Murder On The Half Shelf

Mary shook her head furiously, jumped up from her stool, and scurried around the cash desk. She grabbed Tricia’s arm and began to steer her toward the door. “Tricia was just leaving.”

“I don’t think so.”

Mary stopped dead, and the hairs on the back of Tricia’s neck bristled at Luke’s tone.

Mary turned to face her husband. “It was just a matter of time, Luke.”

A matter of time? Tricia felt confused.

“I will not cover up for you again,” Mary declared.

Luke’s expression changed from feigned puzzlement to cunning. “A wife can’t be made to testify against her husband,” he said smugly.

“Who says I’d be coerced?” Mary countered, although her voice wavered.

Luke’s eyes widened in anger. “You are my wife and you will do as I tell you…or do you want to suffer the consequences?”

Tricia’s head was spinning at all this. “What’s going on?”

Mary turned to her with anguished eyes. “I can’t believe I’m saying this…but it could only have been Luke who killed Mrs. Comfort.”

“Why?” Tricia asked, stunned.

“He was missing at the time of the murder. I didn’t think anything of it when he asked me to lie for him.”

“Why did you have to lie?”

“Because I didn’t want his children to know.”

“Know what?” Tricia demanded.

“That their father had started smoking again.”

Confused, Tricia couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “What?”

Tears flooded Mary’s eyes. “That’s what I thought! When he came back in I smelled cigarettes on his breath. I…I never thought. I would never have believed he could have hurt, let alone kill…” Her choking words came to a halt.

Luke was silent, his mouth a thin line, his eyes blazing.

Tricia shook her head. “Smoking? Why would he kill Pippa?”

“Oh,” Mary cried, frustrated. “It has nothing to do with smoking, and everything to do with who Mrs. Comfort used to be.”

“A Playboy bunny?”

“No, the driver who ran my wife down,” Luke cried.

Tricia looked from him to Mary, puzzled.

“Not Mary,” Luke said testily, “my first wife!”

“But I thought you said you and Luke had been married half your lives,” Tricia hissed at Mary.

“Yes, but not to each other.” She turned back to her husband. “Joanna’s death was an accident! She was distraught. She jumped out in front of the car. The police ruled her death a suicide. Even the jury in the civil suit agreed.”

Luke kept shaking his head in denial, his expression one of pure hatred. “I never forgot that woman’s face.”

“But Luke, she didn’t mean to hit Joanna. She stepped out in front of the car. It just happened to be poor Pippa who hit her.”

“That woman took the best part of my life from me.”

Tricia noted Mary’s expression change from sympathy to annoyance.

“Haven’t I given you at least one minute of pleasure in the fourteen years we’ve been together?”

Luke turned to her. “I was lonely. I missed my wife. I needed someone to take care of me and my home.”

“Is that all I’ve meant to you?” Mary cried. “A maid and a sexual substitute?”

Luke said nothing, but his expression-lifeless eyes and a slack jaw-said it all.

Tricia wished she were somewhere else. She backed up a step.

Mary’s mouth trembled and her voice was shaky when she spoke. “And to think I actually lied to protect you.”

“Lied how?” Tricia wondered aloud. “Did you know Pippa was responsible for Joanna’s death?”

Mary shook her head. “Not when I first spoke to Chief Baker.”

“When did you find out?” Tricia asked in spite of herself.

Mary glared at her husband. “This morning. I found him looking at newspaper clippings. He kept them in a scrapbook. I’d never seen them before today.” She shook her head. “That’s just sick, Luke. That’s really, really sick.”

“I’m not sick,” Luke declared angrily. “It might be sixteen years, but I grieve every day for the loss of my wife- the love of my life.”

Mary’s anguished expression was painful to witness. “In all the years we’ve been together-for all the things we’ve suffered together-didn’t it mean anything to you?” she tried again.

“When I said ‘I do’ to Joanna, I meant it forever.”

“And when you said it to me-what was that worth?”

Luke wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Mary took several gulping breaths, her eyes brimming with tears.

Luke glanced over to Tricia and seemed to realize what her being there-hearing that conversation-meant.

Tricia took another step back.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Luke said.

“Are you insane? You can’t hurt Tricia,” Mary said, aghast, and scrambled to step in front of her.

Luke rushed forward, shoving them back and pinning Tricia against the big display window. His arms swung like pistons, aiming for Tricia’s face, but Mary did her best to protect her, taking most of the blows herself. Both women were screaming, trying to shield themselves from his furious bashing, when the door burst open.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Pixie screamed, and rushed at Luke, who shoved her aside, knocking her into a metal rack filled with knitting patterns. It crashed to the floor, with Pixie following.

“Get out, Pixie, get help!” Tricia hollered, but instead Pixie wriggled out of her big bulky coat and struggled to her feet. She let out a terrible wail and leapt at Luke, her right leg flying high into the air and striking his head with an audible crack, making him stagger into the cash desk.

Pixie was a blur of motion as again and again her legs hit her target-front kicks, side kicks, back kicks- pummeling a quickly punch-drunk Luke, who finally crumpled to the carpet.

“Enough, enough!” Tricia cried, and grabbed Pixie by the arms, hauling her back.

“I was just getting started,” Pixie cried, her chest heaving from exertion.

“Do you always attack first and ask questions later?” she tried again.

“Only when I see my boss being beaten. Take that, you bully.” Her leg lashed out again but this time missed. She made another lunge, and Tricia had to haul her back to keep her from starting in on Luke once again.

“Whoa-whoa!” Tricia cried.

Mary crouched down to help her husband, taking his bleeding face in her hands. “Luke-are you okay?”

“Better call 911, Tricia,” Pixie said, and then seemed to realize that it would mean cops would be arriving. “Holy crap! I think I’ve just blown my parole.”

“No, you haven’t. I’m going to make sure the Stoneham police know you saved us from goodness only knows what.”

Tricia grabbed the wireless phone on the cash desk and punched in the numbers.

“Aw, crap!” Pixie yelled even louder, looking down at her dress. The old threads on the vintage seams had popped on both sides, leaving her standing in her slip and nylons. “That’s the end of this dress.”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Tricia said.

“But I only wear vintage clothes,” Pixie protested.

“Then I’ll buy you an old one.”

TWENTY-NINE