A Deadly Inside Scoop

by Abby Collette

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what it is,” I said. “Other than what I told you.”

  We turned down American Street.

  “You probably should have a talk with her,” she said. “Then you’d know.”

  “Know what?”

  “What her story is. Whether she is the killer or if she saw the killer.” She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Or what that boy of hers has to do with anything.”

  I thought about Maisie’s and my determination that the killer was a man, and then PopPop telling me not to rule anyone out.

  “Maybe I will,” I said.

  Then I thought about her cryptic statement that night, too.

  “What did you see that night?” I asked.

  “Not that night,” she said. “That morning.”

  “Morning?”

  “Yes. I saw him with that puppy.”

  “You did?”

  She stopped walking. “I did.” Then she pointed. “Here,” she said.

  We were at her sister Dell’s bed-and-breakfast.

  “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

  “Not the house,” she said, and chuckled. “Something inside. My sister’s not here right now.” She reached in her pocket and brought out a ring of keys. “But I can get us in.”

  We walked up the steps to the front door. “Business is slow from October until the spring. So no one else is in the house either.”

  I looked around the porch while she unlocked the door. Then I walked into the foyer and took in the B and B. I’d never been inside before. The late-afternoon light streamed through the windows and I could see the place was sparsely furnished. A big overstuffed sofa and two chairs in a room off to the right. To the left, a huge dining room set made from light oak.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

  She was being so secretive. If I hadn’t come to her with my PopPop and she hadn’t left him at her store, I might have thought she was taking me somewhere to do me in.

  Maybe I just never noticed before and enigmatic was her usual persona.

  She walked down the hall and found the skeleton key on her ring to the door we stood in front of.

  “I think this is the right key,” she said. The tumbler on the lock clicked and she pushed open the door and gestured me in.

  “Why are we here?” I asked, looking at her.

  “Stephen Bayard rented out this room.”

  “Oh,” I said, and took in the room. “He did?”

  “He did.”

  “And why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I know you are looking for who killed him and I thought this might help.”

  “How do you know he stayed here?” I didn’t know why I asked her that question. Debbie Devereaux, like my grandfather said, knew most things that went on in the village.

  “My sister,” she said, as if the answer was obvious.

  “Do the police know he stayed here?”

  “No,” she said, and slowly moved her head from side to side. “Not yet. He registered as Peter Sellers. My sister didn’t know at first who he was. But as soon as we discovered it, I told her she should ask him to leave. But he never came back.”

  I nodded. That was probably because he died, I thought.

  “And I’ll call the police after you’ve had a look around.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I asked, walking around the room. “I mean, that’s like evidence tampering or something.”

  “I think of it more as abandoned property. Anyone can go through that.”

  I didn’t know how that made a difference, wasn’t even sure what that meant. But I guess in her mind it made sense.

  “How long did he stay?”

  “Just one night.” She gave me a head nod. “And it wasn’t the night before he died either.”

  I had to think about that for a moment.

  Oh. I glanced at her. That meant he had spent the night somewhere else the night before I saw him.

  “And he left his things?” I didn’t see anything much of any consequence—a shaving kit, a yellow notepad with nothing on it, a toothbrush and travel-sized toothpaste in the bathroom. Then I saw a dog collar and leash.

  “That was his puppy he had with him?” I asked, picking up the collar with my gloved hands.

  She shrugged.

  “I did tell the police about him having one that day.”

  “Oh,” I said, a look of realization lighting up my face. “That’s why Detective Beverly asked me about the puppy.”

  She shrugged again.

  “Why did he have this?” I asked more to myself than to her. I looked at the collar. It read “Blake.” That must have been that little doggie’s name. I flipped it over and saw a phone number.

  “There’s a number here,” I said, and pointed to it.

  “You want to call it?” she asked.

  I blinked a few times. Call it? What would I say? And what if it were Stephen Bayard’s number? It would ring at the police station, where his cell phone was. That wouldn’t be good.

  “I think I’ll just take a picture of it,” I said. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a shot of each side. Why I thought I’d need it, I didn’t know. But besides the email, I didn’t have any physical evidence of anything. It was something to add to my investigation.

  After that, we left. Ms. Devereaux locked the door behind us and we went back downstairs. We headed toward the front door, but as we neared it, she tapped her finger on a sign posted on the wall. It read: No pets allowed.

  We walked in silence all the way back. I was lost in thought. I hoped Ms. Devereaux didn’t think me rude.

  When we got back to the store, it looked like PopPop was ringing up a sale. I couldn’t tell, but there was a woman smiling at him, and he was handing her a bag over the counter.

  I guessed he could take care of the store while Ms. Devereaux was gone.

  “Thank you, Aloysius,” Ms. Devereaux said.

  “Happy to be at your service,” he said, bowing slightly. That made her smile, then she winked at him.

  “You ready to go?” he said, looking at me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”

  After we left, I asked him, “Did you know that she had that leash?”

  “What leash?”

  I thought I’d ask a different question. “Why did you have me talk to her? Did you know she knew about what was in the B and B?”

  “Dell’s B and B?”

  “Yes,” I said, getting exasperated. He seemed completely in the dark about where I’d been and what I’d found out. “You didn’t know what Ms. Devereaux was going to show me?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Why did you take me there, then?”

  “I told you. She always knows something. You should have started your questioning with her. You might have been a lot further along.” He looped my arm through his, acting as if his comment wouldn’t have any effect on me. “And before we proceed to our next interrogation,” he said, “we have to stop and pick up Rivkah.”

  chapter

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Who knew? My grandfather was a ladies’ man. He had them smiling, winking and waiting for him to give them rides.

  I wondered what my Grandma Kay would have to say about his behavior. I had no idea he was such a charmer.

  “Maybe Dan wheeled himself out of that nursing home and got that awful man back for all the bad things he did to him,” Rivkah said as she got into PopPop’s car. We needed it to get out to the nursing home. Rivkah must have been coming along for the ride. According to my grandfather, she—as well as a myriad of other elderly people—enjoyed doing that.

  I looked at PopPop and wondered how many people he had told about my “secret” investigation.

  “I don�
��t know if Mr. Clawson could have done that,” I said to Rivkah as she settled in. “Isn’t he pretty sick?”

  “Where there is a will, there is a way,” she said.

  Same thing my grandfather had said.

  But before I could get back to the Falls Park Senior Complex, Rivkah wanted to go to the grocery store. She’d brought out egg rolls from her restaurant for us. I declined her offer of one, upsetting her. My grandfather told her he’d eat both. That cheered her up. Somewhat.

  I didn’t know what she wanted to get from the store, but it was postponing my meeting with Mr. Clawson, and for some reason I was ready to get to it. Wouldn’t that make Maisie proud? Me wanting to talk and not just watch. I had a feeling that the stop was so Rivkah could try to get some of whatever she bought at the store inside of me. Somehow.

  “You two go in,” PopPop said as he pulled into the parking lot of Season’s, a kosher grocery chain. New to our parts, the store was one of the “revitalization” projects the city had taken on. Not that there was anything wrong with the village as it was. “You help her out, Win. I’ll wait here.”

  “Do you have a list?” I said, still wondering why we’d stopped. If it truly was grocery shopping she needed to do, it seemed like she would have done it on the way back so nothing would spoil or melt. We stood by the carts.

  “I only need a few things,” she said, taking one of the shopping carts out from its bay.

  “You want to tell me some of them, and I’ll go and get them?”

  “No. I know what I like. I’ll get it.” She looked at me and handed the cart over to me. “You take that one. Go find yourself some nice fruit. I’ll buy it for you.”

  I didn’t want any fruit, but I was sure she was telling me not to bother her while she did whatever it was she’d come to do.

  I took the cart and she got herself another one and took off down one of the aisles. I stood there for a minute, not sure what to do. Then I decided to amble off toward the produce.

  That’s when I heard her.

  That tobacco-stained voice coming around the corner of the aisle. I knew it was her even before I saw her face.

  Glynis Vale.

  “I’ll get the bread,” she called over her shoulder.

  I didn’t know who she was talking to. I wanted to go around the corner to see, but I didn’t want to lose track of her.

  She saw me, our eyes locked and it took her a moment to realize where she knew me from, but as soon as that realization hit, she turned around and went the other way. I followed behind her. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I caught up with her. What I wanted to say.

  Glynis looked back at me as she rounded the corner. Walking quickly, she ducked down an aisle. But I followed. When she got to the other end, she looked over her shoulder and turned right, and before I could get to the end of the aisle, I saw her pass back by going in the opposite direction.

  I got to the end of the row and looked in the direction she’d first gone in. There was something that way she didn’t want me to see. I looked the other way but couldn’t see her.

  “Win, what are you doing?” Rivkah came up behind me. “You have nothing in your basket. I saw you go down the other aisle. Now you’re just standing here.”

  I didn’t answer her. Instead, I turned my head, looking back and forth down the aisle trying to see if Glynis had come back that way.

  “What is going on with you, Win?”

  I looked at Rivkah, concern on her face, and I let the tight feeling I had inside of me go. I relaxed my face. “Oh, I don’t know, Savta,” I said. “I think I’m letting Maisie get into my head.”

  “What does Maisie have to do with grocery shopping?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing, Savta,” I said. “I’m okay. Just being sil—”

  Bam!

  A cart ran into mine. I jumped back and put my arm in front of Rivkah to protect her. I looked to see what had happened and saw that it was Glynis. She was glaring at me. Her face looked as intense as my whole body had felt moments ago. Her eyebrows furrowed so deeply that they almost touched.

  “Why are you following me?” she said, venom in that gravelly voice.

  “I’m not following you,” I said.

  “Yes, you are!” she hissed. She moved her cart out of the way. She came and stood on the other side of mine. “You were at my job the other day. You beat up Noah. Why? What for? Are you crazy?” She pointed her finger at my face. “Now you’re here!”

  “You beat up someone?” Rivkah said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes, you did!” Glynis said. “Right in the parking lot of my job!”

  “Why would the woman lie?” Rivkah asked.

  “Because she is a liar, Savta,” I said. Glynis was making me angry now. I probably shouldn’t have followed her in the store, but now she was attacking me. “And she is lying about this. It was Riya who beat that man up.”

  “Oh,” Rivkah said, nodding. “That makes sense.”

  “I’m warning you,” Glynis said, wagging her finger in my face. “Don’t cross me. And stay out of my way!” Spittle flew from her mouth with each word.

  “I would be happy to leave you alone if you just told me why you lied that night.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said.

  “Your son may have seen a murderer. Don’t you care about that?” I said.

  “My son didn’t see anything. And you need to not talk about him.”

  “How do you know he didn’t see anything?” I asked. “Did you ask him?”

  “I don’t need to ask him,” she said, talking over me. “I already know.”

  “What is it that you think you know?”

  “Look,” she said. “You need to learn to mind your own business.”

  “I am minding my own business,” I said. I moved the cart out of the way and got up close and personal with her. Now my finger was in her face. “They are trying to blame my father for this. Put him in jail. This is about family for me. You understand about protecting family, don’t you?”

  Rivkah gently placed her hand on my arm. “Win,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  Then I felt those stupid tears welling up again. I was sure there was no crying in sleuthing.

  “If this is about family,” Glynis said, “then you should be the one who understands.” Her voice had calmed down and it seemed her eyes showed me some empathy.

  She moved back behind her cart, put her hands on the handles and pulled it out, readying to leave. “Jasper didn’t see anything,” she said, her voice lower, calmer. “He was running after his . . .” I saw her swallow hard before she spoke. “His mother.” She lowered her head and swiped at the corner of her eye. “But then she disappeared, just like she always does. And that was all he saw that night. Her.”

  “I thought Jasper was your son,” I said.

  “He is. Now.”

  I didn’t know for sure what she meant. But her face showed me her words were sincere.

  “And now maybe everything will be okay,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. “I don’t want to mess anything up for him ever again. I want him to be happy. That’s all I care about.”

  She took off, and I wanted to go after her. I couldn’t believe—didn’t want to believe—that that boy hadn’t seen anything, but Rivkah put her hand on my arm. “Let her be.”

  Rivkah didn’t have much in her cart, but she was ready to go. We went through the checkout line and out the door. I spotted PopPop standing over by another car speaking to someone.

  “C’mon, Savta,” I said. “I’ll put the groceries in the car.”

  I helped her in. The car was still running, so it was warm inside. I popped the trunk. PopPop waved, telling me he was coming, and I waved back, telling him I had it.

  He
had parked right next to a red Honda Civic. Just like the one that Glynis drove. I backpedaled to take a gander at the license plate. GHS. The first part of hers. The only part I knew. It was her car. I started putting the groceries in just as PopPop arrived.

  “I got this,” he said. “Get in the car.”

  Instead, I walked around to Glynis’s car window, wanting to look in. I didn’t know what I thought I might find. Jasper, maybe, sitting in a cold car. Would I question a little boy? One who, according to his caretaker, had had a hard life?

  I didn’t know, but that didn’t stop me. I peeked inside and gasped.

  “What are you doing, Win?” my grandfather said. “Come get in the car.”

  I looked over at him. He had his driver’s-side door open, one foot in, waiting for me.

  I looked back down in the window.

  “What? Do you see something?” He started to take his foot back out of the car.

  “I’m coming,” I said. I hurried over to his car. I couldn’t wait to tell him that I’d just seen Blake. That little Ori-Pei puppy that Stephen Bayard had the morning before he’d died was sitting in Glynis Vale’s back seat.

  * * *

  - - - - -

  The Falls Park Senior Complex was half-new and half-old, just like everything else in the village.

  They’d built the complex around the older building as the seniors became less capable but still wanted their independence, creating a little village of its own. As we walked the halls, I noted an antiseptic smell to the place, but it was clean and cheery, and the nursing home part didn’t have a hospital feel.

  We stopped at the desk this time and signed in. My grandfather seemed to know right where to go.

  “You been here before to see Mr. Clawson?” I asked.

  “A time or two,” he said. “Came once with Danny.”

  Danny. He’d been my number-one suspect until PopPop shot that idea down. He’d said Danny Clawson wasn’t that kind of man.

  That had been how I thought I’d find out who killed Stephen Bayard. I’d look into what kind of person he was. So I couldn’t argue that point with PopPop.