by Elaine Macko
I shrugged. I had no answer for that. “Do you have any idea if Mr. Spiegel spoke with your mother?”
“No, not that I know of—”
“What is it?” I asked. “Do you remember something?”
“Mr. Spiegel came here on Monday morning. Well, Monday night my mother called. She left a message on my phone.”
“And?” Annie said, sounding excited.
“And all she said was, ‘what the hell have you done now,’ and then she hung up. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I’m too busy to have yet another fight with her, so I never called her back. But it must be about Mr. Spiegel. It has to be.”
I put my tea cup down and leaned forward. “Mandy, if Mr. Spiegel contacted your mother and told her he thought that you might be his daughter, and that there was a mix up at the hospital all those years ago, what would her reaction be?”
Mandy clutched her cup firmly and I watched her face go pale.
“Knowing my mother the way I do, worried about a scandal, afraid of something upsetting her campaign, ruining her chance to become the first queen of America, well, there’s only one thing she would do. She’d kill him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Mon Dieu. She did not mean that, literally, did she?” Annie asked later.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve seen the mother on TV and she’s scary. Politicians. Geesh. I don’t know what they’re like in Belgium, but I wouldn’t put anything past them, even murder. But I have a feeling Mandy was being a bit dramatic.” But still I had to wonder. The man was killed by someone, why not an irate woman with high political aspirations.
We drove along in companionable silence for several miles. The air had cooled and the sun was making its way toward the horizon. I had dragged Annie all over, without doing one thing touristy.
“I’m so sorry, Annie, for not doing anything fun with you today.”
“Do not be sorry. This was the best day,” Annie said. “I cannot believe we talked with so many suspects. I cannot believe they were happy to see us. Is this always the case and does it mean they are not guilty?”
I gave a small laugh. “No way. The first thing you need to remember is don’t get sucked in.”
“Sucked in? Like the machine to clean the floor?”
“Exactly. Don’t let anyone fool you. If they’re innocent, well, fine. We’ll figure that out later. But if they’re guilty, they’ll still be nice, talk to us, and gently try to lead us in another direction. Our job is to gather all the facts and sort through everything. And today was easy. Not everyone will want to speak with us. I’m good at getting people to open up, but still. Plus, it’s the weekend, so we caught a lot of people at home. That made it easy. I have a feeling Mandy’s mother won’t be so forthcoming, and that’s if we even get a chance to speak with her.”
I stopped at a light and turned to Annie. Her eyes glistened with excitement.
“Oh, we must speak with her. If she is as bad as her daughter says, she could be our killer.”
“We’ll certainly try. We’ll do that on Monday when she’ll most likely be at her campaign headquarters in New Haven. I’d also like to speak with Jennifer Shalt’s parents, and I’m going to drive by on our way home.”
“It is very interesting, no, that both Jennifer and Mandy said they feel a bit different than the rest of their family and think it is very possible they could be the Spiegels’ daughter.”
I thought about this for a few miles. There was a time in my teens when I thought my parents were horrible and that they couldn’t possibly be related to me, but then there was Meme, my wonderful grandmother, and our connection was there from the start. Plus, the older I got, the more I looked like my mom, albeit without her great head of thick hair.
“That probably has more to do with just growing up and finding your own voice and then realizing it isn’t necessarily that of your parents. And with Mandy, I would imagine it has a lot to do with wishful thinking, just hoping that she really is not related to that horrible woman.”
“Oui, I understand this. We had some trying times with our daughter, but now we three are very close. And she’s always been Gerard’s pride and joy. Speaking of my husband, I wonder what the men have been up to today. We have not seen them at any of the places we went.”
“Just be happy we didn’t run into them. I’d like to keep our participation in this investigation secret for as long as we can. It’ll make life easier, trust me. John will tell me to keep my nose out of it and let the police handle everything. And of course he already knows that I don’t pay any attention to him.”
Annie smiled. “C’est ca. You two sound like Gerard and me. His job has always kept him so busy and he loves it. And I love being a nurse, and both of our jobs take us away from the home at all hours of the day. We have carved out a wonderful little life and I think it’s because we are not in each other’s pocket all the time. And Gerard knows better than to ever tell me what to do. He tried when we were first married, but why would a woman want to have a father for a husband, no?”
“My feelings exactly. I love John with all my heart, but there is no way I would ever be in a marriage where the man thinks he’s going to make all the decisions just because he’s a man. I come from a long line of strong women and John knew that from the start, so he has no reason to think I would ever listen to him. Here we are,” I said, as I pulled up to the Shalt residence. “It looks like our luck continues.” I could see that the front door was open with the screen door in place. After the cold winter we had, people just wanted to let in the beautiful day.
Annie and I walked up the path to the front door. Flowers in very large pots and beautifully manicured shrubbery adorned the front yard, but I guess that’s what happens when you own a nursery.
A woman came to the door just as I was about to knock.
“Can I help you?”
“Mrs. Shalt?”
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Shalt. Gwen.” Gwen Shalt was a skinny woman somewhere in her late sixties.
“Mrs. Shalt, my name is Alex Harris and this is my good friend Annie. We spoke with your daughter earlier this morning.”
“About Mr. Spiegel. That poor man.” She shook her head. “Jen called me after you left. Come on in. I don’t know what else I can tell you. I’m sure Jen told you what happened on Sunday. That man ruined our dinner.”
“Mrs. Shalt, did anything he said ring true? I mean, did you ever feel that there was any kind of mix up at the hospital. Six baby girls all born on the same day.”
“Sit down, please. Yes, it was crazy. When one started screaming they all started screaming. I don’t know how people do it with twins. But to answer your question, no, I never had a feeling anything out of the ordinary was going on. The nurses were kept running. I know because my sister, Kathy, was one of them. I was really glad she was there. Cyrus, that’s my husband, he was at the shop working and didn’t get to the hospital in time to be with me, but I had my sister there to talk me through the pain.”
“So you didn’t feel threatened in any way when Mr. Spiegel showed up here?”
“Threatened? No. I was upset. He had some nerve coming in here and blurting out something like that. And especially now after all these years. Not much he could do about it at this point except upset everyone. All those baby girls are grown women now and probably come from close families like ours. Even if a baby had been switched, who cares? Biology is one thing, but what about all the time and effort you put into raising these children over close to thirty years. You can’t undo any of that, and I doubt these young women wanted to be bothered.”
I certainly wasn’t going to tell her that Jennifer felt out of place and was curious about whether she might indeed be the child of Mr. and Mrs. Spiegel. I felt certain it was just natural curiosity. I had to admit if someone showed up claiming to be my real parent, as much as I love my family, I might be interested to learn something more about them after the initial shock wore off.
“Oh,
Cyrus, these are the people who talked to Jen earlier.”
A man of medium everything walked into the room. He had a square jaw and piercing blue eyes, and gave us a guarded look.
“We heard about that man dying,” he began. “I’m sorry to hear it, but I don’t like my wife being upset. Having a baby is a wonderful thing, but it was a trying time for us.” He didn’t continue and I turned my gaze to his wife.
“What my husband means is that my father died three days before Jen was born. I was so close to that man, Cyrus too.”
“He was always a great father-in-law. Helped us out at the nursery when my own father died. We both took his death hard.”
“Was it unexpected?” Annie asked.
“Yes it was. He just dropped dead. Something wrong with his heart, and the doctors said it had been with him all his life. He wasn’t one to complain or go to the doctor for checkups. Some congenital thing. Scared me to death,” Gwen Shalt said. “What if I had it, too, and I dropped dead leaving my little baby without a mother. And they said it could also skip a generation. All my kids are fine and so am I. Slowing down a bit with age, but all in all, I’m healthy. But that news was a lot for a new mother to deal with on top of the grief I was going through with my father dying. Mr. Spiegel showing up here out of the blue just brought it all up again. I’m fine now.”
Annie and I left the Shalt home. It was time to meet the guys for dinner, and I was looking forward to some pasta at our favorite Italian restaurant.
“They do not seem bothered by Mr. Spiegel’s story of a switched baby. But that was very interesting about the heart problem,” Annie said.
As I made my way back home through the quiet streets of Indian Cove, I had the same thought. I just wondered how it could possibly have anything to do with why Mr. Sheldon Spiegel was gunned down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Walking into Gianelli’s Italian restaurant was like walking into my grandmother’s house. It felt like home with its warm ambiance and the heady smell of garlic and rich tomato sauce.
We were quickly shown to my favorite table close to the pizza ovens. Despite the mild day, the air had cooled and it felt good to be by the warmth of the fire.
Our waiter appeared with menus and placed a basket full of tiny chunks of warm fried dough and softened butter on the table. Annie and I both reached for a piece at the same time and had each devoured our morsel before the guys had time to take off their jackets.
“You two look like you haven’t eaten for days.” John gave me a smile and then reached for a piece himself.
“Hours. Not days. We haven’t eaten since breakfast with Shirley,” I said, before I caught myself.
John eyed me suspiciously. “Shirley?”
“Yeah, she knew Annie was arriving and was dying to meet her. Shirley’s always wanted to go to Belgium.”
My husband was well aware that Shirley was a private detective and I could see the detective part of him kick in.
Annie picked up on my misdirection of the facts immediately and added, “I think she will be coming for a visit soon. She seemed very eager with all her questions. I hope I gave her some good suggestions.”
John stared at me while he chewed his bread, and I could tell he wasn’t buying any of it, but I wasn’t about to cave in. If he wanted to know what we were really up to all day, he was going to have to pry it out of us. Or arrest me.
“What have you both been doing all day?” Gerard asked. Gerard Willix was a man who liked to have fun. He was portly, with a balding head and a large nose, and a twinkle in his eye that hadn’t diminished even with all the horrific things he had witnessed in his long career as a Belgian police detective.
“Alex took me for a lovely drive along the coast. And we did a bit of shopping. We found this delightful candy shop that so reminds me of Wittamer. Gerard, I picked up a few pieces of marzipan for you.”
“Bon! Perhaps we can enjoy them after dinner with a nightcap when we get home.”
Annie gave me a quick wink from across the table and I knew right then that she could teach me a few things about misdirection.
“And how about the two of you?” I asked. “Have you found out anything more about why Mr. Spiegel was killed?”
My husband conveniently perused his menu, but Gerard, always very gregarious, was more forthcoming with information.
“Bien sûr. The late Mr. Spiegel had some issues with his brother Jerry, and we are looking into exactly where the brother was at the time of Mr. Spiegel’s murder. He is a very odd man who perhaps harbored a lifelong, oh, what is the word? Grudge? Yes, grudge against his late brother. These feelings that people hide have a way of bubbling to the surface, no. And it seems the deceased had a problem with a co-worker, which had escalated to the point of a fist fight at work. We have been pursuing a line of inquiry with the police in North Carolina. It can be very difficult to understand this southern dialect, no?”
Our waiter came back for our orders and the four of us opted for the same thing—tagliatelle with smoked salmon. When he left, I turned back to Gerard.
“Yes, it can, Gerard. I’ve had some people from the deep south come into my agency and I admit I’ve had to ask them to repeat themselves more than once. So you think this fight with his co-worker was so serious that the man followed Mr. Spiegel all the way to Connecticut to kill him? That must have been some disagreement.”
John shook his head. “The guy works at the White Plains office of the company Mr. Spiegel worked for. They got into it a couple of weeks ago when this guy was in the North Carolina office for a meeting. Mr. Spiegel accused him of shoddy work that caused a lot of problems on one of their jobs. Someone got hurt, though not seriously, and there’s talk that the client may sue. Looks like Sheldon Spiegel was in the right, according to the people we spoke with today, and I guess it was the other guy who threw the first punch.”
“But why did this man blame Mr. Spiegel? If he did such bad work that it caused someone to get hurt, why would it be Mr. Spiegel’s fault?”
“The guy, Jerome Perry, who lives in Port Chester, is a real hot head, and he didn’t like how Sheldon handled the whole thing. Mr. Perry was getting fired anyway, but his termination coincided with the fight, so he’s blaming Mr. Spiegel for his unemployed status. Losing a good job, by termination no less, would definitely be considered motive for murder to some people.”
“Where is Port Chester?” Annie asked.
“It’s right across the Connecticut border in New York,” I said.
Annie nodded. “So it would be very easy for this man to come here and kill Mr. Spiegel.”
“Yes, it would be, Annie,” I added.
It would also be very easy for Annie and me to drive there and see exactly what Mr. Perry had to say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
One of the perks of living in my home town is that I get to see my family often. It also means that I get to spend a lot of time with my grandmother, Meme, as everyone calls her. Several mornings a week, before I go into the office, I stop off at her little house in a senior community to catch up on all the crazy antics her group of cotton-haired friends get up to, but with the murder of Mr. Spiegel and the arrival of Gerard and Annie, I hadn’t had any time to visit this week, and I couldn’t wait to catch up with her. I also wanted to introduce her to our guests and had a feeling they would love her as much as everyone else does.
I was happy to see that Annie and Gerard were early morning people like John and me. If I stayed in bed past six-thirty, I felt the best part of the day was gone. Before heading over to my parents’ house we indulged in a leisurely morning and took a long walk around our neighborhood before finally cutting through the woods at the back of our property. As soon as we got back to the house, I snuck into my office to send Shirley a quick email. I wanted to know what she could find out about Mr. Jerome Perry of Port Chester, New York. I then tidied up the kitchen while Annie and Gerard got ready. A little before noon, we piled into John’s car for
the short ride to the house my mother and father had owned since I was a kid.
We entered my parents’ home to find everyone eagerly awaiting our arrival. Apparently they were just as excited to meet our guests as I was to introduce them.
“Everyone, I want you to meet Gerard and Annie Willix.” I proceeded to introduce my parents; grandmother; Meme’s two best friends, Theresa and Frances; everyone from my office, including their respective partners; Millie’s mother, Judith; my sister’s husband Michael; and my adorable niece and nephew, Kendall and Henry.
“Do you come from a place with dragons?” Henry asked. Dragons were his current passion, having recently replaced pirates in his life.
“As a matter of fact I do,” Gerard said, reaching into a bag and pulling out a beautiful pop-up book with castles and dragons and all sorts of ancient weaponry he and Annie had brought with them from Belgium. They had been kind enough to email me for suggestions for gifts and found the perfect one for Henry.
“And here is a princess who lives in the castle,” Annie said, as she handed Kendall a doll.
I wasn’t sure if my niece still liked dolls as much as she used to, but she accepted the gift with a big smile. My sister restricted computer access for the kids, and neither of them had a phone or Facebook account. It seemed they both still had affection for good old fashioned toys, which made me happy.
Kendall and Henry gave Annie and Gerard a big hug, and then ran off to play with their new toys.
“Eh bien! We also have something for the grownups.” Gerard raised his bushy eyebrows and took a few other items from his large bag.
Several tins of speculoos, a Belgian cookie, and a case of Belgian beer were produced.