Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 04 - Country Comes to Town

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “Do you think Michelle would help us?”

  “I bet she would.” I had once made the mistake of mentioning some of the incidents Richard and I’d been mixed up in, and every time I came back from Byerly, she grilled me to find out everything that had happened. “I know she’d do it if you asked her.”

  “Me?” Thaddeous said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Why would that make any difference?”

  “I think she’s sweet on you.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe that, Laurie Anne.”

  “Then why is it that she hardly spoke to me when the three of us went out to dinner? She was too busy talking to you.”

  “She’s just interested in people.”

  “There’s interested, and then there’s interested,” I said. “Why don’t you come to the office for lunch tomorrow, and we’ll both ask her to help?”

  “All right.”

  “And you could ask her out while you’re there.”

  “I imagine she’s got plenty of boyfriends.”

  “Then why has she been flirting with you?”

  “She’s just being friendly.”

  “Thaddeous, I’ve seen her act friendly. This is flirting.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Lord, yes!”

  He fiddled with his plate. “I’ll think about it.”

  That was as much pushing as I could get away with. I finished my last piece of pizza and said, “So, what did you do today?”

  “I went to that museum at Harvard you told me about.”

  “The one with the glass flowers? Aren’t those the most amazing things?”

  We spent the rest of the evening talking about Harvard and museums, and watching TV.

  When I asked Michelle to go to lunch with me the next day, she accepted even before I told her that Thaddeous would be joining us. To make sure that we’d have plenty of time to talk, we didn’t go anyplace far, just to the snack bar in the basement of our building.

  As soon as we got our food and found a table, I said, “Michelle, we’ve got an ulterior motive for inviting you to lunch.”

  “Yeah?” she said, looking at Thaddeous significantly.

  “You remember I told you that a friend of mine had died over the weekend?” I said. “Well, I know this sounds crazy, but we think he was murdered, and we want to find out who did it.” I explained how I knew Philip, why it was we thought he had been murdered, the little I had found out so far, and what we wanted her to do. I ended with, “If you can find a connection to SSI and talk to the receptionist about those ballots, it could be just what we need.”

  “Let me get this straight. This guy Philip, who you used to date but who you don’t even like anymore, shows up on your doorstep and tries to bully you into taking him in. When you give him the bum’s rush, he gets himself killed. Now you want me to help you find the killer?”

  “Actually, all we want from you is a way to talk to that receptionist. After that, you don’t have to be involved.”

  “Are you crazy? You think I’d pass up on a chance to help out with one of your cases?”

  “But you said—” Thaddeous started to say.

  “I was just getting things straight. I know Laura has done this kind of thing in North Carolina, but I never thought she’d get involved in anything up here. I mean, this is Boston, not Byerly. People don’t go around solving their ex-boyfriends’ murders.”

  “They don’t often do it in Byerly, either,” I admitted.

  Thaddeous said, “Laurie Anne just wants to do the right thing. Even Yankee—even Northerners try to do the right thing, don’t they?”

  “Of course we do,” Michelle said. “It’s just that we’ve got a different idea about what the right thing is.” She waved all that aside. “But it doesn’t matter what your reasons are; I want to help. There’s only one condition: I’m not going to just get you to this receptionist and then disappear. If I’m in, I’m in all the way.”

  “That’s mighty nice of you, Michelle,” Thaddeous said. “We can sure use the help.”

  Part of me wanted to say that in the past I had done just fine without her, but I had to admit that without my family and Richard to work with, we probably did need her.

  “Of course, we’ll have to remain in constant contact,” she said. She was looking at Thaddeous when she said that, not at me. Maybe she wasn’t so interested in finding a murderer as she was in finding her way into my cousin’s affections.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “So do you know anybody at SSI?”

  “No, but I bet somebody I know does. Or somebody I know knows somebody who does. Don’t worry—I’ve got a network the Boston Globe would kill for. As soon as I get back to the office, I’ll make some calls.”

  Lunch hour was nearly over by then. Thaddeous wanted to spend the afternoon shopping for souvenirs for folks back in Byerly, so I gave him directions to Downtown Crossing, the shopping district in the middle of town. Filene’s Basement alone would probably keep him occupied for the rest of the day.

  “That’s nice, him looking for something for his mother,” Michelle said to me as we went back to the office.

  “He’s always been real generous,” I said.

  “Will he be able to find her something nice? Some men are no good at buying for women.”

  “Thaddeous is. He’s got wonderful taste, especially in jewelry. You should see the brooch he bought Aunt Nora for Mother’s Day a few years ago. And this year, he got her earrings to match.” Okay, I happened to know that Michelle had a weakness for jewelry, so I was stacking the deck.

  “He’s kind of shy, isn’t he?”

  “He can be,” I admitted. “He’s been burnt a few times in the past.”

  “I know how that can be.”

  She’d gone through several relationships since I had known her, so I imagine she did know.

  By then we were back at the office, and as Michelle settled in at her desk, she said, “Let’s see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Michelle.”

  “My pleasure. Maybe we should get together for dinner, in case I find out something this afternoon. If you and Thaddeous don’t have other plans, that is.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Of course, I didn’t have any idea that it was me she was interested in having dinner with.

  Chapter 12

  By dinnertime, Michelle had found a connection to Roberta, the receptionist at SSI. Michelle’s friend Priscilla knew Roberta and had agreed to set up a lunch with her the next day. Michelle was going along, too.

  Of course, Michelle didn’t need to go to dinner with us to tell us that, which only strengthened my suspicions that she had designs on my cousin. The shy grin on Thaddeous’s face when he saw her told me that he had ideas of his own.

  “How did the shopping go?” Michelle asked.

  “Tell you the truth,” Thaddeous said, “I never made it to those stores y’all told me about. I was going to, but I got to thinking that it wasn’t right for me to be off enjoying myself while y’all were doing all the work.”

  “Thaddeous, it’s not your fault that you don’t know anybody in Boston,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Michelle added.

  “But I want to do my part. After all, it’s my doing that Laurie Anne’s got herself mixed up in this mess.” Before I could object, he went on. “We wondered just where it was that Philip went after he left here that day. Detective Salvatore said he’d been drinking, which means he either went drinking at somebody’s house or he went to a bar. Since Laurie Anne said he was on foot when he left here, I thought I’d check out the bars within walking distance and ask if anybody had seen him.”

  “But Thaddeous,” I said, “there must be more than a dozen bars around here.” If anything, that was an understatement.

  “There are right many more than I expected,” he said. Then he grinned, and for the first time I realized that his face was flushed. “You know, folks back home are always saying that Yankees are
unfriendly, but that just ain’t so. I’d buy me a beer, start to talking to the bartender, and it wasn’t no time before they were falling all over themselves to speak to me.”

  “It’s that accent,” Michelle said knowingly. “It just charms people.”

  I wasn’t so sure it was the accent. Wasn’t there an old saying about one drunk loving another? “Thaddeous, how many bars did you go into?”

  “I’m not rightly sure.”

  “You didn’t drink at all of them, did you?” I asked.

  “I had to. It wouldn’t have been polite otherwise.”

  “Now, that’s what I call going above and beyond the call of duty,” Michelle said.

  “Of course, I didn’t finish all the beers,” Thaddeous admitted.

  “A good thing, too,” I said. Michelle might think it was funny, but all I could think of was what Aunt Nora would say if she ever found out her little boy had spent an entire afternoon bar-hopping. “Did you find out where Philip went?”

  He shook his head. “And I think I hit all the likely places.”

  “You’re sure they really hadn’t seen him?” I said. “Maybe they were just blowing you off. Remembering a customer from several days ago would be asking a lot.” And while I didn’t want to admit it, sometimes Bostonians weren’t the most friendly people.

  “I think they were straight with me. With the snow that night, pretty much everybody said it was slow and they thought they’d have remembered him. So I guess I was wasting my time and money.”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Michelle said soothingly. “You did good.”

  I said, “You know, if Philip didn’t go to a bar, then it’s that much more likely he went off with somebody.”

  “Like somebody from SSI?” Michelle asked.

  I nodded. “And since as far as I know, nobody has owned up to seeing him that day, that makes SSI look pretty promising.” I would loved to have left it at that, but my pessimistic side had to say, “Of course, he could have grabbed a cab or gotten on the subway and gone to a bar in another part of town.”

  Michelle waved away my objection. “Why would he do that and then come back to your place? That’s nuts! We’re making progress here, and you know it. We should celebrate.”

  “I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “I think Thaddeous has celebrated enough already.”

  But Michelle waved that away, too, and before I knew it, the three of us were on our way to Durgin-Park, a restaurant famed both for prime rib and for incredibly rude waitresses. Knowing that the waitresses Thaddeous was used to were friendly to the point of intrusiveness, I was wondering how my cousin would react to a waitress wearing a button that said MEANEST, but I needn’t have worried. Whether it was the company, the novelty, or the afternoon’s beer, Thaddeous had a great time. The more the waitress made fun of him, the more he laughed.

  After dinner, he insisted on the three of us taking a horse-drawn carriage ride. He was having so much fun, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had heard that pulling a carriage amidst all the gasoline fumes in Boston isn’t good for horses. Our horse looked like she was well taken care of, at least. I did try to make up a reason to bow out so he and Michelle could be alone, but I couldn’t, so I settled for making sure he sat next to her.

  I learned a long time ago that Boston isn’t a perfect city. There’s crime, and dirt, and ugliness—all the things you’d expect to find in a big city. But there’s magic, too, in the cobblestone streets and lights reflecting on the harbor and the sleek, tall buildings sitting right next to historic churches and landmarks. And magic was all we saw on our ride that night.

  Chapter 13

  Michelle had lunch with Roberta, SSI’s receptionist, the next day, and wanted to see Thaddeous and me that night to tell us what she had found out. Since it was cold and cloudy, instead of going out again, we met at my apartment and ordered in Chinese.

  I think it was the first time Thaddeous had ever had Chinese food, and he looked a little dubious about it. But after encouragement from Michelle, he gave it a try. I don’t think he loved it, but he didn’t hate it, either. And he got a big kick out of the fortune cookies.

  My fortune said, “The pen is mightier than the sword, but take the sword anyway, just in case,” and Michelle’s said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Thaddeous didn’t want to share his, but I grabbed it out of his hand and read it out loud, “Romance is right around the corner.” If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought that Michelle had arranged it.

  With dinner out of the way, I asked Michelle, “What did you find out?”

  “I found out that Roberta doesn’t deserve to call herself a secretary. Would you believe that she collected those ballots without even trying to see who voted what?”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Maybe she just didn’t want to tell you.”

  Michelle nodded emphatically. “I’m sure. I had Priscilla steer the conversation toward office politics right off the bat, dropping hints like crazy, but even then it took Roberta forever even to come out with the story. It’s got to be the most exciting thing that’s happened at her office in a year. You’d think she’d want to talk about it.”

  “Is she that discreet?” I asked.

  “She’s not discreet—she’s dense. I asked if she hadn’t snuck a peek. Anyone would have, I told her. She just looked at me like she didn’t know what I was talking about. ‘Why would I have done that?’ she asks. Can you believe that? The ballots weren’t even sealed—just folded over.” She tossed her hair. “Priscilla or I or any other secretary would have known exactly who wrote what, even if they had been sealed.”

  Thaddeous asked, “Didn’t this Roberta even have a guess? Maybe from how they acted when they gave her the ballots?”

  Michelle looked even more disgusted. “It never occurred to her to wonder about it. I’m telling you—this is the most dense woman I have ever met.”

  I said, “You tried. I’m just sorry you had to waste a lunch hour.”

  Michelle tried to look innocent, but a tiny grin snuck out. “Well, I wouldn’t say it was completely wasted.”

  “What did you find out?” I demanded.

  “After I was sure that Roberta knew nothing about the ballots, I asked her about what had gone on between the two votes. You know how you said that Vincent and Philip were trying to drum up votes?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I asked Roberta if she knew what it was either of them said. Or how the conversations went. I mean, if Philip went to talk to this Dom person and came out with a smile, chances are that Dom had told him he’d vote for him.”

  “That’s pretty smart,” Thaddeous said admiringly.

  “Did you get anything?” I wanted to know.

  “It’s hard to tell. Roberta heard only parts of a few conversations, so you tell me if any of it means anything.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay, she heard Philip talking to Vinnie. Pardon me, Vincent. Vinnie is a good enough name for my uncle and my grandfather, but apparently not good enough for Mr. CEO. Anyway, Roberta went by Vincent’s office a couple of days after the first vote. The door was closed, but Roberta could hear Philip yelling something about Vincent’s rat.”

  “His rat?” I said.

  “That’s what she said. His rat. Does that mean anything to you?”

  I shook my head. A computer has a mouse, but I never heard it called a rat, and there’s a rat-tail hairstyle, but Vincent didn’t wear one. “Maybe Philip was calling Vincent a rat for voting to fire him,” I said. “What else?”

  “Next is Inez, and she’s more promising. Roberta heard her yelling at Philip that he’d better not tell anybody, and that nobody would believe him if he did.”

  “Tell anybody what?”

  “You got me. Inez must have some secret or another. Next was Murray. Roberta heard Murray laughing at Philip, followed by Philip yelling at Murray, and Murray laughing some more. Roberta said
Philip was apeshit!”

  “I’m not surprised. Nothing got Philip madder than being laughed at.” One time I laughed at him myself when he slipped and fell in the snow. I didn’t mean to be mean, and I could tell he hadn’t hurt himself. Even so, Philip hadn’t spoken to me for days afterward. “But that would have been a motive for Philip to kill Murray, not the other way around.”

  “That’s what almost happened right there in the office. Roberta was sure that Philip was going to hit Murray, but he just stormed out.”

  “One thing about Philip,” I said. “I never knew him to resort to physical violence.”

  “He sounds like a coward to me,” Thaddeous said. “A man’s got to fight sometimes.”

  “A real man does,” Michelle said, looking at Thaddeous.

  This was starting to sound like a Kenny Rogers song. “Anything else?” I said.

  “That’s it.” She sighed. “Roberta is hopeless. How can you take care of your people if you don’t know what they’re up to?”

  That was the best rationalization for snooping I had ever heard, but considering I was snooping myself, I didn’t have any room to talk.

  “So what do you think? Does any of this help?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. “We don’t know who voted what, but we do know that people voted differently from what we’d have expected. If you hear about an election that didn’t go the way you’d expected, what’s the first thing you think of?”

  “Payola,” Michelle said at the same time Thaddeous said, “Blackmail.”

  “I don’t think Philip could afford to pay enough for it to be worth losing a job,” I said, “but I can see him trying to blackmail people into voting for him. When he was over here, he said something about ‘rattling cages’ to get people off his back. And what Inez said to him sure sounds like he was trying to blackmail her.”

  “If you ask me, blackmail is about as low as a man can get without digging a hole,” Thaddeous said.