Tulips and Trouble

by London Lovett

  "Nope, I'm good with the scone. Have a good lunch." Kingston quickly finished the treats. As I handed him a third one, Detective Briggs walked inside with the puppy.

  "I could swear he's grown since I saw him. When was that, this morning?" I tossed the dog a treat.

  "Sometimes I think he's growing right before my eyes. Hilda needed a break, so I decided to take him for a walk to see if I could take out some of that nonstop energy."

  "To do that, I think you'll need to run at full speed up to the Hawksworth Manor and back. Twice." I gave both the dog and the bird one more treat and walked back to the work island to hide the can from my very clever crow. "What did the coroner have to say?"

  "The knife wound hit a major artery. Mercifully, it seemed she was dead before the killer shoved her body into the storm surge. He thinks she died pretty close to midnight."

  "Which means that it happened soon after they left the diner."

  Briggs pulled out his notepad. A receipt fell out of it. "It's the bill from their late night dinner. Franki made a copy and let me have the original. The receipt says 11:40. The server was Franki's son, Tyler. He remembered serving the group. He said they left about ten minutes after he handed them the bill."

  "And what about Letty's phone. Was it ruined by the rain?"

  "I've got some tech experts working on it. They are trying to bring it back from death by drowning." He pushed the receipt back into his notepad. "Greta Bailey works at a bank in Chesterton. She's off at four. I told her I needed to ask her a few questions about that night. I'm meeting her at her house at five. I'm hoping she can tell us about her knife purchase too."

  He walked over to say hello to Kingston but got too close with the dog and caused a storm of black feathers. The flapping of wings caused the dog to bolt backwards. Briggs had a good laugh. "He's entertaining, that's for sure."

  "I think you'll miss him when he's gone."

  "No. I'll notice him missing, but I won't miss him," he stated emphatically, but I wasn't convinced. "I better take him for one more loop around the town. I did want to ask though . . ."

  "Yes, I would like to go along when you interview Greta Bailey."

  "All right then. I'll pick you up on my way to Chesterton. And thanks for the dog treats." He stopped at the door. "Sure you don't want a dog? I hear they go great with crows."

  "Oh, is that what you hear? What about imperialistic cats?"

  "Sure. I think Nevermore would welcome him with open paws."

  "See you later, Detective Briggs."

  "Good bye, Miss Pinkerton."

  Chapter 23

  I pulled my notebook and pen out of my purse. "Ready when you are, sir," I said with my deepest, most serious tone.

  "We don't want to scare the woman off with a notebook assault. Maybe you should leave yours in the car and just figure out how to take a sniff of her hand lotion, like you so cleverly did at Ms. Dean's house."

  "I think you might be overstating the cleverness of that scheme. Needing to use a bathroom is fairly standard practice for women. I didn't need to dig too deeply into my box of creative ideas to come up with it. Might even try it again in Greta's house."

  We stepped out of the car in front of the pale blue house with contrasting black shutters. A charming brick path led up to a porch that had been transformed into a jungle by a plethora of ferns, palms and potted rubber plants.

  My eyes swept around the lush yard. "Looks like Greta has a green thumb along with her artist's eye."

  "I think this is the owner's house. Greta rents the back house."

  I followed Briggs to a back gate. He reached over and unlocked it. The lush, dense landscaping ended halfway across the yard and faded into pockmarked cement and a much less charming brick pathway. Around every fourth brick was missing, leaving the pathway a maze of ankle twisting opportunities.

  The back house looked like the sad, lonely stepsister of the front house with faded gray shutters that hung crooked on a pale blue facade.

  "Apparently pride of ownership stopped right there in the middle of the yard," I muttered as I carefully navigated the treacherous brick pathway.

  Greta was anticipating Detective Briggs' visit. She opened the front door before we reached the stoop. The scent of grilled onions wafted out, reminding me that I'd only had a chocolate scone for the entire day. The aroma was quickly followed by the distinct, less pleasant smell of cat litter.

  "You'll have to excuse the mess," Greta said before we stepped inside. "After the terrible events of the weekend and then having to drag myself to work today, I just didn't have the energy or will to pick up the house."

  I noticed immediately that Greta's face was much more pale and drawn than Jodie's. She looked like a woman who had just lost an acquaintance to a horrible murder. Whereas, Jodie seemed much more together and rested. Of course, that meant nothing, but I was planning to write about the observation in my notebook once I got back to the car.

  "Ms. Bailey, I think you've met Miss Pinkerton. She is my assistant on this case."

  I preferred partner but assistant wasn't too shabby either.

  "Yes, we've met before. Good to see you again." I lifted my hand forward, hoping for a handshake. She hesitated, then awkwardly took my hand for a half-hearted shake. Her palm and fingers were dry and chapped. I didn't sense any lotion.

  As Greta turned to lead us into the gloomy front room, I pressed my fingers to my nose and breathed deeply. I pulled them away quickly. Fresh cut onions. I blinked to keep my eyes from watering.

  "I was just making myself some dinner. Can I offer you a beverage?" Greta asked.

  "A glass of water, if you don't mind," Briggs said. I knew he was less interested in quenching his thirst and more interested in getting a view of the kitchen where sets of knives would be kept. As we stepped into the kitchen, two cats shot past us leaving behind their food dishes.

  I glanced back as their long tails disappeared around the corner of the hallway. "I think we disturbed their dinner."

  "They'll be back," Greta said. "Probably before we walk out of here. Not much stands between Tommy and Pete and their cat chow."

  I laughed. "I think I have their long lost brother at home."

  Greta seemed to warm up to me faster than Jodie had but then cat owners always had a connection. While we were caught up in a quick exchange of cat stories, Briggs took a short stroll around the kitchen. From the corner of my eye, I could see him looking at the knife set. It was the set with the mother-of pearl inlay on the handles. Three slots were empty. A knife was sitting on the cutting board next to some cut broccoli.

  "Ms. Bailey," Briggs said, cutting short our cat stories. "Did you buy this knife set at the flea market? I thought I saw one just like it when I strolled through the tables."

  Greta looked a little perplexed by the question. "Why yes, I did. Aren't they beautiful? Unfortunately, one of the knives was missing, so the man, a retired chef, Roger, I think, sold it to me for half price. He was thoroughly disappointed to let it go for such a low price. He said the set was complete when he brought it to the flea market."

  Briggs looked at the knife on the cutting board. "I see you're missing more than one. This big slot is usually for the bread cutting knife."

  "Yes," she said sounding more agitated than she had a few minutes earlier. "I—I used it earlier." She walked over to the sink and picked up an extra long, serrated knife. "I was just about to wash it."

  "Excuse me," I interrupted, "could I use your restroom. I had an extra large soda at lunch." I wasn't sure why I needed to add the detail of my liquid intake to give weight to my bathroom use, especially after what I'd told Briggs in the car.

  "Yes, it's right around the corner." I left the discussion and made my way to the bathroom to do my nosing around in Greta's cosmetics for hand lotion. I discovered long before I reached the door, that the bathroom was where she kept her cat litter box and it needed cleaning. Growing up, I'd learned to block or tone down strong smells so that I
could eat foods without smelling everything around me. I had to really work to employ those skills as I stood in her bathroom trying not to succumb to the overwhelming odor of the cat box. Nevermore didn't know how lucky he was having an owner with an extra sensitive nose. His litter box was always pristine.

  I quickly searched through the few cosmetic items on the counter and in drawers, trying not to disturb anything. If Greta did use hand lotion, she didn't keep it in the bathroom. It could be a number of places like her car or bedroom or with her art supplies. Or it was possible she didn't use any at all. Some people didn't care for the greasy feel of moisturizer on their skin. Whatever the reason, it seemed I was not going to be much help to Detective Briggs this round.

  I headed out just as Briggs was finishing up.

  Greta seemed agitated with the line of questioning. She was wearing a stony mask as she spoke. "I don't understand, why would I need someone to witness that I came straight home after dinner? Am I under suspicion? Why don't you find out where Darren Morgan went afterward? He's the one you need to be badgering with these questions."

  One thing I'd learned about Detective Briggs was that he rarely, if ever, lost his cool, and he was exceptionally good at placating witnesses who felt instantly scrutinized by his interview.

  "You're not under suspicion, Ms. Bailey," he assured her in his deep, smooth voice. "I'm conducting a murder investigation, and the first stage of that is to talk to the last people to see the victim. I'm just trying to ascertain where people were at the time of the murder. I assure you, everyone else in the dinner party, including Mr. Morgan, will be receiving the same string of questions."

  Greta shuffled her feet some and physically shook off some of the ire. "I suppose that makes sense. Well, I came straight home to an empty house, with only my cats as witnesses." A nervous laugh followed.

  "What about the people in the front house?" Briggs asked. "Would they have seen or heard you come in?"

  A dry laugh shot from her mouth. "They are in their late eighties. They wouldn't hear me unless I was standing right in front of them waving my arms and yelling 'I'm home'. Besides, they are generally in bed before nine."

  Briggs folded up his notebook. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Bailey."

  "How did she die? Is it certain that she was murdered?" Greta asked as she walked us to the door.

  Briggs cleared his throat, his go-to stalling tactic when he was deciding how much to say. "We know she was murdered. Don't worry. We will find her killer soon. Good evening, Ms. Bailey."

  We climbed into the car.

  "Any luck on the hand lotion?" Briggs asked as he turned the ignition.

  "No, unfortunately and the handshake was a bust too, especially after she'd been chopping onions." I turned slightly sideways in my seat to look at him. "I know I'm pretty new at this detective stuff, but did you think she acted sort of strange when you asked her about the knives?"

  "Guilty of something, you mean?" Briggs asked.

  "I noticed the hesitation and tripping over words." He flashed me a look that I could only describe as proud.

  "You're a quick learner."

  "Thanks. Another thing I noticed was her irate reaction to your questions about her whereabouts after the dinner."

  "That reaction is more common than you might imagine. People immediately think they are being accused. It's a natural defense, and almost more so with people who had nothing at all to do with the murder and didn't even consider the question might be asked. It catches them off guard because they know they did nothing wrong. But guilty people react that way too. Her reaction was a wash, typical for guilty or innocent."

  I pulled out my notebook. "I'm going to write those pearls of wisdom down if you don't mind. I'm a fast learner, but I also have a good teacher." As I fished around in my purse for a pen, my fingers grazed a small sample of hand lotion I'd picked up at the store. It had a wonderful lavender scent, but I'd found it too greasy to use anywhere except just before bed. The hand cream pushed another thought into my mind.

  "Detective Briggs, is it possible that the cream on the knife handle came from Letty? What if she struggled with her assailant and even managed, at some point, to get her hand around the knife handle? Then we're spending a lot of time looking for evidence that won't do us any good, even when we find it. I took a brief smell inventory of Letty's cosmetics when we thought we were looking for a missing person. Aside from a perfume that I recognized mostly as bergamot, the rest of the scents are sort of jumbled in my head. I didn't realize they'd come into play again."

  Briggs looked over at me. "Well done," he said before turning his eyes back to the road. "I've instructed the coroner to check for traces of hand lotion on the victim's hands so we can see if it matches the substance found on the knife. In the meantime, I thought we'd swing by Letty's house once more and have another look around. Then you can get that stellar nose of yours on the job and beat the coroner and the lab techs to the conclusion."

  "Perfect." I sat back with satisfaction. "Guess I'm really thinking like a detective now."

  "I guess so."

  Chapter 24

  The last time Briggs and I had visited Letty Clark's house, she was only a missing person and we were looking for clues that would help us locate her. Now we were hoping to find something that would lead us to her killer. Nothing much had changed at the house. Weeds still cluttered the front yard and paint was still peeling off the facade. But knowing that the house was empty because the person living there had been killed, made the whole place look especially lonely.

  "I guess I'd better take the spare key to the station this time," Briggs said as he lifted the front edge of the pot. He reached under for the key but couldn't find it right away. He leaned the pot over farther, nearly spilling the dry soil over the lip as he felt around for the key. "Got it." He held it up triumphantly and lowered the pot.

  I stared down at the frazzled, dead remnants of the plant. "Has someone come to inspect the house since we were here?"

  Briggs wasn't sure what I was getting at but instead of questioning me, he pulled out his notebook to give me a verified answer. He flipped through a few pages. "Just making sure. No, I haven't sent anyone to the house since then. We were focused on the murder location at Pickford Beach. Why do you ask?"

  "Because I'm the one who placed the key back under the pot. I remember thinking if Letty had abandoned her car, then it was probable that she had misplaced her keys. And if she got back home, I wanted to make sure she had a key to get inside. When I put the key back, I barely tipped the pot and set the key right under the front edge."

  The questioning lines smoothed from his brow. "I had to tip the pot all the way back to get to the key, which means someone else used it since our last visit."

  "Seems like the only explanation. Maybe her parents came by."

  "No, they were delayed in London. Bad weather cancelled their flight to New York. They're expected back tomorrow. It's possible a friend came by."

  Briggs pushed the key in the door and we stepped inside. The chemical fumes had dissipated since our last visit. It took me only a few seconds to shake off the effects.

  "I'm going straight in to smell her hand lotion. The last time we were here I was concentrating on her perfume, a scent that I assumed would be on her clothes. But I took only a cursory sniff of the hand lotion." I headed through to the postage stamp sized bathroom. There were actually two types of skin cream, one that could be applied after a shower and one for chapped, dry skin. One had the faint nutty smell of shea butter and the other was packed with citric acid, oatmeal, lavender oils and every fragrance that could be squeezed into a bottle of lotion. The one fragrance that was missing was coconut.

  "Miss Pinkerton, come see this," Briggs called from another room.

  I hurried through the house and found him standing in the back room Letty had been using as an art studio.

  "Oh wow," I said on a gasp as my gaze circled the room. Every one of Letty's paint
ings, including the unfinished jacarandas on the easel, had been slashed. The artwork had been damaged beyond repair. A large deep slice had split Darren Morgan's face in two." I walked up to it. "Why on earth would someone destroy this art? How horribly cruel for someone to take a life and then erase the legacy of that life along with it." I glanced back at Briggs. He was examining the back side of some of the paintings leaning haphazardly against the walls in the room.

  "Was it a knife?" I asked.

  "I'd say a good sharp one at that."

  "Like one that could cut through a crusty loaf of bread?"

  He knew exactly what I was getting at. "Could be. But we can't automatically connect the destruction of artwork to Letty's murder."

  "Obviously. But we know that Greta Bailey was jealous of Letty's quick rise to stardom in the art world."

  "Yes but if Letty is dead, the competition is too. Why would Greta need to destroy the work?"

  "Ah ha, I know the answer to that. Because after an artist dies, their—"

  "Their artwork becomes even more sought after," Briggs finished enthusiastically for me.

  I blew out a deflated sigh. "You just took the wind out of my ah-ha moment."

  "Sorry. But you are right." He winked. "As usual."

  "That flattery won't get you anywhere after stealing my moment. Although, I guess it helps a little."

  "Let's take a look through the rest of the rooms to see if anything else was vandalized."

  I followed close at his heels, suddenly feeling a little uneasy in the house knowing that someone had been inside with a knife doing damage.

  The house was quite small. It was easy to see that most everything was untouched since our last inspection. We headed past the bathroom to the bedroom.

  "Oh, that's right. We got sidetracked by the slashed paintings. No luck on the hand lotion. The fragrances don't match the substance on the knife handle."

  "Good to know." He pushed open the bedroom door.

  I noticed instantly that something was different. I walked to the dresser. The porcelain face of the doll was in the awkward tilt I'd left it in after it had popped off in my hand. But the painting that Letty had purchased from Fiona Diggle was gone.