A Bad Egg: The Classic Diner Mystery Part 15

"You must miss them," I said. I knew how devoted Ellen was to her children.

"Every minute that we're apart, but this is for the best. Mom made me realize that."

Opal nodded as she laid her latest knitting project down on the table. "Children need stability in their lives. Can I get you something to eat?"

Moose and I had skipped lunch, and I could feel the hunger pangs beginning, but I didn't want to eat there, not with three of our suspects in the house. I was probably being paranoid, but what if one of them decided to get rid of us, too? A little poison mixed in with the food, and Moose and I would be finished with our investigation forever. I knew that the thought wasn't all that rational even as it popped into my head, but I still couldn't help myself. "Thanks, but we're eating soon ourselves. It's going to be really special, so we'd better not ruin our appet.i.tes."

Moose looked at me, questioning the statement with his gaze. I nodded slightly, and he joined right in with my lie. "Martha and Greg are preparing a feast for us tonight," he said heartily.

"Well, then," Robert said, "What can we do for you?"

"We were wondering if we could have a chat," I said.

He stood. "I'd be happy to, but I'll have to take a rain check. I was just going across the street to have a smoke. I know it's a bad habit that's probably going to kill me someday, but I can't seem to help myself."

"I'll walk over with you," I said, making a snap decision.

"You don't smoke," Moose said to me.

Thanks for stating the obvious, I thought. "No, but I wouldn't mind stretching my legs a little. Come on, Robert. I'll keep you company."

"I don't want you to breathe any secondhand smoke on my account." Wow, Robert really didn't want me going with him. Was he afraid of what I might find out if he spent a little time alone with me?

"Nonsense. I insist."

"Very well," Robert said, but he clearly wasn't pleased by the prospect of having me for company.

We walked across the street to his place together, and he settled in on the porch with his back against one of the columns holding the roof up.

I found a spot upwind from him.

Robert lit a cigarette, and then he frowned at it. "I must have stopped a dozen times over the years, but I always come back to them, especially in times of stress."

"Are you under any undue pressure right now?" I asked.

"Do you mean besides the fact that my daughter's ex-husband was murdered, and everyone I love is a suspect? What do you think?" he asked as he took another puff. After a moment, he snuffed it out in an overflowing ashtray. "That's all that I'm allowing myself," he said. "It's not a perfect system, but I'm doing what I can to hold it together."

"How's Opal handling things?" I asked.

"I'm worried about her," Robert said.

"Is there any reason in particular?"

"She hasn't been herself since Gordon came back into town," Robert said. "I don't know what's going on with her."

"Do you suspect her of having something to do with what happened to your former son-in-law?"

He took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. "I don't know what to think anymore. Ellen loves her children, and if it were possible, I'd say that Opal loves them even more. What would either woman do to keep them safe?"

"I hate to think either would be capable of killing someone," I said.

"Well, you and I don't know the strength of the bond between a mother and her children, Victoria, no matter how much we speculate."

It was true that I wasn't anybody's mother, at least not yet, but I felt as though I could guess what it must be like. "We might not have children, but we've both been on the other side of that bond. I can say with all certainty that my mother wouldn't do it."

Almost as an unconscious act, Robert reached down, grabbed another cigarette from the pack, and then lit it. "Your mother is a strong woman. She wouldn't sit idly by while someone was threatening you, nor would your grandmother."

"Are you discounting my father and my grandfather?" I asked.

"No, the entire town knows how much those two men love you, but the bond between mother and child is extra special. When Ellen was growing up, I was fine to have fun with, but whenever things got serious, or when she was the slightest bit sick or injured, only her mother would do. To be honest with you, it kind of hurt my feelings at first, but I got used to it over time."

"So, you believe that both your wife and your daughter are capable of murder," I said.

He hesitated, took another drag from his cigarette, and then snuffed it out as well. "It sounds really harsh when you put it that way."

"That's what it boils down to, though, isn't it? It's cold-blooded murder to hit a man in the back of the head with a pipe when he can't defend himself."

Robert frowned and shook his head. "Perhaps, but then again, maybe it is the lesser of two evils." He stared off into s.p.a.ce, and then ran a hand through his hair. The act made him wince a little, and I had to wonder if his bruised hand wasn't still killing him. "I don't know what to think. Do you believe for one second that I enjoy thinking of Ellen and Opal as potential killers? Sometimes I wish that I'd done it for them, so that they'd be spared Gordon's threats."

"Are you saying that you didn't kill him?" I asked. There was nothing subtle about the question, but I was done dancing around it.

"I didn't do it," he said flatly, though he wouldn't meet my gaze as he said it. "I don't suppose that you have any reason to believe me, but there it is."

"Let's say for argument's sake that you are innocent," I said.

I was going to finish the thought when he interrupted me. "Let's not. I'm many things, Victoria, but you can't list innocent among them. I've done a great many things in my time that I'm not proud of, but I've never killed anyone."

"Then who do you think really did?" I asked.

I could tell that he had a solid suspect, at least in his own mind. It was clear by the way his eyes flashed and his lips tightened, but all he said was, "It could have been anybody."

"You were going to say something else for a split second there, weren't you?" I asked.

I honestly thought that he was about to answer, when Opal came out onto her porch across the street. "Robert, we're going to be eating soon. You're welcome to join us."

As he started to stand, Robert Hightower called out, "Thank you. I'll be right there."

As we walked back across the street together, Opal asked me, "I know that you have plans, but are you sure you don't want to join us?"

"Thanks for the invitation, but Moose and I need to go."

My grandfather met me on the front porch, and we thanked the Hightowers for speaking with us.

"We'll be in touch," I said as we left them.

Opal frowned, as though what she wanted most was for us to leave her family alone, but Ellen smiled at us as she joined her mother on the porch.

"If it's okay with you, I'm coming into work tomorrow," she said.

"You don't have to," I said. "Jenny's glad to handle your s.h.i.+ft."

"Tell her that she can sleep in, anyway. I'll trade off with her at eleven when Greg gets there. How's that for a compromise? I swear I'll be more focused tomorrow, and I won't let idle whispers distract me from my job."

"Who's been whispering about you behind your back?" Opal asked, clearly concerned by the thought of someone disturbing her daughter.

"It's not important, Mom," Ellen said with a smile, before she turned back to me. "My mother always did watch out for me."

"Don't forget your dad," Robert said with a smile.

"Okay, my dad, too. I'll see you in the morning, Victoria."

"I'll see you then," I said.

After my grandfather and I headed back to the truck, I said, "Before we go back to the diner, I'd like to go by the murder scene."

Moose nodded. "I'd be happy to, but what makes you think we'll get anything out of it that Sheriff Croft hasn't already discovered?"

"I don't know. Humor me, okay?"

"Okay," Moose said. "It's on the way back to the diner, anyway."

As he neared the alleyway where Gordon had been murdered, I said, "Pull over right here."

He did as I asked, and we both got out and moved to the sidewalk. As I looked up and down the street, I tried to imagine it the day of the murder. It was sometime around the same time of day, and the street wasn't very crowded at all. How did the shops manage to stay afloat? As we walked to the scene, I noticed that the yarn shop had a sign on the door with its business hours. It was closed now, but it had been open the day of the murder. It might be nice to talk to the owner, but I didn't have a clue how to find her.

Moose and I walked a little into the alley, and I wondered where Gordon Murphy had been standing when he'd been struck down. Had he been facing the street, or the alley? That could matter, based on where his killer had stood. There were no windows along the way, just a few solid steel doors that were all closed. Chances were good that no one had witnessed the crime from there.

"It's kind of grim, isn't it?" Moose asked me in a soft voice.

"It's always sad to visit a crime scene," I said, my voice matching his. Why were we whispering? Out of respect? Neither one of us had respected Gordon, but that didn't mean that we couldn't lower our voices because he'd lost his life where we stood.

As we walked out of the alley, we turned toward the hardware store. On a whim, I walked in, but the owner wasn't in his usual spot up front. I asked the young clerk, "Is Jack around?"

"I think he's at the diner," he said with a grin. "You must have just missed him."

"Thanks," I said, and Moose and I left.

"What was that all about?" my grandfather asked me.

"Let's go see if we can catch Jack, and I'll show you," I said.

As my grandfather drove, I said, "It's probably a good idea that we're headed back, anyway. I've got a hunch that my servers could use a break."

"Don't worry about my wife. Martha can handle her end of it," Moose said.

"Maybe so, but Jenny has to be beat. Not everyone can work all day."

"Just you, maybe?" Moose asked with a grin.

"Not even me, not without a lot of breaks. By the way, while I was with Robert, did you have any luck talking to Opal and Ellen?"

"That disappearing act of yours was brilliant," Moose said. "I didn't even think about the possibility of going across the street with Robert."

"That's why there are two of us," I said with a smile. "So, did you have any luck?"

"No, unfortunately, neither Ellen or Opal wanted to talk about Gordon Murphy. Not that I can blame them. The man came back into their lives to wreak havoc, and then someone stopped him from following through on his threats of taking Ellen's children away from her. It must have seemed like a dream come true to them."

"Do you honestly think they were pleased that someone murdered Gordon?"

"I doubt many tears were shed for the man," Moose said.

"Maybe not, but neither woman strikes me as being a cold-blooded killer. The funny thing was that Robert didn't seem to share your opinion of the women in his life."

Moose looked at me sharply. "Did he honestly say that he thought that one of them might have done it?"

"No, he didn't come out and accuse either one of them of murder, but he did imply that he could understand the urge if one of them decided to take matters into their own hands."

"Is there a chance that he was just trying to deflect your suspicions away from him?" Moose asked.

"I suppose it's possible, but it's kind of drastic throwing his wife and his daughter under the bus to save himself."

"People have done stranger things than that to keep from going to prison," my grandfather said.

"He made an interesting point while we were chatting," I said. "He claimed that the bond between a woman and her child is stronger than a father's bond with his kids."

"I don't know if it's always true, but I can see why he might think that," Moose said.

"Do you feel that way about Dad? Is Martha closer to him than you are?"

My grandfather frowned, and for a full minute, I wasn't sure that he was even going to answer my question, but he finally said, "She is, as much as I hate to admit it. I always tended to push your father a little harder than I probably should have. I expected great things from him."

"Is he really that big a disappointment to you?" I asked. I knew that there was an underlying tension between my grandfather and my dad, but I'd never heard Moose state it so boldly.

"Of course not. I couldn't love him any more if he were my own son," Moose said automatically.

"You tell that joke a lot; you know that, don't you?"

"Do I?" Moose asked.

"You do, and to be honest with you, Dad flinches whenever he hears you say it."

Moose frowned, and after a moment's thought, he nodded. "Then I'll have to stop repeating it, won't I? Is there anything else I say that's hurtful?"

"Come on, I didn't mean it that way," I said.

"No, you were right to point it out to me. Thank you, Victoria. Do you realize that you're a point of contention between us, too?"

I looked at my grandfather oddly. "Me? What do I have to do with your relations.h.i.+p with your son?"