1.60 The News!
“How can finding her after twenty years not be the most interesting part?” I queried, putting my fork down on my plate and picked up my coffee. The Daily Harvest and breakfast could wait my Aunt Pearl could not.
“They found a second skeleton!”
Leaning forward in my chair, coffee forgotten in my hand, Aunt Pearl knew she commanded my full attention.
“They found David Waller buried with her. Seems he went missing the same weekend Tiffany did. Police never had an inkling they were connected.” Aunt Pearl paused to take a pan of muffins from the oven, “They questioned Tiffany’s friends again, and they admitted they thought it possible that she was having an affair. But they weren’t sure.” Wearing an oven mitt, she started moving the muffins from the cooling rack onto a plate.
“Were her friends covering for her the weekend she went missing?”
“No, she really had canceled on their beach trip. They thought something was off but didn’t press.” Aunt Pearl placed the plate on the table and sat down across from me, speaking in a low voice.
“Earl {family friend and detective} told your Uncle the search and rescue operation they’d mounted for her in the Cascades, where they found her car, was perfunctory at best. The wildfires in the area provided a convenient excuse to call it off so quickly. Detectives at the time agreed with her father’s explanation that Tiffany left town with her newest paramour and they’d abandoned her car in the lot. She’d walked out on her husband once before and had a string of affairs over their short marriage. The search was organized to placate the paper, not her family.”
I felt supremely glad Earl was on the job now, he’d never let such a pat explanation suffice.
She shook her head and took a sip of her coffee, “I remember her from my class. Smart. Good grades. But always more interested in her male classmates than anything we were trying to teach her. Her father never approved of what he called ‘her running around’, we told him she’d grow out of it.”
While Aunt Pearl’s mind’s eye looked backwards in time, I took another bite of breakfast and tried to pull her away from all the coulda/woulda/shoulda’s, “Do they have a suspect?”.
Looking up from the depths of her coffee she admonished me, “Don’t speak with your mouth full dear.”
She never could resist the bait.
Her eyes gleaming again, “And yes they have a suspect. Her husband! Now, this is hush-hush, they found his wedding ring in the grave with the bodies. He confessed to their murders when he saw it and he also…”
The topic closed abruptly when we heard the groaning floorboards (and human) walking down the hall. Wood, unaware and uncaring of anything outside of the bacon/sausage smells emanating from the kitchen (I am only guessing here), planted himself next to Aunt Pearl and started munching on a slice of bacon snagged from my plate. “No one would guess you are a highly respected doctor by looking at you this morning.” commented my Aunt. He was indeed a sight to behold, having slept in his breeches and linen shirt – his cravat hung like a limp noddle from his neck. Blinking at her he tried to swipe another piece of bacon off my plate – I curled protectively around it fending off his advances.
Laughing I added on, “He’s the cautionary tale old grizzled pirates point out to the young mateys – pace your pillaging or end up a walking wrinkle.” Ignoring both of us, he shuffled to the cupboard and grabbed a plate, saucer and cup then started putting together his breakfast.
“Speaking of pillaging…”, my aunt flipped the paper around so she could read it.
This bodes well.
Her enameled fuchsia fingernail followed the lines of newsprint in front of her, “The police blotter says that officers and security personnel pursued the Three Musketeers thru Nevermore and MacGregor farm last night. And this morning they discovered forty rubber ducks buried in a field. You two wouldn’t know anything about it? Would you?” Aunt Pearl asked dramatically. (I say dramatically because she was ‘reading’ the paper without her glasses, a feat which she hasn’t been able to accomplish for fifteen or so years).
Ignoring our silence on the matter she pressed onwards, “I know we picked you up outside Nevermore, but that was this morning! And you were definitely pirates, not seventeenth-century French soldiers made famous by Dumas!” Did I mention my Aunt still occasionally substituted for the literature teacher at Rye High?
“Look Wood! Uncle’s here!”
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