“What do you think?” Cat asked.
I thought, The people who work for you look slightly mischievous and perhaps dangerous, but possibly fun to be around. I said, “I will definitely refer you to anyone wanting more than donuts and beverages at a catered event.”
Even though I would not be helping with the catering at Samantha and Hooligan’s wedding reception, I could tell them about Cat’s Catering. First, though, I’d have to be certain that no one from Cat’s Catering had bashed Rich over the head or would wield their other deadly kitchen tools around reception guests. I asked Cat, “Did you see Rich’s cottage, too?”
“No. Where is it?”
“On the other side of the lake from his house. A mile or so by road, closer by water.”
I couldn’t tell if her laugh was amused or an attempt to cover guilty knowledge. “That’s convenient!”
Yes, I thought. Maybe too convenient for at least one person. I told Cat that I’d fetch Tom to see her video.
Smiling, Cat thanked me.
She didn’t look like a murderer.
Chapter 24
I was tending the fryers when Tom returned to the kitchen with Cat’s empty coffee cup. “She’s heading to work. They’re catering three different parties this evening.”
Cat looked back as she opened the front door. We exchanged friendly waves.
I asked Tom, “What did you think?”
“We could work with them.” Tom could work with anyone. “She has a steady hand except when she’s walking up a hill. She could have skipped that part.”
“I noticed that, too. She might have taken that video so she could ‘prove’ to the police that she left the area before the murder. Then she could have stopped the recording, turned around, and gone back to Rich’s place and killed him. She was in a perfect position to determine that Rich was alone. But why would a caterer do something that would end a party before it began? It hardly seems like the world’s best marketing ploy.”
“Hardly. And did the driver of the van participate in the murder? If so, what was his or her motive?” Some people would have made those questions sound sarcastic. Tom was sincere.
I told him Cat’s story about losing money after the banks switched Christmas party caterers. “Maybe the driver of the van lost out on expected pay that night?”
Tom gently arranged donuts cut with zombie cookie cutters, complete with outstretched arms and unsure, staggering legs, in a frying basket, keeping them far enough from each other so that their arms and legs wouldn’t attach themselves to other zombies in the hot bubbling oil. “People have killed for less, I suppose, but usually in the blind rage of the moment.”
I held up a finger. “Maybe that’s it. Rich constantly handed out insults and backhanded compliments. Maybe right before Cat and her driver left, he said something that enraged them. Rich was smiling and waving when they left, but that’s how he was. He probably didn’t realize he was insulting. It seemed to be part of his personality. Maybe he was congratulating himself for giving what he considered to be valuable advice.”
“If Cat and the van’s driver turned around and went back and killed him, wouldn’t she have edited out the part of the video showing that she and the driver appeared to be the only people there besides the victim?”
“Maybe she left the empty driveway in the video because everyone would think that a killer would not have shown that Rich was the only other person around.”
Tom guffawed. “You’re like Alec, always coming up with devious motives for people.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
The grin Tom threw me was tinged with the grief we would always share. “It was meant to be. Why don’t you call Brent and tell him about the video? Things have settled down in the dining room for the moment.” The zombies in the oil were puffing up and beginning to look threatening. Tom turned his face toward Jocelyn and Nina and raised his voice slightly. “Jocelyn and Nina can handle nearly anything.”
“I heard that,” Jocelyn said.
Calling over my shoulder, “You can!” I went around the half wall and past the serving counter to the office.
As usual when Dep saw me tap my phone’s screen, she tried to help. I thought she believed that my friends were inside the phone, and she might be able to help them escape. It often worked. She heard their voices, and they showed up at the door shortly afterward.
This time was no different. Brent said he could use a walk, and he’d be right over. “Meet me in the office,” I told him.
Leaving Dep peering into her basket as if Brent might be in there among the toys and could be persuaded to come out and hug her, I returned to the dining room and refilled coffee mugs.
Brent passed the patio and headed up the driveway toward the parking lot and the rear of our building.
I unlocked the office door and let him in. Purring, Dep rubbed against the legs of his dark gray pants until he picked her up and let her spread cat hair over his suit jacket, too. I noticed his tie and burst out laughing. Grinning white skeletons danced with each other on the tie’s black background. “Sophisticated,” I managed.
“We can always use a little whimsy in a roomful of cops.”
I teased, “A roomful of cops is already whimsical.”
I was happy to see the twinkle in his gray eyes. “Thanks.”
“Have you made any charges in Rich’s murder?”
The twinkle disappeared. “No. And we don’t seem about to. But maybe you found out something important this morning?”
I gazed out toward our nearly full parking lot. “Cat from Cat’s Catering showed me a video she’d made. That skillet was nowhere in sight, and Rich was alive when she and whoever was driving their van were leaving.”
“I’ve seen the video.”
That slowed my rapid-fire commentary. “Oh. You probably figured out that she might have thought she could use that video as an alibi.” Then I went back to talking fast. “She showed the van from the inside as it was leaving, but she and whoever was driving could have returned to the scene after she stopped recording. Maybe they went around the lake to Rich’s cottage for the skillet—”
“Whoa.” Brent gently plucked Dep, who looked about to climb to the top of his head, off his shoulders and cuddled her like a baby in his arms. “Other employees of Cat’s Catering reported that Cat and her driver returned to their shop at ten after eleven, so even if Rich had brought that skillet to his party, they hardly had time to find it and kill him with it.”
I suggested, “Maybe they went back.”
“They couldn’t have. They left immediately in another van that Cat’s employees had loaded, and Cat and her driver arrived only a little late at their eleven-fifteen engagement, which, they admitted, they managed to do only by breaking a few speed limits. The client at their next job, an engagement party, corroborated their time of arrival.”
That deflated me. “They didn’t act on their grudge against Rich for breaking his contract for his Christmas party?”
“We’ve pretty much cleared them.”
“I’m sorry for bringing you out on a wild-goose chase.”
He held Dep up to his face. “Don’t be. I appreciate your help. You never know what piece of information will be the one that ties the evidence together. Besides, I needed the walk.” He nuzzled Dep. “And the cat.” Dep purred.
She was still purring when he set her on the couch and I let him out the back way. “See you tonight.” He walked down the driveway and disappeared north on Wisconsin Street.
Maybe he should have stayed a little longer.
Terri Estable came in.
Wearing tight jeans, a sleeveless pink top, and the cowboy boots I’d seen on her lawn the evening before, she sat at the table where Cheryl and Steve usually sat, near Nina’s huge painting.
Pasting on a smile, I asked what she’d like to eat and drink. As Cat had, Terri wanted a pumpkin spice latte. She ordered a Boston cream—not scream—donut to go with it.
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Back in the kitchen, I asked Nina to cover one of her Boston scream donuts with more fudge frosting and turn it into a Boston cream one for Terri. Grinning, she said she would. I prepared the latte and took it to Terri along with her donut with its reconfigured frosting.
She asked me, “Are you allowed to sit down on the job? I’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m allowed.” I sat in the chair across from her.
She stirred her latte. “I wanted to thank you and the tall girl with the cheekbones and big eyes over there in the kitchen. What you did last night, bringing me donuts and helping clean up the mess, was thoughtful. I’m sorry I was too upset to thank you properly.”
“You thanked us. And besides, we weren’t there for thanks. We were doing what people do, bringing food for when unexpected company drops in after a tragedy. We didn’t know we were going to help clean up a mess, but we didn’t mind. We’d have done it for anyone, and you probably would have, too.”
The tears pooling on her lower eyelids looked real. “It’s been terrible. And when I think of how Derek must have treated that beautiful bowl that Rich was going to give me twenty years ago, I just start shaking. It could have been broken. Now it’s one of the best things I have to remind me of Rich.”
I centered the cream pitcher and the sugar bowl on the table. “Why did you leave the bowl with Derek?”
“I never did.”
That didn’t surprise me, since Nina and I had first seen that bowl after Rich had supposedly “stolen” Terri from Derek.
However, Rich could have given Terri the bowl Monday evening or Tuesday morning. But if he did, why had she avoided telling us? If she and Derek had only pretended to break up and had conspired to kill Rich, I could believe she had taken the bowl she thought of as rightfully hers and left it at Derek’s. But then, was dumping her things on her lawn merely part of an act? I asked, “Didn’t you say that the things Derek dumped on your lawn were things you’d left at his place?”
“Yeah, but that was before I discovered the bowl in the pile. I don’t know where Derek found that bowl. I guess it was in Rich’s cottage when we rented it. I don’t think Derek was ever in Rich’s house. Not legitimately, anyway. I also don’t know why he took that bowl. How would he have known it was expensive? He’s not, like, into art, and he had supposedly stopped stealing things long ago. That just goes to show how you can think you know someone when you don’t, and how you can think that someone is reformed when he isn’t. Boy, was I ever wrong about Derek.” Her shoulders slumped.
“Did you see that bowl when you were staying in the cottage with Derek and his friends?”
“No. But I didn’t snoop around.”
Based on her reaction when she spotted that bowl among her belongings on the lawn, she truly had not seen that bowl for twenty years. Either she hadn’t looked inside the cabinet containing the platters when she was staying in the cottage, or Rich had put that bowl there after he kicked Derek and his friends out and before Nina’s and my first tour of the place. But I only asked, “How did Derek get to and from the cottage for your shortened week there?”
“On his motorcycle. I rode on the back.”
“Could he have carried that bowl on his motorcycle when you left the cottage after Rich put a stop to the party?” Nina and I had seen that bowl after that, so I knew that Derek hadn’t taken the bowl then, but I wanted to know if carrying it—or a large skillet—on Derek’s motorcycle was possible.
Terri’s nod was almost too emphatic to be believable. “Sure. Derek’s bike is big, with lots of those hard compartments on the sides and back like saddlebags and a trunk.”
I didn’t think any of those compartments could have been big enough to hold that skillet, but there might have been other ways to carry that skillet on a motorcycle. The skillet might have fit inside a cello case, but probably would have required one for a bass, which would have been difficult to balance on a motorcycle. And where would Derek have gotten the case, and if he had, what had he done with it afterward?
It still seemed unlikely that he had carried that skillet on his motorcycle. As I’d theorized before, he could have used another mode of transport, like the canoe that had been conveniently left on the dock at Rich’s cottage.
I asked Terri, “How did you carry the things you needed for the week, like clothes and food?”
“Two of the other guys tow trailers behind their bikes. They brought the food. You know, chips, beer, cereal, cookies, and those little dried sausages.”
I couldn’t help making a slightly disgusted face. “Was that all you ate?”
“Yeah.” It was no wonder that she hadn’t opened kitchen cabinets. She explained, “Derek and his friends planned the menu.”
After five days of that diet, they should have been thankful they were kicked out. I attempted a neutral expression. “Does Derek have one of those trailers?”
“No. He let me use one of his saddlebag thingies for my clothes, but he didn’t open the other compartments when I was around. I wonder if he took other things from Rich’s cottage that day, maybe to sell. And maybe he dumped that bowl with my things last night in hopes that the police would arrest me for stealing it. Ha. That would have backfired. Rich willed it to me along with the house and cottage and everything in them. They’re mine.”
Or they will be, I thought, if you didn’t kill Rich. Murdering people for their belongings was frowned upon. However, Alec had believed that people got away with murder more often than anyone knew.
Terri added, “I can’t help wondering if I made a lucky escape from Derek. I hate to even think it, but maybe he killed Rich. He probably didn’t mean to kill him, but only to, like he said, make Rich sorry for taking me away from him, but something happened, and he accidentally killed Rich.” She covered her eyes and sniffled.
Was she telling me what actually happened, except that she, not Derek, was the killer?
She stirred her latte, clanking the spoon against the mug. “I mean, why did he show up at the party? It wasn’t like he was invited.”
I hadn’t believed Derek when he’d told me that Rich had invited him, but I asked her, “Could Rich have invited him when you weren’t around?”
“Hardly. He didn’t talk to Derek after Derek came in here and yelled at us. Rich was with me the entire time after that until he sent me out canoeing the next morning.” She wiped her eyes. “If only I hadn’t gone canoeing, if only I’d disobeyed Rich and stuck around, Rich would be alive right now. I wouldn’t have sneaked peeks at the party preparations. I’m sure Derek meant to crash Rich’s party. It was like Derek thought if he showed up after the party was supposed to start, people would believe he had come out to the lake that very minute when he’d really been there all along.”
It was kind of close to what I thought about Terri returning from canoeing shortly before the party was scheduled to begin. I asked, “Did you see Derek anywhere near the lake before he showed up at Rich’s?”
“No. I was out in my canoe, and it was too foggy to see anything.”
I reminded her, “You said you heard at least one other boater.”
“Yeah. Someone with an aluminum canoe who wasn’t good at paddling, at least not paddling quietly.”
“Did you hear a motorcycle while you were out there?”
She gazed across the room toward the wall between the dining area and the hallway leading to our restrooms. “I might have. I’m not sure what all I heard. When I listen for birds, I block out other sounds, you know?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have those talents.”
She must have realized she had contradicted herself by saying she heard a canoe and could tell by the sounds that the canoer wasn’t an expert, but she hadn’t heard a motorcycle. With her brows lowered in an earnest expression, she leaned toward me. “But maybe I don’t block out sounds from other boats when it’s foggy. You don’t want to risk colliding with another canoe and maybe capsizing.”
Had she seen me ou
t on the lake the night before last in my kayak? I realized I was leaning back as if preparing to deny everything.
“You know,” she said slowly, “I said I was out on the lake the entire time between when I left Rich and when you saw me come back, and that’s what I told the police.”
Exhaling, I nodded.
“I lied.” The tears spilled over. “I wasn’t out there the entire time.”
Chapter 25
Was Terri about to confess to killing Rich? I wished I was facing Deputy Donut’s kitchen instead of sitting with my back to it. I could have signaled to Jocelyn or Nina to come closer and eavesdrop. Or to call Brent . . .
Diners talked and laughed. Cutlery and dishes rattled. As far as I knew, no one was paying attention to Terri and me. “What do you mean?” I asked softly.
She twisted her napkin around her fingers. “I wasn’t canoeing that whole time. I went ashore for part of it. I saw Rich’s neighbor, Hank, out on his lawn, and I wanted to talk to him.” She set the napkin down.
Watching it slowly uncurl, I avoided looking into Terri’s face in case she would feel freer to talk.
She poked at the napkin. “See, a long time ago, about ten years before Rich’s wife died, Rich was in charge of loans at Fallingbrook Mercantile Bank. I was Rich’s executive assistant. Hank came in and asked Rich for a second mortgage so he could buy a cottage across the lake. The cottage had just come on the market and was for sale for an amazingly low price, like the people who had inherited it were from out of state, you know? And they wanted to get rid of it. So, Hank wanted to buy it. He applied to Rich for a second mortgage on his house so he could afford the cottage.” She took a deep breath. “What Rich did next wasn’t very nice, but he was my boss, you know?”
I nodded, even though I was sure that none of my bosses had ever done anything even remotely as sleazy as what I suspected Terri was about to tell me Rich did.
“He went out to Hank’s house. I went with him because, well, I often went on those appraisal trips. Rich was teaching me all about banking. I followed Rich around while he dictated notes. While we were there, Rich saw a photo on Hank’s piano—did you know that Hank’s a retired concert pianist?”
Boston Scream Murder Page 18
