Free Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) by E. E. Kennedy Page B

He’ll eat half a loaf if I’m a judge of big boys like him.”
    I couldn’t think of what to say. I stared at the table.
    “Golly, Miss Prentice, what is it?” Hester pulled a chair up and laid a warm, damp hand on mine.
    In fits and starts, I told her about Vern’s appointment with the police.
    “Is that all?” Hester laughed heartily. She stood and hastened to retrieve the toast as it popped up. “Don’t you worry yourself about that. Why, if I got that shook up every time one of Bert’s people got invited to visit the police, I’d be old before my time, that’s for sure.”
    She laid the plate of toast before me, accompanied by the jar of apple butter and the butter dish. “There, get some sugar into you. You’ll be right as rain.” She poured me a tall glass of milk. “And you need this to go with it.”
    She was right. The homely snack was apparently exactly what I was craving. I dug in hungrily and thought about asking for more once I’d finished this portion.
    Hester shook a generous amount of scouring powder into the sink and continued her commentary. “No, you don’t want to borrow no trouble yet. Why, years ago Bert’s father was over to that place all the time.” With a large sponge, she began scrubbing enthusiastically. “Didn’t do him no harm.” She held up the dripping sponge. “Maybe you heard that he did a little bootlegging out of Canada.”
    I nodded, because my mouth was full. I had heard. She had told me on the occasion of our first meeting.
    Hester chuckled. “That dad of Burt’s was a case, all right.” She put down the sponge, rinsed her hands, and came over to the table. “There wasn’t a place on a car that he couldn’t fiddle with and hide stuff in.”
    “Bootlegging never made sense to me,” I said. “Those bottles of liquor must have been bulky and noisy, clanking together. A lot of trouble, and there’s always a chance you’ll go to jail.”
    “It wasn’t only bottles, y’know. It was money, too, to pay for the booze. The old man would drive up with cash stuffed in all these little cubbyholes—in the seat padding, behind the glove compartment, even in those convertible tops they had back then, y’know, with pleats in ’em. One time he was on the border near Champlain and it started to rain, and the border guy says, ‘Aren’t you going to put the top up?’ and Bert’s dad had a heck of a time trying to explain why not. When they finally made him open it up, the money fell out!” She laughed. “That story’s my favorite. I can’t swear any of ’em is true, but I get a kick out of ’em.”
    She returned to her sink cleaning, tossing her comments over her shoulder at me. “What I mean to tell you is, don’t worry. All’s they’re going to do is ask questions, and all’s he has to do is say he don’t know.”
    “Don’t—doesn’t know what?”
    Hester shrugged. “Does he know the Rousseau boys?”
    “Yes, he’s been tutoring one of them in French. But what could he tell the police?”
    “Who knows?” She squeezed out the sponge and rinsed her hands. “It’s just a fishing expedition,” she said with a sage squint. “That’s what they call ’em on the TV, fishing expeditions. Trying to find out stuff anywheres they can.”
    She took a clean kitchen towel and dried out the sink. It seemed like a self-defeating task to me, but Hester was an expert housekeeper and knew her job far better than I.
    “Mind you, I knew Martin Rousseau in high school. That’s the father, y’know. Could’ve been sweet on him, too, but he never really fell for a girl till he met that Aimee.” She folded the towel and made a face. “You said it A -may, not A -mee like regular people. She was way younger than him, and kind of full of herself, y’know, and spoiled. That was a one for the movie stars, that girl. Named her babies after two of ’em: John Travolta and that guy, what’s his name, in The Graduate. Martin took over where her dad left off,