The Spring Cleaning Murders by Dorothy Cannell Page B

yesterday. It was so sudden and she was so young, darling Jessica! My sister was my only comfort! Vienna was always the strong one. She tried to make me see it was God’s will. But if it was”—Madrid Miller’s face contorted and she twisted her ropes of rosebud necklace into a noose—”he must be a wicked god to let my angel die like that in childbirth.”
    “Childbirth?” I was shocked into momentarily failing to focus on Tam.
    “Technically, complications from.” Her hands now fell limp at her sides. “Jessica developed eclampsia—milk fever is another name for it.”
    “But I thought you said she was only three!”
    “So she was.”
    I could only gape at her.
    “She actually died on her birthday. Such a dear little doggie.”
    “Jessica was a dog?”
    “The dearest, sweetest, kindest little Norfolk terrier that ever blessed this earth. What breed is your boy, Mrs. Haskell?”
    “He’s a boy . . . boy,” I cried, hurrying forward again. “I’m looking for my son, Miss Miller.”
    “Please call me Madrid!” She flung back her hair, which seemed to stretch even longer in the rain, and panted a little, trying to keep up with me. “I must have heard wrong, I thought I heard you shouting Tam, but I suppose it was Tom."
    “His name is Tam. It’s short for Grantham, a family name.
    “Really? I thought it would be short for Tam o’ Shanter. We once showed against a dog of that name, hisgrandfather was a champion, but it hadn’t rubbed off. He was once very rude to one of the judges. Cocked his leg at him.”
    My heart was back in my throat as I dodged through the iron gates of Merlin’s Court, past Freddy’s cottage, and down the drive to the house, which had never looked more like a fairy-tale castle, wreathed as it was in a rainbow so vivid Tam might have painted it. Please, please let him be safely indoors!
    “If your little boy had been a dog,” Madrid said breathlessly, “you could have eased your mind about his running off and getting lost with an identification microchip inserted by your vet. It’s a simple procedure, done by injection and no more painful than the ones he would get for his usual inoculations. Perhaps they can do something similar for children. You should check into it, Mrs. Haskell.”
    We had crossed the courtyard and I was now running ahead of Madrid Miller over the moat bridge. It would have been quicker to have gone in by the front door, had I brought my key. But knowing Jonas might be at the other end of the house and not hear the bell at the first ring, I was about to enter by the garden door when it opened to reveal Freddy and—joy turned me faint--Tam, about to step outside.
    All was quickly explained. Freddy had been driving his motorcycle home from the restaurant when he had spotted Tam trotting along The Cliff Road and had brought him home.
    “On the bike?”
    “I knew better than that.” Freddy’s grin took in Madrid Miller standing at my shoulder. “You’d have had a fit, Ellie, if I’d popped him on my knee and roared on home. I left the bike inside the church gates and piggybacked Tam back here. We made good time, let me tell you.”
    “I had to go pee-pee,” explained my son as I scooped him into my arms. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, Mummy, at that lady’s house. Was you scared?”
    “Very.” I hugged him tight. “We’re going to have to have a long talk about this after I phone Miss Whitcombe and let her know you’re home. What you did, Tam, upset her as well as Mummy.”
    “I didn’t like to tell the lady about having to go pee-pee. So now can I go and watch the lions and tigers on TV with Jonas? Please!”
    It wasn’t hard to imagine what Madrid Miller was thinking. Give her a nice puppy any day. She was a character, all right. And I decided that getting to know her and her sister Vienna would be interesting. In a neighborly sort of way. The beginning would be something as cosily well-intentioned as a coffee