“We need to pay the Picaloos a visit,” Mrs. Branford said. Her voice was usually edged with lightheartedness. With sass. With subtle cleverness. But at the moment, her tone was ominous.
It felt like we were playing a game of chess. I moved a pawn and she moved a rook. I moved a knight and she moved a bishop. I scooted to the edge of the chair. Mrs. Branford had realized something, and I was willing to take a risk to find out just what that was. I moved my queen. “Why do we need to pay a visit to the Picaloos?”
And then she played her final move. “Because it turns out Max Litman was doing a job for them and was in their house the very day he died. The. Very. Day,” she repeated, driving the point home.
Check. And. Mate.
Chapter 24
Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Branford, Agatha, and I strolled down Maple, turning onto Liverpool. Half a block later, we stood at the corner of Walnut, a majestic Queen Anne Victorian looming above us. The Picaloos’ cottage garden was just starting to bloom. Daisies, roses, salvia, and alyssum filled the space between the curb and the sidewalk. It wasn’t as lush as it would be in just a few short weeks, but it was still a beautiful corner.
A black wrought-iron fence circled the property. The yard was like an outdoor room. The same early spring blooms filled the flower beds in front of the raised porch. The focal areas in the yard drew the eye. Enormous boulders were strategically arranged under the two oak trees, clusters of flowers filling in the open spaces beneath the bare branches. Narrow brick paths shot off from the main walkway, wrapping around the perimeter of the house. The barren twisted trunks of wisteria climbed up trellises bordering two sections of the porch. During the summer, they acted as natural screens, shading the house; at the moment they were dormant, leaving space for light and warmth to filter through.
As I took it all in, ideas about flowers and gardens for my own house flitted around in my head. Agatha whimpered and pulled at her leash, itching to keep walking. “Shh shh shh,” I said. “Just a minute.” I opened up the camera app on my cell phone and took a few pictures of the curbside English cottage garden and the fully landscaped front yard. “It’s beautiful,” I said to Mrs. Branford.
No response. I turned, thinking she hadn’t heard me, but the space she’d occupied a moment ago was vacant. I looked back the way we’d come. No sign of her. I turned, looking the other way, and drew in an exasperated breath. She’d gone through the gate and now she swung her cane, walking purposefully up the uneven brick path toward the porch. “Mrs. Branford!”
If she heard me, she didn’t acknowledge it. Oh my God, what was she doing? We hadn’t formulated a plan on how to approach the Picaloos. All she’d told me was that they had worked with Max Litman on the remodel of their house and it had ended badly. I’d started to ask her for details, but she’d been tight-lipped. “You should hear it from them,” she said, and when I prodded her for more, she just shook her head with an emphatic no.
She reached the porch and stopped. She started to lift her foot to the first step, but stopped, rooting herself to the bricks where she stood. She seemed flummoxed. After a second, I realized why. There were no railings along the steps leading up to the front door. Potted plants, yes. A few ornamental garden statues, yup. But a railing for an elderly woman to grab on to as she climbed? No.
“Mrs. Branford,” I called again, more loudly this time. “Wait.” There were only five steps from the walkway to the top of the porch, but I didn’t want her trying to make that climb without help. A tumble for Mrs. Branford could be debilitating. She was smart enough to know that. She turned, one hand on her hip, her foot tapping as if she was utterly impatient with me. I hurried through the gate, stopping short in front of her. “What are you doing?”
“Going to ring the doorbell, Ivy.” Her tone said, obviously. She switched her cane to her left hand, grabbed my elbow, and put her foot on the first step. I had no choice but to go with her.
“We don’t have a plan,” I said, my voice low, but stern.
She gripped my arm tighter as she made the final step and then turned to face me. “You have a laundry list of possible suspects in Max Litman’s murder,” she said. “I’d like to narrow your list down. The Picaloos might be able to help with—”
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. I was already sold. If the Picaloos knew anything, of course I wanted to hear it. Before we could turn and knock, the door opened. The woman who stepped out stood a few inches above five feet. Her plump cheeks were flushed. Her black pants tapered at the ankle and the dark red of her lips matched the crimson of her sweater. Now that she stood in front of me, I conceded to Mrs. Branford. I didn’t know this woman, but I’d definitely seen her around. I’d come across her once in a while when I walked Agatha. She had a cute-as-a-button terrier, if I wasn’t mistaken. From the shift in her expression, I’d venture to say that she’d recognized me, too, but when she scrunched her nose at Agatha, I realized that it wasn’t me she necessarily found familiar. “Have you come to play with Hemingway?” she asked. Agatha tilted her round little head up and gave a sharp yelp. In response, a flurry of yapping came from somewhere inside the house. I heard a familiar clickety-clack—the sound of a small dog’s nails on a hard-surfaced floor. A second later, the little black and beige Yorkshire terrier skidded to a stop at the threshold.
Agatha yelped again, but followed it up by inching forward until she was up close and personal with the Picaloos’ dog. They sniffed each other, each of them backing away before coming nose-to-nose again. I crouched down, running my hand over Agatha’s back. “Hemingway, I presume?” I asked, looking up at the woman in red.
Mrs. Branford leaned heavily on her cane. I had enough experience with her to know that she didn’t really need it. I suspected her motive was an invitation into the Picaloos’ home. “Hemingway and Agatha,” she said, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “Seems to me that these two pups are meant to be together.”
Mrs. Picaloo’s brows lifted in surprise. “As in Agatha Christie? It’s fate!”
Fate? Possibly. Coincidence? Most likely. Either way, I took the opening and ran with it. “Agatha Christie was my favorite author growing up. I think I read every single one of her books when I was in high school.” I’d spent a good number of lunches holed up in a favorite teacher’s classroom devouring books, and most of them had been by the grand dame of mystery herself.
Mrs. Picaloo knitted her brows together as she considered us, zooming her focus on Mrs. Branford. “Penelope Branford, right?” she said, finally pulling my crime partner’s name from her memory banks.
“And you’re Mrs. Picaloo, if I’m not mistaken.” If you didn’t know Mrs. Branford, the comment would have come off as completely innocent and convincing, as if she’d also just remembered this woman’s name. But I knew Mrs. Branford and her sneaky ways. I felt the tiniest rivulet of guilt snake through me. Mrs. Branford suspected that the Picaloos might have knowledge of Max Litman. If Mrs. Branford was right and Max Litman had been here on the day he died, it was possible they could have had a hand in it. But if they didn’t, and she was wrong, then I felt badly that we were manipulating this woman and her dog.
Mrs. Picaloo’s eyes dropped to Mrs. Branford’s cane. “My gosh, how rude of me! You ladies should come in.” She stood back, holding the door wide for us.
Agatha spun around, stopping short and sitting back on her haunches expectantly. I was about to suggest I keep her outside, but Mrs. Picaloo beat me to it. “Actually, we can stay out here on the porch. Unless you mind the chill? You can let Agatha off the leash and the dogs can run around.”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Mrs. Branford said, but her body language begged to differ.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Picaloo said. She ushered Mrs. Branford to one of the rattan chairs facing the yard. Please, come sit down.”
“Call me Penny, dear,” Mrs. Branford said, but she didn’t have to be asked twice. Her cane led the way with a clunk, clunk, clunk as she made her way
to the first chair. She sank down, but I could see the satisfaction on her face. I met her gaze and notched my brows up to give her a silent cool it look. She’d been an English teacher forever, but she’d never set foot on a theater stage—at least not to my knowledge. If she overplayed her hand, Mrs. Picaloo would get wise.
“Penny,” she said. She turned to me. “I got Agatha’s name, but not yours.”
I extended my arm toward her. “Ivy Culpepper.”
She took my proffered hand, but in a light, loose, slightly uncomfortable grip. If she noticed my quick release, she didn’t let on. She just smiled. I crouched down and unharnessed Agatha. She waited, looking up at me. “Go play!”
That was all she needed to hear. She did her signature spin before bounding down the porch steps. Hemingway yelped and took off running after Agatha. They both stopped and faced each other, looking as if they were ready to duel. Instead, they each inched forward, sniffing. Testing the water. They gave each other the green light. Hemingway took off, with Agatha hot on his tail.
With the dogs squared away, I turned back to Mrs. Picaloo and Mrs. Branford. They sat side by side in a tête-à-tête, as if they had been friends forever. Was my sidekick playing at a fast friendship? I couldn’t say for certain. If not, Mrs. Branford missed her calling, I thought for the second time that evening.
“This is a great porch,” I said, leaning against the railing in front of their chairs. “I think I’d be out here all the time.”
“It’s my favorite part of the house,” Mrs. Picaloo said, sitting back in her chair.
Mrs. Branford tapped the rubber end of her cane against the wood planks beneath her. “I can certainly see why. They don’t make houses like this anymore, do they? Solid as a rock.”
Mrs. Picaloo laughed. “It wouldn’t blow over in a storm. We’ve been going through a remodel. Not an easy task.”
Mrs. Branford gave me a surreptitious wink. She’d led Mrs. Picaloo right to the subject we’d come here to dig into. “Now that you mention it, I do recall seeing workmen here a while back,” she said. So innocent. So good.
Her smile vanished. “That was a nightmare. Now, listen,” she said, “I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but—”
There was always a “but.”
“—that Max Litman and Litman Homes are absolutely the worst. Worse than the worst. Don’t ever use them.” She seemed to realize what she’d said, placing her fingers over her mouth. “Oh my, that was in poor taste, wasn’t it?”
“It’s just us chickens,” Mrs. Branford said. “You are certainly not the first person to be disappointed by that man.”
Mrs. Picaloo breathed a sigh of relief that we hadn’t been offended. “Now,” Mrs. Branford said, that twinkle back in her eyes, “tell us all about it. What happened?”
Mrs. Picaloo half laughed, half scoffed. “How long do you have?”
Her question had been rhetorical, but Mrs. Branford answered anyway. “We have all evening.”
Mrs. Picaloo laughed outright at that. “Well, then, settle in.”
She proceeded to tell us about the plans she and her husband had drawn up for a granny quarters in the backyard, as well as renovations of the main house, the hiring of Litman Homes to do the build, and Max’s recommendation to rebuild the porch at the same time.
I tapped my foot on the outdoor flooring. “He did a nice job.”
“On this, yes. On the rest? No. He walked off the job.”
“Like, literally walked off?” I asked.
She nodded. “He got a phone call—that happened a lot—and headed right out the front door. That man was horrible.”
Mrs. Branford nodded her agreement. “I can’t say I liked him, but I can’t fathom who might have killed him.” She tilted her chin up suddenly, her eyes curious. She leaned forward, conspiratorially. “Do you have any ideas?”
Cut to the chase. Mrs. Branford was slick. I waited with bated breath for Mrs. Picaloo to answer.
“As a matter of fact . . .” She grinned as she splayed her fingers through her hair at the base of her neck. “Mr. Litman didn’t work here for very long, but long enough for me to overhear an awful lot of his phone calls. He was on that thing all the time.”
The door behind us closed with a pronounced click, followed by footsteps. “Who was on what all the time?”
Mrs. Picaloo stretched her arm out behind her. The man, who I assumed to be Mr. Picaloo, took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Max Litman,” she said, answering his question. “With his phone.”
“In the library with Professor Plum,” Mrs. Branford said under her breath. I think she intended the comment to be just for herself, but Mrs. Picaloo chuckled.
“Indeed. Ladies, this is Ralph.”
“Mr. Renatta to her friends,” he said with a wink at his wife.
Mrs. Branford extended her hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Renatta. You make a lovely trophy husband.”
He took her hand, rather gallantly, and bowed slightly. “The pleasure is all mine.”
“Of course it is,” Mrs. Branford said coyly.
“As I was saying,” Mrs. Picaloo continued. “He was on the phone all the time, and that man did not have a quiet voice. I heard far too much about his life than I wanted to, I’ll tell you that.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. I’d known Renatta Picaloo for all of five minutes, but I was pretty sure she thrived on town gossip. If Mrs. Branford wasn’t careful, she was going to be unseated as the neighborhood busybody. “Who was he talking to all the time?” I asked
“Who wasn’t he talking to is a better question,” Ralph Picaloo said. “He was supposed to be working on our build, but he spent half his time setting up appointments to bid other people’s jobs. He struck me as somewhat of an obsessive personality. Once he got something in his head, he was stuck to it like glue.”
“Until the next thing came along,” Mrs. Picaloo said.
Ralph nodded. “Right. Then he dropped the first thing like a hot potato and moved on.”
“Is that what he did to you all?” I asked. Being left high and dry in the middle of a remodel was not uncommon, but was it a motive for murder? “Started the renovation but—”
Ralph grimaced. “If by started you mean totally gutting several rooms, then yeah, he started. Demolished one entire wall, then left. Didn’t cut the drywall or look for support beams. He took a sledgehammer and plowed right into it. But Christ, this is an old house. Drywall and a typical framing of wood wasn’t used back in the twenties.”
“It’s shiplap!” Mrs. Picaloo exclaimed, as if she’d just won some grand prize. “You just don’t destroy shiplap.”
“He should have known that, right?” Ralph answered his own question by restating it. “He should have known that. His head was not in the game.”
Mrs. Picaloo took his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “Because of that damnable art car of his. He was obsessed with it. Truly, I do not understand. It’s a car. Half of them look ridiculous, but the other half? They’re either outlandish or basic and not worth whatever it costs to enter.” She looked at Mrs. Branford and me. “But the competition seemed to rule Max’s life. If half of his phone calls were about new jobs, the other half were about getting materials for that car or making plans on when and where to meet to do this or that or the other. James at the staging area. Liliana at the office. Marcus at the garage.”
“And the police,” Mr. Picaloo said.
Mrs. Picaloo’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s right. They had him on speed dial.”
That didn’t surprise me. He screwed over enough people that the complaints had probably rolled in. “And he just walked out?”
“Without a word.” She swept her arm toward the house. “We have to find someone else to finish the job.”
Her husband put his hand on her shoulder. “Which will not be an easy thing to do, I might add. No contractor wants to finish a job that someone else had started.”
Walking off the job was generally
not a murderable offense, and the Picaloos didn’t strike me as people who would snap over losing their contractor. They were upset, but they weren’t unhinged.
“He walked out of here the day before his body was found,” Mrs. Picaloo said. “Nobody’s come to talk to us about that.” She frowned. “They should have, right? Come here to see if we know anything.”
Before she could think too much about the answer to that question, which was definitely yes, something made me interrupt her. “Who was he talking to?”
Mr. Picaloo jumped in. “On the phone? Can’t say as I know, but whoever it was, they had some bad mojo.”
Mrs. Picaloo’s contemplative face lit up like a gas lamp on a stormy night. “That’s right. It was the most volatile conversation he’d had in the time he was with us.”
“Off the rails,” Ralph Picaloo confirmed.
Here it was. From the way the Picaloos described Max, he could have pissed off any number of people, but an explosive conversation on his end of the line most likely meant an equally fiery response on the other end. Which very well could mean a motive.
One of the investors, perhaps?
Vanessa Rose?
Dixie Mayfield?
A new suspect?
A killer?
“Well?” Mrs. Branford leaned forward in her chair, chomping at the bit. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What got him so riled up?”
Once again, Mrs. Picaloo glanced to the right side of the porch and then to the left. She looked over her shoulder before turning back to us. “Not what,” she said, building the suspense. “Who.”
“Who, then?” Mrs. Branford prompted.
“I remember it so clearly. Max took the phone call, talked for a minute, and then stormed out here to the porch. I could hear his footsteps clomping as he paced up and down.” She paused, considering something. “Now that I think about it, I’m a bit surprised that he was the victim in all this because he was the one spitting fire. Truly, he sounded like he could have killed the guy on the other end of that conversation. I thought his heart might explode then and there and I’d have a dead contractor on my hands.” Her lips twisted wryly. “I guess he ended up that way, didn’t he?”
The Walking Bread Page 17
