Miz Scarlet and the Acrimonious Attorney

by Sara M. Barton

  “Fine, fine. Have it your way. The man I believe is the killer had something wonky with his eyes.”

  “Wonky?” John Bona seemed confused. “In what way were his eyes wonky?”

  “Um....” I gave it some thought. “He was wearing one of those ski masks that only have an opening for the eyes.”

  “A balaclava.”

  “Okay, if you say so. Anyhow, since all I could see were his eyes, I noticed they didn’t match.”

  “Was there a scar by one of them?”

  “No, I don’t think the irises matched. One was greenish and one was brownish.”

  “Oh, that’s a benign condition called heterochromia,” Vinnie Homs announced. “Do you remember which was which?”

  I tried to conjure up that image in my mind. “His right eye was brownish.”

  “Okay. I guess that will be all for now, Scarlet.” The detective stood up, setting his briefcase on the table briefly, so that he could pack away his iPad. “I’m going to give you my card, just in case you remember something else that might help us identify the man.”

  I took it from him and tucked it in my pants pocket. “Thanks.”

  “By the way, that was a good point you made about the knife.”

  “Thanks. Let me walk you to the door.”

  Chapter Ten

  I rejoined the ladies in the living room as soon as I saw the two cops out of the Four Acorns Inn. My brother Bur was already there, regaling the Googins girls with the highlights of his day. He had them laughing.

  “So, did you survive your interrogation?” he queried me.

  “Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, the detectives and I had a decent conversation.”

  “In other words, they aren’t going back to get an arrest warrant for you, Miz Scarlet.”

  “No, smart ass, they are not. I did remember something important, though, about the man in the garage. He had two different color irises. One was brownish and one was greenish.”

  “Isn’t that rather exotic,” Lacey cooed, “and helpful.”

  “My goodness, yes,” my mother concurred. “It’s interesting that you noticed it, Scarlet.”

  “Well, when he ran straight towards me, I noticed his eyes looked weird.”

  “At least that will help eliminate a number of suspects,” my brother remarked. “It’s probably not all that common.”

  After dinner, while Bur and Kenny watched the Knicks game on TV, I did a few Google searches. I started with heterochromia. It was fairly rare as far as eye conditions go. I decided that was a good thing and moved on to Grimacing Grimshaw himself.

  For a lawyer, it was rather odd that the man had no social media presence. His law firm had a Facebook page, where he was briefly mentioned, but he apparently didn’t have one of his own. He was definitely not a Twitter-er. But I did find something interesting in a little local newspaper down in the Florida Keys. A few months ago, C. Philip Grimshaw caught the largest sailfish to win the top prize of thirty thousand dollars.

  “Whoa! Who knew fishing could be so lucrative?”

  I continued to check public information on the acrimonious attorney. He had also entered competitions for kingfish, redfish, snook, barracuda, tuna, mahi mahi, wahoo, and even snapper. I kept on searching and found that over the past year, he had entered at least one fishing championship every month.

  “Maybe he was hooked. Ha-ha!” A second or two later, I gave a snort as I recognized my unintended pun.

  “Who was hooked?” Kenny sauntered into the library.

  “Grimshaw. He was a fisherman.”

  “Despite the humor that I am forced to admit is rather witty, I am lodging a protest.” He peeked over my shoulder and gave me a poke. “Please tell me you aren’t investigating Grimshaw’s murder.”

  “Your wish is my command,” was my reply. “If you want me to tell you that, I will.”

  “Scarlet!”

  “Kenny!”

  “How many times can we have this conversation? You need to keep your sweet little nose out of murder cases that could get you killed.”

  “Oh, hush!” I scolded him in the voice I had used on my students back in the day when I taught high school. “Come and sit down. I want to show you something interesting.”

  “I think not.”

  “Please? I really do think I’ve found something. It might be a motive. And it’s right up your alley, given the fact that you are an experienced investigator. You, of all people, should be able to tell me whether or not it’s relevant to the case.”

  He humored me with the usual heavy sigh of resignation. I could tell he was already rehearsing his “You should not involve yourself in police business!” speech. But this time around, I was fairly certain he would change his tune. If there was one thing Kenny loved, it was killing time with a rod and a reel.

  “Okay. Lay it on me. What’s this big discovery of yours?”

  “I think this is about money.” I went back through my web pages history to show him how many tournaments Grimacing Grimshaw had entered in the Florida Keys over the last year. Kenny kept a running tally of the purse amounts. When he added them up, the grand total was impressive.

  “Well, butter my buns and call me a Parker House roll.” He scratched his head. “That’s quite a haul.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” I stared at the photos that showed the late lawyer holding up his winning catch. In each of the shots, he wore wild tropical print shirts and vividly colored shorts. “It’s almost like he’s a different guy. And in a way, I guess he is. Look at the name he used for this one.”

  “Pip Grimshaw. It sounds rather Dickensian, doesn’t it?” Kenny gave me a little roll of his eyes. “Maybe he had decided to get out of the courtroom and fish full time, Scarlet.”

  “Could he make enough money doing that?”

  “If the prize money was significant, he probably could have.”

  Kenny started a search on his Smartphone, while I continued on the ancient Mac. We trolled through all of the newspaper articles about the big sports fishing competitions in Florida, trying to understand just how profitable the sport might be. And then my eye caught a headline that was intriguing.

  “Wow. Some guy got caught cheating during a billfish tournament and lost almost three million dollars.” I was stunned. “That’s an insane amount of money for a fishing tournament.”

  “No kidding. Show me the article.”

  As he read, his eyes grew wide with wonder. For a moment, I had a flicker of doubt about his motives. Did he want the information because of the case or because he thought he might enter the contest next year as a competitor? Before I could ask, he clarified his perspective on the matter. “Now this is the kind of thing that brings out the worst in people. Do you have that card for the Hartford detective?”

  “Vinnie Homs? Sure. I’ll be right back.” I stepped out into the hallway and crossed into the laundry room. I unlocked the cupboard and retrieved my purse. The card was still in my wallet. I was gone less than sixty seconds.

  “Here you go.” I held it out to Kenny. He never even bothered to look up at me.

  “Can you please get him on my phone, babe?” He was busy was writing something down on a piece of scrap paper.

  “Did you find something?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. I looked at the screen. There was C. Philip Grimshaw in yet another fishing tournament, this one with a fifty thousand dollar first prize.

  “How many times can a guy win in a year? He’s the Fish Whisperer on steroids.”

  “There’s an understatement.” Kenny pushed his phone across the desk. “Do you mind?”

  I picked it up and dialed. The homicide investigator answered on the third ring. “Homs. Homicide.”

  Poor man. It sounds like he’s so cold that he’s shivering. Homs. Homicide.

  “This is Scarlet Wilson. I have someone here who wants to speak to you about the case.” I handed Kenny’s phone back to him, hoping to glean some little tidbit from their
conversation. After they got through the introductions, Kenny got right to business.

  “I think I’ve got a possible lead on today’s murder,” he told Vinnie. “The decedent was an experienced sport fisherman. In the last year, by my estimate, he won at least two hundred and fifty grand on that front.”

  “He did?” I asked.

  “He did?” said the tiny voice coming from Kenny’s phone.

  “It looks as if he started the year using the name C. Philip Grimshaw, but later on, he went by Chester Grimshaw and Pip Grimshaw.”

  Kenny had an explanation for why Grimacing Grimshaw used so many aliases. There was an incident in April.

  “It seems that if you or anyone in your boat throws a line into the water before the actual start of the tournament, you are disqualified because it draws in the fish. How big was Grimshaw’s catch? Oh, it was a whopper...a marlin over seventy five pounds. It was the biggest fish caught at the tournament. It must have put up quite a fight. But he lost the top prize when it was revealed that he cheated.”

  Grimacing Grimshaw was a cheater? That actually did surprise me. I didn’t like the guy, but he didn’t strike me as dishonest.

  Kenny stood up and did what he always did when he was excited about a case. He started pacing back and forth. He walked over to the window and peered out as he talked. He turned around and went to the bookcase, scanning the hundreds of titles in the Wilson family library. And then he went over to the sofa and perched on the arm.

  “He was fishing with three other men. The rule is that if one person in the boat cheats, they’re all disqualified. Well, Grimshaw had the biggest marlin, but he lost the title because of the cheating allegation. I just thought you should know about this, in case it’s relevant to your case. Yes, I know. I’ve told Scarlet that. She knows that it’s not a good idea to go digging around in a viper pit.” He had the nerve to look me in the eye as he said that. “Sure. Let me give you my contact information.”

  News flash, Captain Peacock. You haven’t put a crimp in my amateur sleuthing. There’s no reason why I can’t gather public information on the case. How can that possibly get me killed? Do you think the man in the black ski mask is going to toss a computer at my head? Ha!

  By the time he finished his call with Homs from Homicide, they were both very excited about the possibility that the murder had something to do with this fishing angle. No doubt Vinnie was a dedicated weekend angler too, and that made him more than willing to delve into the deep end of the ocean to get answers.

  Kenny gave me a smile as he rose to his full height, stretched his lean frame, and then pocketed his phone. I fully expected him to go back to living room to watch the rest of the Knicks game, but I was wrong. He parked himself in my chair and started a new Google search.

  “Do you mind?” I gave him a poke in the back.

  “I just want to check a couple more things here.” He continued to type in search terms. “Can you please turn on the printer?”

  “Right now?”

  “I’m hot on the trail, Scarlet.”

  “But halftime must be over by now,” I reminded him. “You’re missing the game.”

  “Yeah, well...we’re talking about the Knicks, honey pie. They just blew a ten-point lead in the second quarter.”

  “So?”

  “And there are three guys sidelined by injuries. The fat lady has sung her aria on that game. Come here a second,” he beckoned me. “We know that there was at least one time that Grimshaw was caught cheating. But could there be other reasons why he would keep changing his name?”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re consulting me about the murder?”

  “Sure. Why not? You’re smart and you have good insight into human behavior. I respect your for your mind and your body, love. You’re not just a pretty face.”

  “Where’s the ‘but’ in that sentence?” I demanded, still not sure he was serious. How many times had he put the kibosh on my efforts to solve a murder? I lost count a long time ago. And why was he trying to flatter me? He was up to something. But it was obviously too good an offer to refuse. I grabbed the opening Kenny gave me and ran with it, with as much enthusiasm as little January does when she gets a bone. And like any self-respecting Jack Russell terrier, I wasn’t going to be persuaded to drop it any time soon.

  “Okay, let me think.” I gave it my best shot. “Maybe he’s tried to keep people from publicly tracking his wins by entering the tournaments under the different aliases because there is an ex-wife or two waiting for alimony or child support. Or he owes money to someone else, someone who expects him to pay up. Maybe he has gambling debts.”

  “Any other reasons?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to be found in Florida because he was supposed to be somewhere else at the time.”

  “Okay, let me take a whack at this. I wonder if he was going through a divorce and he was trying to squirrel away some money to finance his new single life,” Kenny speculated. “Or maybe he had a mistress he was keeping on the side and she expected him to provide her with a lush lifestyle.”

  “Grimshaw?” I made a face. “He’s not exactly what I would call a great catch.”

  “Is that another fishing pun?”

  I shook my head, smiling. “No. I just can’t see him as some suave Dave, picking up ladies like he’s Bachelor of the Year. Dare I say he had all the personality of a dead fish?”

  “That good, huh?”

  “His people skills were sorely lacking. But here’s a question I would love to have answered, Kenny. Did he give me the bum’s rush to get me out of the office because he had a planned meeting with his killer in the parking garage?”

  “Hmm....”

  “Or was he trying to escape his killer by leaving the office early because he was warned the guy was coming for him?”

  “Those are two questions, two different scenarios, babe,” he pointed out. But I could tell he was intrigued by the notion that Grimacing Grimshaw’s death was inevitable under the circumstances. “You believe the killer intended to kill him.”

  “I do. If you saw the knife, you’d understand why.”

  “It was a deliberate attack.”

  “Yes. You don’t just go walking around Hartford with a knife that big. People would freak out if they saw you.”

  “It wasn’t a fluke that Grimshaw wound up dead.”

  “Fluke? Was that another fishing pun?”

  “Not really. In other words, this was personal.”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “For whatever reason, the killer was determined to kill Grimshaw and only Grimshaw. He didn’t even try to harm me.”

  “That means there has to be a connection between the men, Miz Scarlet. They somehow knew each other.”

  “Yes. I keep coming back to the fact that the killer came back for the briefcase and the wallet after the police arrived at the parking garage. He was willing to risk his safety to get those items.”

  “But he didn’t get caught.”

  “No, he didn’t. He got clean away.” I stared down at the photo of C. Philip Grimshaw in Islamorada. Even though he knew the camera was capturing his image, he wasn’t smiling. “Kenny, do you know what else was weird?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The killer....”

  “You mean the suspect,” he corrected me.

  “Fine. If we must, we’ll call him the suspect. He grabbed a guy and forced him to put on his blue ski jacket and black ski mask, and then he stole the man’s car.”

  “Carjacking is a serious crime.” A frown crossed Kenny’s face. He leaned back in the chair. “So he’s a suspect in both a murder and a carjacking.”

  “But how did he get the car owner’s cooperation if his hunting knife was still in Grimshaw’s chest?” I wanted to know. “He must have had a second weapon.”

  “Huh.” Kenny wrote a couple of words down on the notepad on the desk. “He came prepared. He was expecting trouble.”

  “But we know that robbery wasn’t the
motive.” Now it was my turn to pace the room. Kenny leaned back in the desk chair, watching me.

  “Do we?”

  Yes. The police recovered the briefcase.” I told him about the claim that my fingerprints were all over it. “And the wallet still had a couple hundred dollars in it.”

  “I can see now why Homs thought you were a potential suspect. This whole case is....”

  “Bizarre.” To me, that one word summed it up perfectly.

  “It is,” he concurred, bobbing his head up and down. “I think I’d like to know a little more about C. Philip Grimshaw.”

  “Oh?”

  “And I know exactly how I’m going to get my foot in that door.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m officially investigating the attorney on your behalf, because we have reason to believe you might be at risk as the result of finding the dead man”

  “Sneaky.” I gave him a big grin.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Scarlet, there’s reporter from WVIT asking for you,” my mother informed me the following morning, as I brought fresh coffee to the Googins girls, who were having their breakfast. She waved the cordless phone in the air.

  “Thanks.” I set the carafe down on the dining room table and took it from her.

  “Oh, they want to interview you,” Lacey announced eagerly. “You should change your clothes, dear. Put on something more alluring.”

  I put my hand over the mouthpiece, to save the caller from having to listen to the two ladies discuss my possible TV appearance. “I should dress for a phone call?”

  “No. I’m sure they will send a reporter and a cameraman here to the inn to speak with you. You know, Laurel, if they hurry, they can run the piece on the news at noon.”

  “She’s right,” my mother agreed. “Wear that pink blouse you have.”

  “Gee, while you’re at it maybe you two could get me booked for an appearance on Good Morning, America. Feel free to discuss it while I take this call in the other room.” I got all the way to the dining room door before my mother had a comeback.

  “Sarcasm does not become you, daughter. It makes you sound grouchy.”