by Robin Allen
“A few minutes ago, the notebook was the motive.”
“Maybe Ginger didn’t want Troy to know a divorce was on the horizon, but with all his spying, he found out, and then Ginger found the notebook and discovered that he knew, and when Troy found out she knew he knew, he started funneling all his money into Swiss bank accounts so Ginger couldn’t get any of it, which is why he went cash-only with his vendors.”
Jamie sat quietly, trying to untangle my logic, and I took time to do the same. “Or Troy wanted to get rid of Ginger,” he said.
“Okay, then Ginger reads something in the notebook and thinks Troy wants to divorce her, and since there’s no alimony in Texas, she decides on assassination instead.”
“Why not let the brain tumor do it for her?”
“She couldn’t take the chance that he would live long enough to divorce her,” I said. “Or maybe he was faking the whole thing. Another practical joke.”
“And got a medical discharge from the marines?”
I threw myself against the back of my chair. “Dang! Nothing makes sense.”
“That’s because you’re making things up,” Jamie said.
“I’m theorizing and postulating.”
“They’re good theories and postulations, but only one of them is supported by the facts.”
“So I should start with the facts.”
“That’s what I usually do.”
I fortified myself with a gulp of wine, then said, “Assuming that the crime scene photos are accurate and everyone I’ve talked to so far is telling the truth, I know that there was no flashlight on the catwalk; there exists a suicide note allegedly written by Troy that Todd doesn’t want Ginger to see; Troy was documenting secrets in a notebook that the killer stole—”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“Troy kept a notebook full of secrets I haven’t seen; Danny and Todd had an emergency meeting with a criminal defense attorney the day after Troy died; Troy had a brain tumor; and Miles is Danny’s brother-in-law.”
“Do any of those facts support your theory that Ginger and Troy were divorcing?”
“Not directly,” I said sulkily.
“Do those facts support any other theories?”
“I’m not wrong about this, Jamie. Someone killed Troy Sharpe. If not Ginger because of a divorce, then Danny or Miles or Todd for some other reason.”
“You actually have a lot to go on,” he said.
“Pft.”
“You could find out what he wrote in his suicide note or find the notebook or find out why those two went to see Suzi Grimm.”
I smiled at him. “I guess my thinking had gotten really uptight. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “Is it a microbrewery?”
“More like a microcosm.”
Our waiter, a new guy I had never seen before—who obviously didn’t recognize me or Jamie because he stored his pen behind his ear until I pointed out that it was unhygienic—took our dinner order. Cucumber salad for me, salmon cakes for Jamie.
After he left, I asked, “Is it kosher to pair salmon with pinot noir?”
“Of course,” he said. “I don’t make those kinds of gastronomic errors.”
“Were you able to find out if Troy arranged to pay cash—another fact—with any other vendors?”
“They’re COD with Lone Star and Waterloo.”
“Did they say why?”
“Only that Troy made the request a few weeks ago.”
“Maybe Troy didn’t trust whoever was signing on the account. It would have to be Todd, Danny, or Ginger.”
“Is that a theory or a postulation?” Jamie asked.
“A little of both.”
Our meals arrived, and after the first bite of his entrée, Jamie said, “I may have lied to Philip earlier. These salmon cakes are review worthy.”
“That’s my recipe, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but I review chefs who do amazing things with food, not girlfriends who do amazing things to their dresses.”
We passed the rest of dinner talking about the various projects he was working on, the progress on my house, and the latest antics between Dana White and Randy Dove, who were both running for president of the Friends of the Farm at Good Earth Preserves.
Jamie invited me to the Cove to listen to his jazz band, Zzaj. I don’t care for jazz, but I love watching Jamie play the drums. I would have gone for a little while, but I had one more stop to make. We said good night around nine o’clock, and I drove down the street to the Johns’s gallery. I needed to view some photographs, but not ones of circus freaks.
twenty-seven
Through the picture windows of the gallery I saw the Johns standing with two other couples, everyone happily drinking champagne. The door was locked, so I knocked on the glass. John Without looked up first. He stopped smiling and crossed his arms as John With came over to open the door.
“Hi there, Poppy Markham,” John With said, standing aside to let me in. He waved his champagne flute at the room. “We sold every piece.”
“The midget lion tamers, too?” I asked.
“That went first,” he said, then hugged me.
The look on John Without’s face would not have been out of place hanging with all the other photos. Under normal circumstances I would have played it up, but I had gone there to ask him for a favor and didn’t want him to harbor any more feelings of animosity toward me than he already did, so I pulled away.
“Come meet our friends,” John With said.
He introduced me to Sean and Jason, then Rob and Emmanuel. “I told you about the fire,” John With said to them. “Poppy’s staying in our guest room while her house undergoes renovations.”
“Which are being done by a deaf, dumb, and blind contractor,” John Without said, “who doesn’t own a clock or a calendar.”
Everyone sensed his mood change, and the other guys said they needed to shove off. John With let them out the front door, saying, “Our back yard, Saturday at noon. Don’t forget Ricky and Winston.”
“What’s happening Saturday?” I asked John Without, hoping to get him talking about something that sounded like fun.
“Liza’s debut picnic,” he said, “but you can’t attend unless you bring a dog.”
“Oh, stop it, J,” John With said as he returned with a champagne bottle. “You don’t have to bring anything.”
The thought of borrowing one of the stuffed dogs from Capital Punishment’s gift chamber flitted through my mind, but that might be considered antagonistic, so I let it go. “I can find something else to do on Saturday,” I said.
“You’ll come to the party,” John With said. “And bring Jamie. A friend has been asking about him.”
I didn’t know of any friends Jamie had in common with the Johns, but I could tell that John Without wasn’t happy that his dog-required ploy had already failed to keep me away, so I nodded noncommittally and looked around at the photographs of bearded ladies and tattooed strongmen. “These remind me of Diane Arbuckle’s photos,” I said.
If I didn’t know better, I would have said that John Without looked impressed, but I did know better and he wasn’t. He said, “Would that be Fatty Arbuckle, the infamous twenties comedian, or Diane Arbus, who photographed society’s fringe?”
John With tried to deflect his snark with, “What brings you here so late, Poppy Markham?” But it didn’t work.
“Yes,” John Without said. “A couple more hours and we would have gone an entire day without seeing you.”
I envisioned the next few moments, me asking John Without if I could look through the photos he took for Troy at Capital Punishment, him snorting and saying, “Fat chance,” then John With saying, “Oh, just let her see the photos.” And th
at’s how it went down, except John Without said, “Fatty Arbuckle chance,” and John With sugared the request by saying John’s photos were really good and they should frame some of them and hang them in the gallery.
“They’re in the office,” John Without said.
I followed him to the back and he pointed to the computer on the desk.
I didn’t move.
“They’re in a file called Sharpe, with an E,” he said.
I still didn’t move.
“They’re digital,” he said loudly.
“I don’t know how to use a Mac.”
“Figures.” He sat at the desk and pulled up the files for me. Troy’s smiling face filled the screen, his dilated pupils shining with a secret. “This is a mouse,” John said. “You press the left button—”
“I know how to use a mouse.”
He stood and we switched places. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“Something to prove Troy was murdered.”
“Is that so?”
I looked up at John and wondered why I hadn’t thought to discuss this with him before. He had spent time with those people and had been everywhere in the restaurant. He could have seen and heard all kinds of suspicious things. Maybe some arguments or threats against Troy. Maybe even taken pictures of them.
And then he said, “You solve one little murder and suddenly you’re Jessica Fletcher.”
Yeah, that’s why.
“How did Troy hire you?” I asked.
“He and his wife came into the gallery a couple of months ago. When he found out I was a photographer, he asked me to take pictures of the restaurant.”
“That seems beneath your talent,” I said. I didn’t like giving him a compliment, but it was the truth. John Without is a respected fine arts photographer, and that was a job for someone hungry and just starting out.
“It is,” he confirmed, lifting his chin a couple of inches, “but it was obvious he was waiting for me to accept the job before he bought a bronze bust Ginger said she wanted because it looked like him.”
“Did it?”
“She was being sarcastic.”
“How did he pay for the bronze?”
John Without looked at me like it was none of my business, but then he said, “His AmEx was declined, so he wrote a check.”
“How did he pay for your photos?”
“He didn’t. I told him I would invoice him at the end of the job.”
I could only imagine that I was having a civil conversation with John Without because the topic was him. “Do you remember photographing anything unusual?”
“That whole shoot was ridiculous,” he said. “Troy had me take pictures of him posing in various places around the restaurant, pretending to bartend or paint or hammer a nail.”
“For what purpose?”
“Arrogant self-indulgence.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Did you know he was a star quarterback in high school?”
John yawned. “And a captain in the marines with the highest security clearance, and a brilliant stock trader, and a multimillionaire, and yadda, yadda, blah.”
“A multimillionaire?”
“That’s what he said, which is funny because his check for the sculpture was returned NSF.”
“Troy’s check bounced?”
“He paid cash the next time he saw me at the restaurant.”
“Did you ever photograph his rope trick?”
John sneered. “Not the first time.”
“He got you too, huh?”
“Not as bad as he got you.” John used the mouse to scroll through the pictures until he came to one of me running toward Troy, eyes as big as tambourines, my mouth frozen in an O. I felt the humiliation of that moment all over again.
The photo had been taken from above, and I could see Todd smiling behind me. And then something jelled: the flashes of light coming from the catwalk and John’s appearance out of nowhere when the protesters showed up. “You were upstairs Monday morning?” I asked.
“Jessica Fletcher strikes again.”
“Show me the rest of the pictures from that day.”
He clicked a left arrow on the screen and the pictures scrolled back in time—Todd and me standing in the dining room, looking up at Troy on the catwalk. Troy looking back at the camera as he put a leg over the railing. Troy putting a noose around his own neck.
“Go the other way,” I said.
He clicked the right arrow and moved past my imitation of Mr. Bill to the coin toss before the gurney race. Troy shoving Todd’s gurney into the wall. Troy puking on the floor. The construction workers returning to work.
“Stop there,” I said.
“A rare tender moment between Troy and Ginger,” he said.
“That’s not Troy.”
twenty-eight
In the picture, Ginger and Todd stood by the bar, kissing. Not an in-law kiss but an on-the-lips, hands-behind-the-head, bodies-pressed-together, quick-before-we’re caught embrace.
“Of course it’s Troy,” John snapped.
I pointed to the bottom right corner of the picture. “That’s Miles coming into the dining room from the gift chamber. Troy was outside dealing with the protesters and sent him to get you.”
“So that’s why he didn’t want me to take his picture sometimes,” John said. “It wasn’t him.”
I had so many more questions for him about what he had seen there, but it was late and we were both tired and my questions had nothing to do with him, which meant that the conversation would be as pleasant as trying to scrape plaque off the teeth of a partially sedated cat.
Maybe I could piece together something from the photos. “Can I get copies of these?” I asked.
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“They might help me find out what really happened to Troy.”
“No.”
“I might get killed trying to solve this.”
He picked up a CD case from the desk with “Sharpe Photos” printed on the label, then handed it to me and left the office.
x x x
No way could I sleep after discovering that Ginger and Todd had been having an affair, so I drove downtown to the Cove to share this new intel—this new fact—with Jamie. Zzaj was finishing up their first set, but I was too excited to wait for them to play two more numbers. I wrote a note on a napkin and asked the cocktail waitress to deliver it to Jamie along with a bottle of Shiner Bock beer.
“Good luck getting that one’s attention,” she said.
I saw her read the note on the way to the bar. I had assumed she would, so I had written “GSHARP + BRO” inside a heart.
The waitress pointed me out to Jamie, and he drummed the code to let his band mates know he wanted to take an early break. The sax player and piano player each sounded their code for 10-4. Jamie read my note, then used it to wipe the sweat from his face and neck as he made his way to my table. He leaned down for a kiss as the waitress returned with my glass of water.
“Lucky you,” she said to me.
“Why are you lucky?” Jamie asked before he gulped down half my water.
“Because the most gorgeous guy in Austin is at my table.”
He smiled and kissed my neck, his lips cold from the water, then dropped into a chair.
“Who do you know who’s also friends with the Johns?” I asked.
“Just you.”
“Are you sure? They said someone is asking about you.”
“That’s a wobbly circle I don’t travel in.” He drained the rest of my water. “So, the wife and the brother. How did you ferret that out in the past couple of hours?”
“I went to Four Corne
rs and looked through the pictures John Without took of the restaurant. Troy was outside with the protesters when John took a picture of Todd and Ginger inside. Troy thought Todd was locking the back door.”
“But he was locking lips with his brother’s wife.”
“Can you believe it?”
He laughed. “Sure. From what you’ve told me, Todd is a nicer version of Troy.”
“I can believe Ginger, but to do that to your own twin? Right under his nose? In the restaurant you’re opening together?” I shook my head. “Wicked.”
“No more wicked than killing him.”
I crunched an ice cube. “A theory now supported by a fact.”
“I think you need more facts,” he said. “Having an affair doesn’t mean they killed him.”
“Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr.,” I said.
“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
“Or in this case, hang hang. That’s the best motive I have for any of them to do it. Too bad it’s so mundane.”
The rest of Zzaj started assembling on the stage, and Jamie stood. “You can’t have everything.”
“Can I have another kiss kiss?”
“Sorry, Poppycakes, but you’ve reached your hourly quota.” He leaned down and said softly into my ear, “Ask me again after the next set.”
I felt tingly and a little warm from his temptation, but as much as I wanted to hang out and watch Jamie in action, I needed to spend the next few hours sleeping in a bed down the hall from a wobbly twosome. “I can’t stay,” I said. “I have to be at L and L at five tomorrow morning. One of the independents might be up to something hinky.”
“Oh?” he said, his sultry voice gone, replaced by his all-business reporter voice. “Something I should keep an eye on?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Wait until after noon, please.”
x x x
After working what most people consider normal business hours the past few weeks while on light duty, my body clock had somewhat adapted and I was afraid I would sleep through the alarm I had set for 4:00 am. Turned out, I did sleep through it. Thankfully John Without is a light sleeper, and my alarm woke him up. He made sure I kept on schedule by pounding on the wall between our rooms and shouting, “Turn that blasted thing off!”
