Add a Pinch of Murder

by Joanne Pence

  He stood and his tail wagged faster.

  “No! That’s just too creepy,” she announced.

  He sat back down.

  “I’m going to think of a proper Scottish name for you. One that is noble and suits. But what? Let’s see. Fergus?”

  He stared.

  “No, I don’t care for it either. There’s also Lachlan. No? How about Iain?”

  The dog didn’t move. She thought a moment before another name came to her. “Angus?”

  The dog lay down.

  “It’s Jock, isn’t it?” she murmured.

  He stood once more, his tail swishing a mile a minute.

  Feeling more than a little beaten down, she said, “I really should call you Jock, shouldn’t I?”

  He gave a quick bark.

  “Okay, then. I don’t want to, but I will,” she said. “But you’re Jock who’s Angie’s friend and nobody else’s. Got it?”

  She was sure the dog smiled.

  Just then, she heard Clyde call out that he’d arrived. She squared her shoulders, wondering if she was going to have to do a spirited battle, and then went into the house.

  o0o

  Instead of going to the Maharishi Pasta restaurant after leaving the Seacliff house, she headed for the Cambry mansion. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was simply because she felt good about not having the contractors’ work interrupted by anything weird. She had stayed at the Sea Cliff house for a couple of hours just to be sure everything was all right. While there, she was able to give a lot of thought to wall color and go through book of a paint samples. She decided that most rooms should be a soft, creamy white and the master bedroom would have the barest hint of umber. Paavo’s only request had been that the room designated as his man cave would be blue. She’d found a shade close to the pale color of Paavo’s eyes, and she loved it.

  When she arrived at the Cambry mansion, Rico opened the door. “Come on in, Miss Angie,” he said. “Glad to see you.”

  “Is Madrigal here?” Angie asked.

  “She went to some kind of luncheon,” Rico said. “I’m here alone. Oh, you probably don’t know, but Vera quit as a housekeeper. She up and walked out. She told me she has no interest in staying on any longer. She also said old Oliver left her a good chunk of money for her years of service.”

  “That was nice of him,” Angie said. “I wonder how Madrigal feels about all that.”

  “You ask me, Miss Angie, I think she’s just as happy to be rid of her. Vera was pretty nosy, and she couldn’t stand Madrigal. I also think she was sweet on the old man. In fact, I know she was because I remember her saying that Oliver once told her he would never have anything to do with a woman who had children because the kid would always come before him. She pointed out to him that her ‘son’ was just a stepson because the boy’s father deserted them both and she didn’t have the heart to turn him over to foster parents. She also told me that she married someone else after Blithe walked out, but her second husband also ditched her after just a few months. She blamed that on him not being able to stand ‘the little brat.’ That’s how she saw Kevin back then. She seemed plenty irritated that her good deed keeping the boy with her had stopped her from becoming Mrs. Cambry. But if Kevin really was the reason, who knows?”

  “I had no idea,” Angie said.

  “Yeah, well, when Oliver married his ‘trophy wife,’ Vera saw that she’d never get anywhere with him. Still, after Farlee died, I think she still hoped he’d have a change of heart. We know he didn’t.”

  “You found out all that in just a couple of days?” Angie was impressed.

  “You give Vera half a chance and she loves to talk. Putting together what she does say with what she doesn’t gives a pretty good picture. Besides, being a bodyguard is all about reading people. You got to be able to tell who’s telling the truth, who’s not, and who might be about to cause you a whole lot of trouble.”

  Angie nodded. She’d never thought of it that way, but it made sense.

  Angie decided to make use of the time to check out the house. She found it surprising, but having Madrigal out of the house was like filling it with a breath of fresh air. She was also glad to see that Rico and Joey had convinced her to let them use the library as their base. It was near the kitchen for one thing. Rico moved a television set from one of the spare bedrooms to it, and then a recliner from the parlor.

  Just as happened the first time Angie was there, she felt something strange about the structure of the house. She couldn’t really express what. It was one of those things she simply felt.

  In her bones.

  The same bones that had told her there was something strange about the house she and Paavo had bought. For a while, the feeling went away. Now, it seemed, Eric and Natalie Fleming might not have moved on after all, but she no longer felt scared by their presence. Only annoyed.

  She wondered if the same thing might happen here.

  She had long felt that hidden within the Cambry mansion was the secret to what was going on. And now, with Madrigal not here watching her every step, she could investigate it. “Come on, Rico,” she said. “Let’s search.”

  “What are we looking for?” he asked.

  The police had never had any reason to search Madrigal’s belongings and so they didn’t. Angie, on the other hand, had no such legal restrictions. Only ethical ones. But right now, ethics was the last thing on her mind. Murder was at the top. “We’ll know it when we find it,” was her reply.

  “I don’t want to get fired again,” Rico said ruefully.

  “No one will know what we were up to unless we find something. And if we do, then Paavo will figure out a reason to come and investigate. It’ll have nothing to do with me or you,” she said.

  As she looked over the house, the thing that had bothered her from day one hit again, stronger than ever. The same feeling as she had when the little dog—Jock—had suddenly shown up. “You know, Rico, I can’t help but believe there’s more to this house than we’re seeing. Look at this library. It’s not as wide as the parlor. I wonder why not.”

  “Yeah,” Rico said. “I noticed, but I don’t know why.”

  Angie immediately began pushing against the library bookshelves. Rico joined her, both having seen movies and TV shows where bookcases opened to reveal secret rooms and passages. Not this time, however.

  They then went out to the yard to see what the outside framework of the house was like. One of the features of the house was a covered porch that went from the side of the house behind the library and parlor, and then all across the back of the house with doors from the kitchen and dining rooms to the backyard.

  They concentrated on the side porch.

  “As far as we can tell, from out here the parlor and library should be the same width, but they aren’t. The library is quite a bit narrower,” Angie said.

  Along the length of the side porch were built-in cabinets that housed garden tools, rakes, shovels, lawn mowers and such, as well as garden furniture. Some of the cabinet doors were half-size, top and bottom, and others were tall. Angie opened every door and pushed against the inside cabinet walls.

  She feared this was another dead end when she reached a narrow closet, one that held nothing but a garden hoe.

  When she pushed against its back wall, it sprang opened. She was so shocked, she stared open mouthed before shouting. “Rico! Come here quick!”

  Angie stepped into the opening behind the closet, Rico right behind her, and found a narrow corridor. She guessed it lay between the outside wall of the house, and the inside wall of the library. Rico followed, but he had to stand sideways to fit in it. Angie took the cell phone from her pocket and put on the flashlight since there were no windows or lights in the corridor.

  The two walked to the end of the corridor and there found a ladder going up to the house’s second floor.

  Angie directed her beam upward, but could see nothing but darkness at the top of the ladder.

  “Shall we?” she a
sked.

  “Maybe you should let me go first, Miss Angie,” Rico said.

  “I think it’s safe. I’m sure no one is in here but us,” she said, and then crawled up the ladder. At the top was a room that was at most seven feet by seven feet. Again, no lights and no windows.

  On the far side of the small room was a door leading to the interior of the house. Angie opened the door to find herself in the closet of one of the small servant bedrooms.

  “I’ll be damned,” she said, looking around the room.

  Rico stepped to her side. “A secret room and a secret passage right up to the second floor of the house.”

  “That’s right.”

  He seethed. “How the hell were we supposed to guard Mr. Cambry when nobody told me or Joey about this? Now I know how that robber got to him. Damn! This sucks!”

  “It does,” Angie agreed. “But it doesn’t explain who went after him, or why. Who would have known about this staircase and used it?”

  She took pictures with her phone of the room. She wanted proof for Paavo.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Connie’s shop was closed on Mondays, so as soon as Angie stepped out of the Cambry mansion, she phoned her and they agreed to meet at a coffee shop on Geary Boulevard between their two locations.

  Angie was already at a table, a chai tea latte in front of her, when Connie walked in.

  “I’m so glad you made it! I need to talk to you,” she all but shouted as soon as Connie reached her.

  “Angie, honey. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  How did she know? But then Angie realized it was just an expression. “I learned something really weird about Paavo’s murder case, the one involving the Cambry mansion. I was just there. We found a secret room!”

  “A secret room? You mean like one of those secure spaces the rich are building?”

  “No, it’s just a room, but it’s between the walls.”

  “Now you’re scaring me,” Connie said. “I’ll put in my coffee order, then I’ll be right back.”

  Angie drew deep breaths as she waited for Connie. She had a lot to think about, a lot to mull over.

  “The Kevin Blithe murder case is driving me stark raving mad,” she said when Connie took a seat across the table from her. “I can’t think of anything else while it’s going on because I was the one who got Paavo involved in it. And as long as he’s got a murder to worry about, he doesn’t think about the wedding! And he’s got to. He doesn’t even have his best man yet.” Head bowed, she ran her fingers into her hair and clutched it tight. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “There’s only one thing. You need to figure out who the killer is. You know everyone involved, so go for it.”

  Angie put her hands back down on her lap, straightened her back, and in a determined voice said, “I do, don’t I? I can do that. Or should I say, we can do that.”

  Connie vigorously shook her head. “No way. Not me. My days of looking for murderers are over. I’ve learned my lesson and I’m more than happy to simply run my little gift shop.”

  The waitress brought her a non-fat latte.

  Angie waited until the waitress was gone, then went back to business. “Since you’re going be my matron of honor I know you want my wedding to be a happy one. Right now, this case is making me very unhappy!”

  “Relax, Angie. It’ll work out just fine. Let’s try this by process of elimination,” Connie said in a voice Angie found to be irritatingly calm. “As I understand it, Paavo has been dealing with Kevin Blithe’s friends and co-workers, and so far he hasn’t found any hint that anyone might have been involved in the murder, right?”

  “Yes, on both counts. Kevin’s friends partied with him—men and women. They all had good times, apparently, and Madrigal didn’t like to take part in their festivities. She wasn’t the type, but she also didn’t stop Kevin from going.” Angie heaved a sigh. “Paavo does believe all of them are innocent. I trust his judgment on that.”

  “That means you’re left with the family—and most of them are dead.” Connie shuddered.

  “Only Madrigal and Vera are left,” Angie said. “I’m actually sorry Farlee is dead. It would have been nice if Joey and Rico were right that she had been the one sneaking into the place.”

  “It would have been a lot better for Farlee, too,” Connie said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  “Har har,” Angie said taking a sip of her chai tea.

  “Given a choice of those two women,” Connie continued, “I don’t care how cold-blooded a murderer might be, I just don’t see a mother slipping cyanide to her son. But a wife is a whole different story. To me, that rules out Vera.”

  Angie thought a moment. “Except that Vera was Kevin’s stepmother.”

  “What about Madrigal?” Connie asked. “From what you’ve told me, she was ready to give up everything for her husband, only to find that he was more interested in partying than working. He never even bothered to do anything with his law degree. And who knows if he didn’t have an eye for other women, too? Madrigal stood up to her father, insisting Kevin wasn’t after her money, only to find that he might have been. That could be a reason for murder. And”—Connie delivered the coup de grace—“not an uncommon one either.”

  “No, Madrigal loved Kevin,” Angie said. “I could see it in her eyes. But Vera held Kevin responsible for holding her back all her life. Even her second husband supposedly couldn’t stand living with the kid. She also had her eye on Oliver Cambry, but instead of her, he married a trophy wife. Think of how bitter she must have been.”

  “But how could she have killed anyone?” Connie asked.

  Angie thought a moment. “If I were to guess, an educated guess, I’d say that Vera most likely knew who paid off Harlan Yarborough with enough money to make it worth his while to double-cross Farlee and kill her. Given Farlee’s drinking and flirting and who knows what else, it was probably Oliver himself. But then something happened. Maybe Oliver refused to give Yarborough as much as he promised and Yarborough had Oliver killed.”

  “But why would that cause Vera to poison her own stepson?” Connie asked.

  “Well, perhaps after Oliver died, a man she may have loved in secret for years, Vera saw that Madrigal and Kevin were going to have everything, and her nothing. She’d always despised Madrigal, and Kevin had ruined her life, so she snapped and did what she always wanted to do. She killed him. And next, I suspect, she hoped to kill Madrigal as well.”

  Connie looked stunned. “Wow. You really think so?”

  “I do!”

  Connie thought about it and then nodded. “I guess it does all kind of fit.”

  “Kind of? It definitely fits. And we’re going back to the Cambry house now. Hopefully, Rico or Joey will have seen or heard something that will be evidence for Paavo to make an arrest because right now, all we have is conjecture. We need proof. While I’m in there talking to them, I need you to be on the lookout for Vera. She still has a key to the mansion. If you see her approaching, call me.” Angie took her phone from her handbag and turned on the ringer. “I’ll put it in my pocket. If you call, I want to be sure to hear it.”

  o0o

  Paavo decided to look into Harlan Yarborough’s activities at the time of Farlee Cambry’s disappearance. He called up Yarborough’s credit cards and they were a treasure trove of information, clearly showing that Yarborough had no fear he would be connected in any way to the woman’s death.

  He had purchased United Airlines tickets to Santa Barbara and back five days before Farlee’s disappearance, and a flight to San Diego the day of her disappearance, and a return flight three days later.

  In the interim, Paavo found a rental car that logged just under 250 miles. The trip from San Diego airport to Ensenada was 90 miles, so that would easily be one round trip.

  He again contacted Detective Lopez in Tijuana with a request. He gave Lopez the license number of the rental car. While waiting for that reply, he dug deeper an
d found ATM withdrawals where Yarborough took out, over two days, four hundred dollars in Mexican pesos.

  So, Yarborough had been in Mexico with Farlee, and very likely was the one who had killed her.

  Paavo then received two faxes from Lopez. They were camera shots that captured Yarborough’s rental car going through the border crossing in Tijuana two hours after Yarborough arrived in San Diego, and another showing him re-entering the US the morning of Yarborough’s flight back to San Francisco. The driver clearly resembled Harlan Yarborough.

  “Look at this,” Yosh said. He brought over a printout of a close to a million dollars’ worth of stocks sold two weeks earlier from the Cambry family trust. “There’s no indication yet where the money’s gone.”

  Paavo looked at Yosh. “The only one with access to that trust since Oliver’s death is Madrigal.”

  Yosh nodded. “She’s got to be the one who’s been working with Yarborough all along.”

  “Let’s pick up Yarborough. I suspect, when he knows he’s in the cross-hairs, he’ll have a lot to say.”

  They drove to Yarborough’s apartment. When he didn’t answer, they went to the apartment manager. The man saw that Yarborough’s car was in his parking space, which meant Yarborough should be home.

  He mumbled something about not being able to go into Yarborough’s apartment without a good reason, but when he saw the way the two homicide detectives looked at him, he must have decided that was reason enough because he unlocked Yarborough’s door. “Hello?” he called, sticking his head inside. “Harlan? Are you home?”

  He pushed the door open for Paavo and Yosh. “I guess he’s not here.”

  They entered the apartment. Yarborough lay on the floor of the kitchen, a shattered wineglass by his hand, and a little wine spilled on the floor.

  A second glass, half-filled with red wine was on the kitchen counter. Yarborough apparently had had company.

  And now, he was dead.

  “Man, oh man,” Yosh said. “Why do I think CSI will find some cyanide in that wine?”