Ladies Lunch Club Murders

by David Bishop

The sheriff took a deep drag and rotated the soggy stogie in his mouth. He was standing with the station dispatcher, Martha, who was matching him puff for puff on a cigarette, white except for the print of her lipstick.

  While Jack held the door open for Ann, the sheriff discharged his current puff. “Dan, who does our fingerprint work, has a question for you. He’s probably close to shutting down for the day. I’d head for him right off.”

  Jack gave an informal salute. “Thanks Sheriff.” Jack and Ann rounded the corner and turned into Dan’s cubby where he processed fingerprints and ballistics and coordinated any outsourced forensics work. “The sheriff said you had something. What’s up?”

  He nodded at Jack, smiled at Ann, and scooted his backside up onto his work counter. “That last will and testament you brought in—old lady Phelps?”

  “Yeah. Mary Alice Phelps’ will. What about it?”

  “No fingerprints whatsoever. Same is true for the deed to her house, her last year-end investment statement, and even the title to her car. All clean. Not even your prints. How did you look them over and get them into evidence bags?”

  “We were gloved. The Phelps woman was loaded. We need to get some traction on this case somewhere. Had the thought the fingerprints on those docs would tell us who knew what about her estate, who was curious, like that. What’d’cha find?”

  “None means nothing. No prints. Zippo.”

  “Seems, at the least, you’d find the woman’s own prints.”

  “You’d think. She’d have no reason to remove her own prints or those of her lawyer and his staff who prepared those docs. But, nada. Somebody wiped all of ‘em clean as a whistle.”

  Ann stepped closer. “I thought paper was a great source for prints. That body oils absorbed into the paper.”

  “True to a point, sure. But there’s a variety of ways to obliterate prints on paper. I guess the real question for you detective types, is who had access to the docs and a reason for sanitizing them.”

  “Back up a minute.” Ann had her hand up. “You said, ‘several ways to clean fingerprints off paper,’ such as?”

  “Erase ‘em with art gum. Another method is blotting the paper with a mix of cornstarch and water. You have to know what you’re doing or you’ll damage the paper by over-wetting. In a pinch stale bread can be used.”

  “Bread?”

  “Sure. Wipe the dust off the paper, trim the crust off the stale bread, and rub it gently over the documents to absorb the oils that constitute the prints. The stale bread is drier than the paper so it works—to exaggerate, imagine a magic eraser. Any prints would no longer be functional, but there would be trace elements indicating that prints had been there.”

  “Did you find traces indicating fingerprints had been there?”

  “Yes.” Dan looked at Ann with his eyebrows raised. “Those documents were prepared, proofed, read, signed, and filed so, logic tells us there’d be prints from at least those people, so the existence of trace elements really adds nothing.”

  “So, somebody has surreptitiously checked out her will and investments. Someone who knew how to remove any record of them having handled the papers.”

  Dan took a swig from his diet soda can. “Bingo. We know this, but I got nothing pointing at the perp.”

  Ann touched Jack. “Who gets your vote?”

  “The line forms at the right. I mean, could be Norma Taylor. Those documents were in Mary Alice’s file cabinet in Taylor’s home. She spoke of Mary Alice frequently hoisting a few too many and leaving the cabinet unlocked when she went home. After that Taylor could’ve done a little snooping. At first, maybe just idle curiosity. Because of her access, she’s the logical choice.”

  But if Norma Taylor snooped, she wouldn’t have offered that Mary Alice sometimes left the cabinet unlocked. She’d say no matter how soused, Mary Alice religiously locked the cabinet before leaving.

  Ann leaned back against Dan’s table. “If it was Norma Taylor, she found out she was getting Phelps’ house. And that means she lied to us.”

  “Suspects lying to the coppers is nothing new. She may have snuck a furtive glance and learned she was getting the house. If so, with us, she had to fake being surprised or admit she snooped. If that’s how it happened, she was cornered into lying to us. That doesn’t make her a murderer.”

  Dan frowned. “I’m sure glad I deal with science and not all the ‘if this, but if that’ you detective types deal with.”

  Jack turned his attention back to Ann. “Agreed.” Jack ran his hand down over his mouth and off his chin. “It also doesn’t mean she isn’t a murderer.”

  Ann smiled. “I’ve seen you do that hand movement several times. Are you aware or is it a subconscious thing you do when you’re pondering?”

  “I don’t know. Do I do it often?”

  “Yeah. No sweat. We all have our tics. … You reacted negatively to the thought that Taylor did it. Who else might’ve sneaked a peak at the Phelps will?”

  Jack crossed his arms. “Maybe her son. Maybe the boy’s father checking to see if he was going to get back something for all his money. Those cigarettes out on Taylor’s lanai had no lipstick traces. Some older women stop wearing lipstick, but odds are, the smoker was a man—those two are possibilities.”

  Ann narrowed her eyes. “For Carter’s birth father to snoop Mary Alice’s will, he’d have to know the will was in a file in the neighbor’s house and gain access to that neighbor’s house.”

  “Good point. That’s pretty unlikely.” Jack ran his tongue over his lips. “I doubt Franklin would have expected to be in Mary Alice’s will enough to find a way into Norma Taylor’s home to snoop.”

  Ann nodded. “Agreed.”

  Jack put his palms flat on the worktable and turned to Dan. “Our answer for this may well come with the DNA results off those cigarette butts found on Norma Taylor’s lanai. What’s the status of that?”

  “DNA testing is done at FDLE in Tallahassee. The tests mostly take 2-3 days, plus transporting. I just sent the butts up there this morning so it’ll be a few days.”

  “So, this is the wait part.” Ann bit her lip, a little lipstick transferred to one tooth. “If Governor Lennox knew his sister had a son, he’d reason he was out of his sister’s will. At least, the biggest chunk. If he didn’t know, he could’ve figured he’d get her millions.”

  Dan excused himself saying he had to check on a test he was running for another case.

  While he was gone, Jack turned to Ann. “Why’d the governor pick you, specifically, to assist on these cases?”

  “Years ago, when I was with the law firm in Tallahassee, before he became governor, Lennox was a client of the firm. I got to know him there. As time went along, he dropped me a note to say hi. I imagine to keep my support within the law enforcement community. Probably a secretary or someone in his office, sent the notes, not him. Let’s not forget, Governor Lennox not only selected me, he selected you. He came to DC to hire you to work this case.”

  Dan came back and sat in the swivel chair at his desk. “Well, if you two are done with me, I’ll be heading home. My kid has a Little League game tonight.”

  “Oh, sorry Dan. Sure. But, yeah, before you head out, one more thing. The two cigarette butts passed on to you a few days ago. You said the DNA test results will come from Tallahassee in a couple days, but what about fingerprints off the butts. You do that here, right?”

  “Yes. First off, they were what you thought, Pall Mall longs. I can also confirm they were menthol black Pall Malls, but without prints. If you find a suspect who smokes them, they might rise to the level of circumstantial, but, with no usable prints, they’ll never be hard evidence. Of course, the DNA test results might deliver exactly what you want.”

  20

  Ann and Jack pulled to the curb at the home of Maria “Mitzi” Welz, the last of the movie house partners.

  It was eight a.m. and an older woman, assumed to be Maria Welz, held a hose to rinse the suds off a just cleane
d golf cart parked in her driveway. When they started walking up the driveway, the woman was strapping a golf bag back in position at the rear of the cart. She left it setting in the sun and met them partway.

  Jack smiled. “Ms. Welz?”

  “That’s me. You must be Detective Jack McCall and Lieutenant Ann Reynolds?”

  Jack and Ann nodded.

  She motioned for them to follow her through a door from the garage into her house, through the laundry room and into her kitchen. She gestured toward a table where coffee and donuts waited. “I hear cops like donuts, so I got some. Help yourselves.”

  Jack and Ann shared a grin. He poured the coffee. She took a glazed donut and he picked up one with chocolate icing. They joined Maria Welz at her table.

  “This is one of my regular golf days, but this meeting is more important. I want you to find who’s killing the girls in our lunch gaggle. How can I help?”

  Ann thanked Ms. Welz for the coffee.

  Jack held up his chocolate pastry. “And the donuts.” He swallowed his first bite. “I thought a gaggle was a flock of geese?”

  “It is. It’s also a disorderly or noisy group of people. If you ever come to one of our lunch gatherings, you’ll quickly learn the term fits.” She laughed. “Okay, enough niceties. How do we catch this jerk?”

  “What connection do you see between these deaths and that four of you own a movie house?”

  “Whaaa … what makes you think they’re connected?”

  “You are being pressed to sell it. Could that be involved?”

  “It’s a big time developer. Commercial stuff, lots of houses, you know the type. Never enough money. More. More. More. It never ends. But there’s been no threats. If it’s them, I’ll smack ‘em up side the head with my three iron. Can’t hit a ball with the damn thing anyway.”

  Jack leaned toward Ms. Welz. “We’re not accusing anyone. Just wondering if you might see a connection. Sarah Sims was against the idea of selling and she’s dead. Mary Alice Phelps wasn’t a partner, but she was the bookkeeper and she spoke in favor of the sale. Now, she’s dead.”

  Ann took the lead. “You’re opposed to the sale. May I ask why?”

  “Owning that place is a blast. When I was a girl, I lived in our local theater. In those days you could go in when it opened and sit through the double feature twice. I wasn’t old enough to close the local bar, so I closed the local movie house. I see a lot of my friends when I’m working in the theater, make a little money, and get to see the films for free. That’s the dream of youth, right there. Free movies, access to the concession stand, and a voice in deciding which movies are shown. I don’t ever wanna sell. I know Mary Alice said we could do better after the sale, invest the money and all that, but I got enough and life isn’t just about dollars.”

  “So that leaves you as a no, Janet Davis yes, with Shirley Germaine undecided.”

  “I don’t see your logic. If the killings were intended to swing the sale like the developer wants, why kill sweet Mary AlicePhelps? She had influence with us and she advised us to sell. The two killed should’ve been me along with Red Rider. That would’a left Jan Davis who wants to sell, and Shirley who can be talked into anything. The idea that the murders are connected to the sale of the theater … as my husband used to say, ‘that dog don’t hunt.’”

  “You have a point, Ms. Welz.”

  “I’m a widow, but I still go by Mrs. Welz. I had an inglorious twenty-year career as a Broadway understudy. During the years I married two men. The first one, a poor man, was Greek and a wonderful chef who made the finest tzatziki sauce I’ve ever eaten. For the last fifteen years, he’s been cooking for the Greeks in heaven. The second man was a retired Secret Service officer with a knack for playing the stock market. The two men were as different as night and day except that neither one of ‘em liked to take out of trash. Both good men, but, if you want my advice, Lieutenant Reynolds, all things considered, the rich ones are the better hustles.”

  Ann smiled. “Thanks.” She looked down. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Jack took a second donut, glazed. “Before we leave, let me ask an open-ended question. Do you know anything about Sarah Sims, Mary Alice Phelps, the first victim, Gayle Ash, or Carrie Douglas, the second victim that you think could either go to a motive for them being killed, or suggest who killed them?”

  “Not a thing, Detective McCall.” She shook her head and turned toward Ann. “Lieutenant Reynolds, nothing.”

  Jack stood. “We’ve taken enough of your time.”

  Ann put one of her cards on the kitchen table. “If you think of anything, hear anything, or something comes up you think we should know,” Ann tapped her card, “call me, please.”

  “I will. Count on it. I want all this to stop. Please lock this nut case up. Let all of us get back to the life we had before all this started.”

  21

  Ann sat in a lobby chair while Jack walked toward the long curved desk that set about fifteen steps inside the governor’s suite of offices.

  As the receptionist spoke, her long pink earrings silently danced around in front of her neck. “You’re expected, Mr. McCall.” She didn’t mention Ann’s name, but looked toward Ann, smiled and nodded.

  Before Jack got back to where Ann was seated, the receptionist called his name. He did an about face.

  “The governor will see you now. Through that door.” She pointed to her right. “His office will be straight ahead at the far end.”

  As Jack followed Ann toward the receptionist desk, he surreptitiously took a picture of the receptionist.

  On the other side of the door was a hall wide enough that most people would call it a corridor. He estimated there were six doors on each side. Down the hall, a man and woman stood together talking and ignoring Ann and Jack as they approached. When they were about twenty steps from the couple, Jack clicked a picture. Just as he did, the man turned his head to the side. Their talk fell silent as Jack and Ann got closer. The man had his hand in his pocket. When his hand moved, Jack heard coins jingling. As Jack and Ann passed, the man kept his face down.

  Ann leaned close. “Why the pictures?”

  “You never know.”

  “You took one of the receptionist too, didn’t you?”

  “Absolutely. It’s a habit. I got everyone so far. I do this on every case—I set it for no flash. People tangentially involved who we might want to talk to later. Ninety-nine out of hundred aren’t used. I want to be ready with the one.”

  That man avoided my seeing him straight on.

  Jack opened the door at the end of the hall to see the governor sitting behind his desk. A man stood behind trimming the governor’s hair.

  “Hello, Jack.” He didn’t get up. “My apology. I expected Luigi would be finished by the time you got here.”

  Luigi, the barber, looked at Jack over the top of his half glasses and smiled.

  “We’re almost done, Jack. Give us just a minute.”

  “No problem, sir. Some envy maybe, but no problem. Take whatever time you need.”

  “I can have Luigi come back, after we talk, and give you a trim.”

  “Not necessary, but thank you for the offer.”

  Luigi removed a steamy cloth from a stainless box on his cart and wrapped the governor’s face. A minute later, the governor waved his hand and Luigi removed the towel. Next, he poured ointment onto his hands, rubbed them together, and applied the liquid to the governor’s cheeks and neck. Luigi removed a light blue oversized terrycloth towel from the governor’s shoulders and chest and put it onto a lower shelf of his cart which he pushed out through a door behind the governor’s desk.

  Governor Lennox stood and approached with the kind of smile Jack figured he used for big donors.

  The door into the governor’s office where Jack and Ann entered opened in the hand of the woman with the pink earrings.

  The governor glanced toward her. “Honey, get Mr. McCall whatever he’d like that we’ve got. If we
don’t have it, send out for it. Same for Lieutenant Reynolds, the best investigator in our State Department of Law Enforcement.”

  Jack looked over. “Coffee’s fine. Thank you.”

  Ann nodded.

  The governor’s attitude was quite different than what he’d presented in Jack’s office about ten days before. There he acted superior. Here, in his own lair, he exhibited a manner somewhere between condescending and gracious.

  He wants something more than my progress report.

  “Let’s sit over there where it’s more comfortable.” He pointed toward an area near the corner windows set up with a table for four, three overstuffed chairs and a two-cushion couch. “Have a seat and tell me what’s going on.”

  Pink earrings returned with a tray holding a coffee carafe, three cups, and sugars and creams along with spoons and napkins. She poured the cups mostly full. She added a splash of cream to two of the cups and positioned them on saucers. She first served the governor turning the cup handle to a position comfortable for the governor’s right hand. She did the same with the cup next to Lieutenant Reynolds, with the handle positioned for a left hander.”

  “Would you like some cream, Mr. McCall?”

  Jack looked at the assistant. “No thank you.” He turned the handle on his cup to his right.

  When the assistant left, the governor took a sip. “Well, Jack, who murdered my sister?”

  “We’re working on it. Regrettably, I must report that as of yet, we don’t have a solid suspect.”

  The governor’s mouth moved around like a racehorse with a bit inserted before being led into the starting gate. He parted his lips and forced his words through clenched teeth. “That’s not much progress, Mr. McCall. I expected you to get to the bottom of this quickly.”

  “Some investigations do go quickly. Some slow. It is what it is.”

  “Trite is an attitude, not a report.”

  “Call it what you wish, Governor. While I’m tugging and pulling at people to get information, there’re people tugging and pulling to keep me away from that information.”