Conch Shell Murder

by Dorothy Francis

  “That’s interesting,” Katie said. “And to have the birth shell used as a murder weapon in death is ironic.”

  “We’ve told the police about the will,” Diane said, “but they’ve made no comment.”

  “What about the will?” Katie asked. “Who stands to inherit?”

  “It depends on which will you’re talking about,” Randy said.

  “There were two wills?”

  “Yes,” Diane said. “Of course only one is legal, but Mother recently had a new will drawn up by her lawyer. She died before she could sign it.”

  “So who stood to inherit?” Katie asked.

  “Tell her the whole story,” Randy said. “Start at the beginning.”

  Diane took a sip of tea, then began. “Mother had recently learned she had cancer. The doctor’s prognosis called it terminal. For a while she denied the bad news. Then she flew into scathing tirades of anger. Temper tantrums. The doctor called her reactions normal. Mother hated everyone—especially her family. To vent her anger, she decided to cut everyone from her will and bequeath her entire estate to the Key West Preservation Group.”

  “But she died before she could sign that will,” Katie said. “So that still leaves the question of who will inherit from the original will and how much.”

  “I think someone might have killed her who didn’t want to see his inheritance disappear with the enactment of the new will,” Diane said.

  “Could be true,” Katie agreed. “Do the police know all this?”

  “Yes,” Diane said. “But if they’re taking any action on the knowledge, they’re keeping it to themselves. It’s easier to suspect a stranger who’s disappeared.”

  “Diane,” Katie said, “tell me. Just who does inherit under your mother’s present will?”

  “All of us. There’s Dad and me. The kids. Randy—indirectly, of course. Tyler Parish, Mother’s…friend. Mary Bethel, her secretary.”

  “Anyone else?” Katie asked.

  “No,” Diane said. “That’s all.”

  “Is there anything else I should know about the case?”

  Diane and Randy exchanged glances, then Diane spoke. “Yes. There is. The police found a blood-soaked dockmaster’s uniform and a wasp-like Halloween mask and head cover near Mother’s body.”

  “And?” Katie sensed more to come.

  “As the police were going over Mother’s office, they also found a blood-stained button on the carpet beside her chair.”

  “Could they identify the owner?” Katie asked.

  “Yes.” Diane hesitated, took another sip of tea, then looked away. “There’s no denying that the button came from Dad’s suede sport coat.”

  “Do the police have any explanation for how the button got there?”

  “None that they’re sharing with us,” Diane said. “So far Dad and I are avoiding the subject. Neither of us has mentioned it. Dad went to Mother’s office now and then. He could have lost the button without knowing it.”

  “Of course that’s a possibility,” Katie agreed.

  “Katie, the problem is that we need someone to really investigate the case and keep us informed as to what’s going on. I think the police have put it on hold and I want to see some action. Someone killed my mother and it’s wrong for a murderer to walk the streets scot-free.”

  “Will you take the case?” Randy asked. “I agree with Diane that we need a private detective.”

  Katie wanted to say yes. How could she refuse this friend who had opened her home to her, who had given her a place to live in a city were decent rentals were almost impossible to find. She liked both Diane and Randy and she agreed with Diane that a murderer should face justice. But she couldn’t say yes quite yet.

  “Let me think about it, please. Before I can make a commitment, I need to talk with Mac. I’m the ancillary member of the agency, and I usually go along with his decisions.”

  “Gotcha,” Randy said, nodding.

  “Will you be able to talk with him tomorrow?” Diane asked.

  “Yes. I can let you know tomorrow. But right now it’s getting late, and I need to go back to the office for my car and my luggage.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Diane offered. “There’s a street dance going on, and the crowd may be raucous.”

  Katie pushed her teacup aside, but before she could rise to leave, someone knocked on the door.

  FOUR

  Randy answered the door and greeted Beck Dixon, the Dades’ next-door neighbor. He pushed her into the kitchen like a brig under full sail, but she took one look at Katie and hesitated.

  “Dear children, I didn’t know you had company. Didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “You’re never an intrusion, Beck.” Diane pulled up a chair and set out another teacup. “You know Katie.”

  “Of course.” Beck nodded to Katie. “Glad you’re back.”

  Katie guessed Beck to be about sixty, and while her astringent voice sometimes grated, Katie admired her slim figure and her penchant for wearing jumpsuits that accented her height. Beck had designed her suit with a cleverly disguised drop seat and had commissioned the local handprint fabric shop to make it up in seven colors. Tonight she wore a white hibiscus-flowered cotton that matched her red Kino sandals and the scarlet blossom she had tucked into her ash brown hair.

  “I’m not company, Beck,” Katie said. “You know that. Anyway, I was just leaving.”

  “Don’t go yet,” Diane said. “We need to talk some more.”

  Beck joined them at the snack bar, accepting the tea with a nod of thanks before she turned to Katie. “Have they talked you into taking the case?”

  “You knew they were trying to?”

  “It was partly my idea,” Beck said. “Alexa was my childhood friend, my benefactor, my colleague in the Preservation Group. I want to see her murderer caught and punished. Since you’re a detective and living right here, you seem like a logical person to turn to.”

  “Right,” Randy said.

  “I’ll help you all I can,” Beck promised.

  “In what way?” Katie asked.

  Beck laughed. “Dear child, I read a lot of detective novels. What else does a lonely spinster have to do? Anyway, I know that sleuths need informants. That’s me. Old Sponge Ears. I hear things. A body doesn’t run a tea room for thirty years without being privy to a few secrets and lots of gossip.”

  “Detectives have to operate on facts,” Katie said, smiling.

  Diane freshened Katie’s tea. “Beck deals in facts, too, and flotillas of people pass through the Hibiscus House Tea Room in the course of a few days.”

  “People talk,” Beck said. “And I listen. Are you going to take the case?”

  “Maybe. My partner’s out of town for a while, and I’ve never handled a murder case. Maybe if you waited until Mac gets back…”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Beck banged her cup down so hard the tea sloshed into the saucer. “There’s already been too much waiting. Once a case gets cold it’s much harder to solve.”

  Katie regretted having revealed her lack of confidence in herself. “If the police have no lead within twenty-four hours, they may never get one. I’m not insensate to those statistics.”

  “That’s why we need you,” Diane said. “I suspect the case is no longer top priority with the police.”

  “Got a notebook with you?” Beck asked Katie. Katie shook her head.

  “Thought detectives always carried notebooks. They do on TV.” Beck pulled a notebook from her jumpsuit pocket. “Here. Use this.” She handed Katie a ballpoint. “What you need to do first is to make a list of suspects.”

  Katie tried not to smile at Beck’s combination of bossiness and childlike enthusiasm. “Okay. Number one. Who’ll it be?” She waited, ballpoint poised, eager to hear whose name would be mentioned first.

  “Any of the family,” Diane said. “You can write my name in the number one slot if you want to, but from a financial standpoint, any of us might have had the motivation to do aw
ay with Mother. I told you, we’d all inherit. She didn’t simply bequeath everything to Dad.”

  “Humph!” Beck snorted. “Po couldn’t handle the whole estate and Alexa knew that.”

  “Pretend you’re going to take the case,” Diane said. “What would you want to know first?”

  “Let’s look at it from another angle,” Katie said, surprised that Diane could discuss her mother’s murder in such a pragmatic manner. “Instead of thinking of what the inheritors stood to gain, let’s think about what each had to lose, had the new will been legalized.”

  “I would have lost several million dollars,” Diane said. “I’m not sure of the exact amount. Mother had lots of investments and she earmarked much of her estate for me, or for my children in the event of my death.”

  “Randy?” Katie asked. “What would you have lost under the terms of the new will?”

  “I don’t deny that I would have hated to see it go into effect. Chitting Marina now goes to Po, and I think he’ll want me to help him operate it. I’ve been looking forward to that opportunity, which I’d have lost under the new document.”

  “Think he’ll want you to help him?” Beck said. “Dear child, you know he will. A dilettante writer who’s been pretending to create a novel for twenty years isn’t likely to toss his word processor into the sea just because he’s inherited a marina.”

  “Dad might surprise you some day,” Diane said. “People see him as a lazy don’t-rock-the-boat type who’s always played understudy to Mother, but he just might finish that novel. It could be a best seller. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Dreamer,” Beck said. “It’s surprising how long it takes to finish a task you’re not really working on.”

  “Anyone else who’d have lost a lot, had the new will been valid?” Katie spoke quickly, wondering how Diane tolerated Beck’s comments. She knew they walked together each morning, but surely Beck must be living a foot-into-mouth existence where Diane was concerned.

  “Tyler Parish,” Randy said. “Put him high on your list.”

  “I mentioned him to you,” Diane said, “Mother’s…lover. Few artists can make a living on their own. Under the new will, Tyler would have lost Mother’s gifts, as well as her social and moral support.”

  “Or immoral support,” Beck said. “Depends on how you view it. Alexa and Tyler flouted the rules and openly flaunted their relationship.”

  “Did Tyler have other women friends?” Katie asked.

  “Does a shark have teeth?” Beck snorted. “Had Alexa known, she would have wreaked ruin on her rivals.”

  “But she didn’t know,” Randy said. “Her ego blocked her vision.”

  “That’s something I could investigate,” Beck said. “I could ferret out names. Places. Dates.”

  Diane scowled. “I suppose there could be a woman out there who might have killed in order to prevent Tyler’s inheritance from going to the Preservation Group.”

  “And then there’s Alexa’s secretary.” Randy opened the refrigerator, pulled out another beer, popped the top. “She had a lot to lose. Personally, I think Mary Bethel’s an arrogant goldbrick, but she deserves a medal for working for Alexa. What a rotten job. The woman was a bitch.”

  Katie glanced at Diane to see how she was taking Randy’s tirade.

  “We all know Mother had her faults,” Diane said. “I’ll be first to admit that she was demanding and hard to please.”

  “Why do you call Mary Bethel a goldbrick?” Katie asked.

  “When I worked at the marina, she was always calling in sick or coming in late. Strange part of it was that Alexa put up with her malingering. Not like Alexa to give an inch in any direction.”

  “Now Randy,” Diane sighed.

  Randy gulped half of his beer. “I owe Alexa a lot, at that. If I could have stood working with her at the marina, I’d still be there. I’d never have struck out on my own as a backwater guide, and I’d never have known for sure that I could make it solo. I’d have been a parasite, depending on the Chittings’ golden parachute.”

  Katie felt a growing respect for Randy. She could understand his need to prove himself. But then what? Surely the Chitting fortune must have seemed very attractive.

  “What would Mary have lost under the new will?”

  “An annual stipend,” Randy said. “The woman’s set for life.”

  “Fifty thousand a year,” Diane said.

  “Frugal Mary can retire and live on bon-bons for the rest of her days,” Randy said. “Poor little Mary. It could ruin her. Quash her incentive.”

  “Sour grapes.” Diane patted Randy’s hand. “I don’t begrudge Mary her stipend. She always played servant to Mother, she thought so much of her. And sometimes I think Mother looked on Mary more as a daughter than as a secretary. Mary deserves her reward.”

  “Who’s in charge of the marina at this time?” Katie asked.

  “Dad’s supposed to be,” Diane said, “but Mary’s agreed to stay until the end of the month. Between the two of them and the dockmasters, business will continue.”

  “There’s another person involved in all this that you’ve forgotten to consider,” Beck said.

  “Who’s that?” Randy asked. “Nobody else was mentioned in Alexa’s will.”

  “Right, but another person profited from it.” Everyone waited, looking at Beck.

  “Who?” Katie asked.

  “Rex Layton. Think about it. The mayor stands strongly behind the Cayo Hueso housing project. If Alexa’s estate had gone to the Preservation Group, it’s almost certain that they could have hired lawyers to help them block the Cayo Hueso development.”

  “You’ll have to fill me in,” Katie said. “I haven’t kept up with city politics enough to know the extent of Mayor Layton’s interest in Cayo Hueso.”

  “Dear child, it’s fairly simple. As mayor, Rex wants to see Key West grow. One way to promote growth is to provide economical housing for people. You can hardly buy a home in a decent area of the city for under two hundred thou. And rentals cost megabucks because the tourists dance to the landlord’s tune. There’s scant housing available to the low-income wage earner.”

  “And the Preservation Group disliked a housing project that would help the common laborer?” Katie suddenly felt catapulted to Rex’s side concerning the Cayo Hueso project. Laborers had wives and kids, and those families deserved decent and affordable living accommodations.

  She remembered the inner city in a tough part of Miami. Kids deserved better. She was about to speak out in Rex’s behalf, then reconsidered. It would be unprofessional to drag personal feelings into a murder investigation.

  “Do you really think Rex Layton should be considered a suspect?” Katie asked Beck.

  “I wouldn’t have mentioned his name if I didn’t think there was a chance of his guilt.”

  The more Katie heard about the murder, the more it intrigued her. Could she handle this? If she could prove herself capable of solving this murder, maybe she would feel competent as a detective. Maybe she could rationalize running away from teaching.

  Beck stood and headed for the door. “Think about this case, Detective Katie Hassworth. Can you really turn your back on it? Can you really go about your life with Alexa Chitting’s murderer at large?”

  FIVE

  Katie helped Diane rinse the teacups and place them in the dishwasher while Beck drove Randy to get Katie’s car and luggage. They talked a bit longer, then once Katie had her suitcase, she climbed the baronial staircase to the second floor. She paused for a moment to adjust the gold frame on an ancestral portrait and smooth the fringe on a French tapestry before she went on up the wide carpeted steps to her third-floor apartment.

  Diane admitted feeling guilty about spending so much on antiques, admitted using Katie’s rent payments to support her habit. Katie didn’t mind. She admired Diane for choosing a home and family career and living on Randy’s income. She wondered if everyone felt guilty about something. She also wondered how she
could have been so lucky as to have met Diane. They needed each other.

  The wind howled under the eaves of the third floor that consisted of one large room where, at the turn of the century, the original owners once held fancy dress balls. Tonight it smelled musty from having been closed, and she opened a window a crack.

  A small closet at the end of the room held ladder-like steps leading to a widow’s walk on the roof. There, old-time ship captains had paced, scanning the sea for sailboats wrecked on the reef, knowing that the first captain to offer aid owned salvage rights to the distressed vessel. Sometimes Katie climbed up for a panoramic view of the island. But not tonight. Too cold. Too windy.

  In her apartment, Kirman carpet designated the living area with its furniture from Diane’s favorite Napoleon II era. The old rug felt soft under Katie’s feet as she kicked off her shoes and turned on a lamp. Sometimes she felt almost smothered in antiques.

  French screens separated the living area from the sleeping area with its burnished brass bed and the ancient dresser that had a top drawer that pulled out to form a desk. Katie unpacked, hanging her clothes in the mirrored armoire before she took a shower and climbed into bed. Then she got up again and stepped onto the bedside scales.

  “One hundred twenty-five.” Up a pound. Drat. The morning and night weighing-in had become a ritual. Compulsive behavior, her Miami therapist had said. She had long ago given up trying to break the habit, but she tried not to let the numbers on the scales control her life. Tomorrow she would eat nutritious meals. Fruit. Skim milk. Good low-cal stuff like that. Tomorrow. The promise palliated her conscience and she climbed into bed again. It had been a long day.

  Sleep eluded her as she wondered if she could handle a murder investigation. Most of their cases so far had involved searching for missing people or tracking down information in Miami or Tallahassee concerning embezzlements. She hoped the police were right, that some drug-crazed addict had murdered Alexa. What would she do if the culprit turned out to be a respected family member? Would she be putting her own life in danger if her investigation threatened to disclose the murderer?