Rest in Split Peas

by Hillary Avis

  Bethany frowned. “Like how big are we talking?”

  “Fifty Gs. Cashier’s check.”

  “What? No way! I thought you didn’t find her purse.”

  Charley nodded. “We didn’t. It was in her bra along with her cousin’s social security card.”

  “Do you think someone killed her because they wanted to steal the check? That’d explain why her purse was gone. The killer probably assumed the check was in there.”

  “I can’t speculate on an ongoing investigation—you know that.” Charley stood up straight, as if she’d just realized she was there as a police detective and not as a friend of Bethany’s. “So, any reason you know of that she’d have that much money? Recent inheritance, sell a car or home, switch banks, something like that?”

  Bethany shook her head. “I don’t have any idea. Although...Jen said Marigold was going to the bank yesterday morning.”

  “Which bank issued the check?” Milo craned his neck over Charley’s shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of her clipboard. “Oldbridge Federal. Thanks!” He took off for the exit. And once again, any chance at a food feature—or a date—runs out the door.

  “Argh!” Charley glared at his back and couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice. “Reporters.”

  “Sorry. I feel like it’s my fault he was here.”

  “Nah, forget about it. They’re all vultures.” Charley smiled sympathetically.

  “Speak of the devil!”

  Charley furrowed her brow, confused. “Vultures?”

  “No, Jen. Look!” Bethany pointed over to the ticket window, where Jen and Aaron stood in line. They each had a carry-on suitcase with them. “I think they’re leaving Newbridge.”

  “Lucky you saw them. Ms. Smith! Mr. Andrews!” Charley raised her arm like she was hailing a cab. Jen and Aaron looked over and then looked back at the ticket booth. “This will just take a moment.” They glanced at each other and then reluctantly grabbed their suitcases and wheeled them over to where Charley and Bethany stood.

  “Where are you headed?” Bethany asked.

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “We’re not on vacation here. We’re going home.”

  “To make funeral arrangements,” Jen added, her face drawn.

  “I just have a couple of follow-up questions,” Charley said. “I won’t keep you long, but this is important. Do you know why Marigold might be carrying a large sum of money? Family inheritance or something? We found a check on her body.”

  Jen gasped. “You did? No, I don’t know why she’d have money. Her bank account was virtually empty as far as I knew.”

  “Is that all?” Aaron tapped his foot impatiently. “If we don’t get our tickets in the next five minutes, we’ll have to wait an hour for the next train.”

  Charley held up her finger. “One more thing. Along with the check, Marigold also had Ms. Smith’s social security card—I can return that to you now.” She flipped up the first couple of sheets on her clipboard until she came to a plastic baggie. She slid the baggie out and presented it to Jen, who accepted it with two fingers.

  “Thanks.” Jen opened her purse and dropped the card inside, still encased in the plastic bag.

  Bethany gasped. “That’s Marigold’s handbag!” She’d recognize that brand of tacky anywhere.

  Jen clutched it to her side. “It’s mine!”

  “Look, Charley, it says ‘M.W.’ in rhinestones, Marigold’s initials. I know it’s hers because I noticed it when she was buying soup from me on Monday. That’s definitely Marigold’s purse, the one that’s missing from the crime scene.”

  “She left it in the kiosk,” Jen said, covering the monogram with her hands.

  Bethany narrowed her eyes. “You said she went to the bank. Why would she go to the bank without her purse?”

  Charley stepped between the two women. “Bethany, can you please leave the questioning to me? You’re interfering with this investigation!”

  “For your information, she gave it to me! We swapped. She said we’d be handbag sisters.” Jen sniffled and pulled a tissue out of the handbag to dab her nose. “If a purse is missing, it’d be mine. Black, patent-leather, vintage Chanel.”

  Suspicion strikes again, making me look like a jerk. “Sorry,” Bethany said. “I’ll shut up now.”

  “Stellar idea,” Aaron said dryly.

  “Do you know why Marigold would have your social security card?” Charley asked. “Did you give that to her, too?”

  Probably stole it—took it from her own cousin. Maybe Olive was right, and Marigold was just a thief. And maybe she took something that made someone angry enough to kill her—something like fifty thousand dollars.

  Jen shook her head. “It must have gotten mixed up when we switched purses.”

  “Ah.” Charley nodded. “Makes sense. Well, have a safe trip. The department will be in touch as the case develops.”

  “Fine.” Aaron steered Jen back toward the ticket booth, but before they could get more than a step or two, Olive scurried out of the Honor Roll and blocked their way.

  “Oh, you poor dears! I just wanted to tell you again how very sorry I am for everything that happened. I know it’s a lot to ask, but it’d mean so much to me if you’d stay in Newbridge a few more days.”

  Aaron sneered. “Why would we want to spend any more time here?”

  “I’m organizing a memorial for Marigold on Saturday afternoon here at the station. I think it’ll be healing for the whole community. We’ll have some yummy food and then a nice little service where people can talk about their memories of Marigold. The good ones, obviously.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, actually,” Charley said. “We should have the final police report filed by then, so you can at least go home with a complete picture of what happened to your cousin. Some closure.”

  “Well,” Jen began, “you see, we—”

  “We can’t really afford two or three more nights in a quaint little B&B now that we have a funeral to pay for,” Aaron cut in, acid in his voice.

  “Right.” Jen nodded, her eyes sad.

  Olive shook her head and clucked sympathetically. “No, no, that won’t do. You should come stay with me and Garrett. We have a spare room in the cottage now that the kids have all flown the coop. I’ll even make you my special waffles for breakfast. I won’t let you say no!”

  Jen and Aaron looked at each other for a long moment.

  “It’s a great idea,” Charley said. “And bonus, once the final report is filed, we’ll probably be able to release Marigold’s assets to you, too.”

  “You mean the check?” Aaron asked.

  Charley nodded. “She didn’t have a will, so anything that was hers will go to Jen as her next of kin.”

  “That’d help you pay for the funeral,” Olive said. “Please say you’ll stay! It’s only until Saturday, though of course you can stay longer if you want.”

  Jen nodded. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t mention it!” Olive chirped, and bustled them off just as the 10:55 train pulled into the station.

  “Want some stew?” Bethany asked Charley as soon as they were gone.

  Charley wrinkled her nose. “Nah. Oysters are not really my thing.”

  Chapter 6

  Thursday afternoon

  The spicy oyster stew was not the runaway success that Bethany had hoped. For one, ridership on the 10:55 was down—way down—from yesterday, and the 11:55 was only marginally better. Apparently a person getting squashed on the tracks put a real damper on the commuter train business. And secondly, it seemed like fifty percent of customers were like Milo and didn’t like spicy food, and the other fifty percent were like Charley and didn’t like oysters.

  Maybe it was a good thing Milo hadn’t tried the stew. After all, no food feature was better than a negative one. She could see the headline now: “Souperb Soups: Spotlight on Failure.” She sighed. So much for the one-hour workday. She put her elbow on the counter and rested her chin on her hand wh
ile she waited for the 12:55 train.

  Trevor walked by, whistling, and stopped when he saw her glum expression. “Bad day?”

  “You win some, you lose some. Want some oyster stew? On the house.”

  “Can’t. Maintenance rounds. Gotta check the ol’ checklist. I’m just looking for Caboose—he likes to go through the tunnels with me.” He jangled his ring of keys. “Usually this sound makes him come running.”

  “Hey, you got your keys back. Is that what you were looking for yesterday?”

  “Yeah,” he said sheepishly, turning faintly pink. “I was hoping I had an extra set stashed somewhere, but I didn’t. Then I found them when I was taking out the trash last night! Someone threw them away.”

  “You think Marigold tossed them before she went to meet the train?”

  Trevor shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “You’re not even a little curious? I mean, it’s not like she planned to be killed, so why would she throw them away? If she’d had a regular, non-murdered day, you would have come looking for the keys and chewed her out. It had to be the killer who tossed them!”

  Trevor looked skeptical. “Maybe it was just someone who found them on the floor.”

  “If I found a big fat ring of keys, I’d turn them in to the stationmaster.”

  “Well, you’re not everyone, and not everyone wants to deal with Ben.” Trevor scanned the concourse and shook his key ring, still on the lookout for Caboose.

  Wait. The cat had been by the restrooms when Marigold was killed! If Trevor was doing his rounds at that time, why was Caboose prowling around the hallway by the restrooms instead of in the maintenance tunnels? Bethany stood up straight, a burning question propelling her upright. “If you didn’t have your keys until you took the garbage out at night, how did you do your maintenance rounds yesterday? Did you borrow Ben’s keys?”

  Trevor took a few steps toward the kiosk and leaned in, looking faintly ill. In a low voice he said, “Can you keep a secret? I feel terrible—I didn’t actually do my rounds yesterday. I hid in the maintenance closet so that Ben wouldn’t realize I didn’t have my keys. He was already so angry that I’d loaned my keys to Marigold that I was afraid of telling him that she hadn’t returned them. I thought he might fire me, and this would definitely be terrible timing to lose my job. Did you know my wife was due yesterday?”

  “I didn’t know that. So wait, you were lying about being in the tunnels when Marigold was killed?”

  “I only nudged the truth a little bit sideways. I was in the maintenance closet instead of the tunnels. Either way, I couldn’t see anything—I wasn’t on the platform. I wish I had been, though. Maybe I could have stopped it from happening if I had done my rounds.”

  “You realize that means she might have been with someone on the platform.” Bethany shook her head.

  “She should have given my keys back to me! Then she wouldn’t be dead, and I wouldn’t be this close to losing my job!” Trevor pinched his fingers together to show exactly how close he meant. “She’s so selfish! She knew we needed the money.”

  Bethany’s ears perked up. Did Trevor know about the check? “The money?”

  “Yeah, my paycheck. I told her Ben would can me if I didn’t do my rounds. She knew about the new baby and everything. And she still didn’t return the keys. What a piece of work, making me look bad in front of my boss. But I guess the joke was on her in the end.”

  Not a very funny joke. Trevor didn’t seem to care very much that Marigold had been murdered. He cared a whole lot more about keeping his job. Was he willing to kill to keep it, though? It was hard to tell if he was being serious, but he definitely needed the money.

  “Did you know that Marigold had fifty thousand dollars on her when she was killed? In her bra. Murderer took her purse, but didn’t know about the check. Or at least, didn’t know where it was.”

  Trevor’s jaw dropped. “If I’d known she had that much cash, I’d have asked her for a loan!”

  His surprise seemed genuine enough. “Any idea where she got it?” Bethany asked.

  “Nah. Well, maybe she took it from Ben’s office when she went in there to get her bag.”

  She laughed out loud, thinking of Ben with his adding machine. “Since when does Ben have fifty thousand dollars?”

  “Since, uh”—Trevor scratched his head—“Monday afternoon? He got an anonymous donation to the restoration fund in that exact amount. He told us about it at poker that night.”

  “What?!”

  “I know, can you believe that? Someone just giving fifty thou away. Some people are too rich for their own good.” He jangled his keys again, and Caboose came running from the Honor Roll. Trevor glanced at the clock. “About time, you darn cat. Shoot, I have to hustle now to finish up on time. Good luck unloading that oyster stew.”

  Bethany settled her chin back on her hand while she contemplated something uncomfortable—she shared Trevor’s suspicions that Marigold had stolen the check. That wasn’t so uncomfortable, even though she didn’t usually see eye-to-eye with the bumbling custodian. What was making her stomach hurt was that it meant Ben had a real motive to kill Marigold. Bethany realized that for all her nosiness, she didn’t really want to find out the identity of the murder—not if it was someone she knew.

  The 12:55 train came in before she had time to think much about it, and she served a steady stream of customers. By the time the crowd of passengers thinned out, she was pretty much down to the bottom of her pot. Sales were not as disappointing as she thought they’d be; she just had to work a couple of hours longer.

  She erased the chalk board and served herself the last bowl. Even after a few hours on the warmer, the stew was still delicious—fragrant and piquant. Hmm, a food feature wouldn’t have been the end of the world, even if the soup wasn’t for everyone.

  As she ate the last few bites, she noticed Ryan walk through the entrance to Newbridge Station, a watch cap pulled down over his forehead and the collar of his Army surplus jacket turned up. Her first instinct was to duck behind the counter to avoid having another exhausting conversation with him about her soup artistry, but with her luck, he’d probably see her.

  “Ryan!” she called to him as he walked toward the Honor Roll. He startled and looked up. When he recognized her, he raised a hand in greeting. He stopped for a moment, apparently torn about whether to come over to the kiosk or pick up the leftover bread from Olive. She waved at him. “Stay warm out there!”

  He nodded and flashed a brilliant smile before opening the door to the bakery and going inside. She sighed with relief and hurried to close the curtains around her kiosk and hang up the “closed” sign before he came back out.

  While Bethany cleaned up the kiosk, she reflected on the million dollar question about Marigold’s murder. Well, actually, the fifty-thousand-dollar question. Now that she had a minute to gather her thoughts, she reasoned that maybe the dollar amounts were a coincidence. Just because Marigold had fifty K and the donation was fifty K didn’t mean they were the same money. The anonymous donation was probably safe and sound in the historic restoration fund.

  After all, Marigold had been not selling smoothies for months now. She had to have some other source of money to pay her bills. Maybe the check in her bra was just a simple errand—she could have withdrawn her funds to move them to a new account at another bank. Or maybe she was putting a down payment on a house or buying a food truck. There were a million explanations, and it was silly to jump to the conclusion that Marigold had stolen the money from Ben’s office.

  Still...it didn’t hurt to ask if the restoration fund donation was missing, did it?

  BEN WAS LAYING ON THE floor under his desk with one arm flung over his face when Bethany entered the stationmaster’s office. With his other arm, he motioned for her to close the door. “Please tell me you have some good news. Anything. Tell me it’s not going to rain tomorrow.”

  Bethany checked the weather app on her phone. “Sixty percent cha
nce of rain.”

  Ben groaned. “You’re terrible at this good news thing.”

  “Are you lying on the floor because you’re upset about the restoration fund donation being stolen?”

  Ben sat up so fast that he banged his head on the underside of his desk. “How did you know about that?”

  “I didn’t know for sure, but the cops said Marigold had a big check stuffed in her bra, and Trevor said you got a big anonymous donation to the fund. Plus, I knew that Marigold had the keys to your office yesterday. Well, the keys to everything.” She kneeled down beside Ben. “Do you want some ice for that?”

  He rubbed his forehead and stood up, wobbling only slightly. “No, I’m fine. I mean, I’ve been better, but I don’t need first aid.”

  Bethany got to her feet and brushed the carpet lint off the knees of her black jeans. “I guess she took the check when she came in here to get her purse.”

  “Evidently. Trevor really screwed the pooch by lending her his keys. He’s not supposed to let anyone touch them. I’d like to fire the guy, but it’d take weeks to get a new custodian up to speed.”

  “He thought he was helping you out by doing your girlfriend a favor.”

  Ben picked up his desk chair and slammed it down on the floor. “She wasn’t my girlfriend!”

  Bethany put up her hands defensively and took a step back.

  Ben shook his head. “Sorry. People just keep saying that, and it isn’t true.”

  “If she wasn’t your girlfriend, then why didn’t you go to the police when you realized she stole the check?” Bethany eyed the door and mentally planned her escape route, just in case Ben’s temper flared again. He didn’t blow up, though. Instead, he hung his head.

  “Well, I told her about the money at our poker night. She wouldn’t have even known about it if I hadn’t said anything.”

  Bethany snorted. “That doesn’t mean she had a right to take it. I mean, Trevor heard about the donation, and he didn’t steal it. And if he had, you’d have reported him!”