A Deadly Inside Scoop

by Abby Collette

  “Oh yes. It’s fine,” I said, walking just inside the door. I set everything on the floor and took off my boots.

  “Oh good,” she said. “I thought I might have to bleed those radiators. With weather like this you never know.”

  “Nope,” I said, and picked up the ice cream. “It’s nice and toasty, just like down here.”

  “Well, what brings you by?” She looked back out the door as if I had something else.

  “I brought you ice cream,” I said.

  “For me?” she said, and placed her hand on her chest. “I love it, but isn’t it too cold for ice cream?”

  “It’s never too cold for ice cream, Mrs. Keller. I thought you knew that.” I gave her a sly smile.

  “Well, c’mon back. I’ll get us some bowls.”

  Didn’t take much to persuade her.

  “I’ll help,” I said. I took off my coat, draped it around the back of a dining room chair and followed her into the kitchen.

  “I haven’t heard you overhead the last couple of days,” she said. “I didn’t know where you’d gotten to.”

  “I’ve been at the store. Remember I told you we were opening?”

  “I remember,” she said. “But it had taken so long, I wasn’t sure if you did or not.”

  “We did,” I said. I was familiar with her kitchen, had been in it plenty of times getting things she couldn’t reach. So I grabbed the two bowls from the cabinet while she was still deciding what she’d come into the kitchen for, and two tablespoons from her silverware drawer. “C’mon. Let’s sit at the table in there.”

  “Good idea,” she said.

  I headed back into the dining room. Sitting down, I opened up both containers. “Which one would you like?” I asked her.

  She peered inside, a smile spreading on her face. “Oh my, they both look so good,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Did you make these?”

  “I sure did.” I picked up one of the spoons. “How about a little of both?”

  “That sounds fine.”

  I started dipping up the blueberry ice cream. Her eyes were watching me, so I figured I’d start my inquiry. Distracted, she might answer my questions without wanting to know why I was asking.

  “Have you been doing okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m okay,” she said. “I miss my little Max.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “And Wally. Max was the only thing that kept me going after Wally died.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I miss him,” she said. “He was a good husband. He had his faults, but I loved him.”

  “You two were together a long time,” I said. I knew how long, I’d heard the story before, but I wanted to steer the conversation around to the restaurant.

  “Fifty-plus years,” she said.

  “Fifty years is a long time,” I said. “I remember you telling me you did everything together.”

  “We did.”

  “My brother just reminded me today that you two ran Nico’s on Orange.”

  “Yes, we did.” She nodded. “Nico’s Family Restaurant. Wally named it after my father.” She took a spoonful of the blue ice cream. “Oh.” She smacked her lips. “This is heavenly!”

  “Thank you,” I said. I let her take another spoonful before I started again.

  “What did you do at the restaurant?” I asked.

  “Oh, a little of this and a little of that.”

  “Did you cook?”

  “No.” She pursed her lips and ran her fingers along the linen tablecloth. “That was Wally’s job. At first, you know. After we started getting a lot of customers, he hired someone. I took care of the front, but that got a bit much for me to do as well.”

  “A lot of good times there,” I said.

  “Oh yes, there were,” she said. She studied the bowl. “I’m going to try this other one.”

  “Be my guest,” I said. “That’s why I brought it to you.”

  “Aren’t you going to have any?” She nodded toward my empty bowl.

  I was so busy trying to find a way to get her to talk about the restaurant, I had forgotten to get some. “I’ll have some of the banana nut with you,” I said.

  “Is that what it is?” she asked. I nodded as I spooned some in her bowl. “What’s the other one called?”

  “Ghoulish Blueberry.”

  “Oh, you made it with blueberries?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I nodded. “Fresh blueberries. I came up with it for Halloween.”

  “I used to make the best blueberry cobbler,” she said. “We sold it at the restaurant.”

  “I bet it was good,” I said.

  “It was delicious.”

  “I went to that restaurant where Nico’s used to be the other day,” I said.

  “Bet it’s nothing like the days when we owned it. Everything is so upscale now,” she said. “We were a family restaurant.”

  “That was the best part of it, huh?”

  “Yes, it sure was,” she said.

  “How long did you guys run that restaurant?” I asked.

  “Oh, twenty-five years or so,” she said. “Until we lost it.”

  “You lost it?”

  “Yeah. Wally took out a loan with some shady character. I told him to go to the bank and do it, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

  Shady. Just what Lew had said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “The taxes on the property got behind,” she said. “And the guy who owns it now paid them.”

  “As a favor?”

  “No. We didn’t know him,” she said. “He wasn’t doing us any favors.” She took the last mouthful of the banana nut ice cream, scraping the side of the bowl.

  “And that was Ari?” I asked.

  “Yeah. The man with the last name that means dirt. Because that’s what he is. Dirt.”

  “Ari Terrain,” I said. “His last name is Terrain.”

  She smacked her lips.

  “What happened with that?”

  “Come to find out anyone can go down to the county tax board and pay the taxes owed on any property.”

  “I didn’t know that. So what happens then?” I asked.

  “Then you owe them instead of the county. And,” she said, pushing the bowl back, “whoever paid the taxes can foreclose on your property.”

  “Really?”

  That did sound shady.

  “Yes, really,” she said.

  “So that’s when Mr. Keller took out a loan?”

  “Yes, from a young man who had ingratiated his way into the village’s business community. We were a close-knit group. When he got to know one of us, he knew us all. We trusted him. At first.” She looked at me. “Your grandfather came around earlier and told me that that man had been murdered. Right down at the falls.”

  “PopPop told you that?” I asked, surprised.

  She nodded. She was sucking on the nuts, maybe making them soft enough to chew.

  “Here,” I said. I slid the carton of Ghoulish Blueberry in front of her. “I brought it all for you anyway.”

  She grinned. “Thank you,” she said, and stuck her spoon in.

  “What else did my PopPop say?” I asked.

  “That now Wally could rest in peace.”

  “So why didn’t Mr. Keller pay the taxes off with the money he got? Or pay off Ari?”

  “The check that Mr. Bayard gave him wasn’t any good.”

  “Ohhh,” I said.

  “I think they were in on it together. Him and that dirt guy.”

  “Ari and Stephen?”

  “Yes. And we only owed eighteen thousand dollars.”

  “On taxes?”

  “Yes, now mind you that might seem like a lot, but our busine
ss was worth much more than that.”

  “So I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand?” she asked.

  “If the business was worth more and you only owed taxes, how could someone else get it?”

  “If you owe taxes to someone, they can foreclose on your property after a year.”

  “Oh,” I said, and nodded slowly.

  “That Ari offered Wally little to nothing on the building and all the equipment. Said he was saving us from having to go through the court process of a foreclosure. We were old by then. Had had a good run with the business and just figured it was for the best.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said.

  “They hurt a lot of people around here.”

  I wondered how Ari still showed his face around the village. Maisie was right, he wasn’t that good of a guy.

  “I’ve heard,” I said. “I wasn’t really old enough to understand what all the legal and business stuff was when it was happening. A lot of people got hurt.”

  “When I first heard it—and don’t you mention a word of this to anyone”—she lowered her voice like she was divulging a secret—“but I thought it might be Danny Clawson that did it. I’d never say anything if he did, though. That man hurt that boy more than anyone else.”

  “I heard,” I said. “You think Danny knew that Stephen Bayard was in town?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He’s got a steady job and visiting with his father keeps him busy. But he comes and checks on all of us. All the people wronged by that man. Helps us out. Maybe somebody told him that Mr. Bayard was back in town.”

  “Danny helps out?”

  “Yes, he does. Mows our grass. Rakes our leaves. Shovels our snow. He always keeps your grandfather’s walkway clear. Whether it’s winter’s snow or fall’s leaves.”

  “I thought PopPop shoveled his own snow.”

  “Nope. Danny did it. He puts my storm windows in for me every October and comes back in the spring and puts in the screens. Does odd jobs for me, too. Like going to the store and such.”

  I scrunched up my face. “I don’t remember seeing him around.”

  “He doesn’t like to be seen. Real good at not being seen, too,” she said. “That’s why I was thinking if he did kill that man, he’d probably be able to get away with it.”

  chapter

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It wasn’t my alarm that woke me from the first good sleep I’d had in two days, it was the knock on my door.

  Who in the world . . .

  I slid out of bed and dragged my feet down the hallway. My eyes still not completely opened, I peeked as best I could out the hole in the door.

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “I should have known,” I muttered as I undid the dead bolt.

  “How come you’ve been ignoring my texts?”

  “Morning, Maisie,” I said.

  “And how come you’re not up? It’s four fifteen.”

  “My alarm is set for four thirty. But I don’t have to make ice cream today. Riya and my mother made some yesterday. So I really don’t have to be up early.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “Why are you up so early?”

  “Because you didn’t answer any of my texts last night.” She scratched her head. “Didn’t I just say that? Don’t try to get me confused.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I meant to answer your text.”

  I waved her in, and she had hardly gotten into the apartment before she started asking questions.

  “What were you doing? Out with O?”

  “Oh my goodness, Maisie.” I plopped down on the couch.

  “What?” she said, sitting in a chair across from me. “He likes you. Stands to reason he’d ask you out.”

  “I don’t like him,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked, a look of utter confusion on her face.

  I stopped to think about that. There really wasn’t any reason. He was nice-looking. Smart. And a good customer. He hadn’t missed a day coming in since he found out that we were open.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about him.

  “Want to know what I found out about Ari last night?” I knew that would make her get off the subject of Professor Morrison Kaye.

  “About Ari?” she asked, her eyes lighting up. “Tell me.”

  So I did. I filled her in on what Lew had told me and what I’d found out from Mrs. Keller about one Mr. Ari Terrain.

  “See why I don’t like him?” she said when I finished that part of the story. “He is rotten to the core.”

  “Knowing that might also explain what that email you had was about.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, nodding in agreement. “Ari owed him because he helped him get that restaurant by not giving Mr. Keller the money.”

  “Right,” I said, and yawned.

  Then I told her what Lew and Mrs. Keller said about how so many of the village’s business owners had been wronged by Bad Boy Bayard. And how she was thinking that Danny might be the killer.

  “You know, this case might be like that book Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone stabbed him.”

  “Stephen Bayard wasn’t stabbed.”

  “The guy in the book was stabbed,” Maisie said. “My analogy goes to the way the murder was committed, not what it was committed with.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I held back a giggle. I knew this was serious, especially to me since it involved my father. And Maisie wasn’t joking about anything. Not even about showing up to my door at four in the morning.

  “Lew is right,” Maisie said. “We need to start asking questions.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “So you know what we have to do now then, right?” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Talk to Danny Clawson.”

  “Lew said to not ask questions to a potential murderer.”

  “He was talking about Ari.”

  “He was talking about anyone who had it in him to kill someone.”

  “Danny Clawson wouldn’t hurt us. We’re part of the people he’s trying to protect.”

  “He is not the people’s vigilante,” I said. “If he could murder one person, he could murder two. Or three.” I swung a finger back and forth between us.

  “Well, we should at least watch him,” she said.

  “Watch him do what?”

  “Because maybe he plans on killing Ari next. If so, he’ll probably go shopping at Home Depot or something. Pick up duct tape, rope, shovels. We should keep an eye on him.”

  “Oh brother,” I said. “If he did kill Stephen Bayard, he didn’t stop at Home Depot first. Remember? He was killed with succinylcholine.”

  “Then by following him, maybe we can find out where he got the succinylcholine from,” Maisie said. “That would definitely give the police enough to go on so they wouldn’t suspect your father anymore.”

  There was an idea.

  “Wait. I thought you thought Ari was the killer.”

  She blew out a breath. “He still might be. But now we have a new suspect, with just as good of a motive.”

  “What was Ari’s motive?” I asked. “He and Stephen Bayard were con artist buddies.”

  “Blackmail,” we both said at the same time.

  “Yep,” I said. “I forgot about that, although I did think about it when I spoke to Mrs. Keller.” I bit my bottom lip and let my head bobble. “Okay. So now we have two suspects.”

  “Yep,” Maisie said. “Two.”

  “If we’re watching Danny Clawson, shouldn’t we watch Ari, too?” I asked.

  “I guess,” she said.

  “Only that’s impossible unless we split up,” I said.

  “I don’t want to do that.”

 
I looked at her. “Well, we’ll figure that out later. I do want to see what’s up with Danny Clawson, so we can watch him first.”

  “Maybe have a conversation with him.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Lew had told me to be careful, but I wasn’t going to find anything out by just watching people. As soon as I had said it to Maisie, I knew that it wasn’t going to work. Not if I wanted to clear my father’s name.

  I didn’t let Maisie know I’d come around, though. I would just let the opportunity present itself and we’d go from there.

  Right then, however, it was too early in the morning to do any talking or watching. The only people in the village who were up besides the two of us were probably the garbage collectors.

  “Whatever we do,” I said, “it’ll have to wait at least until daybreak.”

  “Okay,” she said. “How about while we wait, we make a murder board.”

  “A what?”

  “Get all of your different-color sticky notes and one of your vision boards.”

  “Write down our clues.” I looked at her and gave an abbreviated nod. “List the things we know?” I was right with her on that. It was how I liked to operate.

  I tore the cellophane off brand-new sticky notes for this project. I had a fresh stash under the bed that I kept in a plastic tub along with colored felt-tip pens and new journals.

  Maisie and I jotted down everything we knew, which admittedly at this point wasn’t very much. We brainstormed on how we might find out more, googled Danny Clawson’s address and tried to figure out how the victim and the murderer got past me, all while eating Cheetos and drinking Cotton Club Cherry Strawberry for our breakfast.

  But really what we were doing was biding our time until it got to be a reasonable enough hour to go and spy on Danny Clawson and find something usable.

  Something that might clear my daddy from being a murder suspect.

  chapter

  TWENTY-NINE

  We need to stop by my parents’ house,” I said.

  We were in Maisie’s little green VW bug, headed out on our spy mission. She had insisted we go by her house so she could change into “spy” clothing. Whatever that meant. I’d thrown on a pair of jeans, a black turtleneck sweater and black military-like boots.