The chief and Granddad looked at each other, puzzled. Val told them about the incident.
Granddad sat up straight. “A blocked exhaust pipe isn’t really dangerous, but—”
“The intention matters, not the act,” Sarina said.
“The target matters too.” Val said. “It’s easy to blame pranksters for what happened in the maze. Shoving things into a car’s exhaust pipe looks like a prank too, but if the car belongs to the same person who was chased in the maze, you have an impossible-to-believe coincidence. Those couldn’t have been random pranks. They were intended to threaten . . . or to look threatening.”
Granddad piped up. “Don’t forget the common thread. Murder by rope, pursuit in a cornfield, and threats by birds occur in the Hitchcock movies shown in the posters upstairs.”
Payton gaped at him. “Are you saying some Hitchcock nut went after Fawn and Jennifer?”
Val jumped in before her grandfather could respond with the wrong answer. “Not necessarily. The murder and the intimidation may not be the work of the same person, though the murder could have inspired what happened later.” Val glanced out the bay window behind the sofa. The continued darkness told her that the storm wasn’t going to blow over. She’d better hurry or her outdoor demonstration would be rained out. “If we pool what we each know, I think we can figure out whether Jennifer was the intended target. First, let’s go to the backyard and see where and how Fawn was killed.”
She rushed to the kitchen for props. While the others walked through the dining room, the butler’s pantry, and the kitchen en route to the back door, Val dumped yogurt into a small bowl to substitute for the chocolate she didn’t have time to melt. She put the bowl in the middle of a plate of strawberries and grabbed the other items left over from this morning’s murder reenactment—a fondue fork and the clothesline, still with the loops that Gunnar had tied at each end.
She led the group to the picnic table flanked by two backless benches as the swirling wind blew her hair around. “I found Fawn dead near this table. She was strangled while sitting here, eating chocolate-dipped strawberries, leftovers from the fondue we’d served earlier.”
Sarina arched one eyebrow. “She went into the kitchen and helped herself to the food?”
Jennifer flicked her wrist. “Typical of Fawn. She was a moocher.”
She hadn’t spoken ill of the dead Friday night. No longer the case by Monday noon.
“The yogurt is standing in for chocolate.” Val dipped a strawberry into the yogurt with her fingers. She didn’t use the fondue fork, hoping her audience would forget it was there. “I’m going to play the role of Fawn. Who wants to play the strangler?”
No one jumped at the chance. The chief, Officer Wade, and Granddad stood apart from the wedding group, watching intently.
Jennifer stepped forward. “Okay. Tell me what to do.” She took the rope from Val and held it away from her body as if it were a poisonous snake.
“Put one hand into each loop. That will give you a tight grip on the rope.” Val sat down on the bench in front of the food, her back to Jennifer. “Now slip the rope over my head and tighten it.”
Jennifer encircled Val’s neck with the rope and pulled it straight back. “Like this?”
“You can’t strangle me holding the rope that way. I’ll just reach back and pull it away.” Val grabbed it to demonstrate. Then she returned the rope to Jennifer. “You’re going to have to start with your hands crossed to make a loop and throw it over my head.”
Payton folded his arms. “This is sick.”
Jennifer slipped the loop over Val’s head and pulled on the ends to make it less slack, though she didn’t come close to how tight it would have to be to strangle someone.
“Wait.” Sarina held up her hand as if stopping traffic. “The strangler would have had a harder time getting the rope around Fawn’s neck. Wasn’t she wearing a crab hat? The claws hanging down would have gotten in the way of the rope.”
But was Fawn wearing a crab hat at that point? Val caught the chief’s eye and shook her head to signal she wasn’t going to mention the hat she’d seen near the body. “Fawn had gone inside the house already and she’d spent time in the kitchen. She cut up strawberries and warmed up leftover chocolate for her fondue snack. It would have been odd to keep a hat on her head all that time.”
“If she wasn’t wearing the hat,” Sarina said, “then she would have been more recognizable as herself.”
Val felt a drop of rain and wished Sarina would stop delaying her. “Without a hat, Fawn’s face would have been more visible. But the strangler approached her from behind. Her hair and Jennifer’s would have looked similar in the dark.” Val glanced up at the clouds. Go away. I need a few more minutes.
Jennifer also looked up. “We’re going to get wet if we stay out any longer.” She led a rush to the back door, seconds before a curtain of rain descended, prematurely ending the outdoor scene.
Now Val wouldn’t get to see the reactions from the wedding group when she used a fondue fork to defend herself. Taking the time to recreate the scene in the house wasn’t worth it. This delay would make the killer’s reactions less spontaneous, and her audience was losing its patience. She’d have to rely on words to expose the strangler.
Chief Yardley shepherded everyone out of the kitchen as Val brought her props inside and left them on the counter. She hurried into the sitting room for the last scene.
Chapter 23
Instead of standing like an emcee at the fireplace, Val sat where she had Friday night after the murder—on the ottoman she’d moved near Granddad’s chair. Now to make some truth soup, like the stone soup in the folk tale. She was like a hungry stranger in the folktale, trying to trick the villagers into contributing the food they were each hoarding. Everyone in the wedding group had something to add to the soup pot and a reason not to share it. Her goal was to coax the necessary ingredients from them.
Noah chewed the inside of his cheek, obviously nervous.
Sarina made a show of consulting her watch with its thick leather strap. “I hope this doesn’t take much longer. We have a lunch reservation in half an hour. Did we learn anything by going outside?”
Not as much at Val had hoped. “We’ve established that the strangler could have mistaken Fawn for Jennifer. The question remains whether the strangler targeted Jennifer after the murder. She went into a crowded maze with her friends. No one could depend on her being alone there and vulnerable. But two people knew exactly when she was alone.” Val saw Noah and Sarina exchange wary looks. “The path where Jennifer was running intersected with the ones Noah and Sarina took when they separated to search for her. It would have been easy for one of them to have followed her.”
Everyone in the wedding party looked astonished.
Payton raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Why would they?”
Val welcomed the question, especially from him, so she could answer it bluntly. “Maybe as payback for the double date when you and Jennifer treated your best friends badly.”
Noah flicked his wrist. “We’re over that.”
His spying on Payton and Jennifer Friday night suggested otherwise, but Val didn’t want to bring that up . . . yet. “One of you isn’t over it. Jennifer got a text message yesterday, a little verse. On a day in May, you got your way. Is this the day when you will pay?” She recited it slowly as Officer Wade wrote in his notebook.
Payton frowned at his fiancée. “You didn’t tell me about that message.”
Jennifer glared at Sarina. “I don’t know why you told her about it.” She pointed at Val. “Some nut job sent me that text by mistake. It made no sense.”
Val tapped her index finger on her forehead. “It made sense to me, Jennifer. You were going out with Noah and threw him over for Payton during a double date in May.” She shifted her gaze from Jennifer to Noah. “Revenge is a dish best served cold. Combined with jealousy, it makes a powerful motive for murder.”
“You’re accus
ing us of wanting to murder Jennifer?” Noah’s voice rose in outrage.
Sarina picked nonexistent lint from her pants. “I was with Jennifer when that verse popped up. Noah was in his room.”
Noah couldn’t have looked more surprised or angry if Sarina had smacked him. “That proves nothing. You can schedule a delivery time for a text.” The gloves were off. He wouldn’t be using us for himself and Sarina anymore.
Sarina gave him a steely look. “I had no reason to be angry or jealous because I wasn’t ever supposed to end up with Payton. Jennifer had kept tabs on him for years. She went out with you because you were an avenue to him. You were the only one who got the shaft on that double date.”
Better than Val had expected. She felt a surge of triumph. The fragile bond between the best man and the maid of honor hadn’t been hard to break. How long would it take Jennifer’s alliances to collapse?
Payton leaned away from Jennifer, looking askance at her. “Is that true?”
“Of course not. Sarina misunderstood,” Jennifer said through clenched teeth. Her face relaxed when she looked into Payton’s eyes. “I was attracted to you when I met you years ago. I never expected us to meet again. When Noah said he had a friend named Payton, I hoped his friend might be the handsome law student who helped me.” She turned to Noah. “I should have told you that I had a crush on someone named Payton years ago, but I had no reason to think he’d remember me or that we’d click. I’m sorry, Noah.”
He stared stonily ahead.
Sarina scowled at Jennifer. “I did not misunderstand. Your campaign for Payton started long before that sham double date.”
“And it continued this weekend,” Val added, “with a campaign to breach the Grandsire fortress. Jennifer took the first step in the campaign at the maze when she slipped away from Noah and Sarina.”
Jennifer’s eyes blazed. “I didn’t slip away. A bunch of people stampeded us and we got separated. Then someone chased me. What was I supposed to do? Stand still? After Fawn was murdered, I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Five minutes ago, before Jennifer’s scheme to snare Payton came to light, her friends would have defended her, but not now.
Val forged ahead with a direct accusation. “Your story of being pursued got you some attention from Payton, but not the invitation you’d hoped for. So you added the birds, which you bought in the same Main Street shop where you bought clothes this weekend.”
“Bayport Outfitters,” Granddad announced, delighted that his garbage picking had paid off.
Val pointed toward Granddad, but kept her eyes on Jennifer. “Even my grandfather knows where you got the birds. That’s life in a small town. The salesclerk remembered selling those birds this weekend. She can identify you from a photo.”
Jennifer wet her lips. “Okay. I bought the birds.” She glanced at Payton, who squirmed in his seat, and then at Sarina, who looked askance at her. “I was really scared after someone chased me in the maze. I didn’t want to be a sitting duck, here or in my apartment, where I’d be alone. I figured I’d be safer with you, Payton.”
Words at odds with her actions, and Val wouldn’t let her get away with it. “If you were really worried about your safety, why didn’t you tell the police about the text with the intimidating verse? That would have convinced Payton fast enough, especially after the text he received Friday night in the restaurant.” A stab in the dark that Val hoped would cut deep.
Payton eyed her with suspicion. “I tried to text back to the sender, but the number didn’t work. What do you know about that text? Did you send it?”
“No, but I’ll tell you who did send it, if you tell me what it said.” Val focused on Payton, resisting the urge to watch Noah. She didn’t want Payton following her gaze and drawing his own conclusions about the sender, at least not until she knew what was in that message.
Payton shrugged. “The message contained a calendar date, not a recent one, and a question—What really happened that night? You don’t know, but your fiancée does. Demand the truth from her. It meant nothing to me or Jennifer.”
Not recent. Val’s pulse quickened. “Was it a date from ten years ago?”
Payton looked thunderstruck. “I thought you didn’t know what was in the message.”
“I had a hunch.” But it had just come to her, along with the realization that she’d misinterpreted the verse sent to Jennifer. “What was the month and day?”
“I’ll check.” He whipped out his phone. “May 29th.”
A key ingredient had just gone into the pot. Val wondered how she’d missed it in the online article about the bicyclist killed ten years ago. The first article she’d located had a June publication date, but it reported on an accident that had happened a few days prior to that. In her hunger for details about the driver and passenger, she hadn’t taken the time to research the precise day of the accident.
“Who cares about a stupid anonymous message?” Jennifer pointed out the bay window behind the sofa. “It stopped raining, but it might start up again. Let’s get to the restaurant before it does.” She stood up, smoothing her skirt.
Payton reached for her arm and pulled her back down on the sofa. “We’re not going anywhere until Val tells me who sent that message.”
Val waited, hoping Noah would speak up. She’d never tattled as a kid. She hated to do it now, but she’d made a bargain with Payton and would keep it. “A man was sitting on the patio at the Bayport Bistro, across the lane from the Bugeye Tavern, where you and Jennifer ate Friday night. If the man hadn’t been wearing a crab hat, you might have recognized him. Face recognition software had no trouble identifying him from a photo taken while he was sitting there. He was tapping out a message seconds before you read the text in the restaurant.”
“Who was he?” Payton said. “And how do you know all this? Are you some kind of private detective?”
“Actually,” Granddad piped up, “I’m a private detective . . . in training. She’s learned a lot from me.”
His aside gave Val an opportunity to stare down Noah and make it clear she would speak up if he didn’t.
He crossed his legs, his eyes on Payton. “That was me at the bistro. I ordered dinner before I realized you two were at the restaurant across the way. I put on the crab hat because, if you saw me, it would have looked as if I was following you. But I didn’t send you a text message.”
Val didn’t believe him, but the others might. Add some spice to this soup. “Well, then who else might have sent it, Payton? That day ten years ago was around the time you met Jennifer and Fawn. You were almost finished with law school. The bio on your firm’s website says you worked in legal aid then.”
Payton slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “May 29th! I remember now. Fawn must have sent it.”
Val reared back in exaggerated surprise. “That message read like a poison pen letter. She didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d write something like that.”
Granddad nodded vigorously. “Cute girl. Sweet disposition.”
Jennifer put her hand on Payton’s thigh. “We’ll never know if she sent it. It doesn’t matter anyway now.”
“That message matters, because it led to Fawn’s murder.” Val’s statement had the dramatic effect she’d hoped. Payton gasped, Sarina’s jaw dropped, and Noah recoiled. Val glanced at the chief. Judging by his raised eyebrows, she’d surprised him too. She continued, “There is a way to tell if Fawn sent that text to you in the restaurant. Do you still have the message, Payton?”
He pulled out his phone, poked and scrolled, and held it out to her.
She took the phone and read the message. “Pay attention to the wording. What really happened that night? You don’t know, but your fiancée does. Demand the truth from her. The person who sent this is a careful writer. Full sentences. Correct punctuation. No typos, spelling errors, or even common texting abbreviations. But the message Noah received Friday night from Fawn, asking to have dinner with him, wasn’t like that. W
hen you showed it to the chief, Noah, he had trouble figuring out what it said.”
The chief nodded. “Full of mistakes and quirks, barely readable.”
Payton stood up, his hands fisted. “You sent me that text in the restaurant, Noah. Why?” With two long strides, he went around the coffee table and halfway to Noah’s chair.
The chief sprang up and blocked him. “Sit down, Mr. Grandsire.” He waited until Payton retreated and then moved closer to Noah, towering over the seated lawyer. “Did you send the message to Mr. Grandsire at the restaurant?”
Noah nodded. “I thought you’d recognize the date, Payton. It’s when Jennifer and Fawn were in the car that killed the bicyclist. Jennifer was driving and texting. Fawn covered for her.”
Jennifer’s jaw dropped. “Did Fawn say that? It’s not true. She was always a liar. Everyone thought she was so nice, but she was a bla—it doesn’t matter.”
Val wondered what Jennifer had started to say. Blabbermouth? Blackmailer?
Noah wiped sweat from his brow. “Fawn didn’t say anything to me about the accident. Ten years ago, Payton told me about two attractive girls who’d come to the Legal Aid office for advice about an accident. I researched the incident and interviewed a frat boy who’d received a text sent from Jennifer’s phone right before the accident. I still have a transcript of that message.”
Sarina snorted. “After ten years?”
Noah shrugged. “I save all my paperwork. I dug up my notes about the accident when Jennifer and Payton got engaged. On Friday night, when Fawn sent me that message with all the mistakes in it, I realized she couldn’t have texted from the car before the accident. The text from the car was errorless, standard English, like Jennifer’s writing. I realized then that Jennifer was texting while driving and killed someone because of that.”
Jennifer jumped up. “It’s a lie. People don’t always text the same way.”
“Sit down, Ms. Brown,” the chief said. “The truth will come out, but not by shouting.”
Final Fondue (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) Page 22
