Apples For Vinegar

by R J Fournier

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “And who is he?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  Delyth didn’t appreciate Bette’s deft parries of her questions.

  Josh took control of the conversation. “I understand you saw someone at the front door here the night Zad was killed.”

  A nail gun couldn’t have shot the glare Bette directed at Delyth any harder. “I thought reporters weren’t supposed to divulge their sources.”

  Delyth started to say it hadn’t been a formal interview but hesitated, fearing she had crossed an ethical line in any case.

  Josh saved her. “It doesn’t matter how I heard it. Is it true?”

  Bette nodded. “But I didn’t see who it was.”

  “Could you describe the person?”

  “Not really. It was dark. I was at least a hundred feet away. The person was in silhouette. I assumed it was Suzanne. I can’t tell you how much of what I thought I saw was colored by that.”

  “Did you consider it was probably the murderer.”

  “Later I realized it might have been.”

  “So why didn’t you report it to the police?”

  “I told you; I thought it was Suzanne.”

  Delyth could see the next questions forming behind Josh’s eyes: What difference would it make if it were Suzanne? Did Bette want to shield Suzanne for some reason? Was Bette an accessory after the fact?

  Josh didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, he said, “You’ll need to come into the station and give a formal statement of what you saw. At your convenience, of course.”

  “I have an open house tomorrow.”

  “Monday’s fine.” Looking beyond her, Josh said, “You too, Mr. Cunningham, to corroborate exactly when she left your place.”

  “I don’t know for sure. Maybe eleven thirty.”

  “As I said, it will be best if you both come in and give a statement.”

  He took Delyth’s arm again and moved away before Bette or Shawn could object.

  “Do they really have to come to your office to give a formal statement?” Delyth asked when they were out of earshot. “I mean, she said she couldn’t identify who it was.”

  “I just didn’t like her attitude.”

  Once on the other side of the room, Delyth kept close to Josh, defying anyone to approach, and watched Helen talking with the Duddas. After a few minutes, they left without saying good-bye to Suzanne, and Helen joined Delyth and Josh.

  “Did you learn anything?” Delyth asked.

  “Not really. But it started me thinking. This place is on—what?—two acres. I asked Jerzy, and their place is over sixty acres. Not exactly comparable properties. Do you think somebody who’d be interested in sixty acres would be just as interested in two acres?”

  “Maybe you were right,” Josh said to Delyth. “There is oil under our feet.”

  “What?” Helen asked.

  “Nothing,” Delyth said. “Just something I said earlier. But it might be there is something valuable about these properties that the current owners don’t know about”

  “If what it is affects two properties, it could involve more.” Josh said. “I’m wondering if Bette Lee approached other neighbors.”

  “We could ask Howard,” Helen suggested. She pulled out her phone and tried calling, but couldn’t get any service. “Let’s drop by and see if anyone’s home.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Outside, Helen found the late-afternoon sun and cool, soft air a relief after the saturated colors and imposing Shiva of Zad’s décor. Not to mention the lingering bouquet of stale reefer and the crosscurrents of tension in the room. Delyth and Josh must have felt the same, since no one broke the silence as they walked the short distance to Howard’s place. They were almost there when Helen remembered a bit of news Karen had told her: “Ben’s going back to LA to live with his mother.”

  “Really,” Delyth said. “Why the sudden change?”

  “His mother is out of rehab and wants him back. Jerzy thinks it’s so he can take care of her. Sad, isn’t it?” Helen didn’t expect a response, and didn’t get one.

  They arrived, and Helen knocked at Howard’s kitchen door. A dog barked inside. “Tibby, quiet,” Sam’s voice commanded. When he opened the door, he was leaning over, holding the dog’s collar and craning his neck to look up. He smiled. “Helen! I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

  “We tried calling but couldn’t get any service. Since we were just up the road, we thought we’d show up unannounced. We just have a quick question for Howard.”

  “Yeah, cell service is sketchy around here. Come in.” Still keeping a hand on the dog’s collar, Sam let them by, then pulled the door closed.

  Once freed, the dog greeted the new arrivals by sniffing their shoes.

  “Tibby, don’t be a pest,” Sam said. “Go to your bed.”

  The dog gave up on their shoes, but ignored the part about going to his bed.

  Josh extended a hand to Sam. “Hi, I’m Josh Griffin.”

  “I’m sorry,” Helen said. “Where are my manners?”

  “And I’m Sam.” He grabbed Josh’s hand. “Sam Crabo. Not to be confused with the French name, Crapo, which means an ugly toad.”

  “No one would call you a toad,” Howard said as he emerged from the hallway. “Is that Helen Terfel? For what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “Howie!” Sam said. “They don’t need an excuse to visit.”

  “Of course. Did you offer them something to drink?”

  “They just got here.”

  Helen enjoyed their badinage, which was light and affectionate. So like the way she and Frank would talk.

  Nodding toward Josh, Howard said, “If you haven’t guessed, I’m Howard.”

  “I did it again,” Helen said, mentally knocking herself on the forehead.

  “Some tea?” Howard asked the group. “Or wine? It’s after five someplace.”

  Josh answered, “I’d kill for a glass of wine.”

  “Better not let the police hear you say that,” Sam said. “What with Zad and all.”

  “He is the police, dear,” Howard informed him.

  Sam held out his hands as if ready for cuffs to be clamped on. “Are we suspects?”

  “Should you be?” Josh may have been joking in response, but he sounded serious.

  “Josh,” Delyth said. “Stop that. We’re their guests.”

  “Oh,” Sam drawled, and gave the two of them an appraising look. “Well, wine is a perfect choice,” he said after a moment. “I can’t stand tea.” Helen was grateful for an ally. “White or red?”

  “Anything would be better than what I just had,” Helen said. “I had to throw it out.”

  “White then.” Sam retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator, as Howard pulled wine glasses from a cabinet. “Where did you get such inferior wine?”

  “Ajnabee’s memorial,” Delyth explained.

  “You went to that?” Sam asked while twisting the opener into the cork.

  “Were you invited?” Helen asked.

  “I have no idea why,” Howard answered. “I managed to avoid him for the last five years, and had very little to do with him before that. I don’t know why that woman would think I’d want to say anything to him or about him now that he’s dead. Anything good, in any case.”

  “What happened five years ago?” Delyth asked, then in reply to the strained look Howard gave her, she added, “We heard a few stories earlier.”

  Sam was the one who answered. “The guy was a total nut-case. He called the county one time when we were clearing along the streambed.”

  “What happened?” Helen asked.

  “Some guy from the Ag Department came out, said a neighbor complained we were chopping down heritage trees.”

  “And?”

  “He looked around, told us we were doing fine, and keep up the good work.” Sam poured and invited everyone to grab a glass.

  Handing a glass to Delyth, Josh s
aid, “Maybe Zad was worried you were going to discover his marijuana.”

  “That would have been too rational for him. Like I said, he was crazy. He even stopped a guy we had doing some work around the place, telling him when the aliens took over, we’d be sorry we crossed him.”

  “Oh, my,” Helen said. “I think we just heard a similar story. I guess he really did believe he’d been abducted by aliens.”

  “So that’s why we avoided him,” Howard intervened. “It’s really not worth dwelling on at this point. It’s a beautiful afternoon. Do you think we could sit outside?” Checking that everyone had a glass, he led them through the living room.

  “Your house is just lovely,” Helen exclaimed.

  “Howie did most of the work himself,” Sam boasted. “Using artisanal techniques. He hand-dyed the sofa in tea, and for the rafters he used a solution he’d concocted by soaking a handful of galvanized nails in white vinegar.”

  “As I said, it’s lovely. You must be very proud.”

  “I did a lot of the remodel with my daughter in mind,” Howard said. He turned toward Josh. “She owns it; we just rent. I’d always thought she’d move back in when her son was out of school.” He opened a sliding door that entered onto a small deck facing west. “Now she seems to be thinking about selling.”

  Wooden benches lined two sides of the table and armed chairs capped the ends. Pulling one out, Sam said to Helen, “Madame.” Then to Josh and Delyth, “Take the bench facing out toward the view.” He and Howard sat across from them.

  When all were settled, Helen brought the conversation back to why they were there. “So your daughter is thinking of selling?”

  “I don’t know really. Someone approached her about it. Her son is going to college next year, and she’ll be needing the money.”

  “I keep telling him we should buy it,” Sam said.

  “I don’t want Cindy giving us a special deal, and a fair price is too much for us.”

  “How do you know? With both our incomes we could swing it.”

  “What do you do?” Delyth asked Sam.

  “I’m the horse trainer at Two Rock Farm.”

  “You mean breaking wild horses like in the rodeos?” Josh asked.

  “Not a lot of wild horses around here. And rodeo horses are trained to buck. I gentle green horses sometimes, but most of my business is training horses and riders for three-day eventing.”

  “Three-day eventing?”

  “The three biggies,” Delyth said. “Dressage, show jumping, and cross country.”

  “How do you know that?” Josh asked.

  “I used to daydream about riding when I was a kid. But it’s a rich man’s sport.”

  “I wish that extended to the trainers,” Sam said with a laugh.

  Impatient with the digression, Helen jumped in before Delyth could say anything more. “Was it Bette Lee who approached your daughter?”

  “Bette’s… let’s just say she’s seeing my tenant, so Cindy knows her, or at least knows about her. So when she called, Cindy wondered if it had something to do with that. Why?”

  “She also approached Ajnabee and the Duddas on behalf of a mystery client. She didn’t happen to mention to your daughter who the client was?”

  “Not that I know of. I thought it was a sort of a cold call, but she did know the place and all. Somebody must really like the area.”

  “Somebody must really like these three properties in particular. At least that’s our guess. Is there anything special about the land?”

  Howard stretched an arm toward the meadow below and the mountains in the distance. “It’s pretty spectacular to me”—he took Sam’s hand—“to us, but you could get as much without trying to get people to sell who aren’t even thinking of selling. Money wasn’t mentioned, but usually that would mean paying a premium as an incentive to sell.”

  Helen took a first sip of wine, which was cool and crisp. “This is nice. Thank you.”

  “It’s not too grapefruity?” Sam asked.

  “I like it,” Josh said. “Not as flinty as a Sancerre.” He swirled his glass and stuck his nose into it. “I get more melon than grapefruit.”

  Helen, trying to be polite, had sent them flying off topic. Once again she made the necessary course correction. “Do you know anything that would make someone want to buy all three properties?”

  Howard gave a slight shrug “Sorry.”

  “When did you buy your place?” Josh asked.

  Helen couldn’t see the relevance, but didn’t say anything.

  “Like I said,” Howard answered, “it belongs to my daughter who inherited it from her grandparents. Karen Dudda’s grandfather, Ethan Bailey, sold it and the land Zad’s place is on in the early fifties to finance his church and the school. I understand he had plans to sell off more to feed his ministry, but his son objected so ferociously that the old man was cowed. I can vouch that he wasn’t someone who was easily intimidated, so it must have been quite a tirade.”

  “I wonder if there’s a clue in the county records,” Delyth said. “I could try to check it out.”

  “You must be a masochist,” Sam said. “to volunteer to try getting anything out of the county.”

  “That’s the life of a journalist. But I think I can get some help from the guy in charge of the home and garden section.”

  “You might include Foley’s property,” Helen suggested.

  “Was that originally part of the Bailey farm?” Delyth asked.

  “I don’t know,” Howard answered. “Do you think he was asked to sell?”

  “If he was, they’d have to pay a real premium,” Delyth said. “He obviously doesn’t need the money and, from what his wife said, he sees his property as an investment he’d want to get top return on. Quite a house, by the way. Have you ever been inside?”

  “God, no,” Sam said. “I can imagine, though. Très moderne and as welcoming as a fart.”

  Laughing, Delyth said, “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but you nailed it.”

  NINETEEN

  When Delyth knocked on the wall of his cubicle, Ken Crowley’s beach ball of a stomach was pressed against his desk, and still it was a long reach to the keyboard. Granny glasses and salt-and-straw hair receding in front and hanging limply to his shoulders in the back gave the impression of an aging rocker. He was in charge of the home and garden section, among other things, and was one of the most amiable people at the newspaper, especially with women. No woman was ever too old or a girl too young for him to flirt with.

  “Hey, Ken,” Delyth said as if she regularly dropped by his cubicle for a chat. “How was your weekend?”

  “Delyth. What a delightful surprise! You’re looking enchanting as ever.”

  Delyth managed a few passes of the pleasantry dance before getting to her purpose. “I was wondering if you could check with county records about a few properties for me?”

  As she’d expected, he didn’t ask why she wanted to know. “Sure thing,” he answered. He turned back to his computer. “If it was recorded since 1964, it’ll be on line. What do you want to know?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know. Someone is very interested in those particular properties and I’d like to find out why. So, if there’s anything unusual or sticks out or…”

  “That’s a little tougher. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  She had to wait until Wednesday before he got back to her. He poked his head into her cubicle and announced, “I got the information you were interested in.”

  “Thank you. I hope it wasn’t too much of a hassle.”

  “Nothing popped out online, so I asked a friend of mine at the county to check earlier records. One place was built recently, so the permit file was thicker, but not a lot has happened to the other three, at least not a lot that the county knows about. Except a murder, of course, which you didn’t tell me about, by the way.”

  “Sorry about that. Did you find anything?”

  “The only thing
odd was that the ten acres of one of the addresses and the nine undeveloped parcels that surround it are all owned by the same person.” He paused as he stepped fully into her cubicle. “Karen Bailey Dudda,” he pronounced dramatically.

  “Wait a minute. Ten acres? I thought the Duddas owned sixty acres.”

  “If you add up all the parcels, she probably does.”

  “Is that a big deal?”

  “I’d say so. The minimum acreage for a subdivision in that area is forty acres, which means you need eighty acres just to subdivide it into two parcels. If the Duddas’ parcels are legal, they could build another nine new houses. With their current home, you’d have quite the development with ten houses on it.”

  “If they’re legal? Is there a question?”

  “The subdivision occurred in forty-nine. Nineteen-forty-nine.”

  “That would have been around the time Karen’s grandfather sold the other two addresses on my list. We were told he had plans to sell more.”

  “If the subdivision happened in the eighteen-hundreds, it wouldn’t hold up in court. Even as it is, there’d be hoops to go through. You’d need a really good lawyer and a friend on the planning commission.”

  “There’s no way Karen Dudda would sell off any of her land. Why do you think she didn’t consolidate them back into one parcel?”

  “Maybe she wanted to keep her options open. It sure increases the value of her property.”

  As soon as Ken left, Delyth tried calling Helen, but she was in class. She ended the message she left with, “Interesting, don’t you think? It could explain why someone was trying to buy the Duddas’ property. But I can’t figure out what it has to do with killing Ajnabee. I mean, it would make more sense to kill Karen. And why bother trying to buy the other two properties? It seems to be a dead end.”

  Helen called back over her lunch half-hour. “I’ve been pondering the information about the Duddas’ property and I think I know why Ajnabee was murdered. I’m less sure who did it, but my money’s on Keir Foley.”

  Delyth shot up in her chair. “Tell me more.”

  “I don’t have time to go into the details, but I’m pretty sure Howard is in danger. We need to talk to Josh today. Do you think you can arrange a meeting?”