Jennie Bentley - Spackled and Spooked

The older Ellises lived in a beautifully maintained Victorian cottage in the Village, i.e., the historic district. Aunt Inga’s house-my house-was a few blocks away, and so was downtown Waterfield, with Derek’s bachelor pad, as well as Kate’s B and B. We knocked on the beautifully carved front door just a few minutes after six thirty P.M., looking as good as we could under the circumstances. Derek keeps a clean dress shirt in the car for when he has to do a quick change to meet a potential client-or a dinner date-and knowing where we’d be going, I’d made sure to bring a change of clothes, too. The dress was one I had designed myself-yellow background with black silhouettes of cats arching their backs along the hem, and black piping.

Dr. Ben met us at the door and ushered us into the great room; that combination of kitchen-living room-den that’s become so popular over the last couple of years. Derek had added it to the old Victorian house some five or six years ago, when he first decided to do remodeling and renovation for a living. I guess Dr. Ben had wanted to do what he could to give his son a good start in his new profession. Everyone in town knew the Ellises, and everyone who was anyone had seen the kitchen addition and loved it. I loved it, too. It was bright and sunny and open, with terra cotta tile on the floor, lots of green plants, and French doors leading out onto the deck that Derek had also built, and from there into the garden, which was Cora’s domain.

Dr. Ben’s second wife was a lovely person, and I enjoyed her company. She was a few years younger than her new husband, in her early fifties to his sixty or so, and a widow. According to Kate, who knew everything, even things that had happened long before she came to Waterfield, Cora’s late husband had been an alcoholic and a mean drunk. Derek, who adored his stepmother, put it more strongly: The late, unlamented Glenn Morgan had been a drunken bastard who enjoyed knocking his wife around, and he’d got what was coming to him when he got hit by a car late one night as he was staggering home from an all-night binge at the Shamrock. Ben Ellis had already known Cora for a while by then, from treating the various injuries her husband had inflicted upon her over the years. They waited a suitable year before getting married, and were still acting like newlyweds four years later.

Cora, a short, plump brunette with lovely blue eyes and a sweet smile, was busy at the stove when we came into the kitchen, her fluffy hair standing out in a halo around her flushed face. “We’re having chicken fajitas,” she explained over her shoulder. “Oh, hi, Derek.” He bent to kiss her on the cheek and to steal a piece of deliciously browned chicken out of the pan at the same time. He stuck it in his mouth and blew on his fingers. Cora giggled.

“Can I do anything?” I asked, hoping she’d say it was all under control. I’m not much of a cook, having always had only myself to cook for and no real inclination to learn. My former boyfriend, Philippe, preferred eating out, and when we didn’t, when he had something else to do, I had usually just nuked a bowl of macaroni and cheese or mixed up some tuna salad for myself.

Cora smiled, delighted. “Would you like to make the guacamole?”

“Sure,” I said, relieved. Even I could mash a couple of avocados in a bowl.

“Excellent. And Derek, would you mind helping your dad set the table?”

Derek declared himself willing and able, and we all got to work. Cora stood by my side for a minute or two to make sure I knew what I was doing before going back to whatever it was that was simmering on the stove, filling the house with the spicy aroma of Mexico.

“So how are things going over at the house?” Dr. Ben asked when dinner was on the table and we’d all held hands over grace. Derek had his mouth full, so it fell to me to answer.

“I guess it’s going as well as can be expected. We’ve done most of the tear-out. Kitchen cabinets, carpets, wallpaper. We’re leaving the toilets and light fixtures where they are until we’re ready to replace them.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to shore up the floor,” Derek added. “Rent a handheld hole digger, pour some concrete, and set up some metal posts to get the floors level before we start putting in the new kitchen.” To me he added, “I may be a little late picking you up tomorrow morning. I have to stop at the hardware store first, and they don’t open till nine.”

I nodded. I had no problem with that, not being an early riser under the best of circumstances.

“I knew Peggy Murphy, you know,” Cora said unexpectedly. Both Derek and I turned to look at her. She added, “Glenn and Brian both used to drink at the Shamrock. They were both hot-tempered, and sometimes they’d get into it. I met Peggy at the police station one night, after Roger Tucker, who was chief of police back then, had arrested them both for drunk and disorderly conduct.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dr. Ben said.

“We never talked about it,” Cora answered, with a smile. “She was long gone by the time you and I met.” She shook her head, looking down at her food. “It still amazes me sometimes, to think of what happened to her. There, but for the grace of God, and all that.”

She took another bite of food while Derek and I looked at each other, not quite sure what to say. Dr. Ben was the one who got the conversation back on track.

“I never had to take care of Peggy Murphy at the clinic. Are you saying that her husband used to knock her around? I don’t remember any injuries or bruises or anything on the body.”

“Well, he must have had some issues,” Cora said reasonably, “to do what he did.”

Couldn’t argue with that.

“What made him do it?” I asked. “Didn’t he leave a note or anything? Some explanation for why he decided to murder her?” I looked around the table.

“If he did, I never heard about it,” Dr. Ben said. “Although the police probably didn’t tell me everything. They called me in to pronounce time of death, and to make sure there wasn’t anything that could be done for any of the victims, but I wasn’t involved in the investigation beyond that. The bodies went to Portland, to the medical examiner’s office, for autopsy, and there was no doubt what had happened, anyway. Brian Murphy killed his wife and her parents, who were in town on a visit, and before his son could come back with help, he killed himself. The gun was his, and the fingerprints on it were his as well. The boy saw his dad walk from the master bedroom to the guest bedroom, where his grandparents slept, with the gun in his hand, after the first shot had woken him up.”

“And the police didn’t find any other reason why he might have wanted to go out in a blaze of glory? Was he sick? Depressed? Was his wife leaving him for someone else and threatening to take Patrick, and he decided if he couldn’t have her, no one could?”

Across the table from me, Cora moved on her chair. Our eyes met for a moment before she looked down. I glanced at Dr. Ben, but he seemed to have missed the byplay. So had Derek, apparently. When my boyfriend is involved in something he enjoys, like eating, he doesn’t care about anything else. I’ve gotten used to it. Sometimes, it’s even convenient.

“If the medical examiner found anything wrong, I didn’t hear about it,” Ben Ellis said, “and I never treated Brian, either. I only ever saw Patrick. And whatever Brian’s problems were, they didn’t extend to hurting his child. I never saw anything wrong with the boy beyond the usual childhood complaints. Measles, flu, the occasional broken bone, a few stitches from falling off a bike or out of a tree…”

Cora looked over at him, a question in her eyes. Obviously she was well aware of the fact that broken bones, bruises, and cuts are common signs of abuse.