Killing in a Koi Pond

by Jessica Fletcher

  I did some light stretching and then started off. As I turned the corner of the house, I came to a full stop. Both Clancy and Lucinda had mentioned a putting green, but this one would have fit right in at the Augusta National Golf Club. The green itself was manicured to perfection and must have been at least two thousand square feet, with three distinct holes marked by pristine white flags flying in the breeze. A sand trap was off to the left, and directly in front of me was a water hazard.

  I couldn’t imagine frustrated golfer Seth Hazlitt’s reaction to a putting green like this. I took out my phone and snapped a few pictures so I could text them and get Seth in a tizzy.

  I jogged through the pine trees, and came to the kitchen garden in a couple of minutes. It was much closer to the house than I’d expected. The tomato plants were staked alongside a row of carrots—always a good combination. A small, neatly labeled herb garden was set off to one side and surrounded by the same white river rocks that edged the sitting garden. Every planted area was meticulously weeded.

  As I bent down to read some of the herb labels, I heard a rustling sound near the edge of the pinewood. I turned to see a woman pushing branches out of her path as she ran away. I pulled out my phone and snapped two blurry pictures, but even as I did I realized that such a tall woman could only have been Marjory Ribault. But why would she have been skulking around the kitchen garden? I began to jog along the path she had taken. Perhaps this was one mystery I could solve.

  Chapter Twelve

  I reached a clearing in the trees and found Marjory Ribault sitting on a garden swing in front of a quaint cottage. She had a red bowl in her lap. When she saw me she stooped and pushed the bowl under the swing, but not before I noticed the asparagus tips peeking over the top.

  “What brings you to the poor side of town?” Marjory asked. Although she tried to sound as if she was joking, there was a tinge of irony in her voice.

  “Oh, I was out for a jog, following this path and that. The path behind the kitchen garden led me here.”

  When I said the words “kitchen garden” a guilty look flashed across Marjory’s face but was instantly replaced by an expression of indifference. Could she possibly have been afraid I would cause trouble for her over a few asparagus spears?

  I tried to help her relax by making a show of scrutinizing the cottage. “My, you have a lovely place here. So bucolic and peaceful.”

  “This is all I have left since Willis Nickens blackmailed my father. Or I think ‘swindled’ is a better word. We used to have a grand driveway here, and this was the gateman’s house. Now Willis has forty-five acres and I have not quite two hundred square yards, with the house taking up most of it.”

  “I imagine that must be challenging for you.” I glanced at the swing. “Perhaps we should sit for a while and you can tell me how it came to be.”

  She wavered for a few seconds and then made a decision. “Actually I’d like that. It would be such a relief to talk to someone who doesn’t already have an opinion one way or another about Willis. Where are my manners? Please, come inside. I made some fresh lemonade this morning.”

  For such a rustic cottage, the kitchen was extremely modern, even including an in-the-wall steam oven, similar to one I had recently seen at Charles Department Store. Jim Ranieri, who owns the store with his brother David, assured me steam ovens are the up-and-coming appliance guaranteed to make food healthier and tastier. At the time, I settled for a new microwave. Someday I would have to ask Marjory how she liked her steam oven, but this was not the day.

  We sat at a round pedestal table covered by a white cloth with a decorative trim of bluebirds in flight. Marjory’s lemonade was delicious and I told her so.

  “The secret is a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar on the lemon halves before I squeeze them in a good old-fashioned hand squeezer. Takes away a bit of the tartness but doesn’t make it sugary sweet like something out of a bottle.”

  “I’ll have to remember to try that when I get back to Cabot Cove.”

  She nodded. “And whatever you do, don’t use an electric juicer. Elbow grease does a superior job.”

  “In my experience that is true of so many things.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher . . .”

  “Jessica, please.”

  “Jessica, the first thing I want to assure you of is that your friend Dolores had nothing to do with Willis’s outrageous thievery. She is a sweet, warmhearted woman, and for the life of me, I never understood what she saw in Willis Nickens.” She looked at me as if expecting an answer.

  “Affairs of the heart . . . who knows?” I shrugged.

  “I guess. Anyway, my family has lived on this land for generations. My father owned it, as did my grandfather and his father before him. After my mother passed, Dad and I lived a peaceful existence and, I am embarrassed to admit, I had no idea about money, where it came from or where it went. Unfortunately, my father got sick. Lung cancer. He was headed for a slow and painful death.” Marjory started to tear up at the memory.

  I reached over and gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “I am so sorry. That’s so grueling for a family member to go through.”

  Marjory went on. “I didn’t know that over the years Dad had had serious money problems and mounting debt. He took out private loans, with the property as collateral. It’s a common practice among the old families. They call it ‘helping each other out.’ Then one day Willis showed up. Dad sent me out of the room but, naturally, I listened at the door. Willis was such a bully. I am sickened to this day that I was the pawn he used. He had bought up the loans and could call them due at any time. He said Dad had two choices: He could keep the house and leave me destitute and homeless when he died, or he could sign the house over to Willis. The debts would be canceled and Willis would set up a tiny trust fund so that I wouldn’t starve. He actually said that to my father: ‘You don’t want your daughter to starve, do you?’ Can you imagine?”

  Although my acquaintance with Willis Nickens had been brief, I had no problem envisioning that he was capable of such despicable behavior. “That is truly reprehensible. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you acquire this cottage?”

  Marjory sniffed. “When my father told Willis I had lived here all of my life and could never live anywhere else, Willis didn’t flinch. He’d obviously anticipated that roadblock and immediately offered to include this cottage in the trust—which is a revocable trust, I might add.”

  Revocable trusts seemed to be the core mechanism Willis used to bend people to his will. First with Clancy, now with Marjory. I wondered who else he controlled that way.

  Marjory sighed. “Well, at least I have some privacy because Willis moved the driveway. Not for my benefit, of course. He said this approach didn’t show Manning Hall to full advantage. He wanted everyone who drove up to be in awe of his house, the house that should be my house.”

  The mention of the driveway triggered a notion lodged in my mind. “Speaking of the driveway, do you happen to have a clicker for the gate?”

  “Sure, do you need one? I don’t have a car right now but I keep a couple handy for guests, deliveries, and the like.”

  “Oh, no, thank you. The gate is so imposing; I was curious how accessible it actually is.”

  But I already knew the answer. Marjory confirmed what Elton had told me. So much for security. The clickers were treated so casually that anyone and everyone could easily get one and enter through the gate at will. The Blomquists were the only people in the house before Willis’s death who hadn’t actually stayed on the grounds the night he died. And according to Dolores they were frequent guests, so if one of them had managed to get their hands on a clicker it would have been easy to circle back for a midnight tête-à-tête with Willis Nickens.

  As I made my way back to the house through the pine trees and past the kitchen garden, I remembered what Dolores had told me. She was so proud of her
bold, decisive husband who had bought the house and asked her to marry him all in one day. Perhaps it would be for the best if she never learned how Willis had maneuvered to make Manning Hall their home.

  Clancy Travers was focused on chipping a golf ball out of the sand trap. He had just begun his swing when Abby saw me and waved her forearm. “Mrs. Fletcher! We went to the zoo. It was so much fun. Look, I have a koala tattoo on my arm.”

  Clancy’s face morphed in frustration as the distraction completely crumpled his stance. He laughed. “I probably wasn’t going to pop it with one shot anyway. I’m still working out the kinks of my new sand wedge.”

  I oohed and aahed over Abby’s tattoo and listened attentively while she told me how koalas sleep most of the day and that makes them very cuddly. She asked if I knew where they came from and was impressed when I said, “Australia.”

  Clancy interrupted. “Okay, sweetie, why don’t you check the hummingbird feeder and see if we need to make more nectar? Daddy wants to talk to Mrs. Fletcher for a minute.”

  Abby ran off toward a red plastic feeder that hung from a tall metal pole, and Clancy said, “She’s making me nervous. At every exhibit she talked about Emily and Willis. ‘Mommy read me a story once about koalas; Grampy said he would take me to see the tigers, but we didn’t have time to go.’ I don’t know what to say, what to do.” He spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness.

  “I’m sure it is a difficult time. Fortunately Abby still has Dolores, who is connected in her mind to Willis, and therefore to Emily,” I suggested. Knowing Dolores’s fear of losing Abby, I hoped to shore up her cause.

  “How is Dolores doing? I gather today was tough for her. Seeing Willis . . . I remember with Emily.” Clancy looked down. His grief seemed genuine.

  “She did have a daunting time, but she is much stronger than she knows. She’ll come through this. Of that I am certain.” I tried to sound confident. In reality, I wasn’t sure myself.

  “I wonder—” Clancy paused, took a deep breath, then charged ahead. “Do you think it would help if Abby and I moved into Manning Hall permanently?”

  I was rendered speechless. Surely it was too soon to consider taking such a step. Dolores might jump at the chance, thinking it would strengthen her relationship with Abby. But what was Clancy’s true motive? Did he think he and Abby could live in Manning Hall rent free with an adoring and now-wealthy Granny Dolores? I had heard Willis tell Clancy that Dolores would be well provided for. Was this Clancy’s way of ensuring his share? He could access the benefits of Willis’s fortune without having to deal with the annoyance of Willis himself.

  “I would think that would be something to be decided in a year or so, when Dolores has acclimated herself to life without Willis.”

  If my response disappointed Clancy, he didn’t show it.

  “That probably would be for the best. Dolores will need time, probably a lot of time.” Clancy turned and waved to his daughter. “Come on, Abby. It’s nearly dinnertime. We’d better get cleaned up.”

  As they began to navigate the circular walk to the front of the house I heard Abby fret, “I don’t have to wash off my koala tattoo, do I?”

  I smiled when I heard Clancy answer, “No, sweetie, you don’t.”

  I headed for the back door, and as soon as I opened it the aroma of Cajun spices enveloped me, bringing back memories of my most recent trip to New Orleans. It would be fun to go back there sometime soon. Maybe in a few months I could talk Dolores into a girls’ jaunt to the Big Easy. I tucked that thought away for now.

  Lucinda was drying her hands on a dish towel. “I was beginning to wonder where you’d gone off to. Marla Mae brought Miss Dolores a dinner tray in her room. I suppose Mr. Clancy, Abby, and Mr. Norman will be in the dining room. Would you care to join them, or would you like a tray?”

  Before I could answer, the chimes in the hall and the buzzer in the kitchen sang out in direct competition with each other. For my money, the chimes would always win.

  Lucinda started toward the hallway, but I held up my hand. “You have enough to do with dinner. It’s probably Clancy and Abby—they left the putting green and were walking to the front door at the same time I was coming to the kitchen.”

  Lucinda nodded. “Mighty kind of you.”

  Clancy must have already let himself in with a key, because when I opened the front door I was surprised to see Norman Crayfield standing on the veranda, pulling at the collar of his wrinkled tan dress shirt. “Oh, hi, Jessica. It is way too hot today for a button-down shirt.”

  The driver of a green sedan at the edge of the veranda tapped the horn in a friendly good-bye, and I saw Tom Blomquist at the wheel. Norman ignored the beep, but I waved good-bye, at least in part to let Tom know that I had seen him.

  “You’ll be glad you got back in time for dinner. There’s fresh-caught catfish.” I thought I would start the conversation on a genial note.

  “That is great news. Nobody fries catfish like Lucinda—crispy outside and tender inside. And the spices! I hope she had time to make hush puppies. Mm-hmm.” Norman smacked his lips.

  He had me there. “Well, I’m not sure about hush puppies, but I know there will be fresh asparagus.”

  “Oh, there she goes, ruining a perfectly good dinner by adding healthy food.” Norman laughed.

  I purposely caught him unawares when I said, “So you spent some time with Tom Blomquist. Did you happen to reach an agreement about the funding for Jessamine House?”

  Norman looked awkward, but his response was strong. “No, never. How could I do that without Dolores’s consent? I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to address it after Willis is . . . well, after Willis is put to rest.” He ran a finger around his collar again. “I’d best change this shirt before dinner.”

  He took the stairs two at a time, looking unexpectedly agile for a man his age.

  No matter what Norman wanted me to believe about his business relationship with the Blomquists, Tom Blomquist’s chirpiness the last time I had seen him made me sure he, at least, was convinced that Norman would tell Dolores that the deal had been struck and that Dolores would be too caught up in her mourning to object.

  I also wondered how Tom’s car had come through the gate. Plainly he had a clicker.

  Marla Mae was in the dining room, setting the table for dinner. I told her not to set a place for me; then I walked back to the kitchen, where Lucinda was bustling about, seeing to the last-minute dinner preparations. “Did you decide where you want to eat tonight?”

  I said I would like to eat in the kitchen if it was no bother. “It’s cozy in here, and smells so good. I’ve had a long day and don’t want to make small talk at the dinner table.”

  My request seemed to put her on guard, but she could hardly say no.

  I washed my hands at the kitchen sink, and while I was drying them I said to Lucinda, “I saw Marjory Ribault down at the kitchen garden today. She’d pulled up some asparagus. Is that something you allow? Are you two friends?”

  Lucinda put her hands on her hips. “Those asparagus stalks are in the garden because Miss Marjory’s grandma planted them long before any of us were born. The entire kitchen garden was her grandma’s work. I know for a fact Miss Marjory still does her share of weeding. What harm can it do to let her have a few fresh vegetables from a garden she has worked all her life?”

  “No harm that I see. However, when some time has passed it might be a good idea for you to tell Dolores about your arrangement with Marjory regarding the kitchen garden.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I surely will. Your dinner is ready.” Lucinda set a plate of catfish, asparagus, and hush puppies on the table.

  As I pulled out my chair I looked at the hush puppies and thought Norman was sure to be delighted—but not as delighted as Tom Blomquist would be if he got the money he so sorely desired.

  Chapter Thirteen


  I woke up to the sound of a woodpecker hammering in a nearby tree. I leaned across the desk to look out each window but couldn’t see him, so I guessed he was in the pines rather than the crepe myrtles. As I straightened, I noticed the text icon on my cell. I had two messages, both from Harry McGraw, who either was a very early riser or, more likely, hadn’t yet been to bed when he sent them.

  3:08 AM: Quartermaster Industries W.N. and others. Talk when I have more

  It hadn’t taken Harry long to find at least one business with Willis Nickens’s name attached. This might be an excellent starting point for unraveling Willis’s finances. I wondered if Dolores knew anything about the company and Willis’s relationship to it.

  I eagerly tapped on the second text, which read:

  3:10 AM: M.R. 2X collared for shoplifting. Still digging

  Marjory Ribault had played the financial innocent. She’d claimed to have no idea about the family money, how it came in or how it went out. Yet she’d been arrested for shoplifting more than once, which made me think it was quite possible that she knew far more about money than she let on.

  I texted back to Harry, Thanks, can’t wait to talk.

  I wasn’t sure what Dolores had on our schedule for today, but I hoped we’d have some quiet time for a serious chat. I sat in the blue wing chair for a few minutes, drawing up a mental agenda.

  First, and most immediately, Dolores needed to insist that the sheriff or the coroner tell her what caused Willis’s death and when they would release his body so she could plan a funeral to honor his life and get her own future on track.

  Second, she and I needed to discover as much information as we could about Willis’s business interests, without using Norman Crayfield as our source. Harry had sent me one place to start. I wondered if Willis had as many business interests as Dolores seemed to think, or was Quartermaster Industries the umbrella for them all?