by Janet Bolin
“We have firefighting practice from seven to nine,” I said.
“How about nine thirty, if it’s not too late? We have some questions for you. They won’t take long.”
Haylee glanced at me. I was sure she was thinking the same thing I was—another delay before we’d get our next taste of that fantastic ice cream. “Sure.”
Toby turned to me. “You’ll come, too?”
“Okay.”
The universe was conspiring against us and our desire for ice cream. But if I couldn’t decide which flavor to order, maybe it didn’t matter.
25
A FEW MONTHS BEFORE, I MIGHT HAVE BITten my nails at the idea of Detective Gartener and Chief Smallwood wanting to talk to Haylee and me. Now, I felt gratified. Maybe they hoped our knowledge of the community could help them solve crimes.
Then, as I guided my afternoon students through their attempts at hardanger embroidery, I began to wonder if I should be worried, and by the time everyone left the shop, I was certain I was going to be grilled by the two police officers.
Meanwhile, I had to take the dogs out. We ran to the beach and were almost back at our front porch when I heard Mona yoo-hooing behind us. “Willow!”
I stopped. Huffing and puffing, she caught up. She shook her head so briskly I could tell she was excited. “You hang around with the dreamiest men!”
I did? I hadn’t seen Clay since Sunday morning—more than two whole days. “First that yummy detective, and then . . . Tell me my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Did I see Max Brubaugh go into Opal’s shop after you went in with that hunky detective? Max Brubaugh?”
“Yes, that was Max Brubaugh.”
She clapped a hand over her chest as if about to have a heart attack. “If men like that are spending time in yarn shops, I need to learn how to knit! What’s Max Brubaugh doing in tiny Elderberry Bay? Surely he can’t be interested in a small village, even when there’s a death involved. It must be the treasure, right? Snoozy Gallagher’s treasure? If you found that, it would be a national story. I didn’t realize you were that clever, but now I understand why you turned it in to the police. Max is going to make you a star!”
“Not likely. I think he’s merely on vacation.” If Opal wanted the world to know she was Max Brubaugh’s aunt, Opal could tell the world.
Mona’s eyes widened and she shook her head even harder. “He must be staying at the Elderberry Bay Lodge! I looked him up and he’s not married, so I don’t know who that woman with him was. If she hasn’t gotten her claws into him yet . . .” She shook her head. “Excuse me. I have to go talk to Ralph. Maybe he’ll know what’s going on.”
If Max and Zara were in the market for costumes, Ralph could know something about them, but Halloween was more than four months away.
Mona dashed toward Disguise Guys and I went inside for a quick supper. On the off chance that Haylee and I might have time for ice cream after Vicki and Gartener talked to us, I skipped dessert.
Firefighting practice had become much more fun than when Haylee and I first joined the force. Clay was still a volunteer firefighter, and we had a new fire chief and deputy. Ralph and Duncan had joined, too, and were sometimes full of surprises, like the time Ralph had come dressed as a firefighting clown and everyone had laughed so hard that Duncan forgot to be shy.
Haylee liked to drive her red pickup truck to firefighting, and Sally and Tally, who were always welcome at our practice sessions, happily hopped up into the cab. I had eight doggie feet, two doggie rumps, and a pair of fuzzy tails in my lap all the way to the ballpark near the state forest on the east side of Elderberry Bay.
Clay was already there, joking with Ralph and Duncan and an older gray-haired man in jeans and black sneakers. Clay introduced him as Fred Zongassi. I would have recognized Fred if he’d been playing a clarinet and wearing a band uniform with one white satin pant leg caught in his high-tops. At the moment, the legs of his jeans hid the tops of his sneakers.
Clay told us that Fred used to be a volunteer firefighter years ago here in Elderberry Bay, had been an active volunteer firefighter ever since, and was transferring to our force.
I tried not to stare at the man that Chief Vicki Smallwood seemed to think may have murdered both Snoozy Gallagher and Neil Ondover.
Fred had a slow, easy smile, like he knew I was considering him as a possible murder suspect and found it funny. His amused confidence should have made me wary. Instead, I decided, based on nothing more than a hunch, that he couldn’t be a murderer, and even though I warned myself not to trust him, I liked him. How could I not admire someone who knew how to drive the heavy equipment I’d been eyeing? Sally and Tally certainly had no qualms about him. They nuzzled his hands as if he were an old friend.
During practice, we all, including Sally and Tally on their leashes, ran around the bases of the ballpark. I’d become so used to the exercise that I was able to chat with Ralph, who pumped his arms, panted, and turned red. Duncan loped around easily, but detached from the rest of us, as usual. He seemed to be watching his father as if concerned that Ralph could be overdoing it. Clay and Fred kept up a pace that none of the rest of us, except for a couple of teens, could match.
After the exercise, we sat on the bleachers. Yes, Fred’s sneakers were the high-tops he’d worn at the picnic, which proved nothing.
But, I reminded myself, I had seen the prints of sneakers about the same size as Fred’s in the sand near Neil’s body.
We discussed recent fires and how we could have fought them better, and then everyone else was going out for ice cream.
Haylee and I declined. We didn’t tell them we had an appointment with Gartener and Smallwood. We both said we had sewing we needed to do, which was always true, but Clay gave us a skeptical look and again said he’d pick us up on Friday at six thirty.
After we got back into Haylee’s truck, she sighed. “I guess we can’t very well go out for ice cream later tonight for fear the firefighters will still be there and think we were trying to avoid them.”
“They may already think that.”
She gulped down a laugh. “Or that we’re afraid that Fred Zongassi is a killer.”
“He has quite a sense of humor.”
“You and Clay aren’t trying to throw him and me together, are you?”
“Of course not. Even if he weren’t too old for you, we wouldn’t want you going out with a murder suspect.”
Haylee shuddered. “I wonder if he’s the guy who asked Naomi out, the one she said would never compare to the man she once planned to marry.”
“And no wonder,” I said, “if he killed Snoozy Gallagher all those years ago.” I bounced on my seat as well as I could when two dogs were sitting on my lap. “Zs!”
“What?”
“Snoozy Gallagher’s belt buckle had Zs on it, and everyone said they stood for Snoozy. But couldn’t they have stood for Zongassi? Maybe Fred killed Snoozy over a stolen belt buckle.”
“Maybe,” she said in a dry voice. “If his last name was ZZZZZZZZongassi.”
I accused, “You sound like a chain saw.”
“And your theories are about as good as theories a chain saw might come up with.”
I stared at her. “Huh?” But we were already in front of In Stitches. The dogs and I hopped out. “See you at The Stash in a few minutes.” I closed Haylee’s truck door.
The dogs went down to the apartment where the kittens woke up and decided that Sally’s tail was their favorite toy. I copied the phone numbers Mona had given us for Yolanda and Cassie and stuffed the originals into my jeans pocket. At half past nine, I went, without pets, to The Stash.
I loved Haylee’s fabric store. She was featuring summery fabrics, a light, bright, and cheerful array. Who doesn’t like touching cotton? And bamboo fabrics that are softer than cotton and smoother than silk?
However, Haylee ushered me past the bolts of intriguing fabrics to her classroom. She had four long tables arranged in a rectangle with a walkway into the middle,
and several sewing machines and sergers on each table. Finished garments hung on the walls like the works of art they were.
Detective Gartener—I didn’t think he wanted us to continue calling him Toby—and Vicki Smallwood sat together facing the door. Their notebooks and pens were on the table in front of them, and Gartener held several loose sheets of letter-sized paper printed in black ink. His white shirt was still spotless, and Vicki’s uniform was crisp.
Haylee and I sat around the corner from them. Gartener was on my right. I held my knees stiffly together and my feet pulled underneath my chair for fear of accidentally brushing against his jeans.
“I ran the plates on that man’s BMW, Haylee,” he said. “The car’s owner is listed as Max Brubaugh.”
“Can you tell me his birth date?” Haylee asked in a small voice.
“Not officially.” He consulted the printed pages in front of him. “He must have had some exciting birthday parties, with everyone dressing up and going door-to-door for treats.” Watching Haylee’s face, he tilted his head.
Who wouldn’t have understood that hint?
Haylee thanked him. “I’ll ask Opal if it’s—” She scrunched up her face and rattled off the date of the Halloween three and a half years before she was born.
“You got it,” Gartener confirmed.
“And you already know,” Vicki added, “that the man potentially posing as your cousin works for a TV station in Pittsburgh, and his reports are often broadcast up here.”
Haylee nodded. “My mother has been paying attention to him for the past six months, ever since she first saw him. I’m sure that the name alone was enough to make her want to believe he was her nephew. She can convince herself of nearly anything. But maybe this guy stole my real cousin’s identity.”
And his appearance, also? “Why would he come after Opal?” I asked. “She makes a comfortable living like we all do, but it’s not like she’s wealthy.”
Haylee clenched her hands. “I don’t know. But if he’s up to anything, I’m going to be prepared.”
“He has no record,” Gartener said. “A couple of speeding tickets.”
Haylee stared down at her fists as if wondering how her knuckles had gotten so white. “Thanks for looking into it.”
Gartener was quick to tell her, “I didn’t do it only for you. I’d been wondering what brought them here.”
I volunteered, “Max and Zara are staying at the Elderberry Bay Lodge. Haylee and I are going to the gala there Friday night. Is there anything you particularly wanted to know about them?” I asked him.
“Not really, now that we know why they’re here.”
“Why they say they’re here,” Haylee muttered.
Vicki offered, “It was a bit of a coincidence that they arrived around the time the area was hit with a spate of food poisonings.”
Haylee raised her head. “Food poisoning? Haven’t you been saying it was the flu?”
“That was before the tests were completed.” The chief tapped her pen on her notebook. “You two guessed right in the first place. The cause of the outbreak turned out to be food poisoning, not the flu. The bacteria came from recently fertilized asparagus that had not been thoroughly washed. The problem is that the farmers around here swear that they did not sell any asparagus after they spread manure on it. A couple of them admitted that they hadn’t waited for the manure to compost because they figured it would be thoroughly composted by next spring’s harvest.”
“Don’t they risk burning their plants?” I asked. “With, I don’t know. Something too strong?” I made a face. “Besides the smell.”
Vicki didn’t try very hard to hide a grin. “Apparently not.” She had definitely gotten over her tummy troubles.
I reached into the pocket of my jeans and fished out the hand-printed slips of paper. “Mona DeGlazier organized the community picnic. Cassie, Neil’s assistant, helped. Mona said that the woman who catered the salads was named Yolanda.”
Vicki asked me, “And you’re sure that the salad caterer was one of the women who fought during your sidewalk sale, right?”
I nodded. “I’m sure. So she must be this Yolanda. Here are the numbers that Cassie gave Mona for herself and for Yolanda.” I passed the numbers to Gartener. “We think Yolanda may have used stolen asparagus in one of her salads. Perhaps she didn’t wash it.”
Vicki asked, “Why are you jumping to the conclusion that the asparagus was stolen?”
I put my hands palms up on the table. “As you said, farmers wouldn’t sell asparagus immediately after spreading manure on it. Besides, we saw—” I broke off, trying to figure out how to word it so they wouldn’t know we’d been snooping.
But of course Vicki guessed. “I know you two go wandering around at night poking your noses where they don’t belong—”
Haylee regained her sense of humor. “Not in crops recently fertilized with manure!”
Vicki rolled her eyes in mock disgust. “Did you two see anything unusual while on one of those dog-walking jaunts you two take?”
I leaned forward. “We did. A man was picking asparagus in the moonlight, in a field where it was obvious—from the smell—that manure had been spread recently. When we shined a flashlight at him, he hid his face. I drove a little farther, but then turned around and came back in time to see him get into his van and speed away.”
Gartener had been writing. “Did you recognize him?”
“No,” I answered. “Or his van.”
“Description?” Gartener asked.
“The man was tall and broad-shouldered,” Haylee said. “About your size, Detective Gartener.”
“About the size of Fred Zongassi,” I added. “Or Tom Umshaw. But Tom drives a pickup truck, and this was a minivan.”
“An old one,” Haylee contributed, “with lots of dents. A dark color, like brown or maroon. No logos or company names on it.”
Vicki raised one eyebrow. “Where and when did you encounter this?”
I was sure she guessed the answer, but I confirmed it. “On that road where you found us sweeping up broken bottles, a few minutes before you came along. I’d been following the van and had dropped back, hoping its driver wouldn’t notice us.”
“And you turned off your headlights,” Vicki accused.
I went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “He turned toward Elderberry Bay, and then that harvesting contraption blocked our way.”
“Was the driver of the harvesting contraption working with the man in the van, would you say?” Gartener asked.
Haylee shook her head. “It didn’t look that way.”
I added, “Teens were riding on the thing, drinking beer and throwing empties onto the road.” Why did the detective and the police chief want to know all this? To arrest someone for not washing asparagus?
Or . . .
I blurted, “Did Neil die of food poisoning?”
Vicki shook her head.
“He was poisoned, all right,” Gartener said.
“Tests showed he had the same thing that poisoned me.” Vicki looked a bit green again. “Manure—ick! But the food poisoning wasn’t what killed him. No, our friend Neil ingested something more deadly.”
“What?” Haylee demanded.
Vicki looked at Gartener as if asking his permission to answer.
“Rat poison,” Gartener said.
26
I FELT SICK. “HOW DID NEIL MANAGE TO ingest rat poison when he probably didn’t feel like eating anything?” I asked Vicki, remembering how she’d barely been able to down flat ginger ale.
She thinned her lips.
And then the obvious explanation hit me. “Let me guess,” I said. “Neil was sick to his stomach like you were, Vicki, and, unlike me, Neil kept medicine on hand for settling stomachs. And someone added rat poison to the medicine. And he took it.”
Vicki’s and Gartener’s neutral expressions were a dead giveaway that I’d come up with a good theory—maybe one that was the same as theirs.
&nb
sp; “I’m just guessing,” I told them quickly. “I have no way of knowing how the rat poison was . . . er . . . administered.”
Vicki seemed to stare right through my eyes and into my brain. Surely she didn’t think I’d had anything to do with poisoning Neil.
“Feel free to search my premises for rat poison,” Haylee offered.
“Mine, too,” I echoed, possibly too late.
Vicki pinned us with a look she might have given rookie cops. “More likely we’d need to sift through everybody’s garbage for empty containers.”
I grimaced as if I would be the one assigned to delve into bags of smelly trash. “Have you searched the bakery? Maybe the poison was there.”
“If it was,” Gartener answered, “it’s long gone. Except for—” He gave me a curt nod. “Except for upstairs in Neil’s apartment, in the dregs of that medicine bottle you suggested.”
“Lucky guess,” I managed in a weak voice. “Whose fingerprints were on the bottle?”
“Nobody’s,” Gartener said. “The outside of that bottle was cleaner than if it had come out of a dishwasher. And the bottle was wrapped in tissue in the middle of a wastebasket.”
I stared at Gartener in something like shock. Someone had cleaned the outside of the medicine bottle and hidden the bottle in the trash, and I doubted that Neil, who must have been very sick when he took the medicine, would have done all that. The strange disposal of his body pointed to murder, but now I was convinced. Again, I wondered who could have done such a thing to the baker that everyone seemed to like, and again, I felt very sad about Neil’s life being cut short.
Gartener had been watching my face as I thought it all through, but he didn’t comment. He stood and handed Yolanda’s and Cassie’s phone numbers to Vicki. “Here, you might like to follow up on these. Let me know if you need help from the state police.”
She gave him a radiant smile, then turned to us with a much less radiant look. “And you two—no more playing detective.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We were only curious about what caused everyone’s flu-like symptoms. Now we know. Thanks for telling us.”
