Plateful of Murder

by Carole Fowkes

  “Are you saying she was full of herself?”

  “She never gave anyone else credit for their hard work. Plus, she could do no wrong. Nothing bad ever stuck to her.”

  It was clear Mrs. Hamilton resented Constance, but she didn’t fit my idea of someone who’d commit this murder. “She acted like everything was fine?”

  “As a matter of fact, she behaved downright cheerful. Knowing her, she had won whatever fight they had.”

  Did Eagleton come back the next night to claim his own victory? “Anything else, Mrs. Hamilton?”

  Since she didn’t add to that, I thanked her and she went on her way, no doubt believing she carried the fate of Triton on her shoulders.

  The police began their investigation with Brody Eagleton, no doubt now a ‘person of interest’; another name for ‘Don’t leave town or you’re busted.’ Since they had already interviewed him, it was tempting to postpone my meeting. Instead, I steeled myself for battle.

  Talking to Eagleton was easier said than done. First, his administrative assistant had to be persuaded to give me an appointment. She eventually agreed to squeeze me in at 4:30, which gave me enough time to interview Constance’s other staff members.

  Nothing useful there except for a tidbit from the late Constance’s last hire, Mallorie, who reminded me of one of those too-much-makeup mean girls featured on reality TV. The kind in high school who used to scare me whenever I spotted more than one of them together. Not only can packs be vicious, but I lived in fear of going blind from the combined fumes of their hair spray.

  Mallorie claimed Constance and Brody Eagleton had something going on. Asked for details, though, she admitted she just felt a lot of ‘chemistry’ between them. I’d plug into Mallorie’s supposed vibes in my meeting with Eagleton.

  At 4:30 sharp, I stood outside his office while Eagleton talked with a younger duplicate of himself. Same meticulous, expensive clothing and same coiffed hair. Together, their ties probably cost the same as my living room sofa.

  Eagleton wagged his finger at the other man, as if emphasizing his own words. I imagined he was ordering the destruction of all evidence. Eagleton’s briefcase sat open on top of his desk and while he continued to talk, he began stuffing it with papers. Not wanting this bird to fly away before we talked, I cleared my throat and stepped inside his office. “Mr. Eagleton, Claire DeNardo. I’m working with the police.” Afraid he’d blow me off, I rushed my next words. “Just a few questions for you.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” The younger man retreated, looking relieved.

  Eagleton turned on me, his brown eyes dark, his face twisted by rage. Without thinking, I retreated one step. So he couldn’t see my hands trembling, I clasped them behind my back.

  He slammed down the top of his briefcase.

  I begged my legs not to collapse and held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t leap over the desk and throttle me.

  Instead, he ground his teeth. “Miss Whoever-the-Hell-You-Are...” I opened my mouth, but he waved my attempted response away. “You’re misrepresenting yourself. You’re a private investigator, and I have nothing to say to you.”

  My voice came back. “Mr. Eagleton.” Gino told me to call someone by their name to help calm them. “I understand you’ve talked to the police. But sometimes, later on you remember a detail that clears everything up. That’s why I’m here.”

  A vein in his temple throbbed. “You want something fresh? I’ll tell you something. My wife just called. She wants a divorce. You see, the cops talked to her too.”

  My mouth went dry and my tongue felt like it would stick to the roof of my mouth, but I’d waited too long for this opportunity, so I continued treading on dangerous ground. “You were having an affair with Constance.” My already racing heart sped up even more. I was scared of fainting before he replied.

  He snorted. “That’s ridiculous. Anyone would say she was an attractive woman. Powerful women often are. We worked together, sometimes long hours. But that was it.” He growled. “Your associates, the cops, convinced my wife otherwise.”

  I didn’t buy it, but there was no sense in riling him any further. “Okay, so what were you arguing about the evening before her death?”

  He looked at me like he was a bull and I was a red cape. “I don’t have to answer any more of your questions. If you’re working with the police like you claim, they can fill you in.” He grabbed his briefcase and reached for the door knob. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to try to put my life back together.”

  He left me standing alone in his office. My knees felt weak enough to buckle and I considered sitting in Eagleton’s chair until they recovered. Then a better idea hit me, making me smile like my mother’s old cat we called Shreddy.

  I played with one of my earrings until it popped out and landed on Brody’s desk. Then in a loud voice announced, “Oh my, my earring fell off.” I rifled through the papers on his desk, hoping there’d be something of interest. Nothing.

  If someone walks by, I’ll claim my earring fell into one of his desk drawers. My ears tuned in for Brody’s return while my brain screamed about my insanity. By the last drawer, my breaths were as ragged as if I’d run a marathon. Getting ready to zip out of there, I spotted a card with Constance’s name preceded by “You amaze me.” Yes! Footsteps growing closer stopped me from pulling it out of the drawer.

  The exact truth was my whole body froze and didn’t relax until the steps went in the opposite direction. I licked my lips, snatched the card, slipped it into my purse and slowly closed the drawer. Then as casually as possible took my leave from Eagleton’s office.

  I walked right into a well-dressed woman. Through clenched teeth she asked, “Where’s my cheating, no-good husband? And who are you?”

  My mind went blank with panic. “Oh, uh…” I stuck out my shaking hand. “Claire DeNardo, Mrs. Eagleton. I’m working with the police on—”

  “That slut’s murder.” She spat. “The police have already asked me about my husband’s involvement.” She placed her hands on her hips. “I had no idea she was the reason for all his late nights.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who did you say you were?”

  “Claire DeNardo.” She reminded me of my Uncle Carl’s first wife, the mean-spirited Aunt Tina. I used to beg my mother not to leave me alone with her. I was sure the flying monkeys did her bidding. “My condolences you had to find out this way.” Maybe I could get on her good side, if there was one. “Sometimes men who have it all still stray.”

  She waved off my comment. “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Home.”

  “Probably to take my jewelry and hock it.” She snarled and spun around on her expensive heels, probably to head him off at the pass.

  As soon as Mrs. Eagleton was out of sight, I fled and didn’t look back until reaching my car. I skimmed the card after smoothing it out on my leg, going through it once, then again, forcing myself to slow down to make sure something important didn’t get past me.

  I frowned and slapped my hand against the steering wheel. I’d risked my safety for nothing more incriminating than a note from Constance thanking Eagleton for the flowers he’d sent her. No mentioned appreciation of his sexual prowess or even having a ‘wonderful night together.’ Only a thank you for his thoughtfulness. Despite the note being a big disappointment, I decided to keep it. Maybe it would be a link to something more incriminating.

  Preoccupied with the possibilities and paying no attention to my driving, I almost backed into a security guard on a Triton go-cart. The guard laid on his clown horn at the last minute. I mouthed an apology, thankful my car hadn’t plowed into the guy.

  I hadn’t even driven to the end of the lot when an idea struck me hard, and I did a u-turn. That guard might have seen something last night. It was worth a chance, not that the cops wouldn’t have already questioned him.

  The cart was where it’d been, but no guard stood near. Maybe he’d be in the smoking area. Most security guards of my acquaintan
ce killed time, smoking. This one may have seen who killed Constance.

  Sure enough, I found him at the back of the building near a trashcan/ashtray. The name tag sewed on his uniform read, ‘Ed’. He looked like one of the high school hoods-in-training who, if you were smart, you avoided at all costs. A wiry guy with slicked-back hair and tattoos on both of his sinewy arms, his face became even gaunter as he sucked a final draw on his cigarette, which he then flicked into the ashtray. “Hey, you’re the one almost ran me over.”

  Without thinking, the sheepish, little-girl grin I always gave my father rolled across my face. “Sorry about that. Really. It’s just I’m so preoccupied with poor Constance’s death. Did you know her?” I held my breath, worried he’d tell me to get lost.

  “Yeah. Who didn’t?”

  My tensed-up shoulders lowered. “She was friendly?”

  He pulled a toothpick out of his pocket. “Not to the likes of me. Don’t want to talk bad about the dead, but I seen her buttering up the bigwigs.” He waved his toothpick around for emphasis. “After hours, know what I mean?”

  “Besides Brody Eagleton?”

  He snorted. “He was just a stepping stone.”

  “Have you talked to the police about what you’ve seen?”

  The toothpick made it into the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, sure. Fat lotta difference it’ll make.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  He hiked up his baggy pants. “Cops don’t think of security guards as anything but cast-offs. So we play respectful, but it ain’t what any of us feel.”

  It was obvious he didn’t like the police. That could make it easier for me to get some information he didn’t give up to them. Besides, this guy had underdog written all over him. I could identify with that. “Yeah, they don’t always pick up on what a guy on the inside, like you, knows.”

  “Got that right. Take Miss Adler. Why’d anyone want her dead?”

  Not knowing if it was a rhetorical question or not, I waited.

  He leaned on the wall with his foot flat against it. “Could be some folks think her latest lover got possessive. My money, though, is on a bigwig’s missus.”

  “Really? Did you see something that night?” Had he noticed Eagleton’s wife stomp out of the building after she’d confronted me?

  “Nah. I’m just shootin’ the breeze.” He pitched the toothpick into the trashcan. “Anyway, I gotta go make my rounds.” He ambled off.

  I followed and handed him my business card. “If anything you think is important comes to mind, please call me.”

  He shot me a look that told me not to hold my breath. But he did take the card.

  I got back in my car and called Michael. The picture he’d painted of Constance didn’t match the one everyone else gave me. Either he didn’t really know his sister or he’d purposely left out the more colorful aspects of her life. Which was which? I’d worked with untrustworthy clients before, but those were on he-said-she-said cheating spouse cases. Dishonesty was the basis for those situations. I had only taken on this case because Michael seemed so needy and alone. Now I realized he may not be what he appeared to be. Nor so alone. Lies about his sister could be keeping him company.

  Needing to dig into the facts of the real Constance, I headed back to my office. My computer was firing up when my phone rang. I checked to see who it was, hoping the guard, Ed, had a revelation.

  No such luck. It was my Aunt Lena. Why now?

  “Claire, honey. Did you forget? You were supposed to come help me at the cafe. Your father’s here, but he keeps trying to dip a spoon into the whipped cream. I can’t hold him off forever.”

  I pushed my hair away from my forehead. “No, I didn’t.” I did. “I’m in the middle of a client’s case but I can wrap it up and be there before you know it.”

  My aunt sighed. “Hurry. I need you here. We’re crazy with customers.” Her voice got louder, “Frank, put that spoon down.”

  Like the rest of the women in my family, my aunt thinks nothing of having two or three conversations at once, so before she got involved with my dad, I looked at my watch. “Give me twenty minutes.” I hung up and frowned, realizing my miscalculation. It’d take me at least twenty-five minutes to get there.

  All the way to my aunt’s bakery, Cannoli’s, I tried to fit everything about Constance’s murder and what she was really like, together. It was a puzzle where you have the border pieces, but none of the inside ones. Impossible to make out the picture.

  I drove past the bakery’s front window and noticed my father standing there. No doubt assigned by Aunt Lena to watch for me.

  Before I got through the restaurant’s kitchen door, my aunt confronted me, waving a mixing paddle around. Dots of cream flew everywhere. “Your father’s gonna eat me out of business.”

  I kissed her flushed cheek. “Sorry.”

  She sniffed, which meant I wasn’t totally forgiven. “Everything’s going crazy. Kiss your father hello, then take over at the counter.”

  I rang up enough cakes and pastries to give half of Ohio diabetes. My feet screamed for mercy. Aunt Lena was the official owner of Cannoli’s but the whole family had agreed to pitch in while her niece Josie, daughter of her deceased husband’s brother and her kitchen assistant, was nearing the end of her second pregnancy. A twinge of guilt plucked at my heart when I realized so far, my father had done most of the helping.

  At long last, it was time to close up shop. Aunt Lena took off her apron and asked, “So who’s the big client you couldn’t interrupt to help your aunt?”

  My dad jumped in. “Lena, she got here and worked hard. Leave it alone.”

  I swallowed the last bite of a small éclair that had teased me with its glorious ganache all evening. “The client needed some handholding, that’s all.”

  My aunt squinted at me. “I hope that’s all he held.”

  “Someone murdered his sister.” I regretted the words as soon as they fell from my chocolate-tinged mouth.

  My aunt sucked in a breath and my dad leaned in toward me. “Claire Marie.” The last time he used my middle name was when I ran over a stop sign with his new car. “I never liked that private detective job for you. But this is too much. If someone hurt you, I’d have to kill them myself.”

  My aunt joined in. “Why can’t you work here? There’s plenty to do. You don’t have to run around with some hoodlum.”

  I slumped against the glass case, realizing this battle had just begun. “He’s not a hoodlum.”

  My aunt threw up her hands. “Frank, she’s protecting a hoodlum.”

  I kept my voice steady and spoke slowly, telling myself it was like talking to people who were unfamiliar with the English language. “I’m helping the police here. Nothing more. End of story.”

  Aunt Lena sniffed and began to wipe down the counter. My dad started to clean off the tables. The sound of it all in a silent room was deafening. I laid my hand on top of my aunt’s. “I promise I’m in no danger. I’m not his guard. More like a friend.”

  She looked at me, her eyes moist. “You know I worry. Since your mother died, I feel extra responsible for you.” She placed both of her chunky hands over her heart and looked toward the ceiling. “Promised her I’d look after you.” She wiped a drop of sweat from her upper lip. “How will I face her in heaven knowing, instead of settling down with a nice man, you’re hanging around with no-goods.”

  I put my arms around her soft, ample middle. “I’m sure Mom thinks you’ve done a great job with me. And don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

  She hugged me back, and then pushed me to arm’s length. “Okay. But now don’t do anything to embarrass the family.”

  I wanted to laugh. My family specialized in doing things to embarrass the rest of us. There was the time my tipsy Aunt Julia whipped off her wig and tossed it at the same time the bride tossed her bouquet; or when my cousin Tomasina tried to climb inside her ex-husband’s coffin. It’d be hard to top times like those. “Aunt Lena, you have my assu
rance there’s nothing I can do to embarrass this family.”

  Belly overfilled, I shuffled back to my car and chastised myself for gobbling that third éclair and, as with every other time I took a shift at the bakery, was thankful not to be working there full time. It was one of my biggest fears that my body would look like a meatball. Let’s face it. Eating is a huge passion of mine. Combine that with my fat-welcoming genes and I’m almost doomed to someday shop in the plus, plus-size section of Macy’s.

  After a satisfactory grieving time for needless calories, my mind moved on. There was a crime to solve. Tracking down Triton’s security guard, Ed, again was the best way to work the case and burn some calories.

  I yawned and checked the time and was surprised to see it was after 11:00 p.m. The only way to talk to Ed tonight was by waking him up. No, it’d be better to go home and hope to come up with what to do about Michael. Maybe my dreams would accomplish that.

  There was enough time for me to slip into my jammies, but not enough to slip into dreamland, before my phone rang. It was Michael. A spark of dread ran down my spine. Knowing it couldn’t be good, I still picked up the phone.

  Chapter Three

  His words rushed together. “Someone broke into my house. Every room is ripped apart.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “Are you okay?”

  “Just shaken up.”

  “Call the police. I’ll be right there.” I scrambled out of bed and threw on some clothes, all the while scolding myself for not seeing this coming. But then, the cops hadn’t thought about it either.

  The police got there first. I’d no sooner stepped through Michael’s door when Detective ‘Blue Eyes’ Corrigan snarled, “Doing a bang-up job of working with the police, I see.”

  My eyes became saucers. To say I was blindsided was an understatement. “What do you mean?”

  Corrigan waved a piece of paper under my nose. “Did you happen to see this?” Before any words managed to pass my lips, he leaned in so close I could smell his spicy cologne, and it was tempting to just close my eyes and inhale. His stern tone stopped me mid-breath. “It’s evidence. You know what that is, don’t you?”