Val stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Granddad had the main dish ready for tonight’s dinner with Dorothy, but he might not have thought about what else to serve, except maybe dessert. Val picked up basmati rice, spinach, crackers, hummus, cheese, and nuts. In case Granddad hadn’t made dessert, she put cream and semisweet chocolate into her basket. It was barely four o’clock, so she would have enough time before dinner to make a warm chocolate tart.
Back home, Val found Granddad in his lounge chair with his eyes closed. He opened them as she tiptoed by him. She told him about her meeting with Shantell and then asked, “Did you have a chance to look at the files you copied from Jake’s thumb drive?”
“Yup. Mostly they’re old spreadsheets with dates, numbers, and nonsense words you’d need a decoder ring to crack. The police might be able to decipher it if they cared. Jake also kept a calendar on the thumb drive.”
The calendar piqued her interest. “An old one or a current one?”
“Up-to-date. I’ll show you.” He slowly got out of his recliner, went into the study, and sat at the desk. He jiggled the mouse, clicked around, and brought up a December calendar on the screen. “Jake used codes or abbreviations in his calendar entries like in his spreadsheet, but I could decipher some of those. I looked at the ones for the last six weeks. He had a few evening appointments labeled CC in the second half of November and the first week in December. I think it stands for Community Center, where the festival volunteer meetings were held. If I didn’t already know when and where the meetings were, I couldn’t have figured that out.”
Val peered at the screen. “For last Saturday he blocked off the whole day as DF. That must mean Dickens festival.”
Granddad pointed to the day following that. “Here’s one appointment he didn’t keep because he was already dead. He had something planned for Sunday morning at ten thirty—marina O. The O could mean the Osprey Point Marina. That’s more than an hour from here. It might refer to the name of a boat at the marina in Bayport.”
“Or he planned to meet someone at the marina whose name starts with an O.” Val could think of only one person with that initial. “I doubt Oliver was going to meet Jake at the marina. It’s a long way from the parking lot to the marina, and Oliver was having trouble walking.”
Val’s phone rang. She checked the caller ID. Bethany.
“Hey, Bethany. How was your day at school?”
“Fine, but it’s gone downhill in the last few minutes. Chief Yardley called me.” She sounded breathless. “He said my chocolates came from the same batch as the ones Oliver Naiman ate. They contained a massive amount of caffeine.”
Val shuddered, though the news didn’t surprise her. “That’s horrible.”
“I’m lucky I ate only one.”
Val wouldn’t want to be alone after finding out she’d escaped death by resisting another chocolate. Poor Bethany. “Come over and have dinner with us. Bring Muffin with you. You’re both welcome to stay the night too, as many nights as you want.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not. Granddad invited Dorothy Muir to dinner. We have lots to eat.” And lots to talk about. With four of them brainstorming, they might come closer to identifying Bayport’s Christmas killer . . . or killers.
Chapter 17
Val took out the chicken casserole that was warming in the oven and put in the chocolate tart while Granddad grated carrots for the salad. Bethany paced the room, agitated by the chief’s news that the chocolates left for her contained enough caffeine to kill her several times over. Though Bethany had offered to help with dinner, Val didn’t want anyone as nervous and preoccupied as her friend near a knife or the stove. Muffin watched Bethany pace for a while and then went for a snooze on the cushion her mistress had brought for her.
Granddad had refused Dorothy’s offer of help. She now sat at the small kitchen table, sipping wine. Usually cheerful and energetic, the bookshop owner had bags under her eyes. Perhaps she hadn’t been sleeping well since Jake’s murder in the shop’s back room.
Her face sagged even more when she heard about Oliver’s fatal poisoning and Bethany’s brush with death. “It was bad enough when one man was poisoned in Bayport. Now there’s a serial killer.”
Val couldn’t imagine that anything would lighten tonight’s mood, but analyzing the poisonings as a puzzle to be solved would be better than dwelling on the horror of multiple murders. “Let’s get the serial killer elephant out of the room before we sit down to dinner. I’ve come up with different scenarios that might explain what happened, and random poisonings by a serial killer is the least likely of them.”
Granddad looked up. “The statistics say that most murderers kill people they know, not strangers. I’ll bet there are more serial killers in books and movies than in the real world.”
Bethany went over to the table and took a handful of nuts. “I always liked scary books and movies with creative serial killers, but not anymore. From now on I’m reading only cozy mysteries.”
“You’ll find more poisonings in them than in other books,” Dorothy said.
Bethany sighed. “That’s true. Cozy readers don’t like blood and gore, so there aren’t as many guns, knives, and bombs as in thrillers. That leaves poison.”
Val moved the pot of rice off the burner. “The Bayport murderer not only didn’t like blood and gore, but also couldn’t stand to be around when the victim died. That might be why the poisoned sweets were left in a gift bag that wouldn’t be opened until the killer was gone.”
Bethany put down her mug. “There’s more to it than that. The Bayport murderer hates the holidays, or at least the gift-giving part. Look who the first victim was—Santa Claus, the gift-bringer.”
Val figured Jake’s character, or rather the lack of it, had more to do with his death than the Santa suit, but Bethany wasn’t aware of Jake’s background. “The first poisoning had a specific target. The murderer delivered the poisoned cookie directly to him. Of course, Jake could have chosen not to eat the cookie, but he gobbled up all his sweets. Maybe his killer knew his eating habits. Leaving candy on Oliver’s doorstep was less of a sure thing.”
Granddad added the carrots to the lettuce in the salad bowl. “And the poison used on Jake, cyanide, was guaranteed to be lethal and kill fast. Caffeine isn’t, unless your victim is someone whose doctor warned against the dangers of caffeine.”
“Caffeine is lethal enough,” Bethany said. “A few more chocolates and I’d have been dead too. I’m not convinced Jake, Oliver, and I are random victims of the same murderer. Don’t most serial killers stick to the same method? The Tylenol killer didn’t tamper with other kinds of capsules. And the police never figured out who was responsible for those poisonings.”
Dorothy leaned across the table toward Bethany. “They’ll figure it out this time. They have a lot more information than the police had about the Tylenol killer. The two different poisons in this case must mean something. We have either two murderers or one who had a reason to switch from cyanide to caffeine. What could that reason be?”
Val was glad that Dorothy was now puzzling over the murders, not just brooding about them.
Granddad tossed the salad. “Cyanide is harder to acquire and handle. Caffeine powder is easy to order online, no questions asked. That’s a big difference.”
Val spooned the spinach into a serving bowl. “Dinner’s ready. Grab a drink and we’ll adjourn to the dining room.”
They clustered at one end of the long table. Granddad sat at the head of the table with Dorothy on his right, Bethany on his left, and Val next to her.
After everyone had filled their plates, Granddad said, “I don’t think we can rule out a serial killer of random victims just because he or she doesn’t follow a pattern. Random is random. So one poison might be used twice and another one only once. Two victims might get a gift on the doorstep and one not, two get candy and one gets a cookie.”
“And two victims
might be random and one not.” Val heaped rice on her plate. “That’s the second scenario. Bayport’s new librarian, Shantell, suggested it to me. She based it on an Agatha Christie plot. The murderer has a reason to kill one of the victims and kills the others to distract the police and make them think all the victims are random. If that’s what’s going on here, who is the primary victim?”
“Not me.” Bethany speared some lettuce. “No one gains anything if I die. I have no money and no enemies.”
“Jake had both,” Granddad said. “The killer put the poisoned cookie under his nose. And there are more suspects and motives for his murder than you can shake a stick at. He’s gotta be the primary victim.”
Val took a bite of the chicken casserole, wondering if anyone else noticed the flaw in Granddad’s theory.
Dorothy cleared her throat. “If the reason to kill more than one person is to distract the police from investigating the primary victim’s death, the primary victim can’t be the first one killed. The police would assume that’s the one and only murder and really focus on it.”
Val nodded. “That’s exactly what happened here. Jake was poisoned on Saturday night. Oliver died on Monday morning, supposedly from natural causes. The police didn’t even think to investigate his death until Tuesday night, after Bethany came back from the hospital. For three days they focused on Jake’s murder.”
Granddad threw up his hands. “Okay, so it wasn’t Jake. But Oliver doesn’t fit the bill as a primary victim either. His murderer was sitting pretty when Oliver’s doctor said he died from cardiac arrest. It doesn’t make sense to try and kill Bethany the same way. Doing that focused attention on Oliver’s death as a deliberate poisoning.”
“But only because one person”—Val pointed to herself—“saw the same chocolates in two places, recognized them as homemade, and knew caffeine was the suspected trigger both times. That was the killer’s bad luck.”
Dorothy frowned. “That doesn’t explain why the killer left the chocolates at Bethany’s place.”
“True. I’ll get to that in another scenario.” Val wanted to cover the options in an orderly way. “So far we’ve talked about a traditional serial killer with random victims and the Christie version of the serial killer with one main victim and a bunch of random ones. There are flaws in both of those explanations. What else could be going on?”
Granddad heaped some chicken on his fork. “Two different murderers. That would explain why there are different poisons. The only similarity is the gift bag. Jake died after he ate what was in a gift bag, and Oliver’s murder could have been a copycat crime.”
Bethany frowned. “The police didn’t say anything about a gift bag when they announced Jake’s death. So how would Oliver’s killer know about it?”
Granddad took a sip of wine. “Everybody at the volunteer tea knew that the ghost left a gift bag, and that Jake keeled over after he ate the cookie in the gift bag. News travels fast in Bayport.”
Val glanced sideways at Bethany. She was pushing the food around her plate as if assembling a jigsaw puzzle with something missing—the piece that would explain how she fit into the picture.
She made a small pile of the remaining spinach on her plate. “One murderer killed Jake. Another one killed Oliver and also gave me poisoned chocolates from the same batch. But when the chocolates were left at my house, the doctor and the police thought Oliver had died of natural causes. His murderer had no reason to create the illusion that a serial killer was operating in Bayport. So why try to poison me?”
A variation on the question Dorothy had asked. Val looked at the blank faces around her.
Granddad spoke up. “I’ll take a stab at answering that. Maybe the killer, who’d just gotten away with murder, enjoyed having power over life and death.”
Dorothy fidgeted as if she were itchy all over. “That’s grim. Is there another explanation?”
Val nodded. Coming up with these scenarios had been like looking for the perfect recipe. Each one seemed to have something not quite right about it. Her final one was the best fit for the facts, but Val very much wanted someone to shoot holes into it. “One killer with a motive for each poisoning.”
Dorothy countered with a question. “Is there any connection between Jake and Oliver?”
Granddad shrugged. “None I could find. I’m not even sure they knew each other, though maybe the murderer knew both of them. We could make a list of suspects in each murder and see who’s on both lists.”
The problem in this plan was obvious to Val. “That would work only if we have a list of all possible people with reasons to kill either of them. I have a feeling we’re missing a few suspects for Jake, if not Oliver.”
Bethany was again pushing her food around the plate with her fork. “I don’t see where I fit in this scenario. Am I the only random victim?”
“You could be, but there’s another possibility, and it might be the key to figuring out who the killer is.” Val waited until she made eye contact with her friend. “The murderer had a good reason to get rid of Jake, Oliver, and you.”
Bethany squawked. Muffin, napping near the heating vent in the corner, woke up, trotted over to Bethany, and gazed up at her, as if asking if she were okay. “Why would anyone want to get rid of me?” She bent down to pet Muffin.
Val could only guess why a murderer would have targeted Bethany. “Maybe you’re a threat to the killer. You might have seen or heard something in the last few days that connects the murderer to the earlier poisonings.”
Bethany chewed on her lower lip. “I can’t think of what.”
Granddad glanced down at Muffin now sitting on the floor between his chair and Bethany’s. “Do you ever walk Muffin along Belleview Avenue, where Oliver lived? Or along Creek Road, where Jake lived?”
“I’ve walked Muffin along Belleview Avenue when the weather’s nice, but we haven’t gone there lately. It’s a longer walk than we take in cold weather. Creek Road is even farther. I can’t remember ever taking Muffin there.”
Val sipped her wine. “You and Jake were at the festival most of the day. You must have seen him while you were caroling and he was parading around in his red suit.”
“I caught a glimpse of him now and then. He was doing the Santa thing, posing for photos and giving out gifts to the kids.” Bethany rubbed her forehead. “I’m trying to replay in my mind who he was with and what was happening. I didn’t notice him arguing with anybody or doing anything that would explain someone killing him. Maybe if I thought harder about this, I could be more helpful.”
Dorothy said, “Don’t dwell on it, Bethany. Let your mind drift. If there’s anything to remember, it may come to you, perhaps in the middle of the night or tomorrow morning, not when you’re tense. Let’s talk about something else.”
Granddad glanced at Val’s plate. “The rest of us are nearly finished with dinner, Val, and you’ve hardly started. You’re holding up dessert.”
“Sorry.” She ate mechanically, barely tasting her food, more worried about her friend now than before discussing the scenarios. A murderer with a motive who’d failed to kill Bethany the first time might try again and, as the chief had warned, with a different weapon.
“I’d just as soon postpone dessert until after our movie,” Dorothy said.
Val sipped her wine. Whenever Dorothy came over for dinner, she and Granddad watched a video from his collection of classic films, often a Hitchcock because both of them were fans. “After our dinner table conversation, Granddad, you might want to pick out something less nail-biting than Hitchcock.”
Granddad waved away her advice. “Hitch has a few light movies. We could watch the one about the train.”
Dorothy looked askance. “I wouldn’t call that one light.”
“I mean the 1930s train movie, The Lady Vanishes. Lots of comedy mixed with suspense and some romance.”
“I’d like to see it too,” Bethany said. “I could use a few laughs, not to mention romance.”
B
ethany had just broken up with her boyfriend from the choir. Val gave her a sympathetic look and reserved some sympathy for herself too. Her romance was about to fizzle out of existence. “I’ll clear the table while the rest of you get settled in front of the TV. Does anyone want coffee or tea?”
No one did. Granddad and Dorothy went into the sitting room, while Bethany refilled Muffin’s water dish and Val stacked the dishes on the kitchen counter. When she returned to the dining room for the wineglasses, Dorothy was shifting a side chair to face the television.
“Are you sure you want to sit there?” Granddad said. “You and I can sit on the sofa.”
“When was the last time you sat on that sofa, Don?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’ve tried it a few times. This straight-back chair is a lot more comfortable.”
Val did an internal jig for joy. Dorothy would be an ally in the struggle to convince Granddad to replace the sofa and, if he really wanted to sit closer to her, he’d have to buy a new one.
Granddad lowered himself into his recliner. Val sat at one end of the sofa and ceded the rest of it to Bethany and Muffin.
Everyone was soon riveted by the suspense of a woman who’d vanished on a train. The other passengers denied she’d ever existed, except for the adamant heroine. About an hour into the movie, Muffin jerked up, barked, and ran to the front door. A second later the doorbell rang.
Val and Bethany both jumped up.
“Stay where you are.” Granddad pressed the Pause button on the remote. “I’ll get the door.”
Bethany frowned. “Look through the sidelight before you open it, Mr. Myer.”
Muffin continued to bark as Granddad made his way toward the hall. He didn’t turn on the hall light. That way he could see whoever was standing on the porch without being visible himself through the sidelight. He called back to them, “Don’t worry. It’s a friend, not a foe.”
The front door creaked open.
As Val flipped on the lamp next to the sofa, Bram came into the sitting room. His smile, as he locked eyes with her, made her catch her breath. She could control her breathing, but managing her heart would be more difficult. She’d better start hardening it now so that when he left Bayport it wouldn’t hurt as much.
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