by Krista Davis
“Have you asked him?”
“Asked him what? ‘Dear, did you have an affair with Abby and murder her to get rid of her or did you pay her off?’”
I chuckled. “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it would certainly get his attention!” She’d told me before, but I wanted to see if she stuck to her story. And specifically, I wanted to know where Wesley was that evening. “What did you and Wesley do the Friday night that Mia was murdered?”
“Abby left here around four in the afternoon. She was agitated. Oh my. Do you think she and Wesley had a fight? Right under my nose?”
I tried to steer her back to Wesley’s whereabouts. “What else happened?”
“There was a football game that night, so I drove Briley and some of her friends.” Her words slowed as if she was mulling something over while she spoke. “Wesley wasn’t interested, but I thought it was important for at least one parent to keep an eye on them. Afterward I took them all out for pizza and burgers. I love hearing them chatter. They’re at that age where they think they’re grown up and they know everything. It was at least eleven or so by the time we got home.”
“Was Jericho still here?”
“No. But neither was Wesley. He came home about fifteen minutes later.”
“Oh?”
Her eyes met mine. “That means he has no alibi.” She shook her head vigorously and covered her eyes for a moment. “No. I’m sure he was with someone. I shall ask him tonight. Wesley had no reason to kill Mia. That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said as soothingly as I could, even if I wasn’t as convinced as she wanted to be. “I’ll give you a call when I’m done with these pages.”
I walked home feeling sad for Tilly. She was a lovely person, but she had some sort of major problem with Wesley. I hoped they would sort it out and that it didn’t involve murder.
I passed my own house and went straight to Francie’s side door.
“We were just talking about Abby,” she said. “Come join us.”
Eunice sat at the long farmhouse table in the dining room that was part of Francie’s kitchen. Her laptop was open in front of her. “I know that was her dress. Do you think we could ask Benton to look at the contents? He might recognize other clothes.”
I slid into a chair at the table. “I believe he would agree to that. But . . . there’s something weird about Benton.”
Chapter 27
Dear Natasha,
My little boy complains about the sandwiches I make for him to take to school. He says the bread is always soggy. How does one avoid that?
Billy’s Mom in Toast, North Carolina
Dear Billy’s Mom,
Spread both slices of bread with mayonnaise or a dressing. The fat keeps any water inside from being absorbed by the bread.
Natasha
Francie leaned toward me. “Do tell!”
I explained about seeing him pick a soda can out of a public trash can. “And today he hid something in a brick wall, and as he walked along the street, he marked a lamppost with chalk.”
Eunice laughed as if I’d told her something very amusing. “That’s called a dead drop.”
“That’s what Wolf said.”
“Sure. You leave a message for someone, but you never actually interact with that person. Though I must say I’m surprised you noticed him doing that. He’ll be caught in no time if he’s that poor at his job.” Eunice lay a finger across her lips. “Shh. Let’s not mention that to him, shall we?”
“Why Eunice Crenshaw! You little sneak. How do you know so much about spying?” I leaned back against the chair, beginning to form my own suspicions about her.
“I read a lot.”
“About spies?” I asked.
“That and other things. Sophie, sweetheart, Washington is full of people who know secrets and have boring covers. We are silly with spies in this town. There must be at least ten agencies in Washington with spies. The CIA is loaded with employees. Not to mention all the embassies and consulates that belong to countries all over the world. And don’t forget the foreigners who are spies with no diplomatic cover, leading normal lives like they’re Americans. They can be quite difficult to spot.”
“You seem to know a lot about this, Eunice. Where did you and Sam work?” I asked.
Eunice smiled. “It was a long time ago. We were so young and eager.” She lifted her forefinger and waved it. “Here’s how you recognize a spy. First and foremost, with a few exceptions, they won’t be eye-catching people. Your friend Natasha, for instance. We know she’s not a spy because she does her level best to draw attention to herself. A spy will live quietly and be somewhat plain in the sense that they don’t wear fancy watches or drive Ferraris.”
“That makes sense,” said Francie.
“They are often gone for long periods of time, so you won’t find them involved in anything that could tie them down like the PTA or a condo association. Sometimes they need to leave quickly. Oh! And you’ll never see them on Facebook. No cutesy shots of them at the Eiffel Tower or eating fondue in Switzerland.”
“You and Sam worked for the CIA.” I said it straight to her face.
“We’ve been retired for decades. And we weren’t in the clandestine service.” She was silent for a moment. “Most of the time, anyway. I was young when I applied as a secretary. It was all very exciting.”
“Then you think Benton is an inept spy. What was with the chalk? Why did he do that?”
“You leave a chalk mark on something so the other person knows you’ve left a message in the hiding place. Chalk washes off quickly and easily. Sometimes two marks have a special meaning. I’m glad you told us about this. Now I understand the divorce. Those long absences can put a real strain on a marriage.”
“What if Abby learned something she shouldn’t have known?” I speculated. “We have to tell Wolf. Maybe Benton killed Abby to save his job or to stop her from revealing information that she might have learned.”
“Wolf might already know. It depends on what Benton’s cover is and whether he’s an operations officer.”
“What do you mean?” asked Francie.
“Some employees can admit that they work for the CIA. There are a lot of accountants, and human resource employees, just like in other big companies. But if he’s an operations officer, what you think of as a spy, then he’ll have a very good cover and even the police may not realize who he really is. Poor Abby. I hope she’s hiding somewhere, but as the days go by, I fear the worst.”
Francie snorted. “If the murderer meant to kill Abby, why didn’t he put her in the freezer, too?”
“Not enough room?” suggested Eunice.
“Eunice,” I said, “something bad happened in Abby’s past. Benton sidestepped me when I asked about it, but he said it left scars. Did she ever tell you about an incident?”
“Maybe she was a spy, too?” Eunice smiled. “Francie, we really must invite Benton for tea and a suitcase examination. Perhaps Wolf could come as well.”
“I think you’d better invite Wolf for your own safety if you do that. And me too.” I stretched. “I’m off to finish up these recipes for Tilly.”
“Did you ever unravel her code?” asked Eunice.
“It irritates me every time I see a recipe with the code on it. If we ever find Abby, that’s the first thing I’m going to ask her about.”
I left Francie’s house through the back door. When my garage was built, we had installed a gate in the fence between our houses. I used it now to go home.
I let myself in and Mars bolted into the kitchen. “Oh, it’s you.”
“And I’m pleased to see you, too. What’s going on?”
Mars yawned. “The Internet is a scary thing. I finally got onto the dark web. There’s a lot of creepy stuff on there.”
“You think Wesley is involved in the dark web?”
“I don’t know yet. Did you know the dark web was started by mathematicians that worked for the
government? That sounds so innocent, doesn’t it?”
“Mars, what did you and Abby talk about on your date the night she vanished?”
Mars sat down at the kitchen table with me. “Just stuff. She talked about Benton a lot. You know how people are when a divorce is still fresh. Their lives were tied up with their spouses for so long that that’s all they talk about.”
“Did she say the kind of things I would say about you? Or that she feared him? Or that he grows orchids?”
“Regular stuff. I don’t think she was over him.”
“Then she wasn’t afraid of him.”
Mars stared at me. “She was jumpy. We ate at The Laughing Hound and, unlike you, she absolutely definitely did not want dessert.”
I couldn’t help smirking. “Your waitress said that’s the sign of a bad date.”
“She’s probably right. Neither of us tried to escape through the back deck or anything, but she was distant.”
“That was your second date. How did the first one go?”
“Do I detect a note of jealousy?”
“No! I’m trying to figure out what was going on with Abby.”
“We met for coffee. No big thing. No pressure. It was okay or I wouldn’t have asked her to dinner.”
“So she was jumpy. Did you ask her if something was wrong?”
He was getting irritated with me. “No, I didn’t ask her. I, uh . . . if you must know, I thought she didn’t like me.”
“Maybe that’s why she didn’t ask you in for coffee when you walked her home. Do you think the killer was already there?”
“If he was, I did not see or hear him. Abby unlocked the front door, thanked me for dinner, and that was it. I went home. You’re worse than Wolf. I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“Abby was agitated at Tilly’s house that day. And then she was jumpy at dinner. So obviously something was wrong.”
“And that would be why she left. This is nothing new, Soph.”
“I wish she had told someone about it.”
“Maybe she shared it with Charlene.”
I shot him a dirty look. “Someone who is conscious.”
“What would you do if you were afraid?”
That was an interesting approach. “I guess I probably wouldn’t leave unless I thought my life was in danger. I wonder why she went out to dinner with you.”
“Thank you so much. You flatter me so. Because I’m a charming and interesting guy.”
“Uh-huh. I meant, if she was so scared that she felt the need to flee, then why did she waste time going out to dinner with you?”
“More flattery. I can hardly take it.”
“Be serious. She must have thought she was safe with you in a public place. But when she got home, or maybe during dinner, she decided to flee. Or did she know she would have to murder Mia? That would make me very nervous.”
“Great. You think I was supposed to be her alibi?”
“I wish she had left us a message. Are you sure she wasn’t trying to tell you something during dinner? You can be kind of obtuse.”
“I beg your pardon? I was gracious and gentlemanly.”
“You’re sure she didn’t write something on a napkin and shove it across the table to you?”
“I think even one as obtuse as me would notice that.”
“Did you check your pockets?”
“Yes! I do that after every date in the hope that my companion left a love letter. Sophie! You’re throwing around wild and crazy ideas.”
“I’ll be right back.” I hurried to my office and fetched the recipes. On my return to the kitchen, Mars was peering in the refrigerator.
“Is there anything in here that I can heat up? I haven’t had lunch.”
“Neither have I. There’s some sliced turkey from the deli.”
“Perfect.” Mars picked up a bottle. “Sparkling apple cider. Is this alcoholic?”
“No.”
“Great,” he said. “I have a lot more work to do. What are you looking for?”
“Maybe Abby did leave a message, but I haven’t been smart enough to figure it out. Eunice said the codes on the recipes look like the kind where two people use the same book to decipher them.”
“Why do I think Wolf wouldn’t let us into Abby’s house to look through all her books? And who would she have left the message for? There would have to be another person who would understand and know where to look,” said Mars, irritation creeping into his tone.
“Like Wesley?” I asked.
His eyes met mine briefly before he returned to his earnest task of building sandwiches so thick with turkey, cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce that we wouldn’t be able to bite into them. “Does Wesley know about the codes?” he asked.
“I haven’t said anything to him, but I asked Tilly about them. She could have told him.”
“A book.” Mars gestured toward me. “If it were you, what book would you use as a key?” He brought the sandwiches to the table with two tall glasses of sparkling cider.
“One that wouldn’t attract attention. A book I could carry with me without raising eyebrows or causing people to notice me. Like an Agatha Christie book.”
“Swell, she wrote dozens of books. How would we ever figure out which one it was?”
“Abby would have to use a book that Wesley had access to,” I mused.
Our eyes met. “Tilly’s cookbook,” we whispered simultaneously.
“It’s perfect. She could leave messages in it for him and no one would notice. Except . . .” I tried to recall what Tilly had said. “I think she took it home with her each day. It was only that last day that she left it there. Because she knew she wasn’t coming back, or so Wesley could read the message she left for him?”
Mars bit into his sandwich and grabbed the cookbook pages. He glanced at the list of codes I had written. “We used to do this for fun when my brother and I were kids. Okay, how does it work? What does the first letter stand for?”
“If I knew that, I would have already unraveled the code.”
“There are no page numbers.”
I bit into a sandwich. Either it was pretty good, or I was way hungrier than I thought.
“GPP251,” he read aloud. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Clearly it didn’t. But as I swallowed, a thought came to me. “Grandma Peggy’s Pumpkin Bundt Cake. GPP.”
Mars flipped through the recipes. “Got it! So if the numbers are a guide, then the first two would be the line? And the last number would be the letter? No. That doesn’t seem to work.”
“Oh, this is going to be tedious.”
“Maybe not. According to your list, there are only twelve codes.”
I examined the list of codes. “Hold everything! Look, the last numbers go from one to twelve. Maybe that’s the order of the letters? Go to line one.”
“I’m there.”
“What’s the fifth letter?”
“That would be P. So according to your theory, P would be the first letter in the message.”
“Right.” I put my sandwich down. “What’s the next one?”
“R P C one four two.”
“Roasted Parmesan Chicken.”
“That would give us an E.”
“PE? Oh gosh. I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with Grandma Peggy!”
We worked our way through the letters. The result was PEYTONPOULON.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mars squinted at the letters.
“Maybe something on the Internet can descramble it.”
Mars borrowed my laptop and typed PEYTONPOULON into the Google search bar. “It’s a name!”
Chapter 28
Dear Sophie,
I read recently that a guest should never bring anything to a dinner party. That goes against everything I was taught. Is that the new rule?
Party Pooper in Five Forks, South Carolina
Dear Party Pooper,
It is always gracious to bring
a hostess gift to a dinner party. Wine is the most conventional item. Whatever you bring, even if it’s your favorite wine, do not expect your hostess to serve it. He or she may have a carefully planned menu with specific wines chosen for the dishes being served. An exception would be if you have severe allergies or other food issues. It can be smart to bring a dish you can share with the others.
Sophie
“There are a bunch of articles about Peyton Poulon.” I jumped to my feet and looked over his shoulder. I read aloud. “A young woman who contacted police in the belief that she might be Peyton Poulon is not the missing girl. DNA has confirmed that the young woman is not the biological child of Hannah and Kurt Poulon. Peyton was abducted at age two from the home of her babysitter, Abigail Jensen.”
“Could that be our Abby? Or does this mean Abby is actually Peyton?” Mars opened a new tab and searched the name Abigail Jensen. A grainy newspaper image of Abigail Jensen came up immediately.”
“Is that her?” I asked, returning to my sparkling cider.
Mars huffed. “I can’t believe this. It’s definitely her. She looks older now, of course. Abigail Jensen is Abby Bergeron. She kidnapped a child!”
“It said the child was stolen from her home,” I corrected.
Mars read aloud. “Abigail Jensen was arrested yesterday for the abduction of two-year-old Peyton Poulon, who has been missing from a suburb of Milwaukee. Peyton was in the care of Jensen at the time of her disappearance. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Peyton is requested to notify the authorities.”
“Arrested? I think we now know what that burden from her past was.”
“The next one says, ‘Abigail Jensen is out on bond in the matter of the disappearance of Peyton Poulon. Hannah and Kurt Poulon, Peyton’s parents, have issued the following statement. ‘We live with the hope that Peyton is still alive and well. If she is in your care, please return her to her loving family. If you have any information at all as to her whereabouts, we beg of you to notify the police immediately. An anonymous hotline is available.’”
