Scam Chowder

by Maya Corrigan

  Granddad put the plate with his half-eaten salad on top of the larger plate he’d scraped clean of the pasta. “I’ll go over there tomorrow morning and talk to him. Thomasina too, if she’s up for company.”

  “I’d like to go with you, assuming Bethany can work at the café.”

  “What are you going to do there?”

  “Give Thomasina my condolences.” And find out more about the woman who raised a swindler. “I’ll make myself scarce while you’re talking to Ned. Are you going to see Lillian while you’re there?”

  Granddad shook his head. “She’s away. She’ll be back in a couple of days.”

  Half an hour later, with the kitchen cleaned up and Granddad watching TV, Val went into the study, sat at her computer, and searched for information about Lillian Hinker and Thomasina Weal. Neither had an online presence.

  She navigated to a website for Maryland real estate tax records and entered the address of the house Lillian had driven to. The house belonged to Maxwell and Lillian Hinker and was valued at close to a million and a half. The website listed the last date of sale as twenty years ago. Who was Maxwell Hinker—a husband, a son? Val typed the man’s name into a search box. No hits. Why was Lillian living in a small apartment in a retirement community when she shared ownership of a valuable property? Even half that house was worth more than Granddad’s Victorian.

  But suppose the Annapolis house was heavily mortgaged? An infusion of cash would help pay off the debt. Maybe Lillian hoped Granddad would “lend” the cash to her. Val closed her browser window and reminded herself not to jump to conclusions about Lillian’s finances and her intentions without knowing the facts. First find out whether the Annapolis house had liens on it. She could ask Gunnar. With his background in financial investigations, he’d know how to locate the information. She could e-mail, call, or text him, but she wanted to see him, not just pick his brain.

  Granddad was sleeping in his recliner. She slipped out the front door and strolled toward Gunnar’s B & B. In the last six months, she’d given up her New York habit of looking over her shoulder when walking at night, except during that brief period in June when a murderer had stalked her.

  When Val reached the riverfront B & B, she saw lights on in most of the rooms on the first and second floors. She looked up at the dormer windows. Gunnar had said the window in his top-story room overlooked the parking area. No light in that window. His Miata wasn’t parked either in the B & B’s parking spaces or on the street. Darn. He’d probably gone out with his ex-fiancée. If Val hadn’t blown off the tennis game with him, he might have spent the evening with her instead of a blonde in short shorts.

  On her walk back home, Val remembered someone besides Gunnar who could tell her about property liens—a real estate agent who owed her a favor. She would call the agent first thing in the morning.

  She went in the back door of the house, not wanting to wake Granddad if he was still dozing in the sitting room. As she crossed the kitchen to go up the staircase to her room, she heard his voice coming from the sitting room. He must have a visitor. She tiptoed to the butler’s pantry, heard another voice, and froze.

  “I understand why people take justice in their own hands,” Deputy Holtzman said. “The system fails them when someone commits a crime and gets away with it.”

  “I agree with you,” Granddad said. “Folks who get away with crimes keep on taking advantage of others unless someone stops them.”

  Val had heard enough. She marched into the sitting room. “Deputy Holtzman, what are you doing here?”

  From his seat on the old sofa, Holtzman turned his cold, protruding eyes on her. “Good evening, Ms. Deniston.”

  “He’s working with the chief,” Granddad said. “He stopped by to introduce himself.”

  No, he stopped by to look at what he believes is a crime scene and trick her grandfather into incriminating himself. “He and I don’t need any introduction. Rather than good evening, Deputy, I’ll say good night. My grandfather and I have had a long day, as I’m sure you’ve had.”

  Holtzman stood up. “Enjoyed talking to you, Mr. Myer. We’ll do it again.”

  “Don’t get up, Granddad. I’ll let him out.” She led the deputy to the door without exchanging another word with him, this encounter as frosty as their previous meetings. She returned to the sitting room. “Holtzman is the deputy who bullied me when he investigated the murder last month, and I complained to his boss.”

  “He seemed nice enough to me.”

  Mr. Nice Guy scared Val more than Mr. Bully. “Seemed is the correct word. He fed you a motive for murder. You swallowed it and said it was delicious. Getting Ned’s money back isn’t a reason to want a swindler dead, as I made clear to the chief this morning, but vigilante justice is. You just told a deputy that somebody needs to stop criminals who evade the law. Guess who he thinks that somebody is.”

  “He didn’t warn me my words would be used against me, so he can’t use them.” Granddad shook a finger at her. “This is your fault. You went and told the chief why I invited Scott here, and you got on the wrong side of that deputy.”

  Val knew better than to argue with him when he played the blame game. “Good night, Granddad.” The game always ended when she left him alone.

  As she climbed upstairs to her room, Lillian’s warning echoed in her mind. He would become more dependent on his granddaughter as time went by. For now, he depended on her as his scapegoat.

  On Tuesday morning, Val and her grandfather drove to Ambleside Village, parked near Thomasina’s cottage, and rang the bell. Granddad carried a plate of chocolate chunk cookies.

  Thomasina opened the door, wearing a teal caftan and a heavy floral perfume that made her cottage smell like a funeral home. She thanked them for the cookies and led them to a living room twice the size of the one in Lillian’s apartment. Large mirrors in gilt frames hung on three walls and reflected Thomasina’s collection of antique glass bottles in myriad colors.

  Val sat on a gold damask sofa. The down cushions plumped around her. Granddad had wisely chosen a side chair with arms he could use to hoist himself up when their visit ended. If he’d made the mistake of sitting on the squishy down sofa, he might have needed someone to tug him out. Thomasina, as one of the younger Village residents, was still spry enough to do that for her older visitors.

  She leaned back on a velvet fainting couch amid fringed pillows covered in red and yellow silk. She put the cookies they’d brought on the table next to her.

  She accepted Granddad’s condolences with gratitude and without tears. “I’ve cried myself dry by now. No one could ask for a better son than Scott. He visited me whenever his schedule allowed.”

  Granddad nodded. “He was very attentive to you.”

  “Losing him is terrible enough. I can’t bear to think they will cut my boy up.” Thomasina grimaced.

  Granddad lifted his chin toward Val, as if to say, Your turn.

  Val could think of nothing comforting to say about an autopsy. “It’s very hard on you, but it’s the only way to find out what happened to Scott. It may make it easier for you to know that.”

  Thomasina shook her head. “It won’t bring him back. It just prolongs the torture for me.”

  Granddad leaned forward. “Do you have family who can help you get through this, Thomasina?”

  “Scott was my only family. Everyone here has been very kind.” She gave him a weak smile. “I want you to know I don’t hold you responsible at all, no matter what other people say. I’m afraid I may have brought this on.”

  Val exchanged a puzzled look with her grandfather. “Why would you think that?”

  Thomasina’s gold-sandaled foot traced a pattern in the Persian rug. “A few months ago, someone tried to kill me. I took precautions to keep them from trying again, so they went after my son.”

  Val glanced at Granddad.

  He looked as startled as she felt. “Why would anyone try to kill you?”

  “You think I’m
imagining this, don’t you? If you don’t believe me, the police won’t either.” Thomasina’s fingers fluttered and her feet tapped out a jerky tune. “Scott’s father was involved with some shady men, gangsters. I didn’t know that when I married him. I divorced him because I thought he was putting our little son in danger. Those thugs may be settling old scores.”

  And Granddad thought Val had bad taste in men. Much as Val liked a murder scenario that took the heat off him, she couldn’t swallow Thomasina’s theory. Sure, revenge was a dish best served cold. In this case, it would have needed cryogenic preservation for decades. Even revenge couldn’t have much flavor after that.

  Granddad crossed a leg and tied his shoelace.

  Up to Val to keep the conversation ball in play, though Thomasina was lobbing it into cloud cuckoo land. “How did those thugs try to kill you?”

  “Pushed me down the stairs. I lived on the second floor and never bothered to take the elevator for just one story. Someone shoved me in the stairwell. I was lucky the landing halfway down broke my fall. I moved out of there because I was afraid they’d try again. I was careful to get a place without stairs.”

  No staircase. What a deterrent for hit men. Val didn’t mind feeding a fantasy that absolved everyone at the chowder dinner from blame. “If they’re responsible for what happened to Scott, they must have gotten to him before the chowder dinner. Were you with him that afternoon?”

  “No. He picked me up right before the dinner.”

  Val studied Thomasina for signs of drug use—watery, red eyes, pupils too large or too small—but saw nothing unusual. Maybe a drug prescribed to help her weather the shock of Scott’s death made her imagine things. A peek in the medicine cabinet might reveal what kind of drugs the woman took.

  Val stood up. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

  Thomasina pointed straight ahead. “It’s the first door off the hall.”

  The tiny bathroom had a mirror, but no medicine cabinet. No makeup cases, not even a toothbrush. This must be the guest bathroom, and Thomasina’s was probably off her bedroom. Val left the bathroom. The hall had three closed doors, the louvered one probably leading to a utility area. With Thomasina watching her from the couch in the living room, Val couldn’t get away with snooping.

  As she returned to the living room, her grandfather stood up. “Well, Thomasina, we’ve intruded on you long enough.”

  He again gave his condolences to Thomasina, who walked them to the door of the cottage and waved from the front porch as they climbed into his car.

  Val buckled her seat belt. “Do you know where Thomasina lived before she moved here?”

  “Another retirement place. I’ll ask Ned. He may know where.” Granddad started the car. “What did you think of her gangster plot?”

  “As full of holes as Swiss cheese. Mobsters shoot victims at close range. They don’t make their hits look like accidental falls or food poisoning. But suppose Scott was swindling seniors at the retirement place where she used to live? One of his scam victims might have shoved her, thinking she was in cahoots with him.”

  Granddad shook his head. “Nah. If you fall at her age, you’re an old putz who lost your balance. If someone pushes you, you’re the center of attention. I’m not saying she flat out lied. She convinced herself she didn’t trip and it was someone else’s fault.”

  No one understood scapegoating better than Granddad.

  He parked in the lot at the Village Center. While he talked to Ned in the sunroom, Val introduced herself to the activities director, a man just below retirement age. He’d heard from Bethany about Val’s offer to run the Brain Game this week. He gave her sample activity sheets from previous sessions to use as models and asked if she would run the session both this week and next. When she agreed, he provided a pass to get her through the security gate.

  When she joined her grandfather and Ned in the sunroom, the two men were conversing. Granddad told Val to take his car. He would spend a few hours at the Village, and Ned would drive him home. Apparently, they’d patched up their differences.

  Val drove directly from the Village to the club. Anyone planning to fish bomb her blue Saturn in the club parking lot would be disappointed. Instead of the blue car, she was driving Granddad’s white Buick, and she wouldn’t leave the windows cracked open today.

  At a quarter to two, the last of Val’s lunch customers left, and Yumiko, the club’s tennis manager, bustled into the café, a clipboard in her hand and a smile less broad than usual. Yumiko talked fast for a speaker of English as a second language, as if she’d rehearsed and wanted to get through her part quickly without pausing for a breath.

  “Hello, Val. I have three things to tell you. Number one, yesterday morning a woman called to ask if you were in the café, but you were not. Bethany said you would be back in the afternoon. I told the caller that you are usually here until three. But yesterday, you left sooner than that.”

  “Yesterday I needed to leave earlier than that.” The caller had to be someone Val didn’t know well. Her friends would have called her cell phone number. “Did you get the caller’s name?”

  “I am sorry. She hung up before I could ask.”

  Val cleared the eating counter of empty coffee cups. Maybe the fish vandal had phoned to find out when her car would be in the club parking lot. “Was there anything distinctive about the woman’s voice?”

  “She only said a few words, and the connection was bad. I also want to tell you that someone challenged you on the tennis ladder. The assistant manager took the message last night after I left.”

  “Great. I’d love to play. The ladder’s been static lately.” The players were ranked like rungs on a ladder, those on lower rungs challenging those above them. Val had climbed to the third rung from the top after joining the club six months ago and successfully defended her position since then. But if she lost a ladder match, the challenger would take her place, and she would go down a rung. “Who wants to play me?”

  Yumiko consulted her clipboard. “Petra Bramling. She wanted to play tomorrow afternoon. The tennis camp has the courts reserved until three-thirty.”

  Val came from behind the counter to wipe the bistro tables. “I can play at three-thirty.”

  “Okay. I will phone her. Now for number three. This is not good news.” Yumiko spoke in an undertone, though no one else was in the café. “Someone called to complain about the café. The front desk transferred the call to the club manager.”

  Val’s hand stiffened. She stopped cleaning the table. “What kind of complaint?”

  “A woman said she felt sick after she ate here last week. She said she saw cockroaches.”

  “What? I’ve never seen a roach here.” And after ten years in New York, Val knew her roaches. With complaints about food and roaches, she might lose the contract to run the café. “I’ll talk to the manager about this.”

  “Good idea, but you must wait. He left for a meeting and won’t be back today.” Yumiko patted Val’s arm. “I know you have a clean place here. No bugs. Good food.”

  Yumiko left the café and Val sat at the bistro table, her chin cupped in her hand. She exhaled loudly. Between the rotten fish in her car and the bogus complaints about the café, she felt under siege. The fish vandal might not have targeted her personally, but the complainer probably had. You could ask the same question about a lie as you could about a murder—who benefits? Val knew of one person who’d like to see her lose the café contract—Irene the Irate. Irene would never admit to lying about the café, but her conscience might bother her enough that she’d answer questions about the chowder dinner. A phone call to her wouldn’t do the trick. Irene could avoid conscience qualms and questions more easily on the phone than face-to-face.

  Val stood up and rushed through the rest of the cleanup. Fifteen minutes after leaving the club, she turned onto Creek Road . . . and shivered. She wondered if she’d ever be able to drive on this street without the scene of a gruesome murder coming to mind.
Last month, she’d found a woman murdered in a house on this peaceful street, the house next door to Irene’s. Fortunately, Irene didn’t know Val had suspected her of killing that neighbor. Even so, Val didn’t anticipate cooperation from the woman who bore a grudge against the Codger Cook. Getting information from her would be like trying to make a gourmet dish from tough, dry meat.

  Chapter 11

  Val climbed out of the car in front of a yellow frame house, plain and sturdy like Irene and her husband, Roger. Orange marigolds and red salvia bordered the house. White and red impatiens flowered in the dappled shade of a tree to one side of the front lawn. A white picket fence behind the tree marked the property border. Along that fence, garden gnomes with grim expressions stood shoulder to shoulder as if facing a firing squad.

  On the sunny side of the house, vegetables grew in raised beds. Val glimpsed a scarecrow standing sentry over the vegetables. She did a double take when the figure’s wide-brimmed hat moved. Not a scarecrow, but Irene, in a straw-colored blouse and baggy Capri pants the color of mud. Irene harvested a bright red tomato and put it into a basket. She could have picked crops in the cool morning air or in the predinner hours when trees would shade the garden, so why garden in midafternoon on a hot day? Her relaxed posture and fluid movements, so different from her usual rigidity, suggested that she chilled out in the garden no matter how hot the temperature.

  Val wiped sweat from her forehead and approached the vegetable patch with a plan—schmooze enough to make Irene feel guilty for complaining about the café and then dig for information. “Hi, Irene. I stopped to admire your flowers and noticed you working here. Your tomatoes look luscious.”

  Irene stiffened and turned her head slowly, her eyes like the ones on the falcon decoy that kept rodents from venturing near the crops. “Don’t beat around the bush. You didn’t come here to look at my garden.”

  After those blunt words, she whipped a far-from-blunt weeding tool from the gardening tote at her feet and looked more ready for combat than a guilt trip.