A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

She seems content, Lane thought. Happy to give up everything she did before to be his wife. She wondered how Ivy could go from really important work to keeping house. But, of course, that was what women everywhere were doing. Would it be as simple as that for her? She and Darling had discussed their domestic arrangements. She was certain he would never ask this utter domesticity of her, but did one just slide into it? The husband goes off to work, the wife stays home to tend the house, the garden, the meals. Perhaps it had its compensations. Time alone, so one didn’t lose oneself completely, for example. The trouble was, she did miss it—not the war, exactly, or even the dubious thrill of jumping out of airplanes, but being useful. Offering her skills to help Darling and the police force solve some recent crimes had made her feel useful again. Would he leverage his position as her husband to stop this sort of activity?

Lane turned away from this disquieting line of thought, to find that Ivy had asked about what Lane did before she married.

“I’m a writer, of sorts. I worked in an office during the war, of course, nothing clever like what you did.” Lane tried to sound dismissive to avoid any deeper questions.

“Oh, you shouldn’t denigrate what you did. Every bit of war work helped, don’t you think? I taught men things they thought I had no business knowing. I saw them looking at each other with ‘who does this dame think she is?’ written all over their faces, but after a while, they paid attention, when they found they had to work hard to learn what I already knew. I had a degree in engineering, which is the reason I got that job at the factory. I could do what a man could do, but for cheaper. It’s why I got the war work as well. I had to break information into pieces that people without any college training could understand. The army let me stay on till the end, even though Jack and I were married.”

“Do you miss it?” Lane asked.

“I miss being part of something bigger, the camaraderie. I was happy to discover lots of men who were very accepting of my role, and those of other women. But now we’re thinking about a family.” Ivy tilted her head a little and looked momentarily distrait.

“Oh! Are you . . .?” Lane leaned toward Ivy and dropped her voice.

“Shhh. I haven’t told him yet,” Ivy said, giving her chin the slightest tilt toward her husband. “Not till I’m sure.” She looked down and then glanced at her husband with a look that seemed far from that of a happy mother-to-be.

Dinner was brought out and the metal hoods ceremoniously lifted off their plates. After the appropriate exclamations of appreciation, Darling continued talking to Jack, and between her exchanges with Ivy, Lane could hear that they were discussing the older brother. She looked forward to hearing the full story from Darling later. She was surprised by how much the Renwicks talked about their personal lives. She could certainly not imagine any English person doing the same thing after having just met someone.

“This is so good. It’s a treat to have someone cook for me!” Ivy said. “This is a real roast beef dinner!”

“I’m lucky. Both my husband and I are a little short of culinary skills, so we are learning together. He makes a wonderful steak!”

Ivy stopped her fork midway to her mouth and put it back on the plate, staring at Darling. “He cooks? But he’s a police inspector.”

“I think it relaxes him,” Lane offered, now unsure about how uncommon her worldview might be.

“Jack is a saint, honestly he is, but other than grilling a hot dog outside, I wouldn’t trust him near my kitchen!”

Jack smiled and took his wife’s hand for a moment. “I’d be lousy, and that’s the truth. Anyway, like she said, I’m not allowed near the place!”

“I don’t suppose you could produce a respectable dead body for me to practice my skills on?” Ashford Gillingham said, standing in the doorway of Ames’s office with a piece of paper.

“I told you, Gilly. No wrongful deaths till the boss gets back. Anyway, Nelson’s a small town when all is said and done. People can’t be murdered every day of the week. We’d be a ghost town in no time. Anything?”

“I picked up a couple of clear pads on the can,” he said. “Middle finger, maybe, and thumb. I hand them over to you and go back to cleaning out my files and lining my tools up neatly. Done my job. Yours is to see if you have any matches.”

Ames sighed. “I don’t even have a matching crime on the records. I suspect this is a one-time thing. Miss Van Eyck thinks it was a man she had to put back in his place when he came to have his car worked on at their garage. I should go across and get his dabs and find out where he was between the hours of who the heck knows, but she doesn’t want it followed up on.”

“Van Eyck. Isn’t that the name of the pretty blonde you turned up with at Darling’s wedding? I admire your optimism, Sergeant, I’ll say that! It’s convenient that there’s been an outbreak of crime on her garage door.”

“Yes, thanks, Gilly. If there’s nothing else, I’ve got work to do.”

“Try not to make a mess of this one, too,” Gilly said as a parting shot.

Ames knew he didn’t mean the vandalism investigation, and he thought it an unfair characterization that he “made a mess” of his relationship with Violet Harding. He simply realized they weren’t suited, not that he was going to satisfy Gilly with an explanation, which, after all, he wasn’t entirely sure showed him off in a good light. Maybe he was being too choosy. How could