by Carol Culver
I leaned forward. “Has there been any news on that? I’m one of the vendors who was cited. I’m hoping the county has better things to do than bother honest food and craft artisans. And you can quote me.”
“I’ll do that,” Sam said. “First the reason the county singled us out was that they’d had a complaint about conditions. The tipster was anonymous but it might have been someone with an ulterior motive. The complaints were the food that was supposed to be organic was not, or it was not properly made in an official kitchen or improperly stored. All the above were enough to bring out the suits.”
“What’s to prevent them for returning next week and shutting us down?” I asked. Of course I knew the answer but I wanted to hear what Sam had to say.
“Nothing except they have bigger fish to fry,” he said. “Their staff has been cut in half and in a related story, the county officials received yet another anonymous call regarding rodents in the San Pedro supermarket.”
Gay gasped. “Rodents?” We all looked around the room. I did my best to act like I had not heard this story before. I don’t think anyone suspected, except Sam who knew what he knew and probably still suspected me.
Bruce, the editor, raised his eyebrows. “I’m horrified of course,” he said. “But I can’t deny it makes for good newspaper reading. Gay, would you be able to get out there to the market and take some pictures for us? If you can get a shot of a rodent, that would be front page material.”
She nodded, obviously happy to have such a big story assignment. This was way beyond what she’d been hired to do. If this kept up, maybe the circulation would increase and she’d even get a salary. I mean, how many stories can you write about food and lifestyle in Crystal Cove? But crime? That was a different story. Everyone wanted to read about murders or illegal rats on the loose. Every time we turned around it seemed we had another crime on our hands. I just wished I wasn’t involved in any of them.
“Any other reports?” Bruce asked, looking around the table.
Gay told about the fabulous pie contest at my shop. She planned to include photos of the event and recipes with her article, along with a profile of me, how I came to take over the shop, what changes I’d made, and what plans I had for the future. I smiled modestly and thanked the editor for the free publicity.
Then Bruce announced the addition of an advice column. “The writer of ‘Ask Maggie’ is not here today. She prefers to remain anonymous, but Hanna Denton is here to pick up her mail. Which is considerable since we announced the column last week. I don’t know what the citizens of Crystal Cove did all these years without a chance to get anonymous advice from a sage like … like Maggie.”
“What kind of advice will ‘Ask Maggie’ give?” Gay asked. “Personal, professional …?”
“Yes,” Bruce said. “Anything she can address, she will. Matters of etiquette or family, relationship, behavior. You name it, Ask Maggie will cover it. As for her identity all I can say is that she’s a respected member of the community. Known all over town for the wise counsel she dispensed with the products she sold for some thirty years.”
Sam gave me a knowing look. I didn’t have to tell him who she was. Maybe everyone knew. Or, if they didn’t, they soon would. Granny’s personality and level-headed advice would shine out of her words.
Bruce handed me a manila envelope. “Here you are. These are Ask Maggie’s first letters.”
I held the envelope gingerly as if the contents might scald my fingers. I was dying to open the envelope and read the letters. What juicy gossip would be contained in those queries? I could only imagine. Maybe Grannie would share the contents with me. Maybe she’d ask my help. Or did I lack the wisdom to help anyone when I couldn’t help myself ? I sighed.
Bruce looked more cheerful at the end of the meeting than he had at the beginning. Was he finally beginning to see that the murder of Heath Barr was a blessing in disguise? That his new staff was a shot in the arm to the otherwise boring newspaper? I hoped so. In fact, he announced that since the murder, circulation was up 15 percent. He had just gone to the portable blackboard to write down the numbers when his new secretary, another volunteer, came to the door and told him there was someone to see him.
“We’re in a meeting,” he said with a frown.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Scarsdale, but the deputy says he has to talk to the chief right away. He has some bad news.”
Twelve
Sam stood and went to the door. I craned my neck but I couldn’t see who’d come in. Who was the deputy who couldn’t call Sam on his cell phone? How bad was the news that he had to come in person? If I was his deputy … but I wasn’t. He’d turned me down. I was having a few words with Gay about her photos of my pie contest when Sam stuck his head in the door and motioned to me.
I excused myself, grabbed Grannie’s precious envelope and met Sam and his deputy—a tall, lanky young man—in the hall. My stomach was churning. What kind of bad news was this that applied only to me? Grannie?
“It seems your shop was broken into this morning,” Sam said. “Any idea what they were looking for?”
“Besides pies?”
“Let’s get over there and you can tell me what’s missing.”
Sam drove me to the shop. My heart was racing. At first glance I couldn’t see anything out of place. The door had been jimmied open, not even a crack in the glass.
“Anyone could have done it,” I said to Sam, relieved to find the shop just as I’d left it. “But in thirty years no one ever has. Why bother? Why not just ask for a pie if you can’t afford one? Grannie was known for her charity. No one ever left the shop hungry.”
The pies were in the cases, the cold ones refrigerated, the others stacked on the shelves behind the counter.
“Nothing’s missing,” I said, puzzled but happy to see everything intact.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.
I felt sick to my stomach when I reached the landing and staggered backward. My desk was turned upside down. Bills and old letters scattered over the floor. My dresser drawers were emptied. My lingerie was scattered all over the floor.
I sat on the edge of my bed, my face buried in my hands. I couldn’t stand to look at the mess. Or think about who’d been there pawing through my clothes.
Sam stood in the middle of the room. “Well?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to say. What on earth were they looking for?”
“The phone?” Sam asked.
“Who knows I had it?”
“You tell me.”
“I would if I could. If someone saw me that night, and thought I’d found it, why wait until now to come and get it?”
He shook his head. “Yeah, all they had to do was wait until you left, break into your shop, go upstairs and reach under your bed. Want to file a complaint?”
“Would it do any good?” I asked.
“Probably not. Whoever did this saw your ‘Closed’ sign on the door. What were you thinking? It was like an invitation to come in.”
“So someone was watching me or the store, waiting for an opportunity. But there have been plenty. I’ve been gone all day some days, the chicken ranch, the pig farm, the dairy farm … Why now? Why today?”
Sam must have been tired of hearing my endless questions for which there were no answers.
“What hurts my feelings is that they didn’t take any pies,” I said.
That got a smile out of him but he also shook his head in dismay. I could just hear him thinking, That’s all she cares about, her pies. I wished it was true, then I wouldn’t feel so violated because someone had been in my bedroom.
“I’m going to get you a padlock for your front door,” Sam said.
“Isn’t there a saying about locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen?”
“Humor me. Just padlock the damn door.”
“Where is the phone by the way?” I asked.
“Sent to the lab. Being analyzed. We should have some voice recognition soon. By
the way, your fingerprints are all over it.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“And you want to be my deputy,” he said with a painful grimace.
I glared at him. “Hey, who found the phone and gave it to you anyway? At great personal risk? You owe me.”
He thought about that for a minute. How could he deny it? “How about dinner?” he said at last. “My house. Then we call it even.”
I hadn’t been to the house he bought next door to Lindsey’s. I assumed it was his man cave and no women were allowed in, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he lured women in with dinner invitations every night. I hesitated for a few moments. It didn’t do to seem anxious or desperate.
“Barbecued leg of lamb with couscous and fresh asparagus,” he said.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” I said.
“I had to learn, if I didn’t cook I didn’t eat.”
I knew he was referring to his childhood when his mother walked out on him and left him on his own. My eyes filled with tears. Tears for the kid who was left to fend for himself. Tears for myself. For the mess that someone made of my belongings. Tears just because I was tired of being brave.
“Hey,” he said, reaching down to pull me up into his arms. “Don’t cry. It’s not that bad.”
“I’m not,” I said between loud sobs. I was crying for lost opportunities, for missed connections, for wasted years. “Go,” I said, my voice still unsteady. “Just go and let me clean up.”
“Dinner’s at seven,” he said.
I nodded. I was thinking of what kind of pie to bring. But first I had to clean up the mess in my apartment.
“I don’t want Granny to know about this,” I said waving my arm at the clothes all over the floor and the emptied kitchen cabinets.
He nodded and then he asked, “Will you be okay?”
“Of course. I’m fine. I’ll just straighten up in here and get back to work.”
But of course I wasn’t fine. I was a wreck. As soon as Sam left to go back to work, I called Kate. She came right away and helped me clean up. The good thing about her is she didn’t freak out, she just spent a minute shaking her head and swearing at whoever did this, then she pitched in and waited for me to vent. Which I did. Eventually.
I insisted we take a break when we’d made inroads on the job. Tossing everything in the laundry and scrubbing the floors. For once I was glad the apartment was small. Finally we went downstairs and I took a bacon, tomato, and cheese quiche I’d made last week out of the freezer and popped it into the oven. It was total comfort food, which I needed badly. While we waited for it to bake, I made a pot of tea. We sat at one of my small glass-topped, ice-cream tables and I answered all her questions. Well, most of them.
“What were they looking for?” she said. I knew that was uppermost on her mind.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think it was a cell phone.”
She opened her mouth to exclaim and I continued. “See, I had in my possession the cell phone that belonged to Heath, the murder victim. Don’t ask how I got it.”
“Who me?” she said. “I won’t ask how you got the phone, but I don’t understand how someone knew you had it and why that someone wanted it enough to break into your place. I don’t get it.”
“Evidence,” I said, pouring tea into two delicate china cups. “I don’t know, but I assume there were messages left on Heath’s phone that were retrievable and potentially incriminating.”
Kate leaned forward, her eyes wide. “So who did they incriminate?”
“I don’t know. Sam is trying to find out with some fancy high-tech analysis somewhere. It’s hard to imagine who he was talking to. Heath didn’t have many friends, at least here in Crystal Cove.”
“Forget Heath, that scumbag, for a minute,” Kate said. “Who broke into your place today?”
“I don’t know that either. Could it be the same person who killed Heath?”
“Let’s make a list,” she said, reaching for her purse to pull out a notepad and pen.
“First I need some food. I can’t think until I eat,” I said.
The quiche came out of the oven hot and cheesy and browned on top. It was delicious, if I do say so myself. Kate said so too, for the record. As soon as we’d polished off a few pieces, I cleared the table and we got down to business.
“Possible suspects,” she said, pen in hand. “People who hated Heath.”
“First the Food Fair people he dissed. That would be Jacques, Martha, Bill and Dave, Lurline and myself, and Lindsey and Tammy. Then there are the Food Fair people he complimented. Nina, the pizza guy, and …”
“Why would they kill him? They should be grateful to him,” she said.
“It may sound stupid, at least Sam thinks so, but my theory is that they paid Heath to give them good reviews, then when he tried to shake them down for more money, they killed him instead.” This time around it sounded lame, even to me, and I could tell by the look on Kate’s face, she didn’t buy it. That didn’t mean it wasn’t what happened. “Go on, write it down,” I instructed.
She scribbled something on her notepad. “Back to the vendors Heath screwed over,” she said. “Can you eliminate anyone besides yourself? Anyone with an iron-clad alibi?”
I put both elbows on the small table and propped up my chin in order to think better. “I don’t know and Sam won’t tell me who is not on the suspect list, if anyone. Heath was killed the day of my meeting with the vendors, the ones we’re talking about. Which probably means we all had time to slit Heath’s throat with our fancy sliceN’dice serrated knives, then show up for the meeting at my shop. I assure you everyone was furious with Heath. Bill and Dave even lost their bank loan because of his lousy review. Not only did Heath slam all of us, but he’s the one who phoned in the complaint to the county Health Department before he croaked, which almost shut down the whole fair. At least that’s my theory.”
“What was wrong with the guy?” she asked.
“Don’t ask me. I never met him. Except that day on the phone when you were here. Maybe he was carried away with his own importance. Being a food and lifestyle critic is empowering.”
“Now that’s he’s gone, is the county still on your case about all those infractions?” she asked.
“Let’s just say they care more about rats in a grocery store and they’re too short-handed and too short on attention span to focus on us too.”
“Rats?” she said. “I hope Principal Blandings doesn’t hear about this or our goose is cooked.”
“Funny you should mention that little escapade of ours. The principal will hear about it because it’s going to come out in this week’s Gazette. It’s news, you know. But I can handle him. I’m not a high-school girl anymore. He can’t intimidate me or give me detention. I must say getting rid of Heath seems a better idea every day in every way. If I find out who did it, I might just look the other way.”
“You wouldn’t,” Kate said.
“No, I guess not, but I ask myself why are we knocking ourselves out to find his killer this way when we should just forget about it and let the police handle it? They’ve got labs and computers and a network and connections we can’t even imagine.” I wasn’t sure how many resources a small-town police department actually had, but it was comforting to imagine a vast web of professionals working round the clock on our problems.
“Forget that your house has been vandalized?”
“You’re assuming the same person who killed Heath—”
“Aren’t you?”
I had to admit I was. “Okay, we can’t let the professionals handle our problems. Who wants to solve this mystery more than we do? No one. We’ve got our list of suspects and now we need a list of questions we want answers to. Isn’t that what real detectives do?”
“Sounds good,” Kate said. “Question Number One. Who killed Heath? Subset A. Same person as broke into your store? Question Number Two. Why? Question Number Three—”
“Who pushed
me into the pool at Jacques’ dairy farm?”
“What? You didn’t tell me about this. Now I’m getting worried. Unless it was a joke. Did you get hurt? Who do you think it was?”
“No joke. I didn’t drown and I think whoever pushed me in was trying to scare me. Sam doesn’t believe I was pushed. He thinks I fell in, so he’s no help. I think the perps— you know what perps are?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Well, they must have heard about me from Jacques, the cheese guy, and they figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” she asked.
“That I knew something that would link them to Heath’s murder.”
“Do you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then you’re safe.”
I looked around at the shelves full of pies, the faint aroma of lemon, cinnamon, and ginger lingered in the air and I felt safe and secure in my little world. The mess upstairs was almost forgotten. I reached across the table and squeezed my best friend’s hand.
“Thanks for helping me,” I said. “I feel better already.”
She smiled. “What are friends for? Let’s finish this list, then I have to go.”
“Let’s add some more names.”
“I’ve got the vendors who met with you the day Heath was murdered. Who else?”
“Nina, the salted caramel maker. Her husband, Marty, who mans the booth. Gino, the pizza guy. Barton Barr, Heath’s brother.”
“Motives?” she asked.
“Nina and her husband could have killed Heath because of extortion, like I told you, although I don’t think her husband takes her candy business very seriously, not enough to kill for. Besides, her husband isn’t very nice. Do you remember him from high school. He was a total nerd, now he’s a jerk. I guess murderers can be jerks, but I don’t see why he’d do it. Then there’s the pizza guy. And Barton Barr who would inherit whatever family money there was. With Heath gone he’d get everything, if there was anything to get.”
