Killer Crab Cakes

by Livia J. Washburn

  That would have to wait for another time, though. Phyllis certainly didn’t want to bring up the fact that Tom had been there right in front of Chief Clifton.

  When Phyllis listened closely, she could hear footsteps upstairs and knew they belonged to the officers who were searching through the bedrooms. While they waited, a khaki-uniformed policeman came into the parlor and reported to Clifton, “I’ve been through the office, Chief, and copied the files on the computer.” He held up a little USB drive. “You want me to pull the hard drive itself ?”

  “Are you sure you got everything?” Clifton asked.

  “If there’s anything else on there, it’s so well hidden and encrypted that whoever put it there ought to be working for the NSA.”

  “I don’t think Dorothy’s that much of a computer whiz, and I happen to know that Ben can barely turn the machine on.” Clifton smiled. “No, you can leave it intact, Ted.”

  “Gotcha, Chief. I have the victim’s laptop, too, so I can go through the files on it at the station.”

  A moment later another officer came from the kitchen. “Nothing out there except plenty of food, canned goods, cooking utensils, pots and pans … just what you’d expect.”

  “Did you put everything back the way you found it?” Clifton asked.

  “Yes, sir, Chief, just like you ordered.”

  That made the natural resentment Phyllis felt toward the chief ease slightly. Clifton wasn’t being as hard-nosed about this as he could have been. He could have confiscated Dorothy’s computer or at least the hard drive, and he could have had his men tear the place apart and leave it that way so that someone else would have to clean up the mess. Phyllis was sure the officers were conducting a thorough search, but at least the chief had instructed them not to cause too much havoc.

  “Have you already searched in here?” she asked him when the second officer was through talking to him.

  He turned toward her and nodded. “Yes, ma’am, we did that first, so there would be a place for everyone to come while the rest of the search is being carried out.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?” Clifton paused. “Or maybe you do. From the sound of the newspaper stories I read about you, Mrs. Newsom, you’re practically an unofficial member of the sheriff’s department up there where you come from.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating, Chief.”

  “Maybe a little. But reading between the lines, I figure your son provided you with a lot of information in those other cases. If his boss wants to let him get away with that, fine, it’s none of my business. But that’s not the way we operate down here.”

  Sam moved up alongside Phyllis’s shoulder. “I don’t reckon the lady was askin’ for any special favors,” he said, and now his voice was tight with anger.

  Phyllis appreciated the way he sprang to her defense, in the face of even a mild rebuke from the chief. But she could fight her own battles, and this little confrontation wasn’t even worthy of the name.

  “I believe that if you take anything away from here as evidence, you’re supposed to inform the owner of the items in question,” she said. “Aren’t we supposed to sign a form acknowledging that?”

  For a second Chief Clifton looked like he wanted to smile, but he managed to keep his expression serious. “That’s true,” he admitted. “And if we impound any evidence, we’ll let you know.”

  “Damned right you will,” Leo said, horning into the conversation. “Try any high-handed tricks and I’ll see to it that you lose your badge.”

  “No tricks,” Clifton said, and now his eyes glittered with anger. He was getting tired of Leo trying to browbeat him, Phyllis thought.

  A short time later she heard the back door open and close, and another officer came into the parlor carrying a large plastic bag with a cylindrical plastic container in it. The container reminded Phyllis of the sort of thing coffee came in. This one had a large black skull-and-crossbones symbol on it, though.

  “I found this rat poison in the toolshed out back, Chief,” the officer announced.

  “Of course there’s rat poison in there,” Tom Anselmo said. “Sometimes we have rats. I hardly ever use it, though. I’d rather use traps.” He gestured toward the container. “Go ahead and look inside it. You’ll see that barely any of it has been used.”

  Working through the clear plastic bag, Clifton opened the plastic lid and looked inside. “You’re right, Tom,” he said. “There’s not much gone.”

  He didn’t say anything else as he snapped the lid back down, but the unspoken implication was clear, at least to Phyllis.

  It didn’t take much poison to kill a man.

  Clifton handed the bag to his officer and said, “Tag it.”

  Jessica spoke up for the first time since Phyllis and Sam had gotten back, asking the chief, “Do you have those special lights that make blood glow like on TV?”

  Leo turned toward her and snapped, “Why are you asking him a stupid question like that?”

  “I’m just curious,” Jessica said. She looked a little like a dog that had just been kicked. “I’m sorry, Leo.”

  “That’s quite all right, ma’am,” Clifton told her. “And to answer your question, we don’t have a lot of that fancy equipment, but we can call on the forensics and crime-scene teams from the county sheriff’s department anytime we need to.” He smiled. “Anyway, a lot of that stuff you see on TV is pure science fiction, just as much as Star Trek was.”

  Leo took hold of Jessica’s arm and led her over to one of the chairs. “Sit down and don’t say anything else,” he ordered. “We’re not gonna talk anymore to this Andy Taylor wannabe until Roger gets here.” He glanced at Clifton. “Then you’ll see some fireworks.”

  Clifton didn’t seem worried about the possibility of pyrotechnics. He just waited patiently for his other officers to report in from their parts of the search.

  One by one, they did so, but none of them had found anything as possibly incriminating as the rat poison in the shed. However, a couple of the officers called Clifton out into the hall and talked to him in voices quiet enough so that Phyllis couldn’t hear the words. They seemed to be showing things to the chief as well, but Clifton stood so that his body concealed whatever it was from the people gathered in the parlor.

  That air of secrecy didn’t bode well, Phyllis thought.

  Clifton came back into the parlor. “We’re going to be confiscating a digital camera that was found in your room, Mr. Blaine.”

  “What!” Leo’s face started to turn purple. “You can’t do that! You’ve got no right! Anything up there was private—”

  “We’ll give you a receipt for the evidence.”

  “It’s not evidence, I tell you! You can’t just go into a guy’s room and take his stuff—”

  “Mr. Blaine.” Chief Clifton didn’t raise his voice, but his voice was hard enough and sharp enough to cut right through Leo’s bellowing. “If you’d like for me to go into detail about the photographs on that camera right here in front of everyone, so you’ll know why we’re impounding it, I can do that.”

  Leo paled, and he said, “No … no, you don’t have to do that.”

  Jessica was on her feet again. “Leo, what’s he talking about? What photographs?”

  “They’re still on the digital camera, ma’am,” Clifton told her. “They haven’t been printed out yet.”

  “That’s enough!” Leo said. “Damn it, I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign. Just don’t—”

  “Leo,” Jessica said.

  Bianca Anselmo put her hands over her face, let out a choked sob, and ran out of the room. “Bianca!” Consuela called after her, clearly startled by her daughter’s sudden flight.

  Clifton didn’t make a move to stop her, and neither did anyone else. Phyllis could only look on in shocked surprise. She could think of only one reason why the discussion of photos on Leo Blaine’s digital camera would upset Bianca so much. Sh
e already disliked Leo because of his obnoxious bluster, and she had been offended by the way he had told Jessica to sit down and shut up. The potential sordidness of this new revelation involving Bianca just made her despise Leo even more.

  Phyllis wasn’t the only one who had come to the same conclusion. Jessica got in front of her husband and demanded, “Leo, what the hell is going on here? What’s that girl got to do with any pictures?”

  Tom Anselmo surged forward, pulling away from Consuela’s hand on his arm. “I want to know the same thing, Mr. Blaine,” he said. His hands closed into fists. Leo outweighed him by fifty or sixty pounds, but right now Tom clearly didn’t care about that.

  Leo ignored Jessica and Tom and glared at Chief Clifton. “You’re gonna be sorry you pulled this stunt,” he said. “By the time my lawyer gets through with you—”

  “Maybe your lawyer will be more worried about the possible implications of what we’ve found here today, Mr. Blaine,” Clifton cut in. “It seems to me that those pictures just might be a motive for murder.”

  Leo took a step back like somebody had just punched him in the face … which Tom Anselmo still wanted to do, judging by his expression and stance. “Murder!” Leo said. “I didn’t murder anybody! How … how could those pictures have anything to do with Ed McKenna getting poisoned?”

  “Maybe he found out what you’d been up to,” Clifton suggested. “Maybe he threatened to tell your wife, or Bianca’s parents. You might’ve decided to shut him up before he could do it.”

  “That’s crazy! The old man didn’t know …”

  “Didn’t know what, Leo?” Jessica asked through gritted teeth in the silence that followed Leo’s voice as it trailed off.

  “Damn it, it was her idea!” Leo burst out. “She offered to pose for me if I’d pay her, and you’ve seen her. For God’s sake, she’s beautiful! But that’s all I did, I swear. I took pictures of her, but I never touched the little hustler—”

  “Tom, no!” Consuela cried, but the plea fell on deaf ears. Tom had already heard all he was going to listen to. He leaped at Leo and swung a hard punch into the middle of the bigger man’s face. Leo grunted in pain and staggered back as blood spurted from his nose.

  Phyllis had a feeling that Chief Clifton could have gotten between Tom and Leo and stopped that punch if he really wanted to, but the chief hadn’t budged. He stepped in, though, as Tom swung again, catching hold of his arm and saying, “That’s enough, Tom.”

  “You heard him!” Tom said, the rage he felt making him pant a little as he spoke. “You heard the filthy things he was saying about my Bianca.”

  “You saw him, Chief!” Leo said, his voice muffled a little by the hand he held to his bleeding nose. “You saw him assault me! I want him arrested, damn it!”

  “He’s the one you should arrest,” Tom said. “Taking advantage of an innocent young girl—”

  “Innocent, my ass! She offered to do plenty more if I paid her enough!”

  This time it was Consuela who came after him, flailing at him as her anger poured out of her in swift, furious Spanish. Clifton couldn’t let go of Tom to stop Consuela without risking that Tom would attack Leo again.

  Jessica got into the act as well, joining Consuela in whaling on Leo, who threw his arms over his head to protect himself from the angry women and howled in dismay. Clifton yelled for his officers to come help him.

  “Reckon I ought to give the chief a hand?” Sam asked Phyllis.

  “I’d stay out of it if I were you,” she advised him. “Anyway, I think Leo’s got it coming.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Sam replied with a shake of his head.

  Several officers rushed into the parlor, summoned by Clifton’s shouts, and grabbed Jessica and Consuela to pull them away from the hapless Leo, whose face was smeared with the blood that had leaked from his nose. He wiped some of it away and shouted, “What the hell is wrong with all you people?”

  Nobody answered him, but a new voice asked sharply, “What’s going on here? Leo, what sort of mess have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  Everyone turned to look as a tall, silver-haired man in an expensive suit strode into the parlor. Phyllis hadn’t heard him arrive. He must have opened the door and marched right in. He carried himself with the imperious air of a man who believed it was perfectly fine to do that because of who he was. The newcomer had to be Leo’s lawyer, Phyllis thought.

  But she was wrong, because a wide-eyed Raquel Forrest looked at the man and said, “Daddy!”

  Chapter 12

  So this was Charles Jefferson, cofounder of the Jefferson-Bartell Group, Phyllis thought. Leo’s boss and Raquel’s father. A very rich, powerful man whose expensive suit and arrogant bearing confirmed his status. Phyllis didn’t know what he was doing here, but she figured that if they all waited, Jefferson would tell them.

  He was followed into the room by a smaller, mostly bald man who carried a briefcase. That would be Leo’s lawyer, Phyllis told herself. She wondered if he or his firm represented Jefferson-Bartell, too. That would explain how Charles Jefferson knew that Leo might be in some sort of trouble. The lawyer would have run to Jefferson as soon as Leo called him.

  “Charles!” Leo said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Roger told me there was a problem,” Jefferson replied. “I thought I had better come down here and see what I needed to do to straighten it out.”

  Every silver hair on his head was in place. His face was tight and unlined. He didn’t really look old enough to have a daughter Raquel’s age, and Phyllis figured that he’d had some help from cosmetic surgeons to look that way. Vanity oozed from every dermabraded and avocado-scrubbed pore. Instinct made her dislike him, just as it had prompted her to like the much more down-to-earth Tom Anselmo.

  “There’s no problem—” Leo began.

  “You told Roger there’d been a murder,” Jefferson interrupted. “I come in to find you being pummeled by a couple of women, including your own wife, as well as being surrounded by the local police.”

  “These cops are crazy! They come in here with some Mickey Mouse search warrant and start pawing through our stuff and throwing around accusations—”

  Jefferson turned his head and said, “Roger.”

  The bald-headed lawyer stepped forward. “Don’t say another word, Leo,” he ordered. He turned to Chief Clifton. “Have you interrogated my client without the benefit of counsel, Chief ? If you have, I can promise that you’ll be sorry.”

  Clifton didn’t look overly impressed by either Jefferson or the lawyer. He said, “I haven’t interrogated anybody yet. All we’ve done is execute a search warrant.”

  Roger frowned. “Highly questionable tactics. I should have been here to protect my client’s best interests before any search was carried out.”

  “You can look at the warrant if you’d like,” Clifton offered. “You’ll find that all the t’s are crossed and all the i’s are dotted.” His voice hardened slightly. “We’re not quite the yokels that you seem to think we are, Counselor.”

  “I certainly do intend to examine the warrant, and nothing should be removed from the premises until I’ve done so.”

  “Fine by me,” the chief said with a shrug. “I’ve got plenty of time to waste if you do.”

  Leo said, “Don’t let him take my camera, Roger. You’ve got to stop him.”

  “Camera? Camera? What’s this about a camera?”

  “It belongs to your client,” Clifton said. “And it’s got nude pictures of a young woman on it. I happen to know she’s of legal age … but not by much.”

  “Leo, for God’s sake!” Charles Jefferson said with contempt in his voice.

  “It’s not what you think, Charles,” Leo hurried to say. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  Jessica slugged him on the arm, hard enough to make him yelp in pain.

  Raquel sidled up to Jefferson. “Hello, Daddy.”

  “Sweetheart.”

  Despite the
endearment, Jefferson’s tone was a little chilly and he barely glanced at his daughter. Not much love lost between those two, Phyllis thought, at least on Jefferson’s part.

  “I want to see this camera,” Roger said to Chief Clifton.

  The chief nodded to one of his men, who held up a clear plastic evidence bag with a tag attached to it. “That’s it,” Clifton said.

  “I’d like to examine it to make sure that it hasn’t been tampered with.”

  Clifton shook his head. “Request denied, Counselor. You’ll have a chance to take a look at it later, if you want.”

  “After you’ve manipulated the images on its memory card?” It was Roger’s turn to shake his head. “A competent trial judge would throw out any such images that you tried to introduce into evidence.”

  “Who said anything about a trial? At this point, we’re just trying to figure out what happened.” Clifton paused. “Unless you’re assuming that your client’s going to be charged with something … ?”

  “No, no, of course not. Leo’s innocent of any wrongdoing. Aren’t you, Leo?”

  “Of course I’m innocent,” Leo said, gingerly touching his nose as if he were the only injured party in the room.

  “What about what he did to my daughter?” Tom demanded.

  “I never touched the girl!” Leo insisted. “And she’s not underage. That hick cop admitted that himself. I didn’t do anything wrong.” He turned to Jessica and added hastily, “Legally, of course. Morally, I shouldn’t have ever listened to her when she started trying to tempt me—”

  Clifton moved a little to get between Leo and Tom again, and Jessica said in disgust, “Just shut up, Leo. You’re only making yourself look more foolish.”

  Jefferson put his hands in his pockets—being careful not to spoil the line of his trousers, Phyllis noted—and said, “I’d like for someone to tell me exactly what’s going on here. Who was murdered?”

  “And I’d like to know who you are and what your connection with this case is,” Clifton shot back.

  Jefferson smiled. “Of course. I haven’t actually introduced myself, have I?” Clearly, he was accustomed to everyone he came in contact with just knowing who he was. “My name is Charles Jefferson. I’m the president and CEO of the Jefferson-Bartell Group, headquartered in Houston. Leo works for me. And so does Roger Fadiman here, of course.”