Candy Slain Murder

by Maddie Day

  I held up an index finger. “Hang on, Corrine. You don’t know she did. And Toni can’t defend herself, either.” I thought some more. “Did Octavia bring Geller in? It must be a crime not to report a body you find.” If that was what happened. If he was able to carry a heavy weight to the attic, maybe he’d killed his wife himself—with all those drugs and syringes he had access to—and then toted her body to where it wouldn’t be found.

  “He convinced the detective to wait to interview him,” Corrine said. “He was scheduled for surgeries all afternoon.”

  “Really? Why call Octavia during his workday, then?”

  She gave me an amused frown. “You expect me to unravel the workings of the male brain? I resigned from that job a heck of a long time ago, hon.”

  I laughed. “I hear you.”

  The bell atop Our Lady of the Springs chimed once for the half hour. “Holy chicken feed, I’m late for a meeting. Catch you later, Robbie.”

  I waved her on, then checked Adele’s message.

  News. Call me.

  Adele was quite fond of her police scanner, and I had a sneaking suspicion I already knew the news. I started walking back to my store as I pressed her speed dial.

  “Roberta,” she began without saying hello. “Doc Geller confessed to dragging his poor wife to the attic.”

  Bingo. “Except he said she was already dead.” Oops. I glanced around, but nobody seemed to have overheard me.

  “Well, dangnation, how’d you come to hear that so quicklike?”

  “Corrine told me a few minutes ago.”

  “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  “Do you believe him?” I slowed at a bakery emitting the most delectable yeasty aroma of fresh-baked bread.

  “For corn sake, dear, why wouldn’t I?”

  Because he’s a murderer and he’s hiding the truth, maybe? I wasn’t going to say that in public, not even softly.

  “Corrine also told me he said he saw the, uh, sister leaving the house right before he found his wife,” I added.

  “Toni,” Adele said dramatically. “It was the sister in the hall with the . . . how’d Kristina die, anyway?”

  “I asked Octavia that when I ran into her this morning. She wouldn’t say.” I sniffed the bread again. “Adele, I have to run. It’s my day off and I still have items on my to-do list.”

  “All righty, then. See you at the Chamber mixer at five-thirty?” she asked.

  I groaned. “I forgot all about that.” It was the annual holiday cocktail party for South Lick business owners. I was going to have to get somewhat dressed up and go be polite and respectable. “Are you going?”

  “’Course. Free drinks and food? I may own a sheep farm and yarn business, but I’m an old lady, Roberta. We never turn down freebies.” She chortled. “See you at Hoosier Hollow.”

  She had a point. I could grab a glass of wine at the restaurant, which was usually closed on Mondays. I’d make my dinner from the hot appetizers cooked up by the chef, a good friend of mine, and still get home at a reasonable hour to do breakfast prep. And a little networking never hurt.

  “See you there,” I agreed. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I pulled open the bakery door. I was headed home, but who didn’t have time for a warm loaf of yummy?

  Chapter Fifty

  Spreading a thick layer of Irish butter on a crusty, still-warm slice of an artisanal bâtard was pure pleasure. Taking a bite took me to the heavenly plane.

  “So good,” I mumbled around the mouthful at a few minutes after noon. Birdy gave me the slitted eyes from his half-alert pose on the kitchen chair next to mine. As I chewed, I cut a few slices of a Manchego cheese I’d picked up last week, laid a half dozen olives and cornichons on a small plate, and called it lunch. I swallowed the bread and munched on one of the tiny spicy pickles as I gazed at my not-so-successful crime-solving crossword on the table.

  On a fresh sheet of paper I scribbled a list of questions:

  -Significant that Geller is bad at his job?

  -Toni murdered her sister? Or her husband?

  -Kristina died of natural causes and Geller hauled her upstairs?

  -Shirley staying away from police not because of family but because she’s guilty of murder?

  -Is her grandfather involved?

  -Jamie lying about Marcus to hide his own guilt?

  -Is Marcus really over his anger issues?

  -Clive killed his wife for her money?

  Unfortunately, answers from my brain weren’t anywhere near as forthcoming. I sent a message to Abe in case he had time to talk, but he didn’t answer. I finished my lunch and, after I buttered one more slice of bread, I headed into the restaurant, letting Birdy accompany me. When in doubt, cook. Having my hands busy often freed up my brain, and the order should be arriving soon, too. They were good about coming during the window I specified, and I knew I’d be back from Columbus by the afternoon.

  Cold weather called for a hearty soup. Beef and barley sounded like exactly the ticket for tomorrow. I could use the big jars of beef stock I’d gotten from a Nashville butchery as the base. I chopped onions and celery, heated oil in the big pot, and set them to sauté. The sun, almost as low in the sky as it was going to get, shone in the eastern windows a little more brightly than it should because of the now white-covered ground.

  Normally, cooking on a sunny day even in December would also brighten my mood. Not today. That list of questions nagged at me. I thought of Octavia, Buck, and other law-enforcement professionals whose job it was to solve crime. How much more not solving a case must nag at them. They were the ones responsible for keeping the peace and restoring justice, not me. It had been almost a week since the fire and nearly that long since Toni was killed. The lack of resolution had to be driving them more nuts than it was me.

  I was on my way to the walk-in to find the barley and the stock when I froze. Was that a noise at the service door on the west side of the building? Awhile ago someone had picked the lock on that door and threatened me. I’d added a new, more secure lock. Any one of the people on my list could be trying to get in. I felt my pocket. No phone. Where was it?

  Stealing a look at the front door, I let out a breath. Nobody there. I raced to my apartment and grabbed the phone off the table where I’d left it. The tension rushed out of me. The delivery person had sent a message.

  Am outside your service door. You want this stuff or not?

  I laughed, albeit weakly. I jabbed back a message.

  B right there!

  A moment later, I checked the service door’s peephole to make sure the truck had the appropriate logo on it, then let in the woman standing outside. Her dark jacket bore the company logo. It was usually a man who brought the order. Whatever.

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “No problem. Got a full schedule. Where do you want it?” She didn’t waste words.

  I showed her and helped unload the boxes. I signed for the delivery and thanked her.

  “Should oughta add a doorbell out there.” She left as tersely as she’d entered.

  I didn’t care about her gruffness, and she was right about a service doorbell. Anyway, a food delivery was a lot better than an intruder, any day.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  With my delivery stored and the barley simmering away in the soup, I was wiping down the stainless counter when a knock came from the front door. Jamie Franklin stood on my sun-splashed porch peering in through the glass in the top half. Did I want to talk to him? Not really. Could I sneak into my apartment? He saw me looking his way and waved. Too late now. Of course I could signal, “No,” but if I talked with him, I might learn something. I patted my back pocket, feeling the reassurance of my phone. To be safe, I unlocked the door and stepped out on the porch, shutting the door behind me. No way was I inviting him inside.

  I smiled. “Can I help you? I’m closed on Mondays.”

  “I know that.” He didn’t return my smile
. “I hear you’ve been challenging my credentials. You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

  Whoa. “Um, what are you talking about?” And who had he heard that from?

  “You know what I mean. Saying my articles are unfounded.”

  I folded my arms and lifted my chin. Sure it was cold out here, but I also wanted to signal my position. “You wrote that Marcus Vandemere was a suspect. The police say he’s not. So, yeah, that was unfounded. False, actually.”

  “I had a credible source who said he was.”

  “Who was it?”

  “A professional journalist doesn’t reveal his sources.”

  “That’s not good enough. You obviously didn’t check the facts with the police. That’s called libel, Jamie.”

  “Oh, so now you’re a lawyer as well as a snoop?”

  As if. I stared up at him. “Maybe you killed Toni yourself and you were trying to throw out a smoke-screen.”

  “Nice try.” His laugh was harsh and his eyes burned. “Maybe you should butt out of what’s not your business.”

  This was going nowhere. I had no interest in letting his ire escalate. “If you’ll excuse me, this is my day off. Enjoy your afternoon.” I swallowed and gripped the doorknob.

  He glowered, but didn’t make a move toward me. I slipped inside and tested the door to make sure it was shut tight, then flipped both locks. Whew. He could look in all he wanted. I was so out of here.

  Back in my apartment, I set a timer so I wouldn’t forget to turn off the soup. I sat on the couch stroking Birdy. Tall and glowering Jamie had felt threatening, but he hadn’t made a move to harm me. And I hadn’t learned anything new, either. I might as well see if I could.

  “Sorry, buddy.” I set Birdy on the cushion next to me, grabbed my laptop, and picked up the sheet of paper I’d scribbled my questions on earlier. I put my feet up again, staring at the one about Shirley’s grandfather. Tibor Csik wouldn’t be a common name. Searching him yielded a bantamweight boxer who won gold at the 1948 Olympics. But he’d also died in 1948. All the others I could find—who weren’t dead—lived in Hungary, where it apparently wasn’t an unusual moniker. So much for that line of digging.

  Looking for details about Shirley didn’t get me any further than her past soccer achievements. I already knew Clive was very nearly the Ungoogleable Man. What about this business of Toni murdering Tug? Buck had claimed there’d been no basis in the claim, that they had investigated and found no wrongdoing. Maybe the authorities had missed something. Jamie could have killed Toni out of revenge for her offing his father.

  I put in all the search terms I could come up with and started reading. Huh. Yep, Tug was a nickname for Willard. If I were him, I’d use a nickname, too. He’d made his considerable money in the paper industry and had been widowed when Jamie was ten. I saw an announcement of his marriage to Toni. I saw a death notice and short article about his funeral. What I didn’t find was even a shred of suspicion that he’d been murdered. So much for that line of thought.

  Pursuing a few more lines of inquiry was equally fruitless. By three o’clock when the timer dinged, I was ready to turn off the soup, pick up a novel, and read myself into a nice couch nap with a cat on my lap.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Dressed for the season in a cream-colored turtleneck, black pants, and a sparkly green sweater, I made my way to the mixer, now in full swing, by five-thirty. After chatting with the bakery owner for a few minutes, I moseyed up to my aunt standing at a high-top table. She was halfway through her selection of bite-sized spanakopita and mini-quiches, with a bacon-wrapped scallop on its way into her mouth. A gingerbread man waited on a separate small plate, its white-iced grin nearly leering up at me.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she mumbled around a mouthful.

  “Adele, this afternoon I was looking for information about Toni and Clive.” I kept my voice low. “They seem like they were an odd couple, but I couldn’t find anything on the Internet.”

  “No surprise there.” She didn’t seem surprised by my jumping directly into such a question, either. “Clive is one of them Luddites, don’t even own a computer. And Toni was all sensitive about her privacy.” She popped in another bite.

  “Do you know how they met?”

  She popped in another bite and held up a hand while she chewed and swallowed. “It was at some bereavement support group over to Nashville, you know, after old Tug knocked off, and Clive’s first wife died, too.”

  Did Octavia know Clive now had two dead wives in a row?

  “The two of them just plum hit it off,” Adele went on. “True to form, Toni got tired of him after about a year. Seemed like every little bitty thing he did annoyed the living heck out of her.”

  “He said she’d kicked him out of the house.”

  “That she did.”

  “Do you know Clive had lost his plumbing license?” I asked.

  “’Course I do. Who doesn’t?”

  Me, for one. Of course Adele would be aware of anything going on in town, especially as the former mayor. Silly of me to even ask.

  “He’s a pretty nice fella, but he ain’t what you call a skilled journeyman.” She drained her plastic cup of white wine. “Not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.”

  “How did he get a license in the first place?”

  “Has a cousin at the state licensing agency, that’s how. Heavenly heavens, them munchies are good. I love me some bacon with my scallops. You oughta get yourself a plate before they disappear.” She leaned in and planted a kiss on my cheek. “I’m headin’ home, hon. You take care, now.”

  “I will. You, too.”

  I spied Buck leaning against the far wall in a casual hands-in-pockets stance, but his eyes were alert as they surveyed the room. Would he share any facts of the case with me? It was worth a try. I made a beeline for him.

  “Evenin’, Robbie.”

  “Hey, Buck.” I sipped my wine. “I was wondering if you knew the window of time Toni died in.”

  “A-yup.” He stretched out the affirmative like a rubber band, then shut his mouth. He gazed forlornly at his three empty plates on the high-top table next to him.

  I waited. When he stayed silent, I said, “Are you going to share it with me?”

  “I spose I can, long’s you don’t tell nobody. Beltonia died sometime after midnight and before sunup.”

  “That’s almost eight hours. The sun doesn’t rise until seven-thirty or so at this time of year. They couldn’t pin it down more precisely?”

  “Welp, yes, they did. The time was more like between two and five in the morning.”

  “And? Does anybody have an alibi?”

  He wagged his head right and left. “They all live by theirselves. Nobody around saw nothing.”

  “Except Shirley saw someone.”

  “Yes. That is, she says she did.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “It’s one of them, you know, fifty percent of one and a dozen of the other.”

  My jaw dropped at his fractured metaphor.

  He lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “We ain’t done with the investigation by a long shot, hon.” His cell buzzed from its case on his belt. “’Scuse me.” He turned away to check his phone.

  I glanced around the room for a moment. When I looked back, Buck was disappearing out the front door, still struggling into his jacket. Something must be happening. Too bad I didn’t know what.

  By six-thirty my mouth was about worn out from smiling while I networked. I knew lots of the local businesspeople, but I was surprised at how many I didn’t. Part of it was that the Chamber had invited folks from the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, too. They always reciprocated with an invitation to their spring mixer. My feet hurt, and I’d run out of store business cards. The appetizers had pretty much run out, too, because they were so tasty. I stuck my head into the kitchen and asked for the chef, but my friend had already gone home.

  As I turned back to the mixer, ready to hit the road for my ow
n home, I could have sworn I heard the words, “Toni’s killer” across the room. The voice could have been a woman speaking in a low register, or it could have been said by a man. But who was conjecturing about homicide at a holiday business mixer? I walked in that direction through the thinning crowd. Corrine rested her elbow on the upright piano in the corner, more or less in the area I’d heard the words, and was engaged in conversation with Jamie, whose camera was slung around his neck as it had been yesterday at the tree lighting. When had Jamie showed up? Our mayor had a fairly low voice. Maybe it had been her speaking. I veered toward them.

  Before I could get there, Dr. Geller strode with his uneven gait up to the two. I hadn’t seen him before now. He pointed his finger at Jamie. “I thought I told you never to show up at one of these functions.” His color was high, his voice loud and strident.

  Jamie’s glare shot icicles of hatred at the older man. “You don’t own me, man. You have no right to tell me where I can and can’t be.” He raised the camera and clicked a couple of shots of Geller. “You, a wife abuser and murderer, you’re the one who shouldn’t be here. I’m surprised you’re not locked up already.”

  “Hey! You put that thing down, Franklin,” Geller snarled. “Who told you you could take my picture?”

  “Ever hear of freedom of the press?” Jamie taunted. “I’m documenting the event for the social pages.”

  Geller, his face a mask of rage, grabbed at the camera with his right hand.

  Uh-oh. A rerun of yesterday?

  Jamie evaded him with one step back. Geller cocked his left arm, elbow raised, fist ready to strike.

  I cleared my throat. “There’s no need for that, Doctor.”

  “You want to fight, old man?” Jamie asked. “I’ll show you a fight.” He raised both fists and bounced on his feet in a boxing stance. They were both tall, but Jamie was younger, faster, and didn’t have a prosthetic leg. It wasn’t exactly an even match.