by Jessica Beck
She might have been ready to get rid of us, but I wasn’t going to let it happen just yet. It was time to get as many questions in as I could before we were shown the door. “Where were you at the time he was murdered, and did you have access to the time capsule before they buried it?”
I didn’t think she was going to answer, but she looked at me steadily, then at Grace, and finally back to me. With a tone of complete defeat in her voice, she said, “I was here when Benjamin died. Where else would I be? As for the time capsule, Benjamin and I donated an engraved steel copy of the town’s event calendar to the cause, so I was invited to the capsule’s interment, as my brother had been when we made the donation.”
“But it was an invitation he’d never live to accept, wasn’t it?” Grace asked.
Lisa Port Smith just shook her head. “Enough. I need you both to leave.” She stood at the door, holding it wide open for us, and I realized that whether we liked it or not, Grace and I were finished questioning the victim’s sister.
Chapter 16
“What do you think about her answers?” I asked Grace as we walked around the building and back out to Springs Drive.
“She wasn’t surprised by the news that her brother wanted to have her killed,” Grace replied. “I saw no reaction whatsoever that it was new information to her.”
“I wasn’t sure if it was the right time to bring it up or not,” I admitted.
“Me, either. That’s why I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger anyway. What can I say? I had an impulse to see what she’d do. Sorry if I jumped the gun on it.”
“No, it was the right thing to do. That’s why this team needs you as one of its members. Between the two of us, we make one good investigator.”
“Come on, I think we at least deserve to be one and a half,” she said with a laugh.
“Okay, but that’s as high as I’m willing to go,” I answered, grinning myself.
“So, Lisa knew about the proposed hit. The question is whether she knew it about it before Benjamin Port was poisoned or afterward.”
“Because if it was before, she might have acted to preempt his strike on her,” I said.
“Exactly. How do we find that out?”
“We could always ask her, but I doubt she’s going to be willing to speak with us again. We pushed her a little hard, didn’t we?”
“What could we do, Suzanne? If she wasn’t afraid to deflect when Jake interviewed her, what chance did we have without being more insistent about getting answers?”
“I know you’re right, but I still feel a little uneasy about bullying people.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Grace said. “The question is, what do we do now? We’ve seen where Benjamin lived and worked.”
“Technically we saw an apartment like the one where he once lived,” I corrected her.
“Do you think Betty would let us peek into the one next door? What could it hurt, since the current tenant isn’t even in town?”
“Forget it,” I said. “Unless we have a more substantial reason to go snooping there rather than our idle curiosity, we’ll have to do without a tour.”
“I suppose you’re right. Seeing Betty’s place didn’t help our investigation, and speaking with Lisa wasn’t much better. If feels as though we’re spinning our wheels again, Suzanne.”
“You know as well as I do that’s the way these investigations go at times,” I reminded her. “Remember, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.”
“Would they, though?” she asked me with the hint of a smile. “Do you think the average resident of April Springs has some hidden desire to be a crime fighter, to bring punishment to the murderers of the world, or is it just us?”
“I think you’d be surprised if you knew what was in people’s hearts,” I said. “Just about everybody wants to live in a world where justice prevails.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Grace asked me.
“Well, it’s not like I’ve taken a survey or anything, but it stands to reason, doesn’t it? I’ve seen some awfully selfless acts in my lifetime.”
“And I’ve seen enough selfish ones to counterbalance all of those and more,” Grace added.
“Either way, we’ll never really know, so there’s no point in debating it. The real question is what do we do next?”
“I was hoping you’d ask,” Grace said. “I actually have an idea.”
“Well, don’t keep it to yourself. Let’s hear it, because I’m all out of plans at the moment.”
“That’s another good reason there are two of us, Suzanne. So far, we’ve spoken with our core group of suspects. Now I think it’s time that we really started pushing them.”
“How exactly do you propose that we do that?” I asked. “Short of accusing each one of them of murder, I feel as though we’ve already backed each one of them against the wall. There’s something else that we need to remember: we have to live with these people after this case is over.”
“All but one of them, at any rate,” Grace said. “I see your point, though.” After a few more steps, she asked, “Should we make one of our famous lists? You know, one that includes motive, means, and opportunity?”
“That’s what’s so frustrating about this case,” I answered. “It’s been so long since it happened that it’s difficult to see any nuance in anything. Let’s break things down as we walk. We’ve already established the motives for each of our suspects. As to opportunity, anyone could have fed Benjamin something that was poisoned, even Judge Hurley.”
“How could he have managed it?” Grace asked.
“What if he gave Benjamin something to eat as a peace offering, admitting that he’d been wrong about their dispute? Ben would have probably relished eating it in front of him. As for the others, as far as we know, Ben had no reason to suspect that someone was trying to poison him. If it was one of the women he’d been dating, it would be easy enough. Even his sister could give him something without arousing his suspicions.”
“That leaves the means. Who had access to poison strong enough to murder the man? It would help a great deal if we knew exactly what it was that killed him, but without a body to exhume, the possibility of doing an autopsy is gone forever,” Grace said.
“It’s awfully convenient for Lisa that happened, isn’t it?” I asked her.
“Just because she’s the one who ordered it doesn’t mean that she’s the killer,” Grace reminded me. “For all we know, the cremation could have been Benjamin Port’s last request.”
“It would be nice to be able to trust her, but I don’t see that happening unless we learn something that clears her unequivocally.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen. At this point, my money’s actually on her.”
“Grace, we can’t jump to conclusions without more facts.”
“How are we going to get those?”
At that moment, my cellphone rang. Could it be Jake, calling to check in with us? No. Instead, it was Gabby Williams. What could she possibly want? Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out.
“Hi, Gabby. What’s up?”
“Suzanne, I need you to drop whatever you’re doing and come by my shop this instant.” Her voice sounded urgent.
“What happened? Is someone there?”
“I’ll tell you when you arrive. Come alone.”
She hung up before I could get anything else out of her. “What was that all about?” Grace asked me as I put my phone away.
“Gabby needs me at the store,” I said.
“Want me to tag along?”
I frowned. “She specifically asked me to come alone. I don’t like it.”
“That’s it. Suzanne, I’m coming with you,” Grace said.
“No. It’s probably nothing. Tell you what. If I get there and everything’s okay, I’ll call you and cancel the cake order.”
“We’re having cake?” she asked me. “What’s the occasion?”
“There is no cake,” I
said.
“That’s so sad. If we’re not having cake, why did you just bring it up?”
“It’s a good way for me to tell you that I’m okay.”
“Here’s a thought. You don’t have to get my hopes up by mentioning cake. Just say, ‘Everything is okay here. False alarm.’”
“I don’t want Gabby thinking that I’m being paranoid.”
“Fine. There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“Now I want cake.”
“Grace, we both know that if we did get a cake, you’d have a sliver and I’d end up eating the lion’s share of it.”
“Fine. No cake for anyone. What a miserable way to compromise. I’ll look forward to your call.”
“What are you going to do while I’m at Gabby’s?”
“Who knows?”
“You’re not getting cake, are you?” I asked.
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself,” she answered with a grin.
I was still laughing as I walked down to ReNEWed, where Gabby ran her business. Though Grace and I had been teasing each other, Gabby Williams had been quite serious. What had gotten her so upset? I wasn’t sure what it might be, but I had a feeling that I was about to find out.
“Are we alone?” I asked Gabby softly after walking into her gently used clothing store. I couldn’t see a soul in sight, but that didn’t necessarily mean that no one else was there.
“Do you see anyone else, Suzanne? Honestly, why are you acting so strangely?”
“I never know,” I said as I pulled out my cellphone and called Grace. “It’s okay,” I said, forgetting all about our code phrase.
“Suzanne, are you in trouble? I can be there in ninety seconds.”
“Cancel the cake,” I said quickly. “Cancel the cake.”
“Okay. Got it. Talk to you later.”
As I put my cellphone away, I found Gabby staring at me. “What was that all about? Why did you order a cake, and then cancel it?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, not really wanting to get into it with her. “What’s so important that you needed to see me immediately?”
“It’s over there,” she said, pointing to her checkout counter. On top of it was a box marked simply BEN. I was more than a little relieved to see that the block lettering on the box wasn’t anything like the writing we’d found in the confession letter. It wasn’t perfect proof that Gabby hadn’t done it, but it was something.
“What’s this?” I asked as I walked over to the cardboard box.
“It’s filled with my memories of Ben. I have one for every man I’ve ever dated for an extended period of time.”
I would have loved to inventory that particular storeroom, but then again, maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea in the world. I decided to withhold judgment until I actually saw what kind of mementos Gabby kept of her old loves.
I peeked inside, not sure what I might find, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it contained letters, booklets, flyers, takeout menus, a rather unusual stuffed animal, and an odd assortment of other seemingly random papers and knickknacks. “Was there anything in particular that you wanted me to see?” I asked her.
“It’s on top,” Gabby said as she pushed past me and reached into the opening. She retrieved a torn calendar page and handed it to me. It was from a weekly logbook, and there were several things circled on it.
“How did you happen to get this?” I asked her.
“I asked Lisa for a few things after he died, and she gladly obliged. From the impression I got at the time, I believe that she would have been happy to dispose of everything Ben owned. I just wanted things that meant something to me, though.”
“So, why this page in particular?”
“It’s from the week he died. See the circled notation? That was what turned out to be our final date.”
I checked the page and saw a date three days previous to his demise circled. Within the circle, he’d written, “G.W. NA.”
“The first are obviously your initials. What does the NA stand for?”
“Napoli’s,” she said. “Ben liked to use his own version of shorthand to keep track of things.”
I had another rationale for why he’d done it. G.W. NA. could be explained in other ways if someone else got possession of his calendar. If he truly had been dating that many women, some sort of code to record it all was essential to not getting caught. I scanned the page and saw a few more entries for H.F. and H.M., no doubt Hilda Fremont and Hillary Mast. I almost dismissed the rest of the calendar entries when I saw that one set had been erased, at least partially, anyway. Taking a pencil, I lightly scraped its leaded tip across the entry, and very faintly, I found another set that of initials puzzled me: J.K. Who might that be? The only name that matched anyone I’d spoken to about his murder was Jan Kerber, the Register of Deeds. Had she been dating Ben as well? I almost said something about it to Gabby when I noticed that something else had been erased just below her name. I peered at it for a moment before I realized it was a time: 7:45 a.m. That was certainly an odd time for a romantic rendezvous. Was it possible they’d been meeting about something else? If so, why erase it? Had the meeting been cancelled and Ben had done it himself, or had someone else tried to disguise the fact that the two of them were meeting in the first place? I suddenly had a new set of questions for Jan Kerber.
When I looked up at Gabby, I could see that she was still standing there patiently, waiting for me to finish my examination. “Did you see it, too?” she asked me. “When Lisa gave me the page, it was too painful to examine it very closely, but I certainly saw things this time that I wish I’d never seen.”
“You’ll have to be more specific than that,” I said. “There’s a lot of information written on that piece of paper.”
“He was dating other women after all,” Gabby said, her voice cracking slightly with tears. “Suzanne, I’d heard rumors, but I’d discounted them. Why shouldn’t I? We were going to be engaged! At least that’s what I thought. It’s as though I didn’t even know him. Do you know who those other women were?”
“I have a few good guesses, but do you really want me to say them out loud?” I asked her, trying to hide what I’d just discovered. “Gabby, may I keep this?”
“You can have everything in the box for all I care,” she said. “It’s all just one big lie.”
That was too good an opportunity to pass up, but I still felt the need to offer her some kind of consolation. “It’s important to remember that just because you two weren’t exclusive doesn’t mean that he didn’t care for you.”
“I would love to believe that there was some truth to that,” she said. “The reason I wanted you to see that is the date before his body was discovered. Do you see the first set of initials there?”
I’d noticed them first thing, before I’d found Jan’s partially obscured initials. “H.M.”
“Hillary Mast,” she said. “Isn’t that who you think it is, too?”
“I’m sorry, but I do,” I said.
“And the other one, that had to be Hilda Fremont.”
My nod was all the acknowledgment that she needed.
“One of them did it, Suzanne. They must have. The killer found a way to poison him with something besides that chicken.”
“I need to show this to Jake,” I repeated.
“Take it. Take it all,” she said.
I could see the edges of Gabby’s toughness begin to crack a little, and I knew that she wouldn’t want anyone witnessing that. “Thanks for calling me.”
“Just go,” she ordered, and I took her advice, but not without scooping up the box before I left.
I decided to get out of there before she could change her mind.
I planned to carry the box back to Grace’s house, where we could dig through it at our own leisure, but first I wanted to call Jake and bring him up to speed on what I’d just uncovered.
His phone went
straight to voicemail, which made me believe that he was interviewing one of his suspects and didn’t want to be disturbed. I’d wanted to tell him immediately, but what could I do short of driving to the police station and starting my very own manhunt for him? It would just have to wait.
At least Grace would be available to me.
Or so I thought.
When I got to her door, I found a note taped to the glass.
“Suzanne,
Sorry for bugging out on you, but I had to go in to work to handle a crisis. Call you when I get back. Stay out of trouble in the meantime.
Grace.”
What was I supposed to do now? Both people I needed to speak with were otherwise occupied. I decided to go home and grab a quick shower and maybe a bite to eat. Maybe that would help put everything into perspective.
That was the plan at the time, anyway, but things didn’t end up working out that way in the end.
Chapter 17
Jake wasn’t there when I got back to the cottage, which was no real surprise. When he was working on a case, he could become obsessed, not that I didn’t understand his behavior. I’d been known to become single-minded myself on occasion when I was tracking down a killer.
There was a pie sitting on the kitchen table, and a healthy slice had been taken out of it. How thoughtful. My mother must have come by and delivered it while I’d been gone. Though she ran a not-unsubstantial empire, she still found time to make us goodies.
I dialed her number, hoping to catch her.
“Hi, Suzanne. How nice to hear from you again so soon. Did you want to chat more about life in general, or did you have another question to ask me about Benjamin Port?”
“Actually, I just wanted to thank you for the pie,” I said.
After a curious pause, she said, “I’m not sure that I know what you’re talking about.”
“Momma, are you telling me that you didn’t bring a pie by the cottage this afternoon?”
“I’ve been meaning to bake a treat for you, but things have gotten busy lately. I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t me. Was there some kind of note with it?”
