The Case of the Abandoned Aussie

by B R Snow

  “I guess,” Jerry whispered.

  As I watched, it became apparent this wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. Without a doubt, they were one of the weirdest couples I’d ever met. And I’d definitely dodged a bullet by not getting involved with him. If he was willing to tolerate this level of abuse, Jerry was damaged goods. But not nearly as damaged as the whirling dervish sitting next to me and making short work of my breakfast.

  “This is pretty good,” she said, chewing with her mouth open.

  “Look, I need to run,” I said, getting up from my chair.

  “Don’t let me run you off,” Rosaline said.

  “It’s okay,” I said, glancing down at my empty plate. “I have a bunch of dogs who need tending to.”

  “Be careful, Suzy,” Rosaline said, giving me another evil smile. “Try not to get any on you.”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late to worry about that,” I said, heading for the exit.

  Oh, good one. If I’d had a microphone, I would have dropped it. I wanted to sneak a look back to see if my parting shot had hit home with her but kept my eyes focused on the door. I stepped outside into the driving rain. I walked to my car as it poured over my head and shoulders and felt somehow cleansed.

  Chapter 26

  Around our house, Wednesday is movie night. Actually, in the interest of clarity and full disclosure, Wednesday night is WIJ Night. For the uninitiated, a WIJ is a woman-in-jeopardy movie where the heroine is subjected to constant torment and travails as she tries to deal with whatever challenges are facing her. In tonight’s movie, the main character was being stalked by an unknown assailant while trying to convince the police that her friend was being framed for a murder she didn’t commit.

  For obvious reasons, I related quite strongly to the storyline and was rooting hard for the heroine.

  It had poured all day, and it continued into the evening. Outside it was darker than my mood that had turned cranky after breakfast and by the end of the day, had morphed into downright cantankerous.

  But it wasn’t like I didn’t have several good reasons to be in a foul mood. After breakfast, I discovered I had a flat tire. I had my suspicions about how it got that way but no proof. At lunchtime, Chloe had managed to get up on a chair, and then her hind legs to press the button that controlled the automatic door lock system on the condos. We discovered the problem when two dozen dogs were herded by Chloe into the reception area much to the dismay of a nervous Chihuahua and her overbearing owner. After the Chihuahua had shaken violently and then peed on her owner’s lap, they left in a huff and vowed never to come back.

  That was okay with me. I liked the dog and would miss her; the owner, not so much.

  While I was dealing with that mini-crisis, one member of Chloe’s herd had discovered my lunch on the counter and before I could get to it, my second meal of the day was devoured by someone other than the intended recipient.

  During her lunch break, Josie called Freddie, the county medical examiner, to see if we could swing by to take a look at the knife with Chef Claire’s prints on it. But he was out of town investigating a boating accident about twenty miles downriver and wouldn’t be back in the office until morning. Then Jackson had called to tell us that Chef Claire had been denied bail and was being transferred to a woman’s prison outside of Rochester while she awaited trial.

  And just when I’d convinced myself the day couldn’t get any worse I slipped and fell in the mud on my walk up the hill from the Inn to the house. Chloe had decided I needed rescuing and joined me in the mud pile. Then she decided that playing in the mud was more fun than her rescue attempt, so she dug and rolled in the wet mess while I struggled to my feet.

  Josie laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks, a reaction I found particularly annoying, and if it hadn’t been for the meatloaf and mashed potatoes she made for dinner, I probably still wouldn’t be speaking to her.

  An hour and two baths later, I was finally able to kick back in my sweats with a glass of Pinot Noir and see if the challenges presented to the woman in the WIJ were any match for my own. I stretched out on the couch, and Chloe hopped up and draped herself across my legs.

  “No, don’t open that door,” Josie said to the TV. “Don’t go in there, girl.”

  “I don’t think she can hear you, Josie.”

  Josie laughed and leaned down to pet the snoring Sluggo who was sacked out at her feet.

  “It’s nice to see you back in the land of the living,” she said.

  “Yeah, sorry about all that,” I said. “Bad day all around.”

  “Yes, it was,” she said, staring out the window at the rain that continued to pound down. “I wonder how Chef Claire is doing.”

  I winced at the thought of being locked up behind bars. Then I noticed headlights heading up the driveway.

  “That must be Jackson,” I said, peeking through the curtains. “He said he’d swing by on his way home to pick up Sluggo. Just in time, too. Another day with you and he’d never want to leave.”

  Josie leaned over again and scratched the bulldog’s ear. “Wakey, wakey, Sluggo. Daddy’s here.”

  Sluggo snorted in his sleep and rolled over.

  We heard a quick knock on the door followed by footsteps.

  Normally, I would have gotten up to answer the door and greet a guest. But Jackson was considered family. And family members were expected to fend for themselves.

  “Wet clothes stay in the kitchen,” I called from the comfort of the couch.

  “Way ahead of you,” Jackson said.

  Moments later he walked into the living room trailed by Freddie.

  “Good evening, ladies,” Freddie said. “I hope you don’t mind that I tagged along. On the phone, it sounded like you were anxious to see me.”

  Sluggo woke when he heard Jackson’s voice and bounded across the room as fast as he could. Which was pretty slow. We watched the reunion play out as Josie poured wine for them. We put the DVR on pause, turned the TV off, and settled into our seats.

  “How are you doing, Freddie?” I said.

  “I spent all day in a cold driving rain trying to pull two bodies out of a marsh so thick the ducks won’t even go in there,” he said. “But I’ve had worse.”

  We watched as he dug through his work bag and removed an evidence box.

  “Jackson agreed to let me show you this. But not unless he was in the room when I did it.”

  “I’m still not sure why I agreed to it,” Jackson said.

  “Because you can’t say no to us, Jackson,” Josie said.

  “I think I should get a dinner date out of this,” he said.

  “No,” Josie said.

  “How come the word no is so easy for you?” Jackson said.

  “Practice makes perfect,” Josie said.

  “Okay, it’s in a plastic bag, and it needs to stay there,” Freddie said. “You can look, but don’t touch the knife. Got it?”

  Josie and I nodded and followed him to a table where we huddled around him as he removed the sealed bag from the box and placed it on the table. Josie turned on the light above the table, and we stared down at it. There were blood stains on the blade and whatever powder had been used to locate the fingerprints had worked to perfection. Several clear swirls were all over the handle.

  “Okay, that big one near the top of the handle is a thumbprint. It’s a partial, but it’s definitely hers.” Freddie said, using a small flashlight to highlight the print. He carefully repositioned the plastic bag. “And directly underneath that one are three fingers. The pinkie finger wasn’t on the knife.”

  I stared down at the knife and studied the prints. I shook my head, and Josie looked at me.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Suzy,” Freddie said. “They’re obviously Chef Claire’s prints.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they are,” I said, nodding.

  “The
n what’s the problem?” Jackson said.

  I headed into the kitchen and returned moments later with a similar knife.

  “What are you doing, Suzy? There’s no need to kill the messenger,” Freddie said, laughing as he took a step back in mock fear.

  “You’re a funny guy, Freddie,” I said.

  “I try,” he said, giving Josie a quick look.

  I held the knife in my hand the way you would to chop vegetables and extended my hand forward at a ninety-degree angle.

  “The prints indicate that she was holding the knife like this, right?”

  “Basically, yes,” Freddie said, nodding. “So?”

  “So, that’s not the way you would hold a knife if you were going to stab somebody in the neck,” I said.

  “Why not?” Freddie said, staring at the knife.

  “Because it’s awkward. It’s not a natural movement,” I said, thrusting the knife back and forth in the air.

  “Not for you, maybe,” Jackson said. “But for a trained chef with years of experience working with knives, it wouldn’t be that hard.”

  “No, I’m not buying it, Jackson,” I said. “When we found the body in the kitchen, the knife was slightly angled down, right?”

  “Yes, twelve degrees,” Freddie said.

  “That means that whoever did it was standing above Mrs. Crawford,” I said.

  Jackson and Freddie glanced at each other.

  “Maybe a little,” Freddie said.

  “At a minimum, if they were both standing up, Chef Claire would have to have been at least eye to eye.”

  “Yes,” Jackson said. “She would.”

  “Then if I was going to stab someone holding the knife like this, wouldn’t it make more sense to go for the stomach. That would be a much easier target.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Crawford was sitting down,” Freddie said. “Chef Claire said they’d eaten breakfast together.”

  “Yes, but they ate at the kitchen island. You both saw how high those stools are. Chef Claire barely clears five feet in heels. Even if Mrs. Crawford were sitting down when she got stabbed, Chef Claire would have had to strike with an upward motion.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Crawford was already on the floor,” Jackson said, frowning. “Everyone said she’d spent the last couple of days cleaning the house.”

  “Really, Jackson?” I said. “She was on her knees cleaning the floor in the middle of breakfast?”

  “Hey, I’m just thinking out loud here,” he snapped. “Who knows? Maybe she dropped her croissant.”

  “Or maybe Chef Claire was standing on top of the island,” Freddie said.

  Josie made a noise that sounded like it could have come from Sluggo. Freddie turned to look at her.

  “What are you snorting about?” Freddie said.

  “She climbed up on the island?” Josie said. “Next, you’ll have her swinging in on a chandelier like a pirate.”

  “Hey, anything’s possible,” Freddie said. “This is the thanks Jackson and I get for agreeing to show you the knife in the first place? We didn’t need to do that. You two do realize that, don’t you?”

  Nice counterattack, Freddie. Score a point for the ME. Forceful and straight to the point. I realized I needed to calm down and took a few deep breaths.

  “Look, all I’m saying is that if I were going to stab somebody from behind, I’d hold it like this.” I repositioned the knife into my fist and then made a downward stabbing motion. “This is how I’d do it.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Freddie said.

  I laughed and realized that Freddie was starting to grow on me. From the look on Josie’s face, it appeared she was thinking along the same lines.

  “So how do you explain it, Suzy?” Jackson said.

  “The murder weapon was a different knife,” I said.

  Wow. Thank you, Ms. Subconscious. Where did that come from? But it sounded good, so I decided to stay with it.

  “What?” Jackson said.

  “Think about it,” I said.

  I hoped they would. I needed a bit of time to formulate my theory.

  “It could have been the same model and brand. But a different knife. Freddie, were the neck wounds torn and jagged?”

  “Suzy, take another look at the size of that knife. Of course, they were torn and jagged,” Freddie said.

  “Is it possible that the first knife was removed and then replaced with Chef Claire’s after Mrs. Crawford was killed?

  Freddie considered the idea and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, I guess it could have been. If the knives matched and you took the time to position the second knife into the original wound. Yeah, I can go with that as a possibility.”

  “It’s the perfect way to set her up for the murder,” I said. “Anybody around the house would know that Chef Claire’s prints would be all over her knives.”

  “But who would do it? Or why?” Freddie said.

  “I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head. “But I know Chef Claire didn’t kill Marge Crawford.”

  “Mrs. Crawford had just fired her that morning. She’s the only one with a motive, Suzy,” Jackson said.

  “The only one we’ve identified so far. And getting fired is not a motive,” I said. “That was a blessing. Chef Claire could get a job anywhere she wanted.”

  “Maybe,” Jackson said. “I don’t know, Suzy. It seems like a bit of a stretch. But I have to say it’s an intriguing theory.”

  “Thanks, Jackson.”

  “How do you suggest we go about proving it?” Jackson said.

  “I have no idea.”

  Chapter 27

  I left my office and entered the main reception area and watched Jill simultaneously handle a phone call, a check-in, and process payments for two departing guests and their owners. Sammy was playing traffic cop as a half dozen dogs on leashes made their way in, out, and around the Inn. I felt like a proud mom as I watched them and the rest of the staff perform their duties without a hitch and genuine smiles on their faces. We’d come a long way from the early days when Josie and I were pretty much on our own until we’d gotten established. And now the Inn was a thriving enterprise that was considered an important member of the local community. As I watched the hustle and bustle, I had a thought that it might be a good time to start thinking about taking that long overdue vacation.

  Before I had time to ponder possible locations or fantasize about sunny beaches and umbrellas drinks, a cloud of dust coming up the driveway caught my attention. I looked out through the front window and saw my mother climb out of a massive black SUV with tinted windows.

  I stepped out onto the front porch and watched her approach. It looked like it must be a golf day and she was wearing an outfit dominated by pink and yellow. It seemed like something a young girl might wear, but like everything she wore it worked for her. She removed her sunglasses as she reached the front steps and then nodded her head at the SUV.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “What happened, Mom? Did the Canadian officials impound your Ferrari?”

  “Funny, darling,” she said, climbing the steps. “No, after watching a couple of video clips that Jackson sent me showing high-speed car crashes, I knew I had to make a decision.”

  “To act your age, right?”

  “My, aren’t we on a roll this morning,” she said, sitting down and twirling her sunglasses in her hand. “No, the decision to either drive slower or get a vehicle that would provide more protection in case of an accident.”

  “Mom, I can’t begin to tell you how disturbing that comment is,” I said.

  “I’m sure you could, darling. But don’t. I only stopped by to ask you why you aren’t returning any of Jerry’s phone calls.”

  I glared at her only because he wasn’t around to bear the brunt of my anger. He’d called four times since yesterday’s fiasco at breakfast. Each time I’d deleted the call without even bothering to listen to his messages. Now the big baby was again going behind my back and running to my mother
. He’d struck out yesterday morning. Now he’d come to the plate again. Strike one, Jerry.

  “Mom, I have no desire to speak with him. And I say this with all of the love and respect I can muster, but it’s none of your business.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, darling,” she said, smiling up at me. “Of course it is.”

  “Mom…” The combination of tone and my facial expression was the best warning shot I had in my arsenal.

  “Look, darling, he’s about to leave town, and I think he’d just like the chance to say goodbye. That’s all.”

  “So he and his girlfriend have decided to ride off into the sunset together?”

  “No,” my mother said, shaking her head. “In fact, what he said was to tell you that Rosaline had changed her mind and he didn’t have a clue where she was going to go. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Maybe a little,” I said, glancing out over the River. “Has he finished whatever he was working on for you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have it in the car. Would you like to see it?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said, my voice quivering.

  I was unable to maintain eye contact with her. Even though I often jokingly threatened to kill her for some of her actions done purportedly on my behalf, I couldn’t bear the thought of reading a document that would force me to confront the reality that someday in the future she would be gone.

  “Okay, darling,” she whispered as she stood and embraced me.

  A truck with a muffler fighting a bad cold pulled into the parking area. We watched Carl the Gardener hop out, closely followed by the Doberman that had threatened to eat us the night we’d snooped around his house. The dog bounded up onto the porch and sat down in front of me. I assumed he hadn’t forgotten about the cookies. I reached into my pocket, let him take the cookie from my hand, and stroked its head.

  “He’s magnificent,” my mother said.

  “Yeah, he’s a good-looking dog,” I said, scratching the Doberman’s ears.

  “Who’s talking about the dog, darling?”

  I shook my head as I watched my mother prepare for Carl’s arrival at the top of the steps.