by Doug Lutz
“Nice move, lady—I mean, Winnie. But you could have hurt yourself hanging out the window like that. What if you fell out and lost consciousness?”
“I would have been okay. You could have always given me mouth–to–mouth resuscitation, you know.”
My college roommate once told me I was the biggest flirt she had ever seen. I would need to write her a letter, telling her I was now much worse. That’s what happens when you live in a small town with a limited supply of eligible bachelors, I guess.
He tipped his hat once more. “I suppose I should just say thanks. At least the cars are moving and we can get there before Captain Larson blows another gasket.”
“So, Officer P. Williams. If I were to call you by your first name, what would that be?”
The truck came to an abrupt halt; empty soda cans in the back of the truck bed rattled toward the cab. “We’re here. If you’re coming, you better move a little faster,” he said. I loved a man who played hard to get. Two could play at that game, though.
“Ahem!” I waved my hand at the door.
Officer Williams took the hint, quickly walking around the front of his truck and centering himself at my door. He pulled on the handle and ushered me out. “I’d throw a cloak down, but they’re not allowed in uniform.”
“Thank you, sir.” We may have been in a hurry, but I didn’t want to waste an opportunity to show him I was a lady. This wasn’t Flirting 101; this was graduate–level flirting, if anything.
“This loading dock looks deserted,” I said. “Are we in the right spot?”
Officer Williams flipped open his phone. A few seconds later, he was speaking. I worried when he lowered his voice, turned away, and then pointed back at me.
As he ended the call, the thick steel door sealing the loading dock opened, its panels creaking from a lack of lubrication. Pulling down on a massive chain to lift the door was the strongest man in Seaview, probably the entire Shore. It was James Billy Larson, captain, Seaview PD. I had waited on him at the café, and I noticed he never seemed happy. And I never asked him why.
For a guy who could qualify for an old–age pension, with 240 pounds of pure muscle, J. B. Larson saw no need to press a button to lift the door. Brute strength would be faster. Once the lowest door panel cleared his field of vision, the man’s face changed to more of a scowl. His eyes were dead set on me, and he was not happy.
“Winnipeg Kepler. Why am I not surprised? Parker Williams, this will go in my report, and it won’t look good for you unless you keep your girlfriend here away from my crime scene.”
“Yes, sir. I understand, but when you mentioned Velma Kepler was a suspect, perhaps having her granddaughter here might make her more willing to cooperate? And we only just met, sir. No dates, and nothing planned. Just business, sir. Police business.”
Parker. Nice name. Nothing planned?
I interjected, not so much as to save Parker, but to better position myself to figure out what was going on—Velma Kepler and suspect in the same sentence.
I pushed past Officer Williams—ah, Parker, I should say now. “Captain, you are so right. I think I should be over by my grandmother, for emotional support. She is a senior citizen, after all.” Seeing the man take a step back after my comment about age, I had to do fast damage control. “But, a young one, though. Much older than you. Right?”
“We are the same age, so don’t press your luck. Everyone is in front of the stage, so go there and sit down by your grandmother. And don’t bother asking your parents to come help, either. Just because they grew up here, they thought they could solve every crime faster than we could. I threw myself a party when they moved to D.C. Now? I’d rather call a psychic than deal with them again.”
As we walked through the wings behind the stage, the Captain took photos. By the time we stepped into the flood of the stage lights, I saw my Velma over by a row of chairs placed at the front of a makeshift stage. Next to her were three other cooks—other competitors, I assumed.
It was high time to start my investigation.
3
Three rows of five chairs each had been reserved for the competitors. When the contest had started two days earlier, each chair had been filled. Now, after two elimination rounds, only the top four chefs remained. The fifth seat in that final row was now empty.
Sitting in the gallery, perpendicular to the competitor chairs, was a group of ladies, impeccably dressed like they were heading to church. They were the judges, I presumed, and they did not look too comfortable. The heat from the stage lights was intense; each judge had a makeshift fan made from a leftover program.
“Captain Larson, sir, is the victim a chef? I see a vacant chair, but didn’t want to make an assumption.”
“Yes, Miss Kepler. The deceased is in the break room and his name is Pierre St. Pierre. A simple stabbing like this one does not require your help. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have to get on with our official police business. Officer Williams, remember what I said. Report. Ending. Bad for you. Add it all up and see what you get.”
Just the mention of the dead chef’s name caused a stir. Competitors and judges alike started murmuring about how the man “got what he deserved.” This day was turning ugly fast.
I turned and made my way past Parker to find my own seat. I took the liberty to whisper into Parker’s ear. “Hey officer, help a girl out? Add that up and we’ll see what you get.”
He nodded, cracked a slight grin, turned another shade of red, and moved quickly to his Captain’s orders.
Velma looked at me as I sat down beside her. She gave me the high eyebrow. I hated that look, and received it often.
Without waiting for her to ask, I explained. “I just wanted to ensure the little details were noticed. Could make a difference when it comes to the courtroom. And I am getting the feeling you are a suspect, so I’m not taking any chances. I told him I would greatly appreciate it if he rose to the occasion, even if it meant a negative report.”
“I didn’t realize you loved Parker so much, Winnie. That’s so sweet. When did you all start dating?”
“Love? Dating? Hardly. I served him coffee and a peanut butter sandwich a few minutes ago. Granted, he’s not half–bad looking, I’ll admit, but right now I just want him to help, especially since the Captain and his poor attitude won’t. I doubt anything will come of it—me and Parker that is. You know what I mean.” I was getting myself so confused, I wasn’t sure if even I knew what I meant.
“Of course, if you say so, dear. In the meantime, we do need to contend with this situation. It has gotten a little out of hand. Bless his heart, the Captain does seem to be sort of one–sided in all of this, doesn’t he? Once the investigators from the VCID get here, I think we’ll be okay, though. They are on the way, from what Grimsby tells us.”
“Grimsby?”
“Drake Grimsby. The contest organizer this year. If you ask him, he’ll tell you he’s an expert. In everything. Even if you don’t ask, he’ll tell you. He even claims to have a contact at the VCID, the Virginia Criminal Investigation Division.”
Velma explained that the contest had problems from the start. A chef in the first round had been caught cheating after Grimsby found some extra ingredients in the man’s carry bag. The offense resulted in disqualification, since every ingredient was to come from the sponsor. Anything different would be deemed ineligible—even if it tasted better.
Velma pointed to the abandoned cooking station next to her own. “Then Pierre St. Pierre stirred his own pot. He argued with Emperor Grimsby, and screamed out about MegaFood’s lack of certified organic vegetables and their use of BPA in their ingredients.”
Velma stopped her explanation, shrugged her shoulders, and said she thought BPA was something Roosevelt had created when she was a child. In any event, she concluded by saying Pierre threatened to put down his knives and refused to cook.
“Grandma, was Pierre’s complaining the only problem? Doesn’t seem enough for a murder. There must be som
ething else.”
“Well,” she replied, “some people may have heard me threaten to kill him. But, I didn’t mean it like that, you know.”
“You threatened to kill a man and now he’s dead? Grandma, that’s the kind of little detail I was talking about. What, exactly, did you say? And why did you say it?”
“It was that nasty Grimsby boy’s fault. At the start of the third round, we had ten minutes to look at the ingredients in the pantry and the cooler we were allowed to use. Plus, we had to plan our menu. It was to be the final round, a three–course, all–American picnic. I had decided to make fried chicken on a stick, a cold potato salad, and my famous apple pie for dessert.”
“And why were you mad at Drake Grimsby? He wasn’t even cooking, only announcing.”
“See all the cameras? He’s making a feature film or something. I think he made sure there were just enough of each popular ingredient so contestants would end up fighting over them.”
Velma leaned over and whispered into my ear, saying, “I heard him talking on the phone to one of the network men. Said he would take care of Pierre to increase the program’s ratings.”
She continued, “All of a sudden, the whistle blew and we were off to the pantry to get what we could carry. I had to find the chicken before anything else. You can’t have fried chicken on a stick without chicken, you know.”
“Did Pierre fight you for it?”
“Oh, no. We didn’t come to blows. In fact, I didn’t pay attention to what Pierre was doing. There wasn’t any time. I simply picked up enough for my menu plan; he went for the apples, as I recall. I didn’t give it a second thought. Once we were back at our cooking stations, Grimsby tried to get me all riled up. He said Pierre took all the apples just to spite me. Grimsby was full of that silly talk.”
“But you mentioned you wanted to kill Pierre?”
“Well, I think Grimsby did some sort of hocus pocus with a microphone to make it sound like I threatened to kill Pierre.”
I stood up and walked over to Captain Larson. He scribbled on his legal pad as I asked him about the situation. I took a gander at his notes, but there was no way to read those frontways, backways, or sideways. The ancient Phoenicians would have been proud of his handwriting technique.
“Captain Larson, sir. Is there anything I can do help?”
The man put down his pen, slapping it onto the yellow pages with a sharp pop. He took a deep breath; you could hear him counting to ten as he let the air escape his lungs. I had no idea how I had so upset him with my first of many questions.
“You may want to find a lawyer. We haven’t arrested your grandmother yet, but after the boys from the VCID get here and confirm my suspicions, she will need some sort of representation. You’re a college girl. Did you manage to get a law degree?”
Not another member of the college girl club, I sighed. “No, my focus was on business. I specialized in figuring out what makes people tick. What makes you tick, Captain Larson? And why do you think there are only boys in the VCID? A big guy like you, are you afraid of women?” I was pushing all of his buttons. The more upset I could get him, the more likely he would divulge his strategy. That is, if he had one.
The legal pad and the accompanying pen went flying across the stage. The poor girl behind the main camera leaped out of the way as the missiles went careening into the production desk sitting off in the wings, stage right. She responded just as I would have— with a salute of sorts. I got the impression she was not happy with any of the goings–on here. How could I blame her?
The Captain took in a huge breath, then exhaled with enough force to blow a pile dust bunnies around the floor. “We have all the proof we need for a jury to convict your grandmother of murder. It’s all on tape. Now go sit down before I charge you with interfering with an official investigation. Has anyone seen my notebook?”
The camera lady kicked his legal pad, sliding it back across the wooden floor. She then picked up a remote control device, pressing a few buttons. All of a sudden, every stage light above us focused on the poor Captain. He was temporarily blinded, which frustrated him even more. Don’t mess with girl power.
I walked back to Velma, who was now sitting comfortably as she knitted a purple something or other. Velma loved to cook, but she was a knitter at heart, through and through. Her yarn bag went with her everywhere, even to a cooking competition. A morbid thought raced through my mind as I watched her click her little stitch counter to keep track of the progress on each row.
“Before you ask,” Velma said, “these knitting needles are blood free. I don’t know exactly how Pierre died, but I would never ruin a good pair of needles on an old buzzard like him. By the way, I spoke to the sponsor about you needing a job. They didn’t have anything open at the moment, but you may want to drop off your résumé before this is all over. You never know, right?”
I clasped Velma’s hands, gently thumbing along the gemstones of her bracelet. The last thing I wanted to see was my own grandmother trading in her warm red agates for a pair of cold nickel–plated handcuffs.
“Grandma, you’re not the kind of person who loses their cool. I’ve seen you mediate the weekly tiffs between some of those church lady judges when they come in to eat lunch. I just can’t see you falling for a ratings trap sprung by some smarmy contest producer. And Grimsby? Don’t I know him, or at least his family? I’ve heard that name before.”
Velma tilted her head toward the show’s producer, whose bald head was shimmering from sweat, the result of standing too close to the focused stage lights. As the man pulled a handkerchief out of his desk drawer to clear his brow, he began to argue with his camera technician. If I heard correctly, Drake was blaming her for several poor–quality camera shots. He didn’t seem to be a very positive person, at least to me.
Velma answered my question. “You are probably thinking of Janet Grimsby, his mother. She and I took first and second place at every cooking contest the fair could come up with. It was always me first, Janet second. We were unstoppable. Poor woman passed away before she could win one, though. Anyway, her son isn’t nearly as civil as Janet. He asked me if I wanted to kill Pierre because of the apples.”
“And you said no, right?”
“Well, yes, but not exactly.”
The Captain’s cell phone started ringing. The entire room became silent as we all heard Larson, now standing over by the producer’s desk, explain to the caller how Velma’s threat against Pierre was captured on video. I then realized the situation was much worse than I had originally thought. At the first opportunity, I would definitely need to find a lawyer.
Parker, seeing my concern and my frustration about not having access to all the evidence, intervened. “Captain, could I see the other evidence? I was wondering if Velma had been seen holding the murder weapon.”
I couldn’t believe Parker would side with the enemy so quickly. His chances for a first date were pretty much gone now.
Then, after he winked at me, I realized he was giving me the chance to see the video. Parker must have known there was no way his boss would let me stroll across the stage and cross–examine his theory.
Grimsby’s camera technician brought a video monitor over on a cart and, finding the controller’s battery now dead, rummaging through the desk’s top drawer to find a backup unit. Once she had one in hand, it took only a few clicks for the playback to be queued up and ready to go.
Soon enough, the playback showed Velma confronting Pierre and saying, “I want to kill you, Pierre!”
“That’s not what I said,” Velma protested. “Mr. Grimsby here must have done some sort of trick to make it sound like that. Those were not my words—exactly.”
Unfortunately, the other contestants, still sitting in their assigned chairs like good little students, had remembered hearing similar words come through the big speakers on each side of the stage. At face value, this was not looking good for Velma.
Larson quietly repeated Velma’s words as he tr
anscribed them into his report. “Velma, you and I go a long way back, and we’ve always, well, mostly always been on good speaking terms, so I am not placing you under arrest—yet—but very shortly I may be advising you of your rights. You may want to do yourself a favor and start now.”
“Start what?” she asked.
“Exercising your right to remain silent. And it would be nice if your granddaughter followed the same advice.” The man scowled with torment in his eyes as he glared at me. I could not tell if he was upset Velma had murdered someone, that I was there to interfere, or because he really didn’t want either of us to be involved.
As for Velma’s supposed guilt, I was not yet convinced. While the Captain stepped away to take another phone call, I reviewed the digital drama a few more times, hoping to find some sort of clue that could clearly vindicate my grandmother.
After Parker and I had finished watching the opening few minutes of the competition again, I asked the camera technician, a woman about my size but at least twice my age, if I could see the playback from the break room. “After all,” I said, “this is where the murder seems to have taken place. It only makes sense to take a gander, right?”
The technician was very cooperative, I thought, because I acknowledged the skill required of her craft. Everyone likes to be appreciated for their work, and this lady was no different. It was just unfortunate she chose to work for an idiot. Mental note: talk to her later. Maybe she could film a commercial for the Cat and Fiddle?
I could see that Drake was taking this poor woman’s work for granted. Then again, maybe it wasn’t personal. Perhaps he had a character flaw? Did he take all women to be second–class humans, or worse? As I saw the man, now using the camera’s lens as a mirror, start to comb his thinning hair, I corrected my judgment—he had more than one character flaw.
I glanced over at the Captain, who was looking down, still speaking to parties unknown over his cell phone. I shuffled my feet an inch at a time, rotating my front away from the head officer. Eye contact would have ruined everything. I did not want to draw attention.
