Murder Most Fermented

by Christine E. Blum

  Malcolm heard someone clapping behind him and turned to see Penelope enter the office. I, of course, knew that she was coming.

  Safety in numbers.

  “That was a very convincing speech, Malcolm, lovely really,” she said.

  “Look, I don’t know why you don’t like me, Penelope. I’ve never done anything to hurt you. But please believe me, I meant everything I just said about my family.”

  “You don’t remember lying to me one night when I caught you digging in your front yard. You said that your cat had died and you were burying it?”

  “That was you, Penelope? I have terrible night vision and thought that you were Paula. She was very nosy when I first moved in, always coming over unannounced. I was looking for the deed and didn’t want her to know anything about it. I’m sorry.”

  He did seem contrite and I saw Penelope’s face soften.

  “Apology accepted,” she finally said.

  “Malcolm, what is the urgency in finding this document? You must know that it will be held up in court for ages, and even once settled, you shouldn’t plan on seeing any money from it for far longer.”

  He looked at me while preparing his response. It was impossible for me to tell if we were going to hear the truth or if he would play us.

  “Being an orphan at such a young age, I naturally wanted to learn as much as I could about my relatives. As soon as I was old enough to go to the library and use their computers, I started to research my genealogy. It was very difficult to build any sort of history, my parents had been hippies, you see. They went off on their own shortly after they married and actually none of my blood relatives had known that I existed.”

  I looked over in the corner and saw that Bardot had been making clandestine shimmies closer and closer to us. I gave her a stern look and she smiled back.

  “This is fascinating but not all together relevant.” Penelope was clearly still not convinced that Malcolm was one of the good guys.

  “Ultimately what I discovered was that I came from a long line of scam artists probably going as far back as the carnival amusements at Venice Beach in the 1920s. They continued swindling people for generations all over southern California. I’m sure that there are still some running cons today. I first learned of this by contacting a neighbor of one of my great uncles that was still alive. I ended up paying him back the five hundred dollars that uncle had swindled out of him. This kept happening and I was finally forced to abandon any further study. But a week after I quit, I got a call back from someone I’d left a message with, and that’s how I learned about Great-Grandmother Abigail.”

  “And she told you about the existence of the deed?” We still had basically nothing from him.

  “No, not at first, Halsey. Which was fine, I was overjoyed just to meet her. I spent about a week at her house, helping her out with basic things, replacing a washer in the sink faucet, getting the floor heater cleaned and in good working order again. Little things that made her life easier. That was when she asked me to move in with her, into the house that she wanted to pass down to me. I was thrilled. I saw myself listening to her tell family stories for the rest of her days. When I was leaving to go back up north to pack, she told me that my inheritance may include something of enormous value, a deed that could be worth millions. She said that she now trusted me with her secret.”

  I looked at Penelope, searching her face for any hint of reaction to his story.

  “So you left on what date, Malcolm?” Penelope asked.

  “Um, I believe that it was October, around the fifteenth or seventeenth. Why do you ask?”

  “Because according to the police no one reported seeing your great-grandmother after the tenth of October. Did you fly down from San Francisco?” Penelope was really zeroing in on him.

  “No. No, I drove.”

  “So there really isn’t any way to verify that your great-grandmother was alive when you left her house, is there?”

  Understanding the gravity of what Penelope had just said, Malcolm let his head drop. I poured him some more wine even though I knew that he was done drinking.

  It seemed that I’d been elected good cop in this scenario.

  “Malcolm, you seemed to indicate that your fascination with the deed was to have some tangible connection to your heritage. When you learned of its possible significant value, did your opinion change?”

  “Yes.”

  Penelope and I both bolted to attention and looked at him. That was when I saw that Bardot was now sitting dutifully at Malcolm’s side, enjoying the gentle petting he was giving her.

  Et tu, Bardot?

  “You see, this was my chance to restore respect for the family name. I want to atone for every dollar that an Abernathy has conned out of an innocent victim. I still have a lot of names in my database from my earlier research, and I intend to contact each and every one of them and pay them back. And if there is indeed oil under Rose Avenue, then you will all be given your mineral rights.”

  “That’s very noble of you.” If it were true, I thought.

  I looked out the French doors and saw that the sun had started to set. If we didn’t do this now, then we’d be hampered by darkness. I looked at Penelope and she gave me a slight nod.

  “Malcolm, I think that it is about time that the deed was returned to its rightful owner. Come along, and I’ll take you to it.”

  Chapter 24

  As Penelope and Malcolm walked out of my office, I used the ruse of putting a leash on Bardot to lag behind and text Sally again. I simply wrote:

  Gone gardening

  I rushed out to catch up with them. We were so close and I didn’t want anything to mess this up in the last minute.

  Or anyone.

  Bardot was pulling on the leash and wagging her tail vigorously, and when I looked out to the group walking in front of us, I now saw that there were three figures. The additional person was wearing her trademark gardening clogs that, for the very first time, were appropriate attire.

  “Marisol, why aren’t you home watching Mario Lopez?”

  “I’m taping it,” she replied to me curtly.

  I caught up to her and looped my arm through hers so that I could slow her walking pace.

  “You do anything to ruin our plan and I will report all of your electronic spying to the CIA. And you know that I can.”

  She harrumphed, but I knew she was taking me seriously. With all her meddling and snooping, Marisol learned a while ago that Peggy had once worked for the CIA. In her eyes that made Peggy the most supreme being. And the only person that she feared.

  Once on the top of the hill, I noted that the place was deserted. Which was just the way I wanted it. There were no cars in the lot and the baseball diamond was devoid of players. For a few minutes we all stood looking out at the orange and red horizon line over the ocean. A soft breeze made the rustling of leaves the only soundtrack to this incredible view.

  “Do you know why I brought you here, Malcolm?”

  “I assume that it has something to do with the deed, but I have no idea what. Paula offered several times to bring me up here to visit Abigail’s makeshift grave, but I refused. It is just too gruesome a thought and not the way I want to remember her.”

  “So you’ve never been up here before?” Penelope asked.

  “I didn’t say that, I was here once before.” His voice trailed off.

  “You came to see the gravesite?” I asked.

  “No! I told you, I don’t ever want to see it. I was here to observe the houses below for the report I was working on with Max. It would have been a much faster way to catalogue the inventory but I couldn’t quite see from back behind the fence to the gardens. So I jumped the fence, I was only going to be there for five or ten minutes.”

  “But you were caught?” I asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “I was on the bleachers, watching the game.”

  “If you knew, why did you ask? You don’t suspect me of something
?”

  Malcolm went person to person staring at us.

  “Wait, you think that I had something to do with Abigail’s death?”

  “You said it, she didn’t,” Marisol piped up. “I’m feeling good about this guy for the killer, Halsey.”

  “You really should stop watching TV in the middle of the day, Marisol.” I was feeling sick to my stomach. I had one more chance to nail Malcolm and then we were back to square one.

  “Malcolm, I buried the deed right back where I found it, in my garden plot,” I said, unlocking the gate and letting him pass through. Penelope and Marisol followed him. I turned on my flashlight app.

  “This way,” I said, struggling with Bardot, who was pulling me in the exact opposite direction.

  I walked all the way to the far edge of the garden area, the side that abutted the road leading up the hill. I glanced over at Malcolm, hoping for a reaction. There was none.

  “This is my plot, here,” I said, pointing to a half-planted area with what looked like carrot greens poking up through the earth. I pulled a small trowel out of my garden bag. This whole exercise was meant to trap Malcolm; I certainly didn’t want to destroy anything that the person who owned this plot had planted.

  “It’s your deed, Malcolm, best start digging,” Penelope said, handing the garden tool over to him.

  He held it awkwardly not sure what to do next. I saw a brief flash of light emanate from the top of the hill. Thankfully Malcolm was staring at the ground and missed it.

  “Where should I start?” he asked, scanning the soil for some visual clue like a big red X.

  I pointed to the far corner of the plot that was clear of any plantings. While he got to work on the dry soil, I quickly texted Sally again.

  Call off the troops, he’s not our guy

  I looked at Malcolm, he’d barely made a dent in the soil. His was a body clearly not built for manual labor.

  “Here, let me at this,” Marisol said, grabbing the trowel and getting to work.

  All of this digging got Bardot in the mood and she was working on freeing a carrot from below.

  “Bardot! Stop.”

  I looked at Penelope and she nodded to me.

  “Wait, everyone, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I just realized that I’d dug up the deed a week ago to have a friend and historian examine it.”

  “What?” Malcolm was crestfallen and rightly so.

  “You sure, Halsey? How much wine have you had today?”

  “I’m sure, Marisol.” The anger in my voice made it sound like Mare-E-sol.

  “Crickey, then, let’s get out of here. It’s cold and dark and cocktail hour!” Penelope marched on up the hill not waiting for the rest of us.

  “I’ll get the deed to you as soon as possible, Malcolm. But the early report from my friend is that it is a forgery.”

  “The story of my life.” Malcolm sighed.

  “Come along, dear boy,” Penelope said to him, “you’re joining me in cocktails.”

  That seemed to lift his spirits and whether it was the promise of spending time with pretty Penelope or with a gin and tonic, or both, he raced up the hill to join her.

  “Come by for drinks, Halsey,” I heard Penelope shout. They’d already made it to the road and were running down the hill.

  Kids.

  “I’m going to let Bardot run for a bit, Marisol. Maybe you want to go on ahead?”

  “Might as well, nothing to see here, never was.”

  “Which means that there is still a murderer out there, Marisol, so go straight home.”

  She trotted off.

  Now that we were by ourselves, I let Bardot off her leash. This was not allowed in the gardens, but if she could run and get her ya-yas out, then I could relax. I assumed that I might be a fifth wheel at the cocktail party, which was fine. I had been wanting to open the bottle of Flowers Pinot Noir Sea Ridge that I’d found for a special price and couldn’t pass up. Now was as good a time as any.

  I could hear critters scattering as Bardot put her nose to the ground and followed the trails of delicious bestial scents. Hey, maybe she was even saving some poor, unsuspecting vegetables from being ravaged.

  By the time I reached the gate to the gardens, the sun had officially set. The moon was trying to peek out from behind the curtain of marine layer that always presents itself at this time of day. The result of the warm air of the last nine hours meeting the cool evening sea air. I whistled for Bardot.

  No response. I tried again.

  This time I heard branches and leaves being rustled along with the soft pounding of four spry paws jettisoning her up the hill. When I saw her smiling face, I reached for the lock on the gate and readied her leash clasp.

  She reached me, wagged her tail, and thrust her nose back up into the air above her. After a couple of good snoutfuls, she tore off in the direction of my actual garden plot.

  “Bardot! Come back!” I yelled. I was tired now and really needed to get home to my wine, but she was nowhere in sight.

  Crap.

  Without her excellent sense of smell, I needed my flashlight app again to guide me along the path. Since I’d really only been to my plot a handful of times, I was pretty much guessing that I was headed in the right direction. That was confirmed when I heard Bardot let out that distinctive high-pitched wail.

  “Bardot, I’m coming. Stay where you are.”

  I recognized the pea stalks and the red watering can I’d passed and knew that my garden was just a few plots beyond it. I held out the light and could just barely see Bardot’s outline cloaked in the spreading marine layer fog. She stood frozen in place, emitting a low, guttural sound.

  When I reached her, I used the light from my phone to scan the area and I saw that we were not alone.

  I couldn’t make out if it was a man or a woman crouched down in my garden in the fog, but I was pretty sure that the long, tapered shape that was pointed at me was a rifle.

  Chapter 25

  “Turn that light off, you’ll wake them up!” The gravely words were spat rather than spoken, making the voice difficult to identify.

  Just as I did what I’d been told, I saw a flash of red hair in the light.

  Malcolm?

  “Sit down, we’re going to have a little chat.”

  As I did, I heard a match strike and then smelled the sulfur. The match was then used to light a small candle that was being held upright in the freshly turned soil. It cast just enough light to see the garden but little else. I gave Bardot the hand signal that Jack had taught us and she took off. I was relieved that she was out of harm’s way. The plot had freshly planted shoots of various sizes all placed in tidy rows.

  Who did this?

  As I studied the bed, looking for clues, I saw a hand place the rifle down to the ground. It looked old. When my eyes registered the drum ammo magazine, I realized that it was the tommy gun from Abigail Rose’s dining room.

  “Malcolm? Why are you doing this? Look, you might as well know the deed to the mineral rights is a fake.”

  “It is? You mean that they’re not going to tear up my beautiful gardens?”

  “You’re not Malcolm, are you?”

  “Of course not!”

  The fog was lifting and I couldn’t resist, I grabbed my phone and shone the flashlight in the direction where the voice emanated. It wasn’t Malcolm after all.

  “Paula?”

  “What did I tell you about the light; turn that damn thing off!”

  She picked up the submachine gun and leveled it at me. I saw that it was loaded, which it hadn’t been the first time I’d seen it. I had no idea whether it functioned or not, but I was pretty sure that Paula would try to shoot it.

  “Of course, I’m sorry,” I said, putting my phone in my pocket. “Sorry little ones,” I whispered to the plants, hoping to calm Paula enough to make her feel comfortable putting the gun down.

  “Thank you for planting all these lovely vegetables in my garden, Paula. I’m very e
xcited to see what comes up.”

  “It is not your garden, fool, it’s mine!”

  “But the girls—”

  “Forget the girls; they stole what was rightfully mine. Abigail promised it to me for all the years I took care of her, made her meals with my fresh produce, and watched over her when she got sick.”

  “This was Abigail’s? I never knew that, but Sally did say something about this being a probate sale.”

  “Another lie! They were all jealous. They couldn’t stand the fact that with this plot I’d be the largest shareholder in the co-op and automatically become president!”

  “Hmm, you think?”

  This was not the Paula I knew. In the moonlight, I could now see her face and her bulging eyes filled with anger. I felt a profound sadness for her.

  “Listen, Paula, why don’t we get out of the night air and go to my house for a glass of wine? I’ll sign the plot papers over to you and this will all be yours to preside over.”

  “I can’t leave my babies now. And I’ve got to find that deed and destroy it. They can’t find oil; that would destroy everything!”

  “I can help with that,” I said and took my trowel out of my garden bag. With that action, she picked up the gun and touched the end to my forehead. I dropped the shovel and put up my hands. I prayed to myself that the tommy gun was fake and just another Abernathy con.

  “I know where I buried the deed, Paula; I was just going to dig it up.”

  After a moment to think about it, she said, “Go ahead, but know that I’m watching you.”

  “Oh I know, believe me.”

  I crawled to the far end of the plot and gently started moving soil. I’d buried the watertight plastic pouch deep enough to be safe from scavenging critters. When I felt that I’d dug deep enough, I put down the trowel and used my hands to feel for the edge of the envelope. I worked with my fingers spread, clearing dirt from the center of the hole to the rims in opposite directions. On my third sweep, I felt the rigid edge of the plastic. I gave it a good tug and it released from the ground. I immediately handed it to Paula.