Granddad carried his plate and mug to the sink. “Maybe he swindled her or someone in her family. Or he had a hold over her. That would explain why she gave him the Santa job.”
Val rolled her eyes. Would Granddad ever get over being replaced as Santa? She joined him by the sink and opened the dishwasher. “Sit down, Granddad. I’ll take care of cleaning up tonight.” When he went back to the table, she said, “Let’s put Jake aside and talk about Oliver.”
She’d phoned Granddad from the café with the news of Oliver’s death. Now she told him about her talk with Elaine, her observations about the chocolate, and the chief’s response.
“So Earl might or might not get the chocolates tested,” Granddad said. “One thing I’d like to do as soon as possible is locate Iska.”
“Why?”
“Even if the chocolates weren’t poisoned, Elaine would say the candy contributed to Oliver’s death and blame Iska for giving it to him. Iska might have an alibi proving she couldn’t have left the chocolates, but she’s afraid to come out of the shadows since Elaine threatened to report her to ICE. She can’t get another job if she’s hiding out.”
Val loaded the utensils into the dishwasher. “What will you do if you find her?”
“Try to get her to talk to the police, but only if Earl promises that he won’t turn her over to ICE.”
“What if the chocolates were poisoned?”
“They weren’t poisoned by her.” Granddad removed the tablecloth. “She had nothing to gain. She wanted to stay in this country, but not in prison.”
Val nodded. “As long as Oliver was alive, she had a chance, however slim, of marrying him. How are you going to reach her?”
“I have a few ideas. Did she see you at the Naiman house or did you just catch a glimpse of her and overhear her talking with Elaine?”
“She saw me. Why does that matter?”
Granddad’s phone rang before he could answer. He pulled it from his shirt pocket and glanced at the display. “Gotta take this one.”
After he left the kitchen to talk on his phone, she took out hers, called Bram, and asked him whether he was feeling better.
“Yes, thanks. I probably just ate too fast. Are you up for a do-over later this week? I’ll pick out the restaurant.”
“Sounds good.” By then she ought to be able to discuss his move away from Bayport with more composure than she could manage today. “I promise not to talk about men eating sweets and crumpling to the floor.”
He laughed. “At least hold off until after dessert. I’m really sorry for running out tonight.”
“You can’t help it if you’re sick. Talk to you soon.” She hung up.
She was wiping the counter when Granddad returned.
He tucked his phone back in his pocket. “That call proves that it pays to give out business cards.”
An image popped into Val’s mind—Granddad distributing business cards to people on a haunted house tour, in case they had any ghosts they wanted to get rid of. Amazingly, he’d gotten some ghost-busting gigs. But that skill wasn’t listed on his business card, where he described himself as a senior sleuth and problem solver. “Who was on the phone?”
“Jake’s widow. She wants to hire me.”
Val looked up from wiping the counter. Last spring a widow had asked Granddad to look into her husband’s suspicious death. Could that be happening again? “Is Jewel hiring you to investigate Jake’s murder?”
“Nope.” He rubbed his chin. “And you gotta wonder why not. Either she already knows who murdered him or she doesn’t care.”
“Or she thinks the police can do it without your help.” Meanwhile, the police were doing their best to find evidence against her. Was she clueless about that or secure in her own innocence? “What does Jewel want from you?”
“I think she’s hoping I’ll find her a fortune.”
Chapter 12
Val couldn’t imagine where Granddad would find the widow a fortune. “Does Jewel want you to dig up treasure that Jake buried in the yard?”
“Come into the sitting room and I’ll tell you what she said.”
Val followed him into the room and sat down gingerly on the sagging sofa, hoping to land in a spot with some cushioning.
Granddad made himself comfortable in his reclining chair. “Jewel asked me if I knew anything about computers. I was afraid she had a broken computer she wanted me to fix. That wasn’t it. She wants me to bring over a computer and check something for her.”
“Doesn’t she have one?”
“The police took Jake’s computer. That was the only one in the house. Even if it was there, I’m not sure she’d know what to do with it. She’d like me to locate what she called a thingie you plug into a computer. She knew the police hadn’t taken it because they gave her a list of everything they removed after they searched through Jake’s things.”
“And there’s no thingie on the list?” Val chuckled. “Why does she think you can locate it?”
“She’s looked all over for it and now she hopes a man might have better luck finding it than a woman. When she told me how big it was and said Jake used an abbreviation for it, I figured she must mean a thumb drive, except Jake called it a USB flash drive. She said that’s where he kept his financial records.”
Val sat up straighter. “She asked you to bring over your computer so she can see what’s on the thumb drive. That could be a trove of information. When are you going over there?”
“Tomorrow at three. Can you come along and keep her occupied? I don’t want her standing over me if I’m poking around her stuff searching for something.”
“I’ll go with you. I was planning to visit the library to chat with Shantell, but I can put that off.”
“Jewel thanked me for the quiche and hinted she wouldn’t mind some other dish that’s easy to heat up. She said the food the neighbors brought her didn’t taste as good as mine.”
Val laughed. “She’s buttering you up. Are you going to keep feeding her?”
“One more time. I ran across a recipe today that your grandmother liked, a chicken casserole for a crowd. I’ll give some to Jewel, and we’ll have enough for a couple of dinners.” He took an index card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Val. “What do you think of the recipe?”
Val skimmed it and saw it included one ingredient she hardly ever used—canned soup. It also contained more fat and salt than Granddad should have. She remembered liking the casserole when Grandma made it, so it was worth tweaking, cutting down on the fat and salt in keeping with Granddad’s healthier diet. “How about upgrading the ingredients? Add some sliced mushrooms to the sauce. Skip the bacon so the dish doesn’t look greasy.”
He scrutinized the recipe card. “If I take out the bacon, the recipe has five ingredients. I’ll use it in next week’s Codger Cook column. Jewel can be the taster, but she’ll have to make her own rice to go with it.”
Val smiled. “Good idea not to let Jewel depend on your cooking. Try to convince her of what you claimed when you started your recipe column. Anyone can cook. All you need is five ingredients.” With that rash statement, he’d boxed himself in for the life of the column.
He tucked the index card back in his pocket and got out of the chair. “I need to make some calls.”
Val expected him to use the landline phone in the hall, as he generally did at home, instead of his cell phone. But as she went toward the stairs to her room, she could hear him talking to someone in his bedroom behind a closed door. His words were too muffled for her to make them out.
He rarely cared about privacy when he talked on the phone. But a few times in the past, he’d kept her from overhearing his conversation when planning a caper he suspected she would discourage. This time of year, though, he could have another reason for secrecy. Maybe he was talking about what to get her for Christmas and asking her mother for suggestions. And Val had yet to come up with a gift idea for him.
* * *
On Tuesday morning Val overheard a lot
of chatter about Jake Smith’s poisoning from the customers at the Cool Down Café. The police had given out his name, announcing only that he’d died on Saturday evening after being at the festival. A few customers had heard that she’d been on the scene when he collapsed. In answer to their nosy questions, she said only that he’d fallen ill and been taken to the hospital.
She also received a call from a client who’d tentatively scheduled her to cater a dinner in January. The woman now wanted to back out of it and gave no reason. Val suspected that rumors she’d catered a poison victim’s last meal had influenced that client. How much more business would she lose because of Jake’s death?
As she left work at two, her friend Chatty was waiting for her outside the café alcove. Val hadn’t seen her since stopping at her festival booth.
“I’m glad I caught you before you left the building.” Chatty was so hoarse that she was barely audible.
“You sound terrible.” Her friend might be sick, but she looked as color coordinated as usual, with violet lipstick and eye shadow the same shade as her scarf.
“You should have heard me yesterday. Actually, you couldn’t have heard me. I had no voice at all. I was fighting off a cold last week, but after spending all day outside at the festival, I had no resistance and lost my voice.”
Laryngitis had to be the worst cold symptom Chatty could imagine. She’d acquired her nickname because she loved gossip. The inability to spread any for the last two days must have made her miserable, and disappointed the people who depended on it. “You’d better not tax your voice today or you may lose it again.”
“I know something about the guy who was poisoned. Come to my treatment room. I don’t want to have to talk over that.” She pointed to a speaker blaring music with a pounding beat intended to encourage rigorous exercise. Val felt the vibrations inside her from the bass notes as they skirted the cavernous area devoted to exercise equipment and weights.
The windowless room where Chatty gave her clients facials and therapeutic massages was quieter. Smaller than most walk-in closets, the space aroused Val’s mild claustrophobia. She hoped the news about Jake was worth the uneasiness she felt there. She sat down in the room’s only chair.
Chatty perched on the long, narrow massage table. “Jewel Smith comes here for a massage three times a week.”
Val leaned forward in her chair, her curiosity overcoming her claustrophobia. When Chatty kneaded their muscles, her clients became totally relaxed and uninhibited. They said things they wouldn’t tell anyone else. Too bad Jake hadn’t come in for a massage, but his wife was the next best thing. “I’ve never seen Jewel at the club. How did I miss her?”
“Her standing appointment is at four, and you’ve left by then. I was sorry when her husband didn’t visit my booth on Saturday. I really wanted to see what he was like. After what she told me about him, I wouldn’t have expected a man like him to play Santa Claus.” Chatty took a long swig of water from a reusable water bottle the same violet color as her lipstick. “What’s the latest on the investigation into his poisoning?”
Val suppressed a groan. Chatty didn’t give out information without demanding some in return. “The police don’t yet know how and exactly when he was poisoned.”
“Weren’t you there when it happened?”
How did Chatty discover that? Though she’d been home sick and unable to talk for the last two days, she must have been in receiving mode. The gossip had come to her. “I was there when he fell over, but some poisons take a while to work.” A true though misleading statement.
“The police always suspect the wife, but Jewel had reasons to want him alive. She finally had him where she wanted him.” Chatty paused to savor Val’s rapt attention. “Last spring, when the Smiths lived in Texas, Jewel went away to visit an old friend. When she returned a week later, Jake had gone. He’d cleared out their joint account and hocked what he could, including jewelry he’d given her and antiques she’d bought.”
“They’d had a fight?”
“She didn’t say that. People who’d lent him money for a building project were suing and threatening him after it went belly-up. One of them said he’d have Jake arrested. She figured that’s why he ran off.” Chatty gulped down some more water. “Jewel got a temporary job to pay the rent until the lease was up. Then she went to find him.”
“How did she know where to look?”
“He’d been researching boats online. She was sure he’d stashed enough money in offshore accounts to buy a yacht and drop anchor in some island tax haven like the Bahamas. So she headed for the East Coast.”
“Why not Florida? It’s closer to the islands.”
Chatty shrugged. “Annapolis was where the next big boat show was. She spotted him there and confronted him. When he denied being Jake Smith, she said, You can grow a beard and dye your hair, but you can’t change how you walk.” Chatty did a good imitation of Jewel’s Southern drawl. “Bottom line, she moved in with him.”
“You said she had him where she wanted him?”
“She knew where the bodies were buried.” Chatty grinned. “Don’t look shocked, Val. I don’t think she meant real bodies. He skipped out on her and she made him pay. If he didn’t support her in style, she’d tell his creditors and the police where to find him.”
“He’s been treating her well. Your massages don’t come cheap.”
“Cheap compared with the new car she’s driving and the jewelry she wears,” Chatty croaked, her voice giving out.
Jewel’s demands might have been the issue in the arguments between her and Jake that Irene could hear from her house. Blackmail was often hazardous for the one doing it, not the one buckling under. How ironic that he was dead and she wasn’t.
* * *
Val’s phone rang as she pulled into the driveway at home. It was Elaine Naiman. Val hoped she wouldn’t ask what the police were doing about the chocolates. Val had no answer and that wouldn’t make Elaine happy.
“Hi, Val. Cyndi managed to get an early plane out of Chicago. I’m going to meet her and Kevin at Dad’s house. We have to decide what type of arrangements to make for my father, what to do about the house, what to keep, what to sell.”
“It’s good you can all be together to tackle those issues.” Val wondered why Elaine was sharing her evening plans with her.
“It is, and I don’t want to talk about those things at a restaurant. I wish now that I’d kept the leftovers from Sunday night’s dinner. Do you still have them?”
Uh-oh. Val didn’t feel guilty about eating the food Elaine had insisted she take, but she hated adding to Elaine’s burdens today. “I’m sorry, Elaine. The leftovers are gone. You can get pizza delivered or pick up something at the Chinese carryout place.”
“Cyndi and Kevin won’t be happy with that. Do you have time tonight to make a family dinner for the three of us? You don’t need to bother with appetizers like we had for the party with the neighbors. Just simple food and a dessert, between seven and seven thirty. Will that work for you?”
“That’s fine.” Val would need to fit in a trip to the supermarket before making dinner. But first she had to go to Jewel’s house with Granddad. “By the way, I took the chocolates to the police chief and did my best to convince him to test them.”
“Thank you. I’ll call him too and urge him to do it.”
“Good idea.” The squeaky wheel gets attention. “See you later, Elaine.”
Val climbed out of the car, went inside the house, and found Granddad in the kitchen. “It smells good in here.”
He pointed to the large casserole pan on the counter containing the chicken blanketed in a light cream sauce. “I’ll scoop out some to bring to Jewel. I invited Dorothy to have dinner with us tomorrow night. Bram’s going to take care of the bookshop and give her an evening off.”
Val eyed the chicken casserole. Enough for ten people. “Elaine Naiman called and asked me to cater a dinner for her, her sister, and her brother-in-law tonight at her f
ather’s house. I might have to cut short my visit with Jewel to shop for the food. But if you can spare three helpings of this chicken, I can stay longer with Jewel and still have time to make side dishes and a dessert for this evening.”
He grinned. “This is a first. You’ve never let me cook anything for your catering gigs. There’s plenty of chicken for Jewel, the Naiman clan tonight, and the three of us tomorrow night. How long will you be gone tonight?”
“An hour and a half, from around six thirty to eight-ish.” Val assumed he was wondering what he’d do for dinner. “There’s still a helping of beef bourguignon in the fridge. With salad and French bread, you’ll have a good meal. I’ll make do with an omelet.” She glanced at her watch. “I have enough time before we leave for Jewel’s house to make the filling for Key lime tartlets. I’ll take three to the Naimans tonight, and you can have one for dessert.”
He scooped a portion of the chicken casserole into a plastic container, put it and the casserole dish in the fridge, and left the kitchen. She was going to tell him what she’d learned from Chatty, but he didn’t return to the kitchen.
By ten minutes to three, she’d mixed the filling for the tarts and put it in the fridge to set. She would make the tart shells later and fill them. She picked up the plastic container with Jewel’s chicken dinner and went into the sitting room.
Granddad wasn’t where she expected him to be, napping in his lounge chair as he often did in the afternoon. He wasn’t in the study either, though he’d already taken the laptop computer from there, put it in a case to take to Jewel’s house, and set it by the front door. Val glanced down the hall toward his bedroom. His door opened and he came out, tucking his phone into his shirt pocket. He’d made another call that he hadn’t wanted her to overhear.
He put on his parka. “We gotta go to Jewel’s house in your car to explain why you came with me. I’ll tell her my car wouldn’t start. And when we get there, we’re gonna leave the computer in the car.”
“Why?”
“If I find Jake’s thumb drive, I’m going to make a copy of what’s on it before I show it to Jewel. It might contain evidence I can turn over to the police. I don’t want her to destroy it accidentally or on purpose.”
Gingerdead Man Page 11
