“Mystery solved.” She lifted out what at first I took to be a second tarantula, this one limp and unmoving. “Damn thing was just molting. They can look like goners when they’re gettin’ ready to wriggle out of their old exoskeletons.”
By now only a handful of Ken’s closest, and bravest, kinfolk remained. Someone yelled, “There they are!” The group sprang apart, revealing Joanne and Lewis locked in a grotesque death match. Lewis writhed over and around Joanne as she angled for an opportunity to deliver the coup de grace.
Meanwhile their frantic owners threatened each other with lawsuits if anything should happen to their beloved companions. As much as she valued Lewis, Veronica wasn’t about to intervene, not if it meant tangling with a tarantula.
I said, “Ken, go ahead and try to separate them. Lewis can’t hurt you, he’s a harmless king snake.”
“Uh-uh-uh, I wouldn’t do that, young fella.” Dawn had relinquished her seat at last and stood squinting at the combatants. “That there’s a coral snake. Chock-full of venom.”
Veronica blinked. “It is?”
“No, you’re wrong, Dawn,” I said. “I’m telling you, it’s a king snake. You know the old saying. ‘Red touches yellow, there’s a good fellow. Red touches black, better stand back.’”
Dawn laughed so hard, her upper plate nearly flew out of her mouth. “It’s ‘Red touches yellow, kills a fellow. Red touches black, friend of Jack.’”
Oops. But I was close, right? I mean, my version rhymed and everything.
Oh, who asked you?
So we were dealing with a poisonous snake after all. Where was an emotional-support mongoose when you needed one? As it turned out, Joanne did just fine on her own. Within seconds, she’d dealt the death blow. We all watched as Lewis went still, paralyzed by his adversary’s venom. Joanne seized him by the head and started dragging him toward the dimmer recesses of the saloon. Ken followed close behind, cajoling her to climb back into the casket and let him take her home.
Veronica was less broken up than I would have predicted, which kind of made sense considering she’d just learned that the snake she’d been relying on to keep herself calm and contented was, well, a snake. She made no mention of retrieving his body for a proper funeral, which was just as well since it appeared Joanne had other plans for him.
Dawn clapped me on the back, with surprising force. “I haven’t had this much fun since my third husband’s girlfriends and me threw him a little surprise party. You can throw a funeral here anytime.”
7
It Wouldn’t Not Be Fun
THAT EVENING I found myself in yet another venerable gin mill. Murray’s Pub had been a Crystal Harbor institution since the late nineteenth century, which meant it had a good seven or eight decades on Dawn’s Depot. Murray’s wore its age well, the wood paneling, floors, and bar scarred but lovingly maintained, the original gas light fixtures long since wired for electricity. Soft bluegrass music played in the background.
Every Wednesday night Murray’s hosted a trivia contest, which could reliably be counted on to pack the house. Not that I was in the mood for another crowded bar after the earlier fiasco at Dawn’s, but at least this time I was there as a civilian. In the event the proceedings got out of hand (which was not outside the realm of possibility), the pub’s owner, Maxine Baumgartner, was more than capable of handling it. Ditto for the bartender on duty, who just happened to be Martin McAuliffe. The padre lived in a one-bedroom apartment over the bar, which was a pretty sweet commute.
Suffice it to say, by the time I got to Murray’s that evening, I was more than ready for some silly fun with a few good friends while tossing back a frosty brewski or two. For the trivia game, I partnered with three of my best pals: Mayor Sophie Halperin and the local police detectives, Howie Werker and Cookie Kaplan. Cookie chose our team name: You Can’t Spell Manslaughter Without Laughter.
Maxine—Max to the pub’s regulars—was in her early fifties, with a blonde ponytail and a pugnacious attitude. As always, she officiated, calling out the trivia questions, tallying up the scores, and rewarding the winners. Our team came in first, which surprised precisely no one who knew Sophie, the mayor being a bottomless font of arcane knowledge.
Coming in first place meant the four of us got to share a fifty-dollar bar tab, good for food and booze, which we had vowed to consume by the end of the night. Fortunately, Max had a soft spot for cops, and she was fond of Sophie and me, as well, so she had no problem letting the four of us linger after the place emptied out.
We’d claimed a booth near the back. I sat on the outside of the bench next to Sophie. Howie and Cookie sat across from us. The remains of nachos and fried calamari littered the table, along with our nearly empty beer glasses.
“I hope you’re still hungry.” It was petite and elegant Nina Wallace, stopping by our table on her way out. Nina was an avid baker who never went anywhere without an armload of homemade goodies. It was her one redeeming quality if you didn’t count her sense of entitlement and win-at-all-costs campaign style. Oh wait, those last two aren’t actually redeeming qualities, are they? Never mind, then.
“These were left over.” She deposited a plastic food container filled with assorted yummies at the center of our table. “If I bring them back home, they’ll just end up on my hips. So please take them.”
Nina weighed about a hundred pounds. I’d never hated her more than at that moment.
“You know, I used to take cookies and brownies to trivia night, but then it finally occurred to me—” she bonked herself on the head and made a Duh! face “—that savory things might go better with beer. Not that I drink beer, of course, I’m strictly a prosecco girl, but everyone else seems to like it.”
“We’ll happily accept them,” Howie, ever the gentleman, said. He was in his early forties, tall, dark-skinned, and easy on the eyes. “Thanks, Nina.”
“You’re welcome, Howie.” She pointed. “Those long ones are olive, herb, and Parmesan breadsticks. These over here are cheddar scones. There’s one Black Forest ham and Gruyère thumbprint pastry left—”
I wished she’d hurry up and leave so I could stuff my mouth, which was watering like a faucet, despite all the snacks I’d already crammed into it that night.
“—and these round ones are pesto pinwheels.”
“Those things look amazing,” Cookie said. She was a recent hire by the Crystal Harbor Police Department, having been brought on last fall when Bonnie Hernandez was promoted from detective to chief. Tonight Cookie had corralled her curly brown hair into a charmingly disheveled bun. She wore her customary burgundy-framed eyeglasses and funky earrings—little enameled purses this time, one blue and one green.
“Well, they couldn’t be easier to make. Email me through the Historical Society and I’ll send you the recipe.” Nina leaned in close to Cookie and whispered, “You’re wearing two different earrings.”
“I know.” Cookie smiled at her. “It’s on purpose.”
“Oh!” Nina tittered as if she’d never heard of such a thing. “Well, aren’t you brave. I wouldn’t have the nerve.”
I’d been wondering how long it would take the mayor-elect to detonate her signature backhanded compliment. “Good night, Nina,” I said, hoping to push her out the door before she lobbed one in my direction. I was feeling a tad fragile after the failed funeral for an undead tarantula, and I yearned for the comfort of an emotional-support cheddar scone.
My companions echoed my good-night to Nina, all except Sophie, who remained uncharacteristically mute. Nina responded by looking straight through her, the two recent mayoral candidates having not a lot to say to each other.
Martin was wiping down bottles in the speed well behind the bar. “’Bye, Nina. I’m going to steal a couple of those breadsticks.”
Max, busy balancing the cash drawer, did not look up. “We’re closing up now, Nina. See ya.” Once the door had shut behind the other woman, Max said, “Is that slimeball really going to be our mayor? Tell m
e it’s all a bad dream.”
“You never know.” Sophie wore a mysterious little smile as she selected a pesto pinwheel and admired it from all sides. “Stay tuned.”
“What?” I twisted in my seat to face her. “What’s going on, Sophie? Tell us!”
She tormented us by taking her time masticating the delicacy before washing it down with the last of her beer. “Not much to tell. Town Council’s investigating campaign improprieties.”
I smacked her shoulder. “How long have you been sitting on this? Why am I just hearing about it now?”
“Figured you were the one that got them looking into it.”
“Not me.” I snatched up a cheddar scone. “You made me promise I wouldn’t kick up a fuss about Nina’s dirty tricks, and I kept my word.”
“You didn’t make me promise,” Cookie said, “and I gave the Council an earful, let me tell you.”
“Me, too,” Howie said, as he rooted around in the snack container. “Where’s that thumbprint ham thing? Gotcha!”
“Who didn’t complain about that so-called fair election?” Max shoved her arms into the sleeves of her leather bomber jacket and headed for the door, where she flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. “Night, folks. Martin, you’ll lock up.”
He gave her a lazy salute as he finished filling a pitcher, which he carried to our table. “Enjoy the last of your winnings, guys,” he said as he poured.
Cookie said, “Looks like you intend to enjoy our winnings with us, Martin.”
“What gave it away?” He hip-bumped me and squeezed in at the end of the bench.
She tapped her skull. “A seasoned detective like me knows how to read the signs.”
“Like that extra beer glass you brought with you,” Howie said. “That’s what we seasoned detectives call a clue.”
The padre raised his glass to them. “The bad guys don’t stand a chance with a couple of seasoned detectives like you on the case.”
I waved my hand in the air. “I have a question for the seasoned detectives.”
Howie pointed to stern finger at me. “We are not discussing the Peaches Gillespey case with you, Jane.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“No, but I know what it was going to be about,” he said. “Drink your beer and let’s talk about something else. The poker tournament’s coming up. Who do you think’s going to win this year?”
Sophie said, “My money’s on last year’s winner. Even though he’s a cheating scoundrel.”
“I take exception to that, Mayor.” Martin leaned around me to address Sophie. “I’m a reprobate, not a scoundrel, and I cheat only when it’s absolutely necessary. Last year it was not absolutely necessary. Talk to me again after this year’s tournament.”
“Because I didn’t even bring up the Gillespey case,” I said. “You did, Howie. So obviously you want to talk about it.”
Howie turned to his partner. “Isn’t Jane doing a good job of not talking about the Gillespey case, Cookie?”
“She sure is, Howie. Gosh, I’m just so darn proud of Jane.”
Sophie said, “I hear you guys don’t have that much evidence against the son.”
And this, in case you were wondering, is what best friends are for.
“It’s not going to work, ladies.” Howie gestured with his glass. “And you, Mayor, should know better than to try to pump us for information about an ongoing—”
“There’s the fight a neighbor overheard,” she said. “Sean threatening his mom.”
I said, “Yeah, but he didn’t say he was going to strangle her. He talked about getting someone to make her vanish, Hoffa-style.”
Howie glowered at me. “And you know this how?”
“She did vanish, though, didn’t she?” Martin shrugged. “Just for a few months, but still.”
“Something else we know,” Sophie said, “is that Sean’s supposed to inherit half of his mom’s estate, whatever that comes to. If you’re in the market for a motive.”
“Thank you, Mayor,” Howie said dryly. “I’ll jot that down in my little notebook.”
“So, Jane,” Cookie said, “I have to assume you’ve been talking to Peaches’s neighbor across the street since you know about the Jimmy Hoffa comment.”
“I might have, you know, bumped into Zak when I went to see Sean.”
“What were you thinking, paying a call on Sean?” Howie said. “You have no business talking to that little creep.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “it was business that brought me there. Evie hired me to track down her mother’s missing peach collection.”
Cookie grimaced. “She collected peaches?”
“Not the fruit itself,” I said. “Little figurines and knickknacks shaped like peaches. Some of them are worth quite a lot. Apparently someone broke into her china cabinet and made off with them.”
I refrained from mentioning my other investigation, the one Cheyenne had literally strong-armed me into. I didn’t want to watch Howie have a stroke. And why stir the pot when I had no intention of pursuing it after that night?
“When did this happen?” Howie asked.
“Sean says he has no idea when they went missing,” I said, “for whatever that’s worth. Evie didn’t find out until the day before yesterday when she managed to get into the house.”
“Well, she didn’t report the theft,” Cookie said. “It would’ve been nice to know, on the off chance it has something to do with the murder.”
“Keep us apprised of your progress on this knickknack thing,” Howie told me, “but stay away from Sean. He’s bad news.”
“No problem, I’m done with him,” I said, and meant it.
Sophie wasn’t finished grilling the detectives. “Did the killer leave fingerprints?”
“I don’t know,” was Howie’s cryptic response. Meaning maybe the cops found fingerprints, and maybe some of them belonged to the killer, and maybe that killer was Sean, and maybe he had no intention of letting Sophie drag the information out of him.
She said, “So then, what other evidence do you have against him?”
The detectives seemed disinclined to answer, so Martin did it for them. “The rope.”
Sophie and I were all ears. Cookie just shook her head, with a little smile.
Howie was not smiling. “How do you know about the rope?” he demanded, followed immediately by, “Don’t answer that. And don’t talk to these two about it.”
I didn’t waste time wondering how Martin had learned details of the case no one outside the police department was privy to. He had at least one buddy on the force who didn’t mind sharing juicy info about ongoing cases. Probably while sucking down a beer or three in this very pub, but that was conjecture on my part.
“Howie,” Sophie said, “come on, it’s just us here. Tell us about the rope.”
Cookie looked at Howie expectantly, which reinforced my impression that she was the easygoing one—in other words, the one to hit up for details. I’d known Howie a long time, and it was no secret he did everything by the book. Or at least tried to.
I turned to the padre. “I assume you’re referring to the rope that was used to tie Peaches to that chair in the attic, the yellow nylon rope that you and I observed with our own eyes when we discovered her dead body.” I included that last part to remind the detectives that Martin and I were not exactly uninvolved bystanders in this case and that our questions were not driven by ghoulish curiosity.
Well, maybe ten percent ghoulish curiosity and ninety percent legitimate interest. Okay, okay, twenty-eighty.
“So what’s Sean’s connection to the rope?” Sophie asked.
“My guess?” I said, while Howie treated us to the death stare. “The cops probably found the same kind of rope in his house. Except he was living with his grandma when Peaches was killed.”
Martin polished off a breadstick, nodding. “The cops found the exact same kind of rope in Audrey Moretti’s basement.”
; “On a hook in the utility room,” Cookie said. “The crime lab will tell us if there’s a match.” When her partner gaped at her, she added, “What? They already know. Here, have a scone.”
“This is what he needs.” Sophie lifted the pitcher and topped off Howie’s glass. “Drink up, Detective.”
“But Carter was living with Audrey, too,” I said. “Still is, actually. Which means he had as much access to the rope as Sean did. And don’t they say that nine times out of ten it’s the spouse?”
“You’ve been watching too much Law & Order,” Howie grumbled.
Would you believe this wasn’t the first time I’d heard that?
Sophie said, “But think about it. The mother of his children kicks him out after, what, twenty-five years?”
“Twenty-four,” I said.
“From what I heard,” she said, “Peaches wasn’t exactly the maternal type. Carter raised those kids practically single-handedly. Kept house and cooked, too.”
“A househusband,” Howie said.
“I don’t think that’s the politically correct way to put it,” Cookie said, “but yeah, he doesn’t seem to have had any other career that whole time.”
“Carter couldn’t have been happy to be dumped like that,” Sophie said. “So he had motive, too.”
Everyone at the table chewed on that awhile. Well, we also chewed on the last of Nina’s home-baked snacks, and fought over the crumbs.
Martin said, “You know, no one’s mentioned the other person who had access to Audrey’s rope.” When we all just looked at him, he said, “Audrey. It was her rope.”
“Have you met Grandma Audrey?” I asked. “Because I have, and I’m telling you, I just can’t see her tying her daughter-in-law, or whatever you want to call her son’s long-term girlfriend, to a chair in that hot attic and strangling her with her own scarf.”
“Yeah, and that’s another thing,” Sophie said.
“Of course it is,” Howie groaned. “Let’s have it.”
Preserving Peaches Page 11