Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  While I struggled not to sink—the sofa was far too soft and way too white, like sitting on a loaf of goddamned Wonder Bread—my eyes roamed over the living room, which I didn’t like. The great white whale of a sofa and matching love seat faced off like opposing armies, separated by an enormous glass-topped coffee table, empty save for a neat stack of magazines. I sifted through the stack. The magazines might have been pilfered from a doctor’s waiting room—Senior Living, Herbal Digest, Modern Nursing. If the inside of the Dick house was a showplace, Fairley’s was an operating room. I started as the clack of dishware heralded my host’s return.

  “Another rainy day, I’m afraid.” Fairley carefully set the tray down. “I hope it clears up for Harvest Fest. Oh!”

  Fairley’s gaze landed on the magazines on the opposite corner of the table. She abandoned the tea things and rushed over, straightening the stack with military crispness. Before resuming her tea duties, she sent a cross look my way.

  “Where’s your little friend today?”

  It took me a second to realize that Fairley meant Jinks. I told her the dog was fine. And he was, sleeping in the Crown Vic in Fairley’s driveway. Since she obviously wasn’t a dog person, I thought it best that Jinks absent himself from this visit, which suited him just fine.

  “Now, Mrs. Sable...”

  “It’s lucky for you, isn’t it?”

  “Lucky?” Was it me or was Fairley being deliberately obtuse? Or had she been taking lessons from Gigi Tajani.

  “It’s lucky you found a job so soon. Biscuit?” Fairley stuck a china plate stacked with assorted crackers and toast points in my face, not a real biscuit in sight. I declined.

  Fairley measured a spoonful of sugar into her cup, “Julie’s lucky she has you. I’m sure you’ll find the answers, but I’m not sure what help I can be. I’ve already told you everything I know.”

  “I have a few follow-up questions.”

  Fairley stirred her tea, the metal spoon tinkling against the china cup. She tasted and looked at me. “It’s painful, this digging into the past.”

  “The thing is, I’ve recently come into some new information and I need some clarification.”

  That caught her, as I’d hoped it would. She fixed her silver-blue eyes on me, like a sparrow eyeing a fat worm.

  “Do you have any idea why Mel turned against his friends and wife?”

  “Oh,” she said, as if disappointed. “Actually, I’ve thought about that a lot. In a way it’s all I’ve thought about since Mel died. There was discord in our little group because of Mel and Gigi’s love affair. In truth, things hadn’t been right for some time.” She sipped her tea and sighed. “But I don’t have any of the answers.”

  “Tell me about the recent hostility between Mel and Alan Rand.” A quizzical look. “My information is that the two men had been going at one another pretty hard.”

  Fairley shrugged. “The antagonism between Mel and Alan was no more than usual and certainly no less. Those two men have always loathed one another, dear.”

  “That’s not my understanding.”

  “Than your understanding is flawed,” Fairley said bluntly. “The only change is that for some reason Mel and Alan recently discarded the pretence of friendship.”

  “So they did avoid one another.” Rand had told me that after he learned of Mel’s plans for José, he’d broken off the friendship.

  “Socially, perhaps, but they kept up their professional association at the paper. In fact Alan stopped by the office not long before Mel’s death, but there’s nothing suspicious in that.”

  “When was this?”

  “I can’t remember the date. More tea? But you’ve hardly touched yours! I could make coffee, if you’d like.”

  “I’d like to return to that night at the G and G. Was Busy Rhodes there?”

  “Do you think that b-i-t-c-h is involved in Mel’s death? I’m sorry, but that woman is a terror! It wouldn’t surprise me if she did have a hand in this. Is something wrong?”

  “Please answer the question,” I said, surprised at Fairley’s antagonism toward the woman in white. Was this something she’d picked up from Mel, or was there another reason?

  “I didn’t see Busy at the G and G that night, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. The pub was very busy, and there’s a lot I don’t see.”

  I almost challenged her on that. I was willing to bet that not much got past Fairley. “Describe Mel’s physical appearance that night,” I asked, curious if Fairley would tell the truth.

  “He looked like a sick man, a very sick man,” Fairley said softly. “I’d been telling Anita for weeks that she needed to get him to a doctor or at least take him to Walgreen’s and check his blood pressure. He was positively red as a beet that last night.”

  “Why didn’t you mention any of this earlier?”

  Fairley fidgeted, folding and refolding her napkin. “Mel and I had our differences, but he was a friend. It would have grieved him to be remembered as he was in those terrible last days.”

  “And exactly how was he in those terrible last days?” Her eyes pleaded, but I didn’t relent. “Tell me, Fairley.”

  “If you must know, he was mad as a hatter. I don’t know how else to say it. Mel was mad as a hatter! I can’t take much more of this, Addie.”

  “Only one more question.”

  She wiped her eyes and nodded.

  “After Mel abandoned Anita at the G and G, someone drove her home. Do you know who that was?”

  Fairley’s eyes widened and she said, “Why, I did of course.”

  “You? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

  “I...I didn’t think it mattered. I’m sorry. I dropped Anita off and then went to my own home. It was perfectly natural, with us being neighbors and friends. Would you rather have coffee, dear? Your tea’s gone stone cold.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A House Rests on the Woman

  After seeing Fairley, I walked Jinks, more to clear my head than anything. She was a strange one; there were depths to her, maybe treacherous depths. But the thing was, I really, really didn’t like her house.

  But, more important, vague bells and whistles sounded in my head. Fairley said that Alan had continued to see Mel at his office, but that wasn’t what Rand told me. Back at the Crown Vic I pulled out my notepad to double-check. Rand learned of Mel’s plans for José sometime in September. After that Alan claimed to have avoided Mel.

  I’d scrawled something to the side of the page. I am a witch? That’s right—Alan said that the day of the meeting Mel was bursting with pride over his new book, I Am Not a Witch. I’d noted it because I’d heard the words before and had meant to connect the dots at a later time, which never came. I flipped back through the pages, scanning for any mention of witches and there it was, in Busy Rhodes’s interview. The woman in white’s purported final meeting with Dick had taken place at a book signing at Barnes and Noble. The guest author? Kristin Donald. The book? I Am Not a Witch. Busy had placed the date in early October.

  But if Mel Dick possessed an autographed copy of Donald’s memoir in hand when he spoke with Rand, the meeting had to have taken place after Donald’s appearance at Barnes and Noble. A quick call to the bookstore confirmed that Kristin Donald’s appearance had been on October second.

  The hairs on my neck stood up. Rand had lied about the date of his conversation with Mel. Why? And what other lies had he spun? Oh, Alan Rand and I had a lot to talk about.

  My cell buzzed. “Why did you take Jinks with you?” Pop yelled.

  “Is that why you called?”

  “No, but Jinks was fine last night. He only whined for an hour and didn’t shake as bad.”

  “I don’t have time for this so...”

  “You know that show I like on the comedy sta
tion?” Pop said. “The one you hate, with the clips from the internet? When you told me about the busboy’s video, it got me thinking. There are so many people taking videos, posting them, soon a person won’t be able to take a dump without it showing up online.”

  “All true, but what’s the point?”

  “You said the restaurant was very crowded that night and...”

  “Shit,” I said, catching on at last. “There’s a good chance Marco wasn’t the only one who recorded the fracas. Okay, Pop,” I said, my mind racing, “I need to follow up on this right away.”

  Pop was yelling at the other end. “But I’ve already found it, Adelajda—a second video.”

  * * *

  “You sure you don’t want some, Addie?” Julie asked, pouring a tall glass of tea from a gallon container. “Dad made the best sweet tea.”

  “No thanks.” I had already viewed the second video on my smartphone—Crazy Old Man 24—and now wanted to view it on Julie’s laptop. “Are you sure you want to see this?”

  Julie just moved her stool to the left so she could better see the monitor.

  The video opened with José Barracas crab-walking away from a pugilistic Mel Dick. My pulse quickened. The quality of the video was superior to the first and offered a different perspective of the action. In fact, the camera had caught Marco off to the left, crouched behind a potted palm, cell phone aimed at the old man. Suddenly Julie’s hand reached around and pressed pause.

  “What the hell!”

  “Why are you so jacked?” Julie demanded, hands on hips.

  Talk about micromanaging. “I’m jacked because the video is shot from a different angle from the first. It’s almost like a peek through the looking glass.”

  “You’re fanciful for a detective,” Julie said, her habitual scowl now aimed at me, but I didn’t care—she called me a detective.

  “Look, this video visualizes almost the entire patio. Now we can see all the players clearly.” There Gigi and Fairley sat, Gigi’s mouth wide as a big-mouthed bass and Fairley sitting ramrod straight, her expression inscrutable. And I could see the Rands trembling in their dark corner. The play of light and shadow suggested a web, but to my eye Alan and Tally were not spiders, but the prey of spiders. Panicked flies struggling against silken chains. I restarted the video.

  Mel Dick tottered like a dying top as he shouted his jumbled jeremiad. His flushed face gleamed bloody in the light, and his eyes struggled to focus. A little collapse when the words were said—relief or something else? Mel disappeared beneath the table, reappearing with a scrap of fur clutched to his chest. The scrap moved and Jinks blinked at the world, only to quickly retreat, like a turtle retracting into its shell.

  “My only friend,” the old man cried. Then the flat-footed shamble to the Humvee. The picture twitched as the cameraman ran after his quarry, steadied again as the red cart sped away. A few excited onlookers—silhouettes in the deepening gloom—skipped after the racing cart for a few yards, like children after the ice-cream truck. There was an unintelligible shout from the cameraman as the people in the street jumped for the sidewalks. A Prius, gleaming like a polished pearl, glided by. The camera only caught the first three letters of the vanity plate, but it was enough: BZY

  I had my proof. The white Prius belonged to Busy Rhodes, the same woman who claimed to have last seen Mel Dick at the Barnes and Nobles weeks before his death. I’d said it before, but it was worth repeating: during a murder investigation people lied for all sorts of reasons.

  I couldn’t wait to learn Busy’s.

  * * *

  Despite my eagerness, the face-off with Busy would have to wait. She wasn’t available until late afternoon. No one answered at the Rand home, so Gigi Tajani drew the golden ticket. Hopefully she’d gotten over her anger. I was en route when Brad called.

  Berry had got the client list out of José and was checking them out, but Rand’s name wasn’t on it. So far there were no red flags in Mel’s finances, and the background checks were a bust. Some assorted traffic violations, a drunk and disorderly for José from last year as well as a misdemeanor drug possession from the nineties. Only one blip: as an adult Fairley Sable had accumulated not so much as a traffic ticket, but she had been in the juvenile justice system. Since DJJ files were sealed, I had no way of knowing the nature of the offense. A single blemish on a spotless record—maybe little Fairley had shoplifted a mood ring and her parents let her stew in juvenile hall for a couple of days. That was probably what happened, or something very like. On the plus side, Hackle’s autopsy of Anita Dick was set for tonight.

  “What’s shaking on your end?” Brad asked.

  I told him about Rand’s inexplicable lie.

  “Why would he lie about the date of his meeting with Mel?” Brad asked, as puzzled as I.

  “If Rand wasn’t a lawyer, I’d say it was just a stupid lie born out of nervousness.”

  “Well, Berry’s gonna be having a chat with Rand later today. Anything else?”

  “There’s another video—can you believe my dad found it?”

  “I’ll take a look at it—oh, tell Mrs. Breyer if she still wants to go through with it, her parents’ remains are available for viewing between two and four this afternoon.”

  “Damn it,” I said. “I know Julie wants me to accompany her to the morgue, but I’ve made other plans.”

  “I can take her,” Brad said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You have no idea how charming I can be when I put a mind to it,” Brad Spooner drawled, his accent thick as gallberry honey. “It might help make up for the awful way she learned about her parents’ deaths. I can pick her up at two-thirty, if that’s all right.”

  “Great!” Julie was stubborn, but so was I. I’d make damn sure she accepted Brad’s offer, freeing me to fry more important fish.

  “So what are you doing this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You just said you were too busy to be with your client when she viewed her parents’ remains so I’m asking what you’re gonna be busy with.”

  “Um...I want to research those plants Hackle spoke of last night.” Silence on the other end. “And of course I want to look at the new video some more.”

  “Addie, stop,” Brad said, his voice grating like metal on metal. “Just don’t fuck me over.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I promised and ended the call.

  Don’t fuck me over, he said.

  I wouldn’t do that, she said.

  Déjà vu, all over again.

  * * *

  The door yawned open to reveal a transformed Gigi Tajani. The bratwurst lips had deflated entirely, in fact her entire frame seemed to have shrunk several inches since our last meeting. Her open-toed slippers revealed chipped crimson toenails. The turban was still in place but lopsided, revealing a thin line of gray hair at the forehead. Even her silky rainbow-colored lounging pajamas seemed subdued and limp. Before I could speak she waved me inside.

  I started to explain my purpose, but Gigi was way ahead of me.

  “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, “Fairley said you were investigating Mel’s death for his daughter. I suppose we must talk.”

  On the veranda Gigi topped off her wineglass from the open bottle of chardonnay. She offered me a glass, but I declined. After a deep drink she gestured for me to get started.

  I thought I held a pretty good card and played it at once. “I know you saw Mel after he left the Grub and Grog on the night he was murdered, Ms. Tajani.”

  The old woman with the young face took another drink of wine. “I...I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “After the argument with Anita, Mel came to you.”

  “I’ve already told you what happened that night.”

  “Not all of i
t.”

  “What difference does it make?” Gigi asked in a flat voice. “Mel and Anita are dead.”

  “Do you know Julie Breyer?”

  Gigi shifted in the papasan. “I’ve met her once or twice, and Mel often talked about her.”

  “She wants to know how her father died.”

  She hid her face with her hands, which were swollen and spotted with petechiae.

  “Gigi?”

  “Oh, I miss my friends,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I miss them so much! We used to have such fun—Mel, Alan and Tally, Harry, even Anita in her mousy way. For years we were the best of friends and then everything changed and I don’t know why. Why do things have to change? Why can’t everything stay the same?”

  “Because that’s life,” I said. “Now it’s time to put things right. It’s time to tell the truth.”

  “I wanted to tell the police about it, but I was afraid. I wasn’t lying before. I just didn’t tell it all. That night on my veranda I heard Mel shouting from across the way. He was so very angry. I tried to make out his words, but couldn’t.” A rueful smile and she said, “Not that it matters, he’d been talking such nonsense the past weeks.”

  “What time did you hear Mel’s shouts?”

  “I don’t know—it was late, around midnight.”

  “Were there any other voices?”

  “No, but Anita never raised her voice.” Gigi poured the dregs of the chardonnay. “The yelling had gone on for maybe five minutes, and that’s when I heard it.” The green eyes grew wide, for a moment gleaming with their former brilliance.

  I leaned close. “What did you hear?”

  “The gunshot—only I thought it was a car backfiring! Dear God, people don’t shoot guns in Mystic Cove—things like that only happen in the real world—not here!” Her frail body shuddered, momentarily racked by the violence of her sobs. “Shortly after I heard the...the pop, Mel appeared at my door. He was bleeding. I saw the blood on his shirt. I asked Mel what happened and all he said was, ‘She shot me. The bitch shot me.’”