Pushing Up Rhubarb (A Millsferry Mystery Book 1)

by Diana Saco

  “You mean Marvin?”

  “Yes. Marvin,” Maxi said, lifting her chin defiantly.

  “I noticed you used the present tense. ‘Love’ not ‘loved.’ Are you still in love with him?”

  Maxi made eye contact with Marvin. “Yes. I love him more and more each day,” she said.

  Despite my troubles, I couldn’t help thinking that this was one of the most romantic declarations I had ever heard. The collective sigh in the courtroom told me that others felt the same. I was surprised Mason was pursuing this line of questioning. He had been adamant that he wouldn’t implicate Marvin and Maxi without concrete evidence. I wondered if the situation with me had backed him into a corner. Maybe he thought he had to discredit Maxi to minimize whatever damage my upcoming testimony might cause—as in bigger fish to fry. After all, what’s a little breaking-and-entering when you’ve got adultery and murder sizzling in the pan? But Maxi’s sincere affirmation of love was like a Teflon coat. That scarlet letter just wasn’t going to stick.

  “Dr. Moffit,” Mason continued cautiously, “did your sister know how you felt?”

  “I hope not. I struggled very hard all these years to make sure she wouldn’t know. I stayed away from Millsferry. Turned down more invitations than I accepted. I even kept myself from calling as often as I would have liked. And I did all this for Monica’s sake. I didn’t want to interfere with my sister’s happiness.”

  “But you were engaged to Marvin first. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “When did you break off the engagement?” Mason asked.

  “After my operation for the kidney transplant. I learned that Monica had fallen for Marvin. And an operation like that changes a person. It makes you rethink your life. I decided I wanted to go to college. My sister didn’t have those ambitions. She just wanted a good man to bake for.”

  “And she was pretty good at it, too,” Mason said. “The baking?”

  “You should know?”

  “Indeed I do. Was Monica always that competitive?”

  “When it came to baking? Absolutely. The kitchen was her arena. Monica showed me some of her recipes once. And in places where most people write ‘Bake until done,’ Monica had made a notation: ‘Bake until Won!’ She was a blue-ribbon collector.”

  “This was something she had scribbled in a cookbook?” Mason asked.

  “No, not a cookbook. It was an entry in her cooking journal,” Maxi said.

  “Your sister kept a journal? When she was younger?”

  “Not just when she was younger. Monica kept a cooking journal throughout her life. She was religious about it. She documented every step of a new recipe like it was a project. It was a tradition passed on among the women on our father’s side of the family. Our grandmother, aunts, cousins—those who took to cooking and baking always kept journals.”

  I momentarily forgot my troubles as Maxi’s comment sunk in. There was a journal. Mason considered it significant, too. I could sense it in his voice.

  “Do you know what happened to your sister’s cooking journals?” he asked deliberately. “Are the notebooks still at the house?”

  “Nothing happened to them. And they aren’t notebooks. For the last several years, Monica kept an electronic journal. She started that when she first got on computers, and she eventually moved it to her tablet, using an app that allowed her to include photos and videos.”

  “Where’s her tablet now?” Mason asked excitedly.

  “I have it in my bag,” she said, lifting her chin toward the gallery to indicate that she left it on her seat next to Marvin. “We picked it up from the sheriff’s office yesterday afternoon. It was among Monica’s effects from that terrible day.”

  “Sidebar, Judge?” Mason requested.

  Ota nodded and waited for Loyal to join him and Mason at the bench. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could guess. During his deposition of Marvin weeks before, Mason had asked if Monica had any enemies—besides Chloe, of course. Marvin replied none. So Mason said that Monica might have had conflicts with other people that Marvin didn’t know about, and he suggested she might have told a friend or written about other rivals in a journal. Marvin said she didn’t keep any journals. And he denied the existence of a diary again in response to production requests that Mason submitted during pre-trial discovery. I was certain that at the moment, Mason was explaining to Judge Ota that the tablet should have been produced. Loyal was probably characterizing Mason’s interest as a fishing expedition, but I doubted he would have a strenuous objection. I watched them all nod and return to their respective positions.

  “Bailiff, would you please retrieve Dr. Moffit’s bag and hand it to her?” Ota instructed.

  The bailiff approached the gallery and accepted the bag with a “thank you” as Marvin handed it to him. He then turned, walked to the witness stand, and delivered the bag to Maxi.

  “Here you are, ma’am,” he said, before returning to his post.

  “Dr. Moffit,” Judge Ota continued, “please give the tablet to Mr. Tidwell so it can be entered into evidence.”

  “Absolutely not!” Maxi protested, clutching the bag to her bosom. “It’s private. I object!” she added.

  “You can’t object, Doctor,” the judge explained. “There’s a discovery process. The tablet should have been produced and subjected to forensic analysis as part of that process.”

  “What bearing could my poor sister’s private journal possibly have on this case?”

  “That’s what we need to determine, Doctor,” Ota continued.

  Maxi didn’t respond.

  “Dr. Moffit, relinquish the tablet immediately,” the judge ordered.

  Maxi opened her bag up in a huff, rummaged through the contents, and finally pulled out the tablet in question. She gave it to Mason with a smirk.

  “It isn’t going to do you any good, anyway. It’s locked,” she said.

  “Do you know the password?” Mason asked.

  “The password? No, I don’t know it.”

  The way Maxi replied suggested that she knew of another way to get in, and Mason picked up on the tone.

  “Does it have a biometric lock?” he asked.

  Maxi didn’t answer.

  “Dr. Moffit?” Judge Ota asked in a warning tone.

  “Yes,” she answered at last.

  “What kind of biometric lock?” Mason persisted. “Fingerprint? Ocular?”

  “It uses facial recognition,” Maxi answered reluctantly.

  “Facial recognition. Interesting. Were you and your sister identical twins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you unlock the tablet?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Have you unlocked the tablet?” Mason asked.

  Again, Maxi didn’t respond.

  “Dr. Moffit, answer the question,” Ota said.

  “All right, yes! I unlocked it once, last night, just to see if I could get in.”

  “Did you read your sister’s cooking journal?” Mason asked.

  “No, I was more interested in her pictures. I swiped through them for a few minutes and then closed the tablet and went to bed.”

  “Did you delete anything?”

  “No, of course not. Those were Monica’s last entries,” she said.

  “Would you please unlock the tablet now?” Mason asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter, dear lady,” Mason advised.

  “It’s private. My sister was the victim here. You can’t snoop into her life like that. It ain’t right!”

  I couldn’t help but notice that Maxi’s southern upbringing declared itself grammatically when she was flustered. It was almost endearing—more so because she was fighting this losing battle for her dead sister’s sake. I would have rooted for her except that I really wanted to know what was in that tablet.

  “Unfortunately, Dr. Moffit,” Judge Ota informed her, “you don’t have any l
egal standing for refusing.”

  Misunderstanding Ota’s point, Marvin stood up and said, “Then I refuse, Judge. I’m the husband. I object on the grounds that I refuse to give anyone permission to open my wife’s tablet and read her private journal,” he added awkwardly. Clearly, he thought that his attempted formality would make his objection official. It did not.

  “Mr. Munch, you don’t have any legal standing either. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts doesn’t recognize privacy rights for the deceased. Please sit down. As for you, Dr. Moffit, your refusal is obstructing these proceedings. I order you to unlock the tablet.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “Then I have no choice but to find you in contempt of court. Bailiff, please escort Dr. Moffit to the lockup.”

  I was rattled by Ota’s decision. The rustling in the jury told me that they, too, were shaken by this turn of events. Maxi arrested—the victim’s sister—and all because she was trying to do something honorable. Tension crept around the room like a hungry wolf skulking through a henhouse. Ota was out for blood, and I was next on his chopping block. On the plus side, I already knew I was going to the pokey afterward, so how much bloodier could it get. Right?

  8. Opportunity Knocks, and Sometimes It Just Comes in Uninvited

  After Maxi was escorted out and her sister’s tablet placed in evidence, Judge Ota directed Loyal to call his next victim—um . . . witness. Loyal adopted his best game-show voice to break the tension.

  “Nina Braco, come on down!”

  A nervous titter of laughter ushered me to the witness stand. At times like this, I truly adored this man. I could almost overlook that he was prosecuting my “best friend.”

  He smiled at me, and I returned it gratefully. I felt my courage and professionalism propping me up. They were no bigger than toothpicks at the moment, but they would have to do.

  After I took the oath and stated my name for the record, I settled into the hot seat and tried to remember everything I’d learned over the years about being a witness. Exude confidence. Don’t fidget. Sit straight. Don’t cross your arms. Make eye contact with the counselor and occasionally with the jury. Listen carefully. Answer only the questions asked. And if you value your life, don’t forget to breathe. I inhaled a slow, steady breath as Loyal asked his first question.

  “Ms. Braco, would you please state for the record what you do and how you came to be involved in this case?”

  “Yes, I’m a partner in the investigative firm of Braco and Dupree, P.A.,” I began by rote. “I’m a licensed private investigator in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

  My brain caught up with what I’d just said, and I suddenly wondered if I had perjured myself. I glanced at Judge Ota, who looked back expectantly. He seemed to be wondering why I’d stopped. “Uh,” I stumbled. Then I turned back to the jury, took another deep breath, and decided I might as well grab onto Dumbo’s ears and climb aboard.

  “Actually, I was a licensed PI, but I’ve gotten myself into a spot of trouble and have had my license suspended for six months.”

  That earned me a sympathetic smile from Juror No. 3 and an atta-girl nod from No. 7, so I decided it was the right thing to say. I relaxed a little more and answered the rest of the question.

  “My partner, Aloysius Dupree, and I were called into this case by Sheriff Bruno Everly on the morning of the incident at the Millsferry Annual Bake-Off.”

  “Why do you think the sheriff brought you in on this matter, especially before determining if a crime had been committed?”

  “As he said in his testimony, he wanted our input given our expertise. It was a suspicious death in a cooking venue. And my firm specializes in food-related investigations.”

  “Yes, I was hoping you could elaborate. What sorts of food-related investigations. Are we talking bugs in the kitchen?” Loyal joked.

  “No, we leave the kitchen nightmares to Gordon Ramsay,” I lobbed back, checking the jury to see if my quip hit its mark. Juror No. 3 did one of those silent chuckles. “We conduct food-industry background checks for hires and acquisitions, and we investigate recipe thefts, restaurant sabotages, the occasional poisoning or food contamination, that kind of thing,” I said to the jury. Then I turned back to Loyal. “Actually, I try to stay away from anything involving bugs in food. And especially bugs as food. I never did understand the whole Bear Grylls appeal,” I said to the jury again, starting to babble nervously. “You know—that guy who does those surviving-in-the-wild shows? Like I could ever get so desperate that I would eat a slug. Although I probably would do snake,” I mused. “I think it’s funny when he gets those urban professionals on his show—the type who would screech if they found something crawling in their food—and he actually gets them to eat a bug. Without salad dressing! If Bear Grylls were at a fancy restaurant and found a bug in his salad, I wonder whether he would send back the salad or eat it, bug and all. What do you think?” I asked Loyal, quite forgetting where I was.

  Loyal smiled and said, “I think you should refocus, Ms. Braco.”

  “What? Oh, yes,” I said, feeling myself blush slightly as a few of the jurors chuckled. I tried to control my nerves and again mentally reviewed the best advice for being a good trial witness, reciting it like a mantra—Answer only what’s asked. Answer only what’s asked.

  “So you’ve been involved in the investigation from the start?”

  “Yes.”

  “But initially you were helping the police determine what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “So did you switch sides when your friend Chloe Owens was arrested?”

  “No. I mean, yes, that was the day we were hired by Mr. Tidwell to continue investigating the matter for the defense, but we didn’t ‘switch sides,’ as you put it, because I’m friends with Chloe Owens. I only just met her during this investigation. I interviewed her as a person of interest the day after the incident.”

  “I see. And why was the defendant a person of interest so soon after Mrs. Munch’s demise?”

  “After he arrived at the scene, Mr. Munch publicly accused Ms. Owens of being responsible for his wife’s death. That and the reputed rivalry between the two of them warranted an interview to hear what she had to say.”

  “And did the defendant admit to the rivalry between her and the victim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t she, in fact, say—and I’m quoting your notes here—‘I can’t pretend that I’m not glad to be rid of that alliterating albatross’?”

  I heard a few stifled laughs. Evidently, other people appreciated Chloe’s humor. I tried not to smile as I answered. “Yes.”

  Loyal frowned at me. “Only a ‘yes’? Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “It was unusual. But only because in my experience, people aren’t typically that forthright about their dislike of the victim of a suspicious death.”

  “Come now, Ms. Braco. It was a little more than ‘dislike.’ The defendant admitted hating the victim.”

  “Yes, she did,” I said matter-of-factly. I couldn’t undo Chloe’s comment, but I could certainly undermine Loyal’s attempt to read more into it.

  “Isn’t it possible that the defendant was forthright in her animosity because she knew it would come out anyway?”

  “I can’t know what she was thinking,” I said, but I knew that wasn’t Chloe’s reason, and my answer reflected my doubt.

  “What else could it have been?”

  “Frankness. Integrity. A disdain for dishonesty and pretense even if it means violating social mores. The impression I got of Chloe from Day One and every day since then is that she is candid to a fault. She told me exactly what she thought of Monica because she doesn’t sugar-coat anything. Except the occasional dessert, of course,” I added. I checked the jury to see if anyone appreciated that little joke. Only Juror No. 3 again. Hmm.

  “You sound like you admire the defendant.”

  I thought about it. “Yes, I guess I do.”

  “
So it didn’t bother you that she was speaking ill of the dead?” Loyal played up the accusation for the jury’s benefit, as if knowing she broke a few taboos would make it easier for them to believe she was capable of murder.

  “In a way, it made my job easier,” I replied. “Most of the people I interview are trying to avoid saying anything incriminating. Since I need the facts, plain and simple, secrets and lies get in the way of my objective. For that reason,” I said, addressing the jury the way Loyal had done, “I found Chloe’s blunt answers refreshing.”

  “Did she also tell you she didn’t kill Mrs. Munch?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believed that, too?” he asked.

  “I neither believed it nor disbelieved it. We had only just started our investigation into Monica Munch’s death. We still didn’t know how she died, or that anything anyone did might have contributed to her death.”

  Loyal seemed unhappy that I was reminding the jury that we weren’t even sure we were investigating a homicide at first.

  “And when Mr. Kirkland was poisoned, did you begin suspecting the defendant then?” he asked.

  “Quite the opposite—when Mr. Kirkland was poisoned we thought we might be facing a major food contamination problem.”

  “But you later found out there was a connection between the defendant and Mr. Kirkland. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, after Mr. Kirkland came out of his coma, Sheriff Everly and I interviewed him. It was at that time that we learned that he had met Chloe on the beach one day, in mid-July.”

  “Before the bake-off?” Loyal interjected.

  “Yes, before the bake-off. On the fourteenth, to be exact. Chloe had some driftwood that she wanted to turn into an art piece. Mr. Kirkland suggested bleaching it with oxalic acid and gave her some.”

  “Why did he have oxalic acid on him?”

  “I don’t believe he had it on him. They went back to his home to get it from his apiary supplies. Mr. Kirkland is a beekeeper,” I explained. “As I understand it, bees get mites if they aren’t properly tended to. A solution of oxalic acid crystals is a natural mite-killer.”