by Lynn Bohart
Count to three.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Doe suddenly exclaimed, her face reanimating.
“First of all, no one has said conclusively that it was murder,” Rudy said. “But even if it was, do you think just because you read mysteries, you could actually solve one?”
Her derisive tone stopped me.
“I don’t know, but I have to try.”
They continued to stare at me with dubious expressions.
“Look, I’m probably the prime suspect,” I said. “I could be arrested at any moment. If that happens, I’m out of time.”
“But you can hire a lawyer or a private investigator. Or just get Angela moving. That’s what they get paid to do,” Rudy said, throwing up her hands and looking to the others for support.
“I’m with Julia on this one,” a familiar voice said, rising above the rest.
April stood at the doorway with her feet apart and her hands stuffed into her apron. I felt a flood of relief at her entrance. Doe sat back, while Rudy leaned onto the arm of the sofa.
“You do realize,” Rudy began, directing her comment to April, “that none of us knows the first thing about sleuthing or solving a murder?”
“I know,” April replied. “But it’s not rocket science. And we have resources we can call upon that the police don’t have.” She looked at me. “For instance, what about that guy you know who teaches a class in becoming a private investigator at the community college?”
I cringed. “Noooo… not him. Remember, he tried to get me to go out with him. He’s just too weird. He actually carries rubber gloves in his pocket wherever he goes, just in case.”
“Ewww,” Blair said, wrinkling her nose.
“Seems to me, you can’t be too picky right now,” April said, looking at me over her glasses.
“This could also be dangerous,” Doe said.
As a CEO, Doe only made decisions after careful consideration, and she was reminding us to be careful. She looked back and forth between us.
“No matter who the target was, if this really was murder, then someone out there is a killer. We can’t forget that.”
“I doubt anyone has forgotten that,” April said to her. She came into the room and sat on the piano bench. “But life is short, and I for one don’t really like having it yank me around. Remember that I was also questioned by the police. And they weren’t too polite about it, seeing as I do most of the cooking around here. I would assume that anyone working here is as much a suspect as Julia.”
My fear had been validated. April felt as if she was under the heavy weight of suspicion. I wondered then about Libby, José, and Crystal.
“She’s right, you know,” I said. “Technically, we’re all under suspicion right now.”
“So, how would we go about this?” Rudy asked, her skepticism waning. “I mean, what could we do that the police can’t?”
I could tell that Rudy was coming around. She would go along with this if we could tell her how it could logically be done.
“Wait a minute,” Blair said, holding up a hand. “Before we get knee-deep into crime-solving, I’m hungry. If we’re going to dinner, let’s go. We can talk about it there.” She eyed April. “And you’re coming with us,” she said. “Minus the apron, of course.”
April grimaced momentarily. “Uh…I have a ton of stuff to do here,” she said, starting to rise.
“No way,” Blair said. “This is my treat and everyone is going.”
“No, Blair,” I said, standing. “It was my idea to…”
“Forget it Julia,” she stopped me as she stood up. “I want to hear how we’re going to solve Martha’s murder, and I’m willing to pay for it. So, let’s go.”
Everyone laughed, even April, and headed for the door.
The restaurant was nearly full, but a large table got up to leave just as we arrived. We were seated near the kitchen and quickly ordered drinks and dinner. While we waited for the food and beverage, I leaned forward to get the girls’ attention.
“Look,” I said, “I thought about this all last night. The police are focused primarily on Martha, and yet I wrapped that box of fudge for the senator.”
Doe was absentmindedly folding and refolding a cocktail napkin. “And you’re positive the box hadn’t been opened?”
“No. I moved it from under the reception desk and put it in the pantry the morning of our book club luncheon.”
“But whoever poisoned the fudge could have taken a box from behind the reception counter,” Doe said. “And then switched it with the one you wrapped.”
As Doe spoke, I was picturing the opened box in Detective Franks’ hand. The pattern of the wrapping paper flashed in my mind.
“Oh my God!” I blurted.
The waitress arrived with our drinks, stalling the conversation. Once we’d each received our order and had a chance to take a sip, Blair leaned in to me. “What is it?” she said. “What did you remember?”
I shook my head as I stirred my margarita. “I’m such an idiot. I was so shocked when Detective Franks held out the opened box of fudge that I didn’t notice the wrapping paper. I wrapped that box in green wrapping paper with tiny candy canes on it. That’s our theme this year—candy canes. Several of the fake packages under that big tree in the living room are wrapped in that paper. But it just dawned on me that when Detective Franks brought out the gift box, there were no candy canes on the wrapping paper. I’m sure of it. I think it was wrapped in a Santa Claus paper. Same basic colors, but a different pattern. Don’t you remember?” I looked around the table. “I don’t think I even have any Santa Claus paper this year. And besides that,” I added, still considering the image in my mind, “where the heck was the outer plastic wrapping? And our label? I didn’t see either one.”
“Did you find the wrapping in the pantry?” Blair asked April.
She stopped and thought about that.
“No,” she shook her head. “I never saw it.”
“You should let the police know,” Doe said, her eyes wide.
“But wait a minute,” Blair said, stopping mid-sentence. “If the box Detective Franks brought out of the pantry had a different wrapping paper on it…”
“Then someone really did tamper with it,” Rudy said, finishing her sentence.
I could almost feel the adrenaline flowing around the table. Everyone took the opportunity to sip their drinks.
“Okay, but let’s think this through,” Rudy said, bringing our focus back. “Someone either tampered with the gift box and then rewrapped it, or…”
“Or what?” Doe asked, her voice reflecting her anxiety.
“Or like Doe suggested, perhaps someone who already had a box of Julia’s fudge, poisoned it, wrapped it, and then brought it back and switched it for Julia’s.”
“Wow,” Blair said. “That’s good, Rudy.”
A pall fell over the group as we just stared at each other.
“But that would mean it could be any of us,” Doe said. “I have a couple of boxes at home.”
“I do, too,” Rudy said with a shrug.
“Even I’ve taken a few boxes to give away as presents,” Blair said.
“Who else?” April asked me.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, April, I’ve given boxes to dozens of people, especially at this time of year,” I said.
“Anyone recently?” she asked, not willing to give up.
I contemplated her question. “Well, Sybil bought one just before Thanksgiving for her mother. Angela took one home with her just last week. And come to think of it, I gave one to the Executive Director of the State Democratic Committee when he came to look at the inn in advance of the reception.”
“Don’t you sell them to the guests, too?” Doe asked.
“I sold one just yesterday to the Pedersons and two boxes to Ms. Jenkins when she checked in on Saturday,” I said. “But anyone could have taken one. We keep several boxes on that shelf behind the reception desk. Hell, the caterers or floris
ts could have taken one. Besides, if someone switched boxes, they could have taken one six months ago and only decided to use it now. I mean, the fudge wouldn’t have been very good anymore, but they were poisoning it anyway, so why care?”
I ran my fingers through my hair. This was going to be impossible.
“The question is, who had the opportunity to switch the boxes,” Blair said.
“I wrapped the box last Saturday, and it sat under the reception desk until Thursday morning,” I said. “I never checked on it again. Frankly, almost anyone could have quietly exchanged one for the other. I would never have noticed.”
“Okay,” Rudy said, “I think you should call Detective Franks tomorrow and tell him about the wrapping paper and the shrink wrap. Maybe that will at least take some of the pressure off of you for a while.”
I shrugged. “If they believe me.”
The same waitress appeared again with a cart filled with five plates of steaming food. She placed the proper plate in front of each woman and then stood back.
“Is there anything else?” she said with an efficient smile.
“No, we’re good,” April replied. “Thanks.”
Each of us took a moment to survey our order and negotiate an initial bite or two. As we began to eat, Rudy spoke up again.
“You know, I doubt anyone would have had the time or the guts to tamper with the box right there at the inn,” she said. “There are too many other ways to get the fudge, inject the poison somewhere else and then just exchange it for the one you wrapped.”
“One question that bothers me,” Doe began, holding her fork mid-air. “I know we’re saying the senator was the target, but why did Martha go into your pantry and open the gift box in the first place?”
“Especially without asking,” Blair said, cutting off a piece of fish. “If Martha was anything, she was polite. I’m sure she would have asked first if she wanted to open something like that. I can’t even picture her sticking her finger into the curry without asking.”
“I’ve thought about that, too,” I said, toying with the chicken parmesan in front of me. “But regardless, if the target was Senator Pesante, then Martha was killed by mistake.”
“But that’s where I was going,” Doe said. “If someone meant to kill Senator Pesante, their plan blew up the moment he cancelled the reception. Did you have another opportunity to give the box to him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “At least not now. I was going to give it to him on New Year’s Eve at the Governor’s Ball. What are you thinking?”
She looked around the table with a grave expression, just as a group of young women passed our table, talking loudly. Doe waited until they were out of earshot.
“Think about it,” she said. “What if you had decided to give it to someone else? They could have been killed instead. But it was Martha who opened it.”
“And Martha was killed by mistake,” Rudy said with a roll of her eyes. “I think we’ve got that part, Doe.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Doe said, leaning forward. “Listen. We’d all agree that it seemed like Martha was looking for something that day. What if she was looking for that fudge?”
Even though the restaurant was full of people, it seemed as if the air in the room had stopped moving. We all stopped and stared at Doe. When no one responded, she prodded us.
“Martha could have gone for any other box of fudge in the inn if all she wanted was something sweet. But she went into the pantry, ripped open that gift box and opened that particular box of fudge. Why?”
“So you think that for some reason Martha was actually looking for that particular box,” I said, breathlessly.
“Let’s face it—we can’t explain any of her behavior that day,” Doe said with a shrug of her shoulders.
Doe returned to her dinner, while April finally spoke up.
“But if we follow your logic,” she said, resting her elbows on the table, “then that would make Martha the target and not Senator Pesante?”
We were quiet for a moment, the weight of that statement rendering us silent.
“But why would anyone want to hurt Martha?” Blair shook her head, tears in her eyes.
“We don’t know the answer to that any more than we know why she was behaving so strangely,” Doe cautioned. “I just think it’s a scenario we shouldn’t rule out.”
Rudy’s tanned hands had encircled her glass of white wine, and she was staring into it as if it might reveal a clue. “So,” she began, “our two theories are, one—Senator Pesante was the target and Martha got the poisoned box by mistake. Or two - someone poisoned the fudge after the reception was canceled, knowing that Martha would find it and open it.”
She looked up asking for confirmation, just as a waiter used a lighter to enflame a dish of cherries jubilee next to us.
“Yes,” Doe finally agreed. “Which makes the outlier in all of this… what made Martha open that particular box of fudge?”
“Boy, how are we ever going to figure that out?” Blair said, dangling her little finger as she raised her Lemon Drop to her lips.
“Look,” Rudy said, “Since we don’t know which scenario it is, we’ll have to work on two different tracks. Just in case.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “First, we need to eliminate Senator Pesante as the logical target.” I turned to Blair. “So Blair, if this was political it might have been a Republican effort to get rid of Pesante. Isn’t Mr. Billings pretty close to that guy who does the financial bundling for the Congressional Republican Committee?”
Even though Blair’s husband’s name was Jacob Babcock, for reasons Blair had never explained, she always referred to him as “Mr. Billings.” It had to be some sort of nickname, but none of us had ever had the guts to ask. Blair nodded mutely to my question.
“Think you can find out what they might know about Pesante’s enemies? Especially any that have to do with the minimum wage bill he was here to promote?”
“You mean like a detective?” she said, her eyes taking on an inner glow.
“Yes, Blair, like a detective,” Rudy said patiently. “But you can’t be obvious about it.”
“Okay, sure.”
Her response was too quick to be convincing.
“No, really, Blair,” Doe said. “You have to be subtle. Can you do that?”
“Subtle” was probably not in Blair’s vocabulary. In fact, my secret nickname for her had always been “Catnip.” She was what a friend of mine once referred to as a “man’s woman,” meaning that she loved men—every shape, every size, every age—and they loved her. And when she was around them, she assumed a persona of someone only slightly brighter than Marilyn Monroe, but just as alluring. She had been married to four of the richest men in the state. What’s more, they all still loved her and got along with each other. When Blair had gotten pneumonia the year before and ended up in the emergency room, her three ex-husbands had all converged on the hospital to wait with Mr. Billings. It was an odd support system, but it worked.
Blair frowned as if she wasn’t sure she could deliver on the expectation. Then she brightened up again, putting down her drink.
“Yeah, I can do it. I mean, let’s face it, after four marriages, I know how to keep a secret or two.”
She winked a blue eye playfully, revealing a more devious side to her than I’d ever seen.
“That’s good, Blair,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I still have some pretty good contacts with the press in Olympia,” Rudy said.
“Don’t forget Elliott,” Doe said.
Elliot was Rudy’s ex-husband and owner of a chain of local newspapers throughout the state. Although they’d been married forever, he’d up and left only a year before, stating that he needed to find out who he was. Seriously? At sixty-eight, he needed to find out who he was. A little late for that, I thought.
Rudy’s mouth turned into a frown. “I never forget Elliot. I’ll talk to him if I have to.”
I w
as smiling. They were really going to do this. I turned to Doe.
“Doe, didn’t you say that one of your drivers was dating Martha’s housekeeper, Carlita?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Philippe Gravas, that’s right.” Her eyes were literally sparkling at the idea. “That’s a good one, Julia. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“What about you and April?” Blair asked. “What will you guys work on?”
I looked over at my dear friend who was listening quietly, while she cut off a piece of steak.
“We’ll work on finding out how someone could have poisoned the fudge. We’ll have to see if we can recreate the last couple of days—who was here, who wasn’t—and map out every minute we can. It won’t be complete, but maybe we can identify time gaps when someone could have taken the box from the reception desk unnoticed.”
“You’ll have to figure out who has keys to the inn,” Doe said with a raised eyebrow.
“Uh… I have a key,” Blair said sheepishly. “Remember when I needed to run back to the inn to get your punch bowl the day we were holding that reception at the ballet? I never gave it back.”
“But didn’t you say your purse was stolen last week?” Doe said.
Blair blanched and threw her hand to her mouth, her long red fingernails nearly slicing open her nose. “Oh my God, that’s right.” She turned to me. “Your key was in that purse. I’d forgotten about that. I’m so sorry, Julia.”
An awkward silence settled over the table as we contemplated the fact that at least one key was completely unaccounted for. A tinkling sound made us all look up to the windows overlooking the pool. It had begun to rain, and a breeze was throwing sleet against the glass.
“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Julia,” Doe said quietly. “Think you’re up for it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I have a choice.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By 8:15 p.m., I was back at the inn and everyone but April had left. I put Ahab to bed, while April went out to close up the bakery, saying she’d meet me in my apartment later to get a head start on our investigation.
I made a cup of hot chocolate and snuggled into my big chair with a quilted throw over my lap. The dogs were stretched out on their pillow in front of the fireplace. I began making a list of everyone who had keys to the inn and anyone I could remember giving a box of fudge within the last six weeks. I had half of the lists finished when the phone rang. Not my landline and not my cell phone, but my mother’s cell phone again.
