A Deadly Inside Scoop

by Abby Collette

  “This isn’t telling us anything, you know.” I grabbed the papers from the printer and stacked them up.

  “We found out he had been in jail.”

  “That’s not surprising.”

  “And we found out about his other crimes. Other than what he did to your family.”

  I shook my head. “We need something else. Something more.”

  “Well, you’re going to talk to Ms. Devereaux, right?”

  “Yeah. I guess.” I pressed my lips together and let my eyes drift. “I just think I need to find out more on the victim if I’m going to find out who the killer was. Someone who knew him. Or knows where I could find out more about him than this.” I waved the small stack of papers we’d printed. “You know, like a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.”

  “We have a guy like that.”

  “Who?”

  “O.”

  I sucked my tongue. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “He used to be a police officer. Now he’s a lawyer—”

  “Law professor,” I interjected.

  “And he told us how to find information on Dead Guy.”

  I looked at her with a deadpan face. “He is not a go-to guy.”

  “And he likes you.”

  “He does not like me, Maisie,” I said. “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “He’s come in to the shop every day,” she said.

  “To buy ice cream,” I said.

  “Who buys ice cream in the winter?”

  “Oh my gosh, Maisie,” I screeched. “I’m banking on people buying ice cream in the winter.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “But you should call him.”

  “What? Why would I call him?” She wasn’t going to stop with this guy. “He can’t help, Maisie. We need someone who might know what this man was up to that got him killed.”

  “We don’t know anyone that knows him.” She looked at me sheepishly. “Except . . . maybe your family.”

  “Oh my goodness!” I turned and faced her. “Maisie, we can never tell my family that we are doing anything that concerns Stephen Bayard.”

  She nodded, her red ringlets bouncing. “Okay. Okay.” She held up her hands, gesturing a surrender. “I know.”

  “It seems like just the mention of him sends my family over the rails,” I muttered. “It’s like they’ve turned into a family hit squad. My mother saying just the sight of Stephen Bayard will send my father into a murderous rampage. My father acting suspicious after the guy turns up dead—showing up in non-work attire, without a car, and late. My mother saying I didn’t have anything to worry about. Then PopPop coming down to the ice cream shop, hanging around, camping out at tables like he’s in the mafia. I felt like I should be serving spaghetti with marinara sauce.”

  Maisie started giggling.

  “It’s not funny, Maisie.” I shook my head.

  “Yes, it is.” She covered her mouth with her hand, but all her giggles squeezed out from behind it. “I’m sorry, I can’t stop laughing. I’m just picturing your mother in a hit squad and PopPop in the mafia. ‘Mr. Bayard’”—she was trying to imitate PopPop’s voice—“‘I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’”

  “Yeah. Don’t picture that.” I shook my head more vigorously, giggles starting to bubble inside of me as well. But by shaking my head telling Maisie to stop, I must have shaken something loose, because just then I had an idea.

  * * *

  - - - - -

  It was Family Chef Night at my parents’ house.

  Once a month, one designated family member took the role of head chef, and the rest of us acted as sous chefs. We cooked and dined together—a Crewse gathering of culinary delights. Or disasters. More often than not, the fare for the evening was served after we’d made a big mess, spilled liquids and burned food. But we happily sat, no matter the outcome, around my parents’ twelve-foot table, complimenting the chef, eating, laughing and reminiscing.

  It was the perfect time to corner a brother and find out what he knew about Stephen Bayard. The only question was which one I would pounce on . . .

  My brothers, four, six and eight years older than me, were a font of information on things gone by. One of them, unbeknownst to him, was going to be my “go-to guy.” That had been the idea shaken loose after my conversation with Maisie.

  I stuffed the papers we’d printed into my knapsack, and Maisie and I left the library. I didn’t tell her my newly revised plans. My brothers were very protective over me. It would take all my baby-sister skills to get them to talk. Maisie wouldn’t help that cause.

  They had been the ones to pull me in my red wagon to the ice cream shop, they’d taught me how to get down the falls on a cardboard box, and it was they who rode in the car with Dad, following me on my first date.

  Sometimes they forgot I was all grown up now.

  “You’re going to your parents’ tonight, right?” Maisie asked.

  “Yep. Gotta go and get ice cream for dessert first. It’s been a long time since we had some made in the store.”

  “Okay, see you tomorrow,” she said, and waved a mittened hand to me.

  I headed back to the store, filled up two gallon cartons and headed up the hill. I put my hands to my mouth and blew warm air into them. It was cold out, so cold I felt like I was going to turn into a Popsicle.

  My oldest brother, James Graham Crewse, named after my father, was in sports medicine. He was the worst cook of us all. We dreaded Family Chef Night when it was his turn. He, however, never could see (or taste) how awful his creations were. He lived in Orange, the next suburb over, but worked downtown. His patients were players from the area’s sports teams—the Browns, Cavaliers and Indians.

  Most times I had to remind him he wasn’t my father. But when he was around, I didn’t have to worry about a thing. He had my back and had always been the one I went to for advice when Dad wasn’t available. And being the oldest, he’d probably remember the most about “the incident” with Con-Man-Puppy-Guy. But James was also the most stuck-up. I didn’t mean that in a bad way. He was just so serious. About everything. Too serious to entertain a hypothetical about Dad being in danger of being arrested for murder and my needing to play amateur sleuth to help him. Especially if I had enlisted Maisie to help. He thought Maisie was a bundle of fireworks hovering over an open flame. He said no one would ever know when her fuse would catch fire or what direction she’d take off in. She was festive, he said, but potentially dangerous.

  The next oldest, Llewellyn Jackson Crewse, “Lew” for short, was a dentist. He had a small practice and kept us all with beautiful, straight white teeth.

  A dentist . . . I thought as I trudged up the hill, not worried one bit about the ice cream melting. I wonder, does he have access to succinylcholine? Hmmm . . .

  “Oh geesh!” I said, and stomped my foot.

  I was supposed to be finding a way to prove my father’s innocence, and here I was thinking that maybe my brother had done it.

  Then there was the youngest of my older brothers. Robert “Bobby” Bantham Crewse. He was still able to put a “Dr.” in front of his name. Bobby had gotten a doctorate of nursing at Case Western Reserve and opened a clinic. The same one where my father volunteered once a week. The only medical member of the family who didn’t have a big practice and a big bank account, Bobby was all about helping the homeless, being an activist for those less fortunate and making sure that everyone, no matter their station in life, counted. He’d help anyone with whatever he could, and he was not only funny, but was a lot of fun.

  Only, I knew as soon as I told him anything, he’d tell Dad or PopPop. He couldn’t help it, he was like a sieve—everything just ran out of him. Just being in close proximity to my father and grandfather made him w
ant to tell everything he knew. My mother had tried unsuccessfully to get him to stop by bribing him with gifts and candy, but he’d go and tell them that, too.

  Asking him to tell me what happened when Stephen Bayard came to town and not let my dad know I’d asked was completely out of the question.

  I pushed open the front door and could hear and smell the start of what I knew was going to be a fun evening.

  I smelled onions and green peppers simmering, and bacon sizzling and popping in my mother’s cast-iron skillet. I didn’t know what was on the menu tonight, but I was already hungry for it and for the company of family.

  “There you are!” my mother said, and came over and hugged me.

  “Took you long enough,” Lew said. He came over and took the ice cream from me.

  “I had to walk up the hill carrying all of that.” I pointed to Lew, who was putting the ice cream in the freezer.

  “Walk?” my mother said. “Didn’t I see your car at the shop today?”

  Everyone stopped and looked at me. “Ahh! I forgot!” I said, slapping my hand on my forehead and meeting each of their eyes. “I’m so used to walking.”

  My father and my brother James looked at each and shook their heads. Seemingly silently agreeing that their girl still needed their help.

  “It’s alright, Pumpkin,” my daddy said. “I can drive you back down the hill to get it after we eat.”

  I looked over at Lew. He, I decided, was the one I was going to needle for information. “That’s okay, Daddy,” I said, then smiled at my middle brother. “Lew can take me.”

  chapter

  TWENTY-SIX

  On the ride down the hill, sitting next to Lew in his car, I got nervous. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to broach the subject. Hey, Lew, I need you to help me prove that our father isn’t a homicidal maniac.

  I turned to stare at him, wondering how that would go over.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, glancing at me.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “You’re acting like it is. Staring at me.” He turned the corner onto North Main.

  “Sooo . . .” I started.

  “Spit it out, Win. I know when something’s bothering you.” He pulled up in front of the shop. “Is that why you wanted me to bring you to your car?”

  “Yeah.” I scrunched up my nose. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Okay,” he said. He put the car in park, turned off the radio and shifted in his seat to face me.

  James and Lew looked a lot like Dad and PopPop. Tall, fit. Light-skinned with upturned eyes and wide noses. That made me more nervous, because it felt like I was talking to Dad.

  “Well?” he said. “Something wrong with your teeth? Is that what you want to tell me? You got a cavity or something?”

  “No,” I said in exasperation. “Why would I not tell you that?”

  He punched on the overhead lights. “Let me see.”

  “No! Not here!” I folded my lips in and made them tight.

  “Let me see your teeth.”

  “Mmm-mm,” I said, shaking my head, lips and eyes clamped tight. I stayed like that for a minute to get him to stop, then covered my mouth to speak. “I just need you to tell me about Stephen Bayard.”

  He popped the light back off. The glow from the streetlight wafted into the car.

  “Stephen Bayard.” He repeated the name almost in a whisper.

  “Yeah. He’s the guy who—”

  “I know who he is,” he said. “I also heard he’s the guy you found dead at the bottom of the falls.”

  “You heard that?” I asked. He nodded. “Who told you?” Then I shook my head. “After you heard that, why didn’t you call to see how I was?”

  “Dad said you were fine. And we don’t talk about that man any more than we have to.”

  “You talked to Dad about it?”

  “Yeah. I talk to Dad. Why wouldn’t I have talked to Dad about it?”

  Well for one, I thought, Mom said any mention of his name would send him off in a homicidal rage . . .

  But I didn’t say that.

  “Do you keep succinylcholine at your office?” I said instead.

  “Do I keep what?” I could see the confusion on his face even in the dark car.

  “For oral surgery, I mean. You know.”

  “I don’t do oral surgeries,” he said flatly. “I refer my patients to an oral surgeon.”

  Okay, so he doesn’t have access to it. Not that I ever considered him a suspect . . .

  “So, what did Dad tell you about the dead guy?”

  “What I just told you.” He pulled air in through his nose. “That you found him.”

  “He didn’t say anything else?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” My voice was slipping into something akin to a whine. “Maybe something more?”

  “What do you want, Win?”

  I needed to get my nerves together, that was one thing I wanted. The other, as I’d been saying, was information. But getting info from Lew Crewse, DDS, was as hard as pulling teeth.

  Maybe I should stop beating around the bush. It wasn’t that I was scared to ask my brother anything, but that I might be scared of the answer. But I pushed onward.

  “I have something to tell you, but I don’t want Daddy to know I told you.”

  “What did you do, Win? Mess up at the store? Because I’m going to have to tell PopPop or somebody that.”

  I sucked my tongue. “No. The store is fine. It’s about Stephen Bayard.”

  “We don’t talk about him,” he said in a soft voice. He wanted me to know he wasn’t being mean about it, he just didn’t want to talk about it.

  “The police questioned Dad about him.”

  He didn’t say anything. He kept his face forward, sticking to the Stephen Bayard Non-Discussion Rule.

  I pushed his arm. “They think he did it.”

  “Who?”

  “Daddy.”

  “I’m sure they don’t.”

  “They do.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “They’re going to question a lot of people about it,” he said. “They have to have started a murder investigation. Dad was just one of those people.”

  “Yeah, but they think Daddy did it.”

  He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. Closing his eyes, he licked his lips. I could tell he didn’t like having this conversation.

  “It’s true,” I said, not giving him time to cut me off. “I talked to the police detective about it and he said that Daddy was on his radar.”

  “Radar? What kind of talk is that, Win?” He shook his head. “Why are you talking to the police detective anyway?”

  “I found the body,” I said, not admitting to seeking him out on my own. “And remember, you just said they’ll be questioning a lot of people. I was one of them.”

  “Well, don’t volunteer any information. It’s easy to get railroaded when it comes to murder investigations.” He looked at me. “Especially here in the village. Especially when you’re black. Our police don’t have a lot of experience investigating murders. They might jump on any little stray clue and try to make a case out of it.”

  “They already jumped on one,” I said. He looked at me and we locked eyes. “Succinylcholine.”

  My brother swiped his hand over his low-cut hair, then across his clean-shaven face. I could tell that word upset him. I also could tell that my dad had said more to him than what he was telling me.

  “I don’t think Dad did it,” I said, trying to move the conversation down the path I needed it to go.

  “I’d hope you wouldn’t think that,” he said.

  “But that man who we don’t talk about talked to me that morning. Now PopPop is acting all strange about it. Showing
up at the shop every day like he’s Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. I just want to understand what happened back then.”

  “Why don’t you ask one of them?”

  “Who?”

  “Mom. Dad. PopPop.”

  “Didn’t you just tell me ‘we don’t talk about that’?” I mimicked his voice. “Plus, they really don’t seem to handle conversation about that man too well.”

  “I’d guess not,” he said.

  “I don’t really remember what happened,” I said. “Tell me.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they don’t handle conversation about that man well’?”

  “Because when I told Mommy that Stephen Bayard was around and that he was going to go visit PopPop, she ’bout had an aneurysm. She said that she’d better warn Daddy, because if Daddy saw him, he might just kill him.”

  “She said that?”

  I nodded my head.

  Lew leaned back on the headrest. He sat for a long moment, contemplating, his hands folded in his lap. “God, I hope she didn’t say that to anyone else.”

  “So see, that’s why I need to know.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Lew.” That was definitely a whine.

  “That man . . . Stephen Bayard . . . took advantage of Grandma Kay and then she died,” Lew said. “We were taking care of her. PopPop didn’t want to put her in a home or have any outsiders come in. He wanted to do everything himself. And he didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “We helped,” I said. “And he couldn’t have kept it hidden.”

  “That’s not what he thought.” Lew shook his head. “And I didn’t mean take care of her by himself, literally. Everyone understood it was going to be with the help of the family. That was what he was counting on. And of course everyone was willing to help. Mom and Dad. Aunt Jack. Uncle Denny and all the cousins. Even the community, you know. The shop owners”—he pointed out the window—“all along North Main and around the triangle. Everybody loved Grandma Kay and was willing to help.”

  I smiled. “I know everybody loved her,” I said.

  “And Stephen Bayard took that from us.”