by Leena Clover
Jenny dropped Heather off at the Bayview Inn and headed to the Boardwalk Café. Her aunt had assembled a tray of sandwiches and was already serving them to the lunch crowd. Soup was simmering on the stove. Jenny pulled on an apron and joined her aunt, shrugging off her fatigue.
Jason Stone came in just as the café emptied. Tiny droplets of water streamed down his face. He wiped his face with a white linen handkerchief and smiled broadly at Jenny, opening his arms wide for a hug.
“How’s my favorite café owner today?”
Jenny hugged him back.
“You need to dry your hair,” she said.
She grabbed a bunch of paper towels from a table and led Jason out to the deck. Jason obliged her and dried his hair sheepishly.
“What a day! We have two more days of this infernal rain. I can’t wait for the sun to shine again.”
“My garden needs this rain,” Jenny said. “I’m looking forward to a great flowering season.”
Jason asked Jenny to join him for lunch.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” Star said. “You gotta eat.”
“What about you?” Jenny asked her aunt.
Star was an artist who painted seascapes of the surrounding region. They were popular with the tourists. She had put her work on hold to help Jenny at the café. Jenny knew her aunt was burning the midnight oil to keep up with the demand for her work. She was worried about her health.
“I’m going to grab a sandwich and eat it on my way home,” Star told her.
“No way,” Jenny protested. “Eat with us. You can go paint up a storm after that.”
Star relented.
“How’s that old grouch treating you?” Jason asked, taking a jab at Adam.
“Very well, thank you very much,” Jenny said, making a face. “What about you? Are you seeing someone?”
Jason’s face clouded over. He laughed nervously, trying to look stoic.
“I’m too busy to date,” he told them. “I have so many pending cases, I am working 12 hour days to get through them.”
Star gave him a knowing look. She knew Jason still had a thing for Jenny. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they had a future together.
Chapter 6
Jenny and Heather were back at the Newbury estate. Heather exclaimed in delight the moment they stepped into the parlor.
A tall, stout man with a shock of white hair held his arms out to Heather. Heather ran into them and hugged the man tightly.
“How are you, munchkin?” the man asked.
Robert Newbury was Heather’s grandfather. He and Betty Sue had been separated for decades.
“When did you get back home?” Heather asked him.
“Last night,” Robert answered. “What’s the matter with you kids? I leave town for a couple of days and you manage to land in hot water.”
“You know,” Heather murmured. “How is Brandon?”
“Still crying his eyes out. I don’t blame him, of course. There are some times in life when a man should not be ashamed of showing his emotions.”
“We were hoping to talk to him,” Jenny spoke up.
“You remember my friend Jenny?” Heather asked her grandpa. “She’s helping us find out what happened to Kelly.”
Robert’s face fell.
“That Kelly. She was a sweet girl. She was good for Brandon.”
Jenny noticed how his opinion was diametrically opposite to that of Ada’s.
“We are here to talk to the staff,” Heather told her grandfather. “Can I catch up with you later?”
“Stay for lunch,” Robert urged. “Cook’s making fried chicken with all the fixings.”
Heather promised him she would think about it. Jenny curbed an urge to giggle. She couldn’t imagine Ada Newbury inviting her to eat lunch with the family.
Heather led Jenny down a long passage. She pushed open a door and entered a cavernous kitchen. A large woman wearing a chef’s hat and a soiled apron around her wide girth stood with one arm on her hip, frying chicken. Her face broke into a broad smile when she looked up and spotted Heather.
“Hey baby girl! Come taste some bread pudding. I made that special brandy sauce you like.”
Heather greeted the old woman with a hug. She breathed in the aromas of the different pots and pans on the cooking range. She promised they would stay for lunch. The cook spooned some warm pudding into a bowl and made them taste it. It was buttery and gooey, loaded with plenty of plump black raisins. Jenny wondered if the old cook would share her recipe.
Cook’s expression changed once Heather had eaten a few spoonfuls of pudding.
“Are you here for Brandon? That poor boy! Maybe you can coax him to eat a bite.”
“I do want to talk to Brandon,” Heather nodded, sharing a glance with Jenny. “But we were hoping to talk to you first.”
The cook narrowed her eyes and trained them on Jenny.
“Girl, you playing Nancy Drew again?”
“Mrs. Newbury needs my help. I am going to try and find out what happened to Kelly.”
“She didn’t deserve to die,” Cook said, wiping her eyes on her apron. “She was so sweet. She made Brandon happy.”
“Can we talk to you about that night?” Heather asked.
“I was off duty that night,” the old woman said. “Your friend here took care of all the food.”
“But you were helping serve the food, weren’t you? I think I remember seeing you out in the courtyard.”
“That’s right.”
“When did you last see Kelly?”
The cook’s face clouded over. “I don’t exactly remember. I brought her some of my leftover pot roast from the kitchen. She said she loved the spread you had put out but she was hankering for some of that roast from lunch.”
Jenny figured Kelly was just buttering up the old cook. She had no idea why the young girl would do that. Either she was really good at heart or she had an ulterior motive. Or maybe she really liked pot roast. Although Kelly had been fawning over Jenny’s food, she hadn’t really seemed like a gourmand.
“What time was that?” she asked.
“Around nine,” the cook answered. “That was before she had that fight with the missus.”
“Do you know what that was about?” Heather asked curiously.
The cook was an old employee and apparently didn’t think twice before speaking her mind.
“That woman doesn’t need a reason to talk someone down. You know that!”
“Did Kelly stick around after her altercation with Ada?” Jenny asked.
“She seemed fine after that,” Cook said, her admiration for the girl clear in her tone. “I don’t know how much longer she stuck around though. I went to my quarters after ten. The party was still going strong at that time.”
Jenny needed to establish what Kelly had been up to between the hours of ten and midnight.
“What about Megan? You know who Megan is, don’t you?”
The cook frowned.
“That girl is trouble. She means no good, I can tell you that.”
“How so?” Jenny asked.
“She’s got her eye on Brandon. She was fixing to break those two up.”
“Did Megan and Kelly talk to each other?”
The old woman bobbed her head up and down.
“Yes Sir! They said they were like sisters. You know that Megan’s a smooth talker. She had Kelly believing whatever spurted out of her mouth.”
“Was Megan here when you left?” Jenny asked the cook.
The woman didn’t remember that.
“We were hoping to talk to some of the other people who were working that night.”
A couple of girls came into the kitchen just then. They were both wearing staff uniforms.
“You can talk to them,” Cook warned Heather. “But don’t take too long. I have to start serving lunch soon.”
She looked at the girls who were standing at a counter, stacking dishes.
“This lady wants to talk to you about
the night of the party,” Cook said, nodding toward Jenny. “There is no need to be afraid. Just tell her what you saw or heard.”
Jenny introduced herself. They already knew who Heather was.
The girls had seen Ada argue with Kelly. They had also noticed how friendly Megan and Kelly had seemed to be.
“How long were you working that night?” Jenny asked them.
“We were here until the food ran out,” one girl answered. “Most of the guests had left by that time.”
“When was that?” Heather asked immediately.
“Sometime after 11,” the other girl said. “I wasn’t wearing my watch but I heard the big clock inside the house chime.”
“Can you tell me who was still hanging around?”
One of the girls shook her head. The other hesitated.
“It’s hard to say,” she finally said. “Brandon was in and out of the house. Megan had left earlier but then she came back.”
“What was Kelly doing?”
“Kelly was drunk,” the first girl said and giggled.
“She wasn’t that drunk,” the other girl objected.
“So Brandon, Megan and Kelly were still at the party after 11,” Jenny asked again.
She thought this timeline was important so she wanted to be sure of the facts.
A gong sounded somewhere in the distance.
“Time to start serving lunch,” Cook said, suddenly snapping to attention.
She clapped her hands, bursting into a flurry of activity as she began plating the food. She pointed at the girls and started barking orders.
“You take the potatoes and green beans, and you, take the apple sauce and the rolls. I will bring out the chicken.”
She looked at Heather and Jenny apologetically.
“Don’t you go anywhere without tasting my food.”
Jenny thanked the cook and reluctantly stepped out of the kitchen.
“What next?” she asked Heather.
“Let’s go find Brandon.”
Heather peeped into the dining room to make sure Brandon wasn’t at the table. She took Jenny’s hand and led her to a different part of the house.
Heather banged on the door insistently when her gentle knocks didn’t produce an answer. The door finally burst open and Brandon stared out at them, bleary eyed. Jenny could barely recognize him.
“We need to talk,” Heather said, rushing into the room. “What’s that smell?”
Jenny realized Brandon was still dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing at the party. Heather marched him into an ensuite bathroom. He reappeared a few minutes later, his face freshly scrubbed and his wet hair finger combed. Heather had dug out a fresh shirt for him.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jenny said softly.
“I should never have come here,” Brandon said bitterly. “We should have eloped, had a wedding in Vegas or something.”
“You can’t change what happened, B,” Heather consoled him. “We have to move on. Jenny here is going to help find out who hurt Kelly.”
“That won’t bring her back.”
“You’re right,” Heather agreed. “But it might keep your grandma from being arrested for a murder she didn’t commit.”
“Grandma never liked her,” Brandon told them. “Apparently, Kelly wasn’t good enough to be a Newbury.”
“Do you think she was capable of harming her?” Jenny asked.
“Of course not!” Brandon said indignantly. “What kind of question is that?”
“Are you willing to talk to me?” Jenny asked him. “We need to figure out what happened that night.”
Brandon sat down at the edge of the bed and waved his hand toward a couch set against the wall. Jenny accepted the silent invitation and sat down.
“What do you want to know?” Brandon asked, rubbing his eyes.
“When was the last time you ate something?” Heather demanded, noting the circles under Brandon’s eyes.
He gave her a vague look. Heather stood up to leave.
“You can call the kitchen from here,” Brandon said weakly. “But I’m not really hungry. I just want Kelly back.”
Heather picked up the phone and pressed the code for the kitchen. She asked them to send food and coffee to the room.
“Where did you meet Kelly?” Jenny asked Brandon, hoping to ease into the conversation.
“At a party ... we hit it off.”
“So it was love at first sight?” Jenny smiled.
“I was smitten,” Brandon nodded. “I asked her out right away.”
“Were you seeing Megan at that time?”
Brandon gave a snort.
“Megan had dumped me weeks ago. I had been mooning over her. But I forgot all about Megan when I went out with Kelly.”
“When did you see her last on the night of the party?”
“Around 11 PM?” Brandon wasn’t sure.
There was a knock on the door. A maid appeared with a tray of food. Heather forced Brandon to eat while Jenny took him through her set of questions. Nothing new came out of it. Brandon and Kelly had met Megan in the city. The girls seemed to get along well. Brandon hadn’t realized he had spent more time with Megan at the party than he had with Kelly. According to him, he was just being a good host.
Jenny and Heather made a detour to the kitchen before they left. The fried chicken was pronounced perfect and Jenny begged the cook for the recipe.
“He’s devastated,” Heather remarked as Jenny drove back down the hill into town.
“What happened to Brandon’s guests?” Jenny asked. “Are they still in town?”
Heather had the contact information for a couple of Brandon’s friends. She had met them at the party. She pulled out her phone and forwarded the info to Jenny.
“Are you going to call them now?” Heather asked.
“No time like the present,” Jenny said, pulling up in front of the café.
Jenny went in and called Brandon’s friends, armed with her usual questions.
“Brandon may be grieving now,” one of them said. “But all was not well. There was trouble in paradise.”
“Oh?”
Jenny crossed her fingers, wondering what the man on the phone was about to reveal.
“Kelly was having an affair. At least Brandon thought she was.”
Chapter 7
Jenny shared what she had learned from Brandon’s friends with Heather the next morning. The two friends talked as they worked in the kitchen at the Boardwalk Café.
Jenny browned onions in a pot. She was trying out a new recipe for shrimp curry. Locals and tourists loved her food and she kept them happy by coming up with monthly specials. She had regularly cooked curry when she lived in the city and had once attended a class where they taught how to make authentic Indian curry. Over the years, Jenny had broken down the recipe into something simple that used regular grocery store ingredients.
“Do you believe this guy?” Heather asked her.
Heather was peeling garlic, a task she didn’t relish at all.
“Hard to say,” Jenny said, scraping the brown bits at the bottom of the pan where the onion was beginning to stick. “But there’s no smoke without fire.”
“Was he just being nasty?”
“Kelly’s gone,” Jenny reasoned. “Why would this guy want to smear her name?”
“Maybe she snubbed him,” Heather shrugged. “Or, he’s just stirring up trouble, having a laugh.”
“That sounds mean.”
“Yeah, but people do that, Jenny.”
When Brandon’s friend talked about Kelly having an affair, Jenny hadn’t known what to think. He hadn’t volunteered many details, just that Brandon suspected Kelly. Had Brandon intended to go ahead with the wedding? Or was he just biding time, trying to find out what Kelly was up to. Jenny reluctantly admitted that this gave Brandon a motive. Had he and Kelly had a fight about it? A fight that ended in Kelly landing in the pool?
“We need to go check out that pool,
” Jenny said to Heather. “Do you know where it is?”
“It’s about fifty yards from that courtyard where we had the party. I used to go there a lot when I was a child.”
“How does one get there?”
“It’s on Ada’s property, Jenny. You have to go through their front gate.”
Ada Newbury had extended an open invite to Jenny. This kind of generosity was unheard of from Ada. Jenny assumed she had made an exception since her neck was on the line.
Jenny called ahead to let Ada know about her visit. Ada had to go out somewhere but she assured Jenny the security would let her in.
“How much more garlic do you need?” Heather grumbled.
Jenny looked at the small pile before Heather.
“That’s enough. You can start peeling the ginger now.”
Heather groaned and muttered through the process. The Magnolias arrived for lunch. They were the first group Jenny wanted to try out her recipe on. Star and Molly pronounced it delicious. Betty Sue declared it was too spicy.
Heather took a photo of the dish and posted it on social media.
Jenny and Heather set off after lunch. They breezed through the security gate and parked in front of the house.
Heather pointed to a paved path that wound through a clump of bushes.
“We can directly walk down to the pool. Do you want to do that?”
Jenny nodded her assent and set off at a brisk pace. The path took them around the house and beyond the courtyard. A couple of minutes later, Jenny turned a corner and stopped in her tracks.
A good sized building stood before her. A large pool with shimmering blue water lay inside a fancy enclosure. Plush cabanas with lime green cushions lined the pool on one side. Patio furniture with cozy sitting areas was arranged on the far side. There was a solid structure that looked like a pool house. It had a covered porch with a granite topped bar running along one wall. Jenny spotted another smaller pool in the distance. She guessed it was a hot tub.
“This is the pool complex,” Heather said. “It used to be just the pool when I was younger. Ada turned it into this fancy thing a few years ago.”
“How do we get in?” Jenny asked.
“I guess we open that door?” Heather pointed.
The door they spotted turned out to be locked. Jenny spotted a tiny button on one side. She pressed it, wondering if it was a doorbell of sorts. Her guess turned out to be right.