Murder in the Aisle

by Kris Pearson

  “Sold,” I said, delighted. “And something to curry, too, please.”

  He surveyed the neatly arranged trays of cutlets and sausages and steaks in his window display and then headed for the chiller. The door swung open with a squeal, and cool air laced with meaty aromas wafted out. “Leg of lamb?” he called over his shoulder. “Or chuck?” I heard metallic clanking noises and he emerged grasping two big meat hooks – one threaded through the lamb shank and the other with a long strip of beef. “Plenty of flavor in this,” he said, thumping it down on his well-worn butcher block. It seemed I was buying the chuck because he hung the leg of lamb on the hefty rail at the rear of the shop. “Get to your rump in a sec,” he added, sliding a vicious-looking boning knife and steel from the butcher’s pouch hanging from his belt. He gave them a few swipes together – enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up – and added chattily, “I hear you found the body?”

  Chapter 9 – Bernie the butcher

  Not good timing, Bernie!

  I cleared my throat. “Yes, the vicar and I walked into the church together. We’d been talking outside while Isobel was arranging the flowers. He thought she was taking a long time and wondered if she was all right.”

  I watched as the blade flashed through the meat, cubing it up as though it was marshmallow-soft. At least no-one had taken a knife to poor Isobel.

  “She was lying in the aisle,” I added. “And they think someone hit her on the head with the big church vase because it was broken to bits all around her.”

  Bernie Karaka is the chattiest person in the world, so having told him this I could expect he’d spread it far and wide without me having to endlessly repeat the story.

  He turned the meat on the block and attacked it from a better angle. “At least that’s the murder weapon settled.”

  “But not the actual murderer, Bernie. They still have to find and arrest whoever did it.”

  He drove the knife through the chuck a few more times and the silvery blade shot bright reflections over the white walls of the shop. “Won’t be a local.”

  “Why do you say that? I’ve heard some pretty interesting theories since it happened.”

  Bernie’s black eyebrows rose. “Such as?”

  Darn, I was getting into gossip and speculation now, and knew I’d better watch my tongue. “Well, this is all just people putting up hare-brained suggestions. Things like she laundered money for… er… drug-smugglers as well as doing tax returns. That she was blackmailing people because of what she knew about their finances. Stupid stuff like that. I’m sure none of it will be true.”

  “I reckon some of the boaties will be into drug-smuggling,” Bernie said without blinking. “Easy money. Collect it at sea, bury it on the beach at night, someone else digs it up and distributes it. I’ve often thought about it.”

  My jaw dropped so far I could have caught flies, had there been any not already sizzled to death by the nasty ultra-violet zapping machine in the corner. “You?”

  Bernie slid a square of waxed paper onto the tray of the scales and piled the steak onto it. “Not about doing it, Merry. Just the logistics. There’s not much money in the shop these days. Good thing I don’t have a boat, eh?” He waved his knife at the pile of meat. “That enough for you?”

  I peered at the heap of neat cubes. “I was thinking twice for me, twice for Graham.”

  “Need a bit more, then.” The knife got going again.

  “And the end of rump,” I reminded him. “It’s very good of you to keep it for me.”

  (What woman worth her salt doesn’t know how to butter up the butcher?)

  Bernie noted the price of the chuck on the corner of a sheet of brown paper with his non-roll builder’s pencil. He dived into the chiller again and returned with the saddest piece of meat you can imagine. Curled up and shrunken. Covered in lumpy yellow fat. The color of old mahogany. He proceeded to trim away plenty of the fat, sliced the meat into a small steak and one that was barely palm-sized, tossed the hook-holed end into a bin hidden under the counter, and set the treasure onto another piece of waxed paper on the scales. “That,” he said, licking the corner of his mouth, “was going home with me tonight if no-one came in who’d appreciate it.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, with a bit of eyelash-batting thrown in for good measure. “Bernie – have I done you out of your dinner?”

  He pursed his lips. “There’s more where that came from. You deserve a treat after what you’ve been through.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It’s going to be a long time before I forget seeing her. If ever.”

  He pulled the sheet of brown paper into the center of his counter, dumped the chuck steak onto it, and laid the end of rump much more respectfully on top before glancing out at the car. Two small white faces with black eyes watched our every move, paws on the dash, noses as close to the glass as they could get them. “A treat for the main mourners,” he said, selecting a pre-cooked sausage from the tray labelled ‘tonight’s barbecue ideas’. He rolled the whole parcel up and taped it closed. “I bet they’re missing her. What’ll become of them?”

  I shook my head as I paid with my credit card. “No idea. I guess it’s the sister’s decision. Unless there’s any provision in Isobel’s will for them. Always supposing she had one. I can ask Graham if he knows, although he might not tell me.”

  Bernie gave the teddies a more thorough inspection. “I don’t see Tom Alsop wanting them. Not big enough or showy enough for him.” He hesitated. Rolled his bottom lip in over his teeth. Shook his head, and finally spoke. “My wife Aroha’s been trying to talk me into getting a small dog but I can’t stand the thought of a puppy messing everywhere. And Lurline at the shelter only seems to get big ones to try rehoming.”

  “Those two are beautifully house-trained,” I assured him. “But I hope they wouldn’t be split up.” I was growing really fond of them myself, but not with two spaniels as well. “Tom and Margaret are currently away on a cruise to Fiji or somewhere. As soon as the funeral’s done with, I could ask?”

  “They’ll be worth a bit,” Bernie said, gloom descending over his features. “I can’t pay a fortune, not the way the economy’s currently doing.”

  I nodded. “But asking costs nothing. See you again soon.” I zipped the parcel of meat into my shopping bag. Manny and Dan had taught me what a good idea that was after a couple of disasters.

  The teddies welcomed me back to the car with a storm of yapping, a lot of sniffing, and sighs of resignation when no food was forthcoming. I caught Bernie watching us through the window. “New Daddy,” I said, pointing him out to the little dogs. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, darlings? I can’t think of anything better than being a butcher’s dog.”

  Itsy may have given a small wuff. Fluffy flopped down on the seat and hung his nose as close as possible to my shopping bag.

  Off I went to the mini-mart to collect a few groceries. I was using any excuse I could to delay phoning Bruce Carver, but at least I wouldn’t be able to see his bitten nails or smell his awful cologne through the phone.

  As soon as we reached home the spaniels welcomed the teddies with barks of glee, and they all went dashing around the lawn together while I lugged the groceries inside and sorted them out on the kitchen counter.

  I cast about for something else to do. Gather up some different clothes! But it took a bare five minutes before I had them in the car. Oh well, nothing for it now. I needed to get over-scented Bruce out of the way and then I could have a nice time messing around with my curry. His card was pinned up on the kitchen corkboard so I gave in and tapped out his number.

  “Carver,” he barked.

  Well darn, I’d been hoping to leave a brief message and get it done that way. It was a shame I didn’t have Marion Wick’s number instead. She was a lot easier to talk with.

  “Yes, It’s Merry Summerfield,” I began. “I don’t suppose you know who killed Isobel Crombie yet?”

  Good start, Merry. Of cours
e he’s going to tell you.

  He cleared his throat, and, anticipating cutting comments I dived in again hoping to beat him there.

  “My lawyer brother told me something interesting last night,” I said. “And although it’s none of my business, I thought you should know.”

  A brief silence while he digested my news. “The public’s help is always appreciated.” Boy did that sound like a standard line he’d trotted out thousands of times.

  I took a deep breath, grateful he was only on the end of the phone line. “I asked Graham if he knew who would own the cottage at the Point now Miss Crombie’s dead. Someone wants to buy it. Or maybe sell it.”

  “And who would that be, Ms Summerfield?”

  I gulped. I didn’t want to throw any more suspicion on assassin John. “Just realtors. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. The cottage was willed to both sisters after the death of the parents. Nothing surprising there.”

  “Yeeeees…. “ His patience was only going to last so long.

  “The parents had their will prepared by Graham’s practice long before he took over. Way back when the Crombies had been married only a year or so. They left everything to each other and then to their only daughter after they passed on. They never got around to including the second girl.”

  “But the will was changed to include her at some stage? Obviously it was, if the cottage was left to both sisters.”

  “Yes, but only a few months ago,” I added quickly. “Graham told me – and please don’t let this get back to him – that Margaret and Tom Alsop came into his office, each holding the elbow of one of the parents. Almost as though they were making sure they got it done. Graham said they looked so old and frail he didn’t make them walk as far as the boardroom, which would have been normal for a group that size. He got his secretary to bring extra chairs into his office.”

  Carver digested that for a few seconds. “So you think the will was changed under duress?”

  I’d really done it now. I scrambled to reverse the tone of things. “Not necessarily. You’ll have to find a diplomatic way of asking Graham. He said Isobel wasn’t there. Just that it was the parents who’d made the original will and they wanted to correct an oversight.”

  “And the main new beneficiary made sure it happened.”

  I fanned my face, kind of wishing I’d never rung him. “Does that seem suspicious to you?”

  He cleared his throat. “It’s entirely possible the parents decided for themselves, and their daughter and son-in-law simply drove them there. And assisted them into the building if their mobility was impaired.”

  “So why wasn’t it both daughters? Why was Tom part of the act?”

  “Act?”

  “Bad choice of words,” I said quickly. “The whole thing just feels wrong to me.”

  “Did it feel wrong to your brother?”

  “Not necessarily. It was me who asked him, not him who told me, if you see the distinction. Look, maybe forget I ever raised it.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” DS Carver snapped. “Sorry to keep on with the questions but you were absolutely right to ring me, and I’ll definitely take it further. I know you’re heavily invested in having this solved, given you found the deceased. Perfectly understandable. In return for that information I’ll throw you a small bone.”

  What? Am I a dog?

  “Two minutes longer,” I heard him snap as though I wasn’t the only person he was trying to juggle. Then he was back to full volume. “We don’t think the broken vase was the murder weapon. No blood or brain matter detected on any of the fragments.”

  I shuddered.

  “I’m telling you this in absolute confidence, and probably shouldn’t tell you at all, but if it keeps you alert and co-operative I think it’s a fair trade.”

  Hmmm. “Of course I’m co-operative,” I said, thinking guiltily of all those computer files I hadn’t admitted to finding yet. “If I suss out anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  Tomorrow.

  My face was burning. Good thing he couldn’t see me.

  “Thank you Ms Summerfield…. Merry. A pleasure to hear from you,” he said in a much softer voice.

  OMG – that wasn’t an attempt at flirting, was it?

  I disconnected, and surveyed the rest of the curry ingredients. Would Graham be home at the usual time? I phoned his longtime secretary, Mrs Henderson. Well, she was Jenny but Graham always referred to her as Mrs Henderson when he was speaking about her to other people so I tended to think of her that way, too.

  “Jenny,” I said chummily. “I need to tell Graham something but I don’t want to disturb him.” Because heaven knows the sky might fall in if he had to raise his eyes from whatever dry stuff he was wading through at this moment. “Can you give him a message please? Curry in the oven – enough for tonight and tomorrow. I’ll leave it on low, and it’ll be ready when he gets here. But if he wants to go off somewhere after work he’ll need to duck home and switch it off.”

  “He’ll be home at the usual time,” Jenny said with calm certainty. “He mentioned the spaniels were terribly hungry when he got there after Rotary last night.”

  Or were putting on a good act, I thought to myself.

  “That’s fine then. I’m pet-sitting at Isobel Crombie’s cottage out at the Point. Therefore not home to keep an eye on things for him.”

  “He told me.” She dialed back her volume to confidential. “Have they arrested anyone yet?”

  “Not so far. I was just on the phone to DS Bruce Carver and he says not.”

  “I’m betting it’s something to do with the drugs.”

  Oh not again!

  “What have you heard, Jenny?” All these drugs-on the-beach-at-night stories were doing my head in, but if I was now semi-officially working for the Police I felt I should explore every avenue on their behalf.

  “That motor bike gang and the marijuana,” she said.

  I almost exclaimed ‘What?’ but my mother would have chimed in again.

  “You be careful out there on your own,” she added. “I heard she used her big garden to conceal it among the other plants. And then supplied it to the Sand Knights.”

  I took a surprised breath. “I really don’t think so. The vicar and I had a walk around the property to check for damage after that big downpour, and surely he would have recognized it. He’s quite a keen gardener. And John Bonnington from the Burkeville Bar and Grill comes along here to go surfing and running. He’s from California, and I think if anyone would know about it, it’s him.”

  There – let her assume what she liked about all my handsome visitors!

  “You don’t think it’s true then?” She sounded disappointed.

  “I don’t think there’s the least possibility. I’ll have another good walk around the garden later and search for any. I know what it looks like.”

  In fact I had a silver pendant of a cannabis leaf on a chain which I occasionally used to wear to annoy Graham. And I won’t admit to anything further. We were all very young once, weren’t we? Anyway, if they change the cannabis laws like they’re threatening to, the whole thing might go away.

  I got back to the curry, thinking fondly of my mother (who always used packet curry powder.) I pounded the cardamom, coriander seeds, cumin and cloves together with my granite mortar and pestle, grinding the mixture until it was almost dust. That got rid of some of my pent-up energy. The onions and garlic were soon sizzling in the big cast-iron casserole, and I stirred in the spices, added the meat, and gave it a few minutes to brown.

  I should tell you we’re not traditional curry eaters. Anyone from the subcontinent would certainly roll their eyes at the addition of sieved apple baby food and sultanas and some of the other things the late Sally Summerfield used to add to it. But it tastes delicious, and Graham expects it to pretty much match the way his mother made it, so that’s what he gets.

  Eventually I spooned some into a plastic storage box to take with me, added extra stock to Gra
ham’s half, and pushed the casserole into the pre-heated oven. It smelled fantastic. My cheese on toast lunch suddenly seemed a long way in the past.

  “Hi-ho, hi-ho, in search of hash we go,” I couldn’t help mumble-singing as I gathered up the rest of the groceries, the storage box of curry, and my phone.

  The teddies needed no urging to hop into the Focus. The spaniels needed a firm hand to prevent them from following. And so we bowled along Drizzle Bay Road in the curry-scented car, me occasionally belting out my stupidly amended Seven Dwarfs ditty, and the two little dogs accompanying me with random whines and howls. I don’t think they enjoyed my enthusiastic singing.

  Okay, clothes in the bedroom, curry in the oven, precious steak in the fridge, kettle on the boil, and out I went on my botanical expedition. Nothing in the vegie plot. Nothing in the flower borders. Nothing I could see lurking anywhere among the beachy shrubs. Jenny was way off beam with her theory.

  I went inside and made tea, slightly relieved there was no likelihood of leather jacketed, prison-tatted gang members on noisy Harleys invading the place to do any harvesting.

  I needed a few minutes of tranquility after all the twists and turns my life was taking so I sat at Isobel’s old kitchen table and enjoyed the tea for a while.

  What with one thing and another I was falling behind with my work. I had the delicious choice of editing a catalogue of light fittings which had been roughly translated from Cantonese and needed a thorough check and tweak… a collection of children’s stories about two blackbirds by a charming but dyslexic woman for whom I’d edited several books previously… and a pseudo-literary novel set near Chernobyl which detailed the slow onset of radiation sickness and eventual suicide of the heroine.

  Who would want to read that? (Except me, for money, and maybe the author’s mother?) The lighting catalogue would be boring but easy enough. The kiddie stories would take time but be fun. The Russian epic would be depressing and a hard slog – and worth a lot more than the other two put together.