Scam Chowder

by Maya Corrigan

  Granddad raised one hand like a cop stopping traffic. “Why would we spend any time on that? We should focus on who killed him so I don’t get blamed for it.”

  “We need to know more about Scott. The character of the victim was the key to solving the murder in June.” Last month, she and Granddad had used each other as sounding boards for theories about that murder, but with him smitten by Lillian, Val doubted he could be objective about this crime. “When we talked about that last murder, you kept giving me lists of five suspects with motives. Can you do it again this time?”

  “We had five guests besides Scott. I guess that means five suspects. Maybe Junie May was Scott’s accomplice. He could have had a hold over her and forced her to vouch for him, or she might have wanted all the money they scammed for herself.”

  “That would give her a reason to insist on Scott’s honesty and to plant the idea that someone else killed him. According to Junie May, Irene was afraid her husband would invest money with Scott and lose it.”

  “So Irene’s number two on the suspect list. Omar’s number three. I don’t know what his motive could be, but Scott sure looked at him funny. I gotta put Thomasina and Lillian at the bottom. No motive.”

  Val was surprised that he put Lillian on the list at all. “We need to know more about Omar. What was he like at the dinner?”

  “Overly polite and hoity-toity about the wine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He brought two bottles of white wine. I told him we already had wine chilled for dinner. Then he said to use his wine instead, because it was exceptional. He’d already chilled it to the perfect temperature in his car’s wine chiller. The show-off even opened his exceptional wine with a corkscrew he carried in a leather case.”

  Val laughed. “Your corkscrew wasn’t good enough.” A funny story and a possible clue about Omar. Assuming he’d actually brought exceptional wine, an online search might narrow down places where he could have bought it. That might help Val track him down.

  She put down her fork and jumped out of her seat. “Be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To rummage in the recycling bin while it’s still light outside.”

  An hour later, with the kitchen cleanup behind her and Granddad reading the newspaper in the sitting room, Val sat in front of her laptop in the study. She opened a browser window and typed in the mul-tiword French name of the wine Omar had supplied. The hits that came up included reviews of restaurants serving wines from the vineyard listed on the label. She narrowed her search by adding Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware, and Virginia to the search box. Fewer matches came up, none for restaurants near the Eastern Shore. Val opened another browser window and typed Omar in the search box. One by one, she copied the name of each restaurant she’d found by searching for the wine and pasted it into the search box with Omar’s name. Her fourth search produced a hit—a review of a restaurant that consistently placed among the top five eateries in the Washington area. The restaurant’s sommelier was Omar Azamov. Bingo!

  According to the review, the sommelier arranged to import wines directly from small vineyards that didn’t sell to retail outlets in the United States. The reviewer described the restaurant’s five-course wine dinner as the best meal he’d eaten paired with the best wine he’d drunk in years. He suggested making reservations a month in advance.

  Val brought up the restaurant’s website replete with photos of beautifully arranged tables and food. The sample menu did not include prices. Saturday night had to be busy in a high-end restaurant like that. Yet, instead of going to work last Saturday, Omar had come to Granddad’s dinner with the perfect wine to accompany chowder, not something he could buy around Bayport. The wine clue might not convince Granddad that his girlfriend had invited Omar well in advance of the dinner instead of at the last minute, but it convinced Val.

  An online search for Omar Azamov gave Val his address in a Virginia suburb of Washington, a link to the review she’d just read, and one to his Facebook page. That page didn’t show his face, only hands presenting a wine bottle. The page listed a Washington, D.C., restaurant as his current place of employment and three restaurants where he’d previously worked, all in the Baltimore-Washington area. It also gave the dates when he’d earned an Introductory Sommelier Certificate, a Certified Sommelier Certificate, and, just a few months ago, an Advanced Sommelier Certificate.

  Val had met a certified sommelier in New York two years ago during her former life as a cookbook publicist. He’d coauthored a cookbook focused on dinner parties with wine pairings. She looked up the sommelier’s e-mail address on her contact list and sent him a message, reminding him who she was and asking if she could talk to him by phone.

  Her cell phone rang and displayed the name of the real estate agent she’d tried to reach earlier in the day. Maybe by now the agent knew if Lillian’s Annapolis house had a lien on it.

  “Hey, Val. It’s Kimberly. I wanted to call you earlier, but I was, like, totally swamped today.” She had a high-school cheerleader’s voice with enough volume to project to the top of the bleachers. “Sorry I can’t help you. You have to contact a title search company or an attorney to look up liens on a property. You can do the search yourself at the courthouse, if you have the time.”

  Val didn’t have the time or inclination to search through courthouse records. Maybe her mother would spring for a title search to find out if Lillian was a woman in financial straits and a possible gold digger. “I also had a question about the property owners. The woman listed on the tax records for that house said she’s a widow, but a man with the same last name is listed as a co-owner. I suppose he could be her son. Can you access personal information like the age of property owners?”

  “Not easily, but the name could be her dead husband’s. If a married couple owns property with right of survivorship, the deed doesn’t have to change after one of them dies. The one who’s still alive just needs to show a death certificate to prove ownership when the house is sold.”

  The property record told Val nothing about who lived in the house. “Thanks for the info, Kimberly.”

  “No problem. I owe you for giving me a referral to Mrs. Z.”

  Everyone called the elderly woman with the long last name Mrs. Z. Val had met her once, after the last murder in Bayport, and remembered her and her macaroons fondly. “Did you sell her house yet?” She doodled a one-story house with as much artistic talent as any six-year-old.

  “She listed the house with me, but then changed her mind like a week later and took it off the market. She wants to move closer to her son and his family in Chicago, but she’s afraid of making a mistake.”

  Poor Mrs. Z, widowed after sixty years, unsure what to do next. Val had suffered the same indecision before her move to Bayport last winter. It had taken her a while to decide whether to stay. Now Gunnar was hesitating too, having trouble finding a place in Bayport, hearing the siren call of his former fiancée.

  Aha! A possible solution to two problems.

  “Hey, Kimberly, would Mrs. Z want to rent out her place?” Val turned her house doodle into a boat. Maybe Mrs. Z’s house could serve as a mast holding Gunnar steady until his interest in the blonde waned. “She could try living near her son. If it doesn’t work out, she can come back here.”

  “Most people want a year lease. She thinks that’s too long. And she doesn’t want to clear out all her furniture.”

  “I know someone who might welcome a shorter-term lease and even some furniture in the place.”

  “Really? I’ll sound out Mrs. Z about it and let you know. See ya.”

  Val navigated back to the website for the restaurant where Omar worked. She jotted down the phone number and checked her watch. Nine o’clock. The dinner hour would still be in full swing at a fancy restaurant like that. Better to wait until the patrons thinned out and the sommelier had less to do.

  Meanwhile, she could do other online research. She typed arsenic poison
ing into a search box. The sources she skimmed distinguished between acute and chronic arsenic poisoning. She narrowed her search to acute cases and found out that even a quarter teaspoon of an arsenic compound was enough to kill a healthy person. Gastrointestinal symptoms could appear within half an hour after ingesting the poison or take several hours to show up, depending on the amount consumed and the individual.

  That meant Scott could have been poisoned either before or after he arrived at the dinner. When his symptoms began, he’d finished his chowder, though the others hadn’t. Unfortunately, the time required for the arsenic to take effect didn’t rule out poisoning by chowder. Eating salad, passing bread, and conversing could have slowed down the pace of the meal. And given Scott’s tummy problems, which Thomasina had mentioned, the poison might have affected him more quickly than the average person.

  When Val finished reading up on arsenic, she phoned the restaurant where Omar worked and asked to speak to him.

  He came on the line thirty seconds later. “Omar Azamov here. How may I help you?”

  “This is Val Deniston. We met briefly on Saturday night before you left the dinner party at my grandfather’s house. If you can spare a minute, I’d like to ask you a question or two about the dinner. Lillian invited you to my grandfather’s house. Have you known her long?”

  “A year or so.”

  Whatever he and Lillian had cooked up between them, they’d worked with different ingredients. Wouldn’t she have known the son of an old friend for a longer time than that? “Did you know any of the other guests?”

  “I’d never met them before that night.”

  A carefully worded answer. Perhaps he’d known of them without having met them. “With your experience—”

  “Ms. Deniston, I really must return to my duties.”

  “Just one more question, which perhaps only you can answer. Having worked in restaurants, you may remember people’s food preferences better than the others at my grandfather’s dinner. Do you recall which chowder each guest wanted at first, before they changed their minds at the table?”

  “Lillian and I asked for the light chowder. So did the gray-haired woman, whose name I’ve forgotten.”

  “Irene.”

  “Yes. The other guests requested the creamy chowder. Your grandfather did not tell us his choice. Truly, Ms. Deniston, I must put the phone down.”

  “Thank you for your help. I hope we can talk again.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Val hung up, satisfied with the phone call despite its abrupt end. Someone less polite than Omar would have hung up on her sooner. Assuming what he’d said about his short acquaintance with Lillian was true, then what could have brought the two of them together? Omar didn’t come across as someone who shirked his duties. Still, he’d spent Saturday night away from his job, prime time at any restaurant. Val would need to dig further to find out why and how Lillian had convinced him to show up at the Codger Cook’s dinner party.

  She’d done enough research for tonight. Tomorrow she’d have to get up early to buy café provisions at the market.

  At six-thirty Wednesday morning, Val dressed in a turquoise T-shirt she could wear later for tennis and black Capri pants she’d swap out for white shorts to wear on the court this afternoon. She grabbed a package of peanut butter crackers to tide her over until she made coffee and a real breakfast for herself at the café. Her Saturn still smelled of dead fish, but the odor was far less pungent than two days ago. On her way to the farmers’ market, she drove with her window wide open to let in the cool morning air.

  The market opened for business at eight, but she’d made a standing arrangement to pick up produce, eggs, and artisan bread an hour before that. Today the market also offered fresh chickens raised on a local farm. She couldn’t resist.

  Her purchases filled four recyclable bags, one devoted to melons. She drove back along a country road toward Bayport. Before reaching town, she turned onto another rural road leading to the racket and fitness club. As usual this early in the morning, the club’s lot was less than a quarter full. She toted the bags into the club, two in each hand. Rushing into the café alcove, she suddenly felt like an ice-skater. Her tennis shoes slid out from under her on the tile floor. She dropped the bags on her way down and tried to break her fall. The back of her head smacked against the floor.

  Chapter 14

  Val lay on the café alcove’s hard floor. Her head hurt where it hit the floor, but nothing else did. She felt wet all along her back. Was her head bleeding? No, blood would be warm, and this wet stuff felt cold. She sat up in a puddle of water, surrounded by the cucumbers, peppers, and zucchini, which had fallen out of the bags. The cantaloupes and cherry tomatoes had rolled away after spilling as if in search of dry land.

  She touched the back of her head and winced. She checked her fingers. No blood. She got to her feet gingerly, not wanting to slip on the way up. At least her pratfall had gone unnoticed. When the café was closed, the club members walking by had no reason to glance into the alcove.

  She mopped up the water. Who had spilled it and left it there? Not the cleaning crew. They did their work at night. The club opened at six, the café not until two hours later. This early in the morning, people trickled in one by one. While the receptionist behind the counter was looking the other way, anyone could have sneaked into the alcove and emptied a water bottle onto the floor. Whoever had done it must have targeted Val, usually the first person to arrive at the café. A dead fish in her car had annoyed her, but the water on the floor could have hurt her. Those pranks, plus bogus complaints about the food and bugs, equaled a campaign of dirty tricks against her. Whose campaign?

  She crouched to pick up the scattered vegetables. As she tucked them back into the bags, a pair of bare, brown legs beneath running shorts came into view. She looked up at Althea Johnson, her tennis teammate. “You’re back from vacation. How was it?”

  “Great. You look like you need help.” Althea bent down, picked up the melons, and put them on the counter.

  Val stood up. “How about some coffee? I haven’t made it yet, but—”

  “I just have time to run on the treadmill before I go to the office.” She adjusted the tortoiseshell glasses that had slipped down her nose. “The problem with vacations is that the work you left behind is still there, and more has piled up.”

  “Quick question. I know you focus on family law, but can you recommend a title company or property lawyer? I want to find out if there are any liens on a house in Annapolis.”

  Althea’s jaw dropped. “Are you moving?”

  “No. My grandfather is seeing a woman my mother thinks might be after his money. If this woman owns her Annapolis house free and clear, she’s probably not interested in Granddad’s money. Her house is worth a lot more than his.”

  “You know the property’s address?” At Val’s nod, Althea took a smart phone from a zippered pocket in her shorts and punched in the address Val gave her. “I have a friend who’s a real estate attorney in Annapolis. I’ll let you know what she says.”

  “Thanks, Althea. When your workload lightens, let’s set up some tennis. We can play doubles with Bethany and Yumiko.”

  “I won’t have any free time until next week.”

  “The rest of the team should be back by then, enough of us for two courts.”

  “Way more fun than the treadmill.” Althea headed out of the café.

  Val washed the fruit and vegetables, cut away the bruised parts, and stowed them in the refrigerator. She mixed the dough for oatmeal breakfast bars, thinking about the last time someone had targeted her. A month ago, the accidents a murderer had set up for her could have killed her. By comparison, the complaints about the café, the fish in the car, and even the water on the floor struck her as merely spiteful and petty. Irene might act out of spite, still holding a grudge because she wasn’t running the café as she’d expected. Maybe Granddad’s girlfriend wanted to nudge Val into leaving Bayport. Lillian would
recognize Val’s car. She could have asked Granddad about Val’s work schedule, bought a fish, and tossed it in the Saturn’s window on Monday. Hard to believe women in their sixties would engage in such sophomoric stunts.

  Ten minutes before the café opened, Val brewed coffee and took the breakfast bars from the oven, hoping the combined aromas would entice club members into the café after their exercise sessions. By eleven-thirty, she’d served the usual small number of customers for a midsummer morning. At least the number hadn’t dwindled . . . yet. But it would, if word spread about bad food and bugs.

  “Coffee smells good, Val. You got any left?” Granddad’s friend Ned took a tentative step into the café. “I hope I’m allowed in here. I’m not a club member.”

  “You’re always welcome here, Ned.” Though he’d never come to the café before.

  He sat on a stool at the eating bar. “I wanted to talk to you without your grandfather around.”

  Val poured Ned’s coffee. He’d gone behind Granddad’s back once before, when he’d alerted Val’s mother that Lillian might be a gold digger. If he had more to say about her now, Val would love to hear it, but first she’d have to wait on the three middle-aged women at a bistro table. Five minutes ago, when she’d tried to take their food orders, they’d waved her off. Now they were giving her pointed looks.

  She set a mug of coffee and a small pitcher of milk on the eating bar in front of Ned. “I’ll be right back.”

  Val took the women’s orders for two veggie wraps and a quiche. She went back behind the counter, sliced a piece of quiche, and put it in the oven to warm. “Would you like something to eat, Ned? A quiche or a sandwich? On the house.”

  “I’ll eat lunch at the Village, but I wouldn’t mind one of those.” He pointed to a glass jar of biscotti studded with almonds. “Folks at the Village are saying your grandfather might have poisoned Scott’s food. I know he wouldn’t kill anyone on purpose. He could have done it by accident if he cooked the food. But I’m pretty sure you made the food and wouldn’t poison it.”