rocking back and forth and singing softly to himself.
Monica looked at him. He seemed harmless enough, more a danger to himself than anyone else. Had he merely annoyed Marta or had she sensed something else in him—violent tendencies perhaps?
As Dorothy said, you never knew with people. Maybe Don had snapped, infuriated by Marta’s lack of interest in him. Maybe he’d found out where she lived or had followed her home.
Somehow Monica couldn’t see how he would have managed to give Marta an overdose of beta blockers, but perhaps she had accidentally done that herself? And he had found her nearly unconscious and had taken the opportunity to smother her?