Chapter One
The Newspaper Codecopyright by Lisa J Lickel
“Aaaaack!”
Judy Wingate arched her brows at the sounds
of dismay coming from inside Ardyth Edwards’s house. She paused in the act of
rapping on the screen door, and instead cuddled her infant daughter higher in
her arms.
Elizabeth kicked her in the ribs. Stifling a
gasp, Judy leaned toward the screen door and then took a hasty step away when an
irate face peered back.
“Well, I never!” Ardyth sniffed and huffed.
“There you are.”
“Ne-never what?” Judy asked and turned
sideways to keep the door from smacking her and Elizabeth as the door was pushed
open.
“Sorry, dear. Come in, do. Oh my. I just
don’t know how I’m going to break the news, that’s all.”
Judy followed her to the little bungalow’s
kitchen. Ardyth’s green and yellow plaid tennies slapped the shiny oak
floorboards all the way.
“Explain what? You’ve lost me.”
Judy’s elderly and histrionically inclined friend
opened her sunny yellow refrigerator door covered with childish cat drawings,
plucked out the lemonade pitcher, and poured a glass. In slow motion, she sank
into a seat at the kitchen table. Ardyth stared at the telephone handset
perched on the kitchen counter next to the chrome sink as if she’d wring its
neck or shoot it.
Elizabeth cooed and waved her little fist.
“Oh! Where are my manners?” Ardyth bustled to
pour another glassful of homemade juice.
Judy decided on a sympathetic tactic. “I can
see you’re upset. Perhaps Elizabeth and I should go water the flowers ourselves
this time.”
Ardyth drew in her normally plump crepe-skinned
cheeks. “Well, of course I’m upset. Who wouldn’t be? I don’t know what I’m
going to do.”
“Won’t you tell me about it?”
With a gasp and a quick glance at Elizabeth, the
old lady stage-whispered, “Not in front of the baby!”
“Elizabeth is only six weeks old.” Judy held
up her hand. “I promise. I won’t let her tell anyone.”
Failure to elicit a kidding rebuke, or any
response, fanned Judy’s alarm. “Are you all right? Is Bryce?” Oh please, Lord!
Don’t let anything happen to either of them! I love them so much. They’ve only
had three years of marriage, same as Hart and me.
“It’s nothing like that. I’m sorry I scared
you, honey.” Two red spots appeared on her cheeks. Ardyth stared at the floor,
apparently at an uncommon loss for words, when her cat strutted into the
kitchen. The brindled gray sat squarely in front of her mistress. Judy
squinted. Something was definitely different.
“You!” Ardyth scolded her pet. “How could you
do this to me, Cat! You’re grieving me to no end. Just wait until Bryce gets
home! I don’t know what I’m going to say. How will he take the news?”
“Ardyth!”
She sniffed and addressed the ceiling. “Cat’s…well,
she’s—” her voice dropped to a whisper, “expect-ing.”
Judy blinked and bit the inside of her cheek.
She took a deep breath, then hid her face in her daughter’s little tummy. Don’t
laugh…do not laugh. “Um…you never let her outside, I thought.”
Ardyth drew her shoulders back regally. “I
don’t!”
“Bryce wouldn’t let her—”
“Of course not. He knows better.”
“Then how…who?”
Cat’s mistress abruptly faced the kitchen
window where she braced her hands on either side of the sink as if for battle.
“That Lois! That’s who.”
For a woman who named her pet cat “Cat,” Judy
thought her friend was really laying it on thick. She sucked in her cheeks to
hide a smirk. “You think Lois Birdseye sneaked over here and let Cat out?”
“Didn’t have to sneak. I gave her a key.”
“You mean when she watched your house when
you and Bryce went on vacation last month?” Getting away from tiny
Robertsville, Wisconsin after the terrifying events of Hart’s colleague’s
murder and the fire and the family trouble they’d had with her grandson had
been a welcome respite for the couple.
Ardyth folded her arms and nodded her head
until her shoulder-length silver curls bounced. “You know what they say. When
the folks are away…the cats will play.”
Cat gave a low yowl, as if affronted.
Ardyth ignored her pet and snatched up a
green and yellow plaid visor that matched her footwear. “Come on, dearie, time
to give old Robert Roberts a good dousing.” She grabbed a flamingo-overdosed-on-shrimp
pink plastic watering can on the way out of the back door.
Judy made her stop at the end of the walk so
she could buckle Elizabeth back into her stroller. Ardyth plopped the can on an
old rusty wagon, then deftly splashed water from the hose into it before twisting
the faucet handle and yanking the wagon behind her down the street.
Judy had to walk fast to keep up. Occasional
phrases, ones that sounded like, “If I ever catch her twitching her tail at
another…” and “I’ll fix him…” echoed back.
“Hello!” Judy puffed. “Slow down!” The two of
them were taking their turn to water the flower patch surrounding the statue of
the founder of Robertsville. Judy had gotten used to jokes about how to tell a
townie from a newcomer: the length of time it takes them to stop laughing at
the ridiculous name and placement of the monument.
Robert Roberts’s formidable likeness was
planted in the middle of one length of the sidewalk framing the town square. The
leading ladies later formed a garden society to soften the shock of the huge
statue by planting a ring of flowers about the base and widening the sidewalk
like a traffic round-about. An ugly four-foot-high black metal pipe fence with
menacing decorative points was added later to discourage stepping on the plants
and defacing the statue.
“Wait up!” Judy called. “I’m not in as good
of shape as you, yet!” Septuagenarian Ardyth, in her agitation, could have lapped
twenty-seven-year-old Judy around the block. “Remember that meeting when Esme Espe
asked the Garden Club—”
“Whew!” Ardyth came to a halt and blew back
her bangs. “I guess we don’t need to hurry. I’m just befuddled. Yes, yes, of
course I do. It was your first meeting, wasn’t it? Nice of you to volunteer.
Wasn’t that long ago.”
“Two years. I’ll never forget that first
time, anyway.” Judy took her time mentally conjuring up the image of Laura
Reynolds, the perennial president of the club, on that occasion. The sight of
Esme toddling around with her walker was about the only thing that seemed to
rattle her. Blonde, chic Mrs. Reynolds, whose real estate developer attorney husband
still wanted Judy’s farmland after three years of hearing “No, thanks” from
Judy and Hart, had pinched her lips together so tightly her lipstick slid down
her chin.
Ardyth struck a hunched-over pose and peered
up at Judy, her faded bachelor button-blue eyes twinkling. “Ah don’t want you
plantin’ or nothing,” she said, imitating Esme’s husky Joan Crawford voice. “Ah
got a reg’lar rotation, you know. Ah kin keep up weedin’. Jes cain’t cart a wadder
bucket no more.”
“I only hope I have as much energy as she
does when I’m ninety-nine,” Judy said. “Do you think we dare deadhead the
petunias?”
“Well, Esme’s eyesight is starting to go.”
“I heard Mayor Thompson wants to throw her a
birthday party.”
Ardyth giggled. “A retirement party is what I
heard.”
“I wondered why there were some red petunias
mixed in with the purple this year. So, her eyes are that bad? How can she
still drive?”
A few yards shy of the statue, beyond the
waving plots of petunias softening the fencing that guarded Robert’s personal
space, Ardyth stopped and said, “Well, when you’ve been around as long as she
has, everybody knows you. They just stay out of her way when they see her old
Fairlane coming.”
Judy recalled more than one occasion when the
mostly blue road yacht took up more than its share of the lane. She halted
beside her friend and regarded Robert. “I can’t imagine anyone whose last name
was Roberts would plant the same first name on a kid.”
“It’s not exactly the same.”
Judy raised a brow. “I guess not.”
“It’s Scottish.”
“Yes.”
“They were frugal people, you know.” Ardyth
turned a deadpan look at Judy. “Even economizing over a name.”
Judy doubled over the stroller in her laughing
fit.
Elizabeth waved both little legs and burbled.
Ardyth knelt to tickle the baby’s feet. “I didn’t even say a proper hello to
this young lady. How are you this fine August morning, sweetheart? Such a
precious thing, you are. I can’t believe it. Only six weeks ago, there we were
in the middle of the night, outside in the dark, scrambling down the banks of
Macsen Stream, afraid for our lives, while your husband was hanging out with
Barry—”
“And you’re worried over talking about your
pregnant Cat in front of her!” Judy shook her head. “You’ll give her
nightmares.”
“Nonsense.” Ardyth straightened. “I’ll give
nightmares to myself remembering all that. Thank heavens those monsters were
caught. Well, come on. We might as well get this over with.”
She grabbed her wagon handle and trundled
ahead of it. “Speaking of frugal, I can’t believe the school board’s not even
trying to pass a resolution to build a new school. Anyone can see Robertsville
Elementary is falling apart! It’s practically unsafe for you to go to teach
there, let alone the children attend. And what’s going to happen by the time
Elizabeth is old enough for kindergarten? I’m almost ashamed of Robertsville.
Robert Roberts must be rolling in his grave.”
“Raising taxes would mean a hardship for so
many people.” Judy puffed a bit in her effort to keep pace with the wagon.
“I’d rather be a little poorer than
embarrassed. What’ll happen if we can’t have school? Where will the children go
then? No one will want to move here. Then there’ll be no one left to pay taxes
for anything. Huh!”
Judy pushed Elizabeth faster in Ardyth’s
righteous wake. She couldn’t accept the dire prediction of the demise of public
education in Robertsville. They’d had discussions on the subject on and off all
summer as the town newspaper kept up a running report on the state of the
school after the plumbing went haywire and flooded the building. That resulted in
a necessary replacement of much of the tile, which in turn led to the discovery
of asbestos, which led to a discovery that the maintenance fund was depleted
and they were over budget.
She wasn’t going to let thoughts of a future
without a teaching job ruin her morning.
Time for a lighter subject. Judy arrived at
the fence surrounding Robert Roberts, his tarnished head high and the town
charter held in one hand. His other hand pointed in a direction that had been
debated since it was first set in place, generations ago. “Have you heard any
more about moving the statue?”
Ardyth offered Judy her characteristic sniff
of displeasure. “Stuff and nonsense. Mr. Roberts has been here forever. No
reason for excitement.” She began to tip her watering can over the striped flowers.
“This is his neighborhood, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” Judy grinned. “But, still, why
did it have to go in the middle of the sidewalk? Wouldn’t it make more sense to
have put it…oh, say,”— Judy swiveled on one toe to point toward the center of
the green— “over there? Closer to the band shell?”
“Well, then it might get in the way of kids
playing.” Ardyth reached inside the fence and plucked a few wilted blooms. “Hmm.
Can’t believe Esme let this go. She’s usually so prompt with her care.”
“People have been writing letters to the
paper lately. Olivia’s printed several in the Reporter. About moving the statue.”
“New folks. Don’t understand our ways.”
“They’re petitioning the Council. It’ll have
to go on the agenda if enough people request it.”
“Vote it down, they will.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t tell me this is the
best place to put a statue?”
Ardyth unlatched the gate of the rusty black
pipe fence and pulled the wagon inside.
“Somebody smarter than me thought it was.” She
bent over to reach for a waving dandelion, just around the corner of the big
square cement block base of the statue. “Besides, Judge Hampton rubs Robert’s knuckles
for luck on the way to court every day.”
“Luck! I doubt the judge believes in luck.” Judy
glanced at Robert’s shiny knuckles, remembering last month’s trial, when her
friend’s grandson and his friends had been found guilty of trespass and theft.
That other boy with them, Jason, had narrowly escaped a murder rap. The
incident had nearly broken Ardyth’s heart. Thus the two-week trip to Hawaii
that Bryce called a second honeymoon.
The trip during which, apparently, Cat was
let out of the bag—er, house. Judy sighed. “I see some weeds over here. That’s
not like Esme, even with her bad eyes.” Judy left the stroller outside the pipe
fence and ducked underneath a bar. “I’ll go pull these, then some more over
there…um…”
“What?”
“Come here, quick!”
There was no mistaking the figure that leaned
in unnatural repose at the base of the statue. Esme’s flowered skirt flapped in
the breeze, exposing the ruffled ends of what could only have been bloomers. She
would have been absolutely mortified at the thought of people looking at her unmentionables.
Ardyth gasped and knelt. Judy’s vision
blurred and a whooshing sound reverberated in her head. She reached out to Robert
for support. A piece of the statue’s base came off in her hands. She closed her
fist around it automatically. “Do you think…”
“We can’t touch her,” Ardyth said. “Poor
Esme.”
“Is she…how could…why…who—”
“That garden claw stuck in her forehead
explains quite a bit,” she replied in a grim tone. “Do you have your cell thing
handy?”
