Ditched 4 Murder

by J. C. Eaton

  “Whew. I’m sorry. It’s just I’ve been so rattled lately. Sebastian called and they still want me. I may have my own restaurant to manage.”

  Uh-oh. Sebastian still doesn’t know Theodore Sizemore withdrew the funding for that restaurant. How could he? Roland threw out the letter.

  “Yes . . . well . . . um . . . don’t get too worked up and quit your current position until it’s definite. In writing! Make sure you get it in writing.”

  “Boy, Miss Kimball, you sound all fired up. Is there something I should know? Something about the investigation that would mean trouble for Saveur de Evangeline?”

  “No. No. Not at all. I’m just speaking in general. It’s important to get things in writing these days.”

  “Okay. Sure. Uh, about your aunt’s wedding . . . I’ll find out what time we’ll be setting up and I’ll give you a call or e-mail you. Is that all right?”

  “That’s fine. Thanks, Rochelle.”

  I prayed that whatever problems they were having at the patisserie wouldn’t translate to the wedding. At least working on my spreadsheets and billing gave me the sanity I needed. That was why I liked accounting. It’s organized, systematic, and straightforward. Unlike the tangled web of wedding preparations that was about to strangle me.

  About an hour after I got off the phone with Rochelle, I got a disturbing call from Jake Felton. “Is this the Kimball lady?”

  I must have said yes because he told me his name and kept going.

  “Look. A tent’s a tent. And they’re all gonna keep out the rain and the wind and all that stuff.”

  “Uh . . . what are you trying to tell me?”

  “We had some screwup with the company that was supposed to get us the white wedding pavilion.”

  “What??? What do you mean?”

  “Hey, calm down. It ain’t the end of the world. They sent us a bhurj tent.”

  “A what? What’s that?”

  “It’s one of those Indian tents. Not like cowboys and Indians. The other Indians. From India. Anyway, it’s red with those swirly designs. Same size. Real nice.”

  “NO! That’s totally unacceptable. Can’t you do something?”

  “No way, lady. Wedding’s this coming Sunday. Look, we’ll knock some money off the price. Wanted to give you a heads-up before you saw it.”

  “Mr. Felton . . . Jake . . . I . . . I . . .”

  “You don’t have to thank me. Figured we’d knock off a few bucks. I’ll be there with the guys by three-thirty to start setting up. Got the lighting covered, too.”

  “But . . . but . . .”

  I sat at my desk too stunned to think. Images of elephants and circus people paraded around my mind for a good twenty seconds before I forced myself to take a deep breath. There was no way I could possibly explain this to my aunt without having her go berserk. For a second, I thought she could join Antoine and together they could go off somewhere and share a glorious meltdown together.

  Rather than risk a scene I was unprepared to deal with, I decided to put it off for a day or so, hoping I’d find the right way to break the news to Aunt Ina. Meanwhile, the bigger concern I had was the fact her fiancé was now officially “a person of interest” regarding Roland LeDoux’s death. If that wasn’t bad enough, her precious Louis was about to face charges for “grand theft,” even though there was a logical explanation regarding how the motorcycle got into his garage.

  The worst twist in all of this was the note Nate and I uncovered in Louis’s fire safe box. It was pretty clear. Julien Rossier borrowed over a million dollars from Theodore Sizemore, presumably to open the new patisserie. The caveat was that if anything was to happen to Theodore, the loan would be in Louis’s hands, thus making my future uncle the perfect suspect in the Sizemore murder as well. Oh yeah, and don’t let me forget that Louis drives a Lexus with an angry grill. The same car Louise saw barreling down her block shortly after the time of the murder.

  The one question none of us could answer, not even my aunt, was why Louis had disappeared. Was he running from the police? Trying to find evidence to exonerate himself? Or was he giving himself a “cooling-off period” in the hope the police pointed the finger at someone else? No one dared say it out loud, but we all thought it—Louis had hit the road because he had no intention of marrying Aunt Ina.

  That thought hung in the air like stale perfume until Wednesday night when my cousin Kirk blurted it out at my mother’s house. He and his wife, Judy, had just arrived from Boston. They planned to spend the first few nights across the street from Sun City West at the Hampton Inn before checking in to the Cactus Wren for the wedding. As Kirk put it, “No sense killing my back right away. In case you haven’t figured it out, quaint means lousy mattresses.”

  My mother gave me a “see I told you” look, but I ignored it. We were munching on a bizarre assortment of snacks, including Danish that had been in the freezer since Labor Day, along with some jelly rolls and sesame crackers. At least the pepperoni was a recent purchase. My mother offered everyone cottage cheese, but there were no takers. Not even Streetman, who had positioned himself against our feet.

  “Maybe your mother will have some of the cottage cheese when she gets here,” my mom said to Kirk. “It was on sale at Safeway.”

  Kirk and Judy seemed more interested in what was going on with Louis Melinsky than which store was holding a sale on dairy products. I spoke up as I handed Judy some bottled water. She looked as if she could use it. Her short curly brown hair was starting to frizz, and she kept flicking off small beads of sweat from her forehead.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” she said. “Between the heat and this mess of a situation, I’m afraid I’m not much help.”

  “Don’t worry. My boss, Nate Williams, is trying to track down Louis. I’m sure if anyone can locate him, it’ll be Nate. He’s been on this case nonstop.”

  Judy brushed some curls from her forehead and took a swallow of water. Her voice was softer than usual, almost as if she was afraid someone other than the three of us would hear her. “Maybe it’s just as well. Him not showing up. I mean, what kind of man does a thing like that?”

  Kirk spoke matter-of-factly, as if he was ordering a hamburger. “One who might be a bigamist. Hell, for all we know, he could be associated with that polygamist colony in northern Arizona. The one that’s always on the news.”

  My mother gave Kirk “the family eye.” We’d all been privy to it growing up. As children, we knew exactly what it meant. As adults, we tossed it off. To be sure he understood, my mother spelled it out. “He’s not a polygamist. And he’s not marrying your mother so she can become part of a harem. Is that what they call it these days? A harem? Anyway, I don’t want to hear another word about polygamists, bigamists, or mattresses, for that matter. Ina’s going to be here any minute, and I want this to be a nice, pleasant evening. Even if all of us will be made to suffer at that Cactus Wren in a few days. Tonight will be nice and pleasant.”

  Wow. “Nice” and “pleasant.” She was really making her point. It came as no surprise that my mother suddenly switched the subject of our conversation to decorative lawn gravel. “I’m thinking of getting the same kind of reflective glass gravel my neighbors, Wanda and Dolores, put in their yard. Their landscaper did a wonderful job. Gorgeous glass underneath those perennials. Unfortunately, everything got trampled and he had to come back and fix it. Anyway, Phee’s seen their yard and it’s perfectly lovely. ”

  Kirk and Judy looked at each other, probably unsure of what to say or how to even make sense of the sudden shift in the conversation. Decorative lawn gravel wasn’t a subject, I imagined, that came up often for people who lived in Boston.

  “That’s interesting, Mom.” I rolled my eyes at my cousins.

  “Yes. The gravel reflects different colors under solar lighting. It can transform an entire garden path.”

  “Is that so?” Kirk tried to remove a stale cracker from his mouth.

  My mother went on as if this was the mo
st pertinent topic of information she had come across in decades. “The only trouble is—and that’s why Wanda and Dolores had to have the landscaper come back—those reflective glass pebbles are so tiny they get caught in the soles of your shoes. Especially sneakers. Or running shoes. Makes a real mess. Of course, no one’s supposed to go walking through that kind of path. It’s only decorative. And I certainly wouldn’t let Streetman walk over there.”

  The dog looked up as if expecting a treat. My mother offered him the cottage cheese again, but he turned away.

  “And this is something you really want, Aunt Harriet?” Judy asked. “Messy yard pebbles?”

  “You’d have to see them under the solar lights to understand.”

  Kirk got up and threw out the stale cracker. “Or vacuum them up from your floor every time you walk inside.”

  Vacuum them up from the floor. Where did I hear that before? I heard someone say that recently.... Then, I remembered!

  “Phee! Phee! Are you all right?” my mother was yelling. “You’re staring right into space and not paying attention to any of us.”

  “What? Huh?”

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. Streetman hightailed it under the couch and my aunt Ina announced herself from the other side of the door.

  Chapter 23

  “I’ll get it.” I rushed to the door. “Nice to see you, Aunt Ina. Excuse me. I’ve got to make a call.”

  My aunt hardly noticed as I raced into the guest bedroom, closing the door behind me. She was too busy gushing over her only son. Without wasting a second, I called Nate, only to get stuck with his voice mail. This wasn’t something I could explain in a few words, so I resigned myself to trying him later.

  “What was that all about, Phee?” my mother asked when I came back into the room.

  “Um . . . ah . . . something I remembered about work. That’s all.”

  In the meantime, my aunt Ina had made herself comfortable in one of Mom’s floral chairs and begun what seemed like an endless dissertation about the wedding. I got up for a moment on the pretense I needed something from the kitchen and left Mom, Judy, and Kirk to be regaled by my aunt. Next thing I knew, Kirk was standing right behind me at the sink.

  He touched my elbow and motioned for us to walk into the Arizona room, a fancy name for an enclosed patio, where our voices wouldn’t be heard. “Eternal bliss my ass. Did they even get a marriage license? And who the heck is officiating the wedding?”

  “How am I supposed to know? She’s your mother.”

  “Yeah, but you see her all the time. All Judy and I get are quick phone calls and e-mails with links to Pinterest and YouTube. Mostly videos about baby animals and sunsets. Occasionally a rainbow. I think she’s flown off the handle this time.”

  “Um . . . other than her fiancé missing, what else has she told you?”

  “What do you mean? There’s more?”

  Beginning with her master chef found dead in the very spot where the ceremony was going to take place and ending with a possible connection that Kirk’s future stepfather might have with another suspicious death, I managed to give my cousin a clear and concise picture of the calamity going to engulf all of us on Sunday.

  “Damn it, Phee. This is worse than Judy and I imagined.”

  I went on to explain about the aviary of pastry birds and the meal, but when I got to the part about the tent, I literally burst into hysterical laughter and couldn’t stop.

  Kirk opened the sliding glass door, grabbed my wrist, and led me outside as he shouted back, “Phee and I are getting some air. We’ll be right in!”

  “It’s a bhurj tent. A great big red one. Very popular in India. Or circuses. Your mother doesn’t know yet. No one does. I was hoping a sinkhole would swallow me up before Sunday.”

  Then Kirk started to laugh and the two of us doubled over. Even though we hadn’t seen each other in a few years, it was as if we were kids again in Minnesota at one of the family’s holiday dinners.

  “We’ve got to pull ourselves together and walk back in there,” Kirk said as I wiped the tears from my eyes.

  I hadn’t laughed so hard in a long time.

  “The tent is the least of our problems. Seriously, Phee, you don’t think this guy is a murderer, do you? I’ve heard these sociopaths can talk anyone into anything. And my mother is . . . well . . .”

  Before I could answer, my mother slid open the door and called for us to come back inside. “What did all of you want to do for dinner? We could go out somewhere or I could defrost something from the freezer. It won’t be any trouble.”

  Kirk and I answered at once as if we’d been practicing lines for a school play. “Let’s go out to eat.”

  All and all, it was the kind of evening my mother intended it to be—nice and pleasant. We selected a family restaurant in Peoria known for its desserts. No one talked about murders or bigamy or anything else that would have given my aunt Ina a reason to have heart palpitations. No, if anyone was going to have palpitations, it was going to be me.

  Midway through the meal, my aunt announced that she and Louis had arranged for a spiritualist from Sedona to conduct the ceremony and that it would be of ancient Hebraic origins, including the traditional seven blessings. The only trouble was that Louis had made the arrangements and now, with Louis . . . well, um . . . missing, for lack of a better word, Aunt Ina needed me to track down the spiritualist.

  “You work for a detective. It should be easy, Phee. Not like what Kirk, Judy, and I have to do tomorrow.”

  Judy all but dropped her spoon into the coffee. “What’s that, Ina?”

  “I’m afraid both of you will have to drive me to the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale tomorrow. I’m meeting with one of their directors. They were supposed to find me a harpist.”

  Kirk ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back. I thought he was going to explode. “You need a harpist? What the hell for?”

  Judy kept touching his arm and muttering things like “it will be fine” and “calm down,” while my aunt and my mother continued to stuff angel food cake into their mouths as if none of this was happening.

  My mother later explained that “some things are best left ignored.”

  I tried Nate’s cell phone two more times that night. Once when I went into the ladies’ room at the restaurant and then again when I got home. Both times it went straight to voice mail. I had a hunch about Theodore Sizemore’s death and really wanted to share it with Nate. Now it had to wait until the next day, when I’d see my boss at work. Or so I thought.

  While Kirk and Judy got stuck chauffeuring my aunt across the valley the next day in order to find a harpist, I found myself at work tapping my fingers against the desk and glancing at the clock. Nate should have been in by now. It wasn’t like him to not leave me a message. I doubled checked my e-mail and decided to give it another few minutes before trying to reach him on his cell.

  Each time the phone rang, I jumped to attention like a sailor waiting for orders to ship out. Knowing my boss, I figured he got caught up with something, but that didn’t make waiting any easier.

  Then, as I was about to dial his cell, the office phone rang and it was Nate. “Phee! Hi! I’ve only got a second. Long story. I may have located Louis. Got to catch a flight to LA and it’s boarding in ten minutes. Hold down the fort. If what I think has happened, I may be able to get to him before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what? Is someone trying to kill him? Is there a warrant out for him? Or do you mean too late for the wedding?”

  “Don’t go into a panic, kiddo, but yes to all three. It took me two days to chase around a lead, but I think it’s going to pay off. Keep your fingers crossed I can deliver Louis to the wedding like he promised your aunt. This is turning out to be a regular rat’s nest. Oh hell. They’re boarding in five minutes.”

  “Nate, listen! About Theodore Sizemore, I have an idea that—”

  “We’ll talk later, okay? Whatever you do, don’t go breaki
ng into anyone’s house again. And don’t tell your aunt about this. See you in a few days. Say hi to Augusta when she gets in. Got to run. Bye, Phee.”

  The call had ended seconds ago, but I was still holding the receiver in the air. At least Louis was alive. That was a good sign. But what the heck was he doing in Los Angeles? And as for my suspicion about who killed Theodore Sizemore . . . well . . . Nate left me no choice but to tackle it on my own, so I quickly placed another call. This time to my mother. In the form of an invitation.

  “What? You want to go to Saveur de Evangeline for lunch today? That fancy-schmancy place of Aunt Ina’s? I’m not paying twenty dollars to get a sandwich the size of a sand dollar. We can eat someplace else.”

  “It’s my treat, Mom. You won’t have to pay anything.”

  “You’re wasting your money. For what it’s going to cost you at that place we can eat at Bagels ’n More for an entire week.”

  Rather than get into an argument I wasn’t going to win, I told my mother the real reason behind the invitation.

  “You think they’re hiding evidence about the owner’s death? What did Nate say?”

  “Er . . . uh . . . I didn’t tell him. He’s been out of the office a lot. Look, I can’t explain right now. How about I pick you up at noon and we head over there? I’ll get us a reservation.”

  “Fine. Fine. Just don’t get us arrested.”

  When Augusta got in, I told her I needed to take a long lunch and that I’d be working late. I also mentioned the fact Nate had to go out of town suddenly for one of his cases.

  “If that man doesn’t get an assistant soon, I’m afraid he’s going to have a heart attack. All that chasing around.”

  “It’s what keeps him young, Augusta. Nate never was the kind of person who could handle a desk job.”

  “So I see. Meanwhile, I better reschedule the appointments he’s got. Do you think he’ll be back by Monday?”

  “He should be back by Sunday. With or without my soon-to-be uncle Louis. By the way, Augusta, you wouldn’t happen to know any good spiritualists who could conduct a wedding in a pinch, do you?”