Death Takes The Blue Ribbon (Lizzie Crenshaw Mysteries Book 6)

by Teresa Watson

  “Oh good, more pie for us, right, Trixie?” I said.

  “More for you,” she said. “I want some of that Chunky Monkey in the freezer.”

  “We’ll let the men clean up,” I replied, standing up. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “Sounds good to me,” she said, following me into the living room. “What’s up?”

  I picked up the picture I had put on the coffee table when I got home. “This was in the floorboard of my car. I think it fell out of one of Gladys’ albums this morning.”

  She took the picture from me. “I recognize it. Mother has one just like it hanging in the hallway at her house. This was from a church picnic back in the late sixties.”

  “Who’s that?” I pointed to the angry person in the third row.

  “I’m not sure,” Trixie said, squinting at the picture. Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  I went over to my desk, and dug through the top drawer. Pulling the glass out, I took it over and handed it to her. “Does that help?”

  “Definitely,” she nodded. “Oh, that’s Andrea Martin, but her last name wasn’t Martin at that time. It was Andrea Knox.”

  “Can you tell who she was glaring daggers at?”

  “Yeah, that’s Laurie Wilcox.”

  “I don’t think I know her. Does she still live here?”

  Trixie shook her head. “She disappeared shortly after this picture was taken. Nobody knows what happened to her. The speculation was that she ran off with a boy from a neighboring town. Broke Crandall’s heart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mother told me once that Crandall and Laurie got engaged at the party. They were high school sweethearts, just like the Norwells.”

  “So Andrea is a very jealous person,” I mused. “I wonder what she would say if she knew that I saw Crandall sitting in the park with a young blonde today.”

  “She already knows,” Trixie replied, sitting down in the recliner.

  “Who knows what?” Jake asked as he and T.J. came into the living room.

  “Andrea Martin already knows that Crandall has a sweet young thing on the side.”

  “How do you know that?” T.J. said.

  “There was a bachelor party at the club two months ago. It was for some friend of Crandall’s, I don’t remember his name. Anyway, Crandall rented out the club for the evening, so some of the girls worked the party in hopes of earning some extra money. I’m sure you can guess what happened. Someone arranged for the obligatory stripper, pictures were taken, and wives found out.”

  “I can imagine what the wives said when they found out,” Jake laughed.

  “Andrea’s reaction was the worst, and she voiced it in a very public way,” Trixie said. “Crandall was at the café with Harold, Roger Tinsdall, Albert Garcia, and Alan Sinclair. All of them had been at the bachelor party. Harold and Alan actually behaved themselves for the most part, although a very cheeky blonde sat on Harold’s lap and kissed his cheek. Gladys already knew about it, but I don’t know what was said about it in the privacy of their house.”

  “Knowing Gladys, she read him the riot act,” I said.

  “Gladys was at the café, too, talking to Iris at a separate table. She kept a close eye on Harold for about a month after that party. Well, Andrea had been out of town when the party went down, so the pictures were waiting for her when she got back. I was sitting in our usual booth in the back when Andrea came in like the troops storming the beaches at Normandy. She ripped him apart. It was awful to watch. Everyone felt bad for him; I know I did. Then she started yelling at Harold, saying he should have stopped all that nonsense from happening. Well, that’s when Gladys got in on the action, and she gave as good as she got. By the time she was through, Andrea was dragging Crandall out of the café, and Gladys was hugging Harold.”

  “Wow, I can’t believe I missed all that,” I replied.

  “Crandall hasn’t spent a lot of time at the Club since then,” Trixie said, “but he was there last night.”

  “A blonde?”

  She nodded. Probably the same one that you saw him with this afternoon.”

  I thought about everything that had happened over the last couple of days, about the letter I got, and about the car that nearly ran me over. Picking up my keys, phone and wallet from the coffee table, I walked to the door and opened it. “I think I’ve got this figured out. Anyone coming with me?”

  Three people scrambled out of their seats and followed me out the door. “Where are we going?” T.J. said as he and Jake got into his car.

  “To stop a murder,” I replied.

  Twenty minutes later, we were all standing in the Martin living room. “I’m not sure I understand why you are here,” Andrea said.

  “We wanted to talk to you about Harold’s murder,” I replied.

  “Why me?”

  “We want to talk to you and your husband,” T.J. said.

  “Of course. Crandall, would you come into the living room for a minute?”

  He came in, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. “What do you need, Andrea?” he said before he noticed all of us. “Hello, folks. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “They want to talk to us,” Andrea told him, “about Harold’s death.”

  “Of course,” he said, “although I’m not sure what we can tell you that would help the investigation. Would you like something to drink? How about some fresh dessert? Andrea just made a fresh rhubarb pie.”

  “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole,” I heard Jake mutter behind me.

  “No thank you, we’re good,” T.J. said.

  We sat down in various places. Andrea and Crandall were on the couch, Trixie and I took the chairs across from them, T.J. stood to my right, and Jake stood near Andrea’s side of the couch. I decided the best course of action was just to come right out and ask them about the poisoned pie. “Andrea, when did you decide to steal two of Gladys’ blueberry pies?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. When did you decide to take the pies? Was it after you saw the pictures from the bachelor party, or when you saw Crandall somewhere around town with a beautiful young blonde?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me. “How do you know about her?”

  “Because I saw them in the park this afternoon.”

  Andrea turned to Crandall. “You’re parading her around town now? How could you?”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Andrea, honestly.”

  “Really?” I said. “Because I took pictures of the two of you, if you’d like to see.”

  Andrea gasped, while Crandall turned red. “I happened to run into a friend after a meeting. It was no big deal.”

  “It looked like a big deal to me,” I said. “You were whispering sweet nothings in her ear, and she was laughing.”

  “You rotten bastard,” she yelled as she wrapped her hands around Crandall’s throat. Jake jumped into action, grabbing her arms and pulling her off her husband.

  “I’m guessing you’ve known for quite a while about her,” I said to Andrea.

  “Of course I did,” she snapped, trying to free herself from Jake’s grasp. He didn’t budge. “I’ve had him followed for the last six months. I knew he was up to something, because money started disappearing from our savings account.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Crandall said.

  “Because I wanted enough evidence so I could take you to the cleaners in divorce court. I was fed up with being humiliated by your blonde headed bimbos. I was never enough for you, and I don’t know why! There was nothing I wouldn’t do for you, absolutely nothing.”

  “When did you get the idea to take Gladys’ pies?”

  “That day that Durlene confronted her about the frozen fruit in her pies. I went through that gate in their backyard, and took them. I brought them home, scrapped them into the trash, and made fresh ones.”

  “With the ground up rhubarb greens mixed into the filling,” I
said.

  She nodded. “I…I wasn’t sure how much it would take to poison someone. I just knew that the greens are considered very toxic. I thought I had spread it even through both pies.”

  “So you took them down to Delia’s bakery, and slipped them in with the other pies that were going to the pie-eating contest.”

  “Yes.”

  I turned to Crandall. “And when did you realize that she was trying to poison you?”

  “I saw the pie filling cans in the trash, along with some rhubarb stalks that were missing their greens. We grow that stuff out back. I was shocked, to say the least. So I volunteered to help take the pies over to the tent. I took the ones Andrea had brought down, stuck them in a box, and slid them under a table where I thought no one would see them.”

  “How did you know which ones were hers?” T.J. said

  “She always uses colored plastic wrap.”

  “When did you realize that the pies had been found?”

  “After I finished eating my first pie, I sat up for a minute to catch my breath, and I noticed the pink plastic wrap on top of a trash can. I had no idea who the pie was intended for, and there was no way I could say anything without implicating Andrea.”

  “So you kept quiet,” T.J. replied sadly.

  Crandall nodded. “When Harold fell face first into his pie, I wanted to throw up. I looked out into the crowd and found Andrea. She had turned white as a sheet, her hand over her mouth.”

  “But you didn’t say anything when we questioned everyone after he died. Why?”

  “And send my wife to jail?”

  “She tried to poison you, man,” Jake exclaimed. “If some woman tried to do that to me, I’d turn her in.”

  “Well, I’m not you,” Crandall snapped.

  “How did the mortar and pestle, the wax paper with the filling on it, and the rhubarb stalks get to the Norwell house?”

  Crandall looked guiltily at Andrea, who said, “We took it over there. The police interviewed us right away, so while they were tied up at the fair, we gathered everything from our house and took it over to Gladys’ house.”

  “You framed an innocent woman together?” Trixie said incredulously. “Oh my gosh, you people…I mean…”

  T.J. pulled out his phone and made a call. “Back up will be here in a few minutes,” he said as he hung up. “You two just sit down on the couch and wait for them.”

  They sat down on the couch, as far away from each other as they could get. “I bet you wish you had already run off with that bimbo of yours,” Andrea hissed at her husband.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Regardless what you may believe, I do pay attention to our bank accounts. The balance in our savings account has been dwindling down for the last two months. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

  Crandall started to say something, but closed his mouth and just sat there quietly. Andrea crossed her arms over her chest, looking rather glum. I went over to T.J. “What kind of charges are they looking at?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Tampering with evidence, conspiracy after the fact, involuntary manslaughter for Andrea for sure, since Harold wasn’t the intended victim. Since she did it with ‘malice aforethought’, as the saying goes, it could be bumped up to second degree murder. It’s all up to the district attorney.”

  “I guess this means Gladys can go home now, right?” He nodded. “Would it be okay to call her and let her know?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” he said, smiling at me.

  As I made the call, I just hope it brought her a little peace, although it would take a lot longer to get over the betrayal of lifelong friends.

  Chapter Seventeen – a week later

  I was sitting in the back booth of the café with Trixie sitting across from me. Harold’s funeral had been held two days prior, and it was more of a celebration of his life. People who had grown up with the Norwells but moved away came back for the services, but it turned into more of an Irish wake. Gladys alternated between laughter and tears, and I think it did her good to have so many friends around who were so supportive.

  We hadn’t talked since the night the Martins were arrested. They were still sitting in the county jail, and both had been indicted on various charges. I gave the assignment to Bruce, because I didn’t want to deal with either one of them. I didn’t think I could be objective, especially after I found out it was Crandall who had tried to run me over that day, the rotten jerk.

  Dale was still out of town, but things were running smoothly at the newspaper. Jake had disappeared the day after the arrests, and nobody knew where he had gone. The papers I had gotten a week ago were from my crazy half-aunt’s lawyer. I hadn’t really taken the time to go over them, and now I had the legal papers from Dale’s lawyer about the terms of the sale of the newspaper. Everything was on hold until I could talk to Jake about it.

  “Earth to Lizzie,” Trixie said, waving her hand in front of my face. “What are you thinking about so hard?”

  “About the way life changes when we least expect it. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. But it all seems to balance out in the end, doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds like you are talking about karma, toots,” she replied, taking a bite of her blueberry pancakes. She waved her fork at the two big envelopes on the table. “Are you going to tell me what all this has to do with whatever is in those envelopes?”

  I scratched the back of my head. Trixie was my best friend, and I usually talked to her about everything, but for some reason, I had kept all this to myself. “Dale is thinking about selling the newspaper.”

  “Really? To who? Jake?”

  “Yeah.”

  Trixie almost choked on her coffee. “Are you serious?” I nodded. “How do you feel about that? Why not sell it to both of you? That makes more sense than just selling it to just Jake.”

  “You’d think so, but no, that’s the way he wants it.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No, just dropped that bombshell on me and left.”

  “If he does sell it to Jake,” Trixie said as she took another bite of pancake, “do you think you will keep working at there? Or will you quit?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it yet.”

  “And Jake doesn’t know about the sale yet?”

  I shook my head. “He hasn’t been seen in town since the day after the Martins were arrested, and Dale left yesterday. ‘You handle it, Lizzie. I’ve got faith in you.’ He left me holding the proverbial bag, as it were.”

  “You can do it. Just don’t ask me to be around when you do.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot. Some best friend you are.”

  “We aim to please,” she grinned.

  “Mind if I join this little party?” T.J. said. I hadn’t seen much of him in the last week, either, except at Harold’s funeral.

  “You can have my seat,” Trixie said, wiping her mouth on her napkin as she grabbed her purse and stood up. “I have another meeting with the interior decorator. I’m either going to go insane, broke, or both, by the time this remodel is done.” She kissed T.J. on the cheek. “I’ll pay the check before I go. Talk to you later.”

  “Would you mind some more company?” he asked, still standing next to me.

  “Oh, sit down,” I replied.

  “Thanks.” He pushed Trixie’s plate to the side. “How are you doing?”

  “Busy as ever. Dale and Jake have both skipped town, leaving me hanging at the newspaper, as usual. Mother is still on her honeymoon trip, or cruise, or whatever they’re calling it. Different day, same chaos.”

  “Well, at least you’re being consistent,” he laughed.

  “What about you? How are things going at the sheriff’s office?”

  “Pretty good. It’s great to be working with everyone again. I’m still renting that apartment from Mrs. Greene, but I’d rather find a different place.”

  “You mean a place that
isn’t connected to your boss?”

  He laughed. “Something like that.”

  “I’ll check with the ad department for you. I’m sure we can find something for you.”

  “I would appreciate that, thanks.”

  “No problem,” I said, glancing around the café. Gladys and Iris were at their usual table in the front with Charlene. The men were at their table, and it was weird not to see Harold sitting with them.

  “So, I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I said, turning my attention back to him.

  “I’m asking you out on a date.”

  “A real date? No hidden agendas?”

  “Yes, a real date. I think we’ve gotten to the point where we can do that, don’t you?”

  I looked at him for a minute. Had we? I remembered what Ellen said a week ago, about how T.J. was still the same person I fell in love with last year. Did I still care about him? Yes. Could I find it in my heart to forgive? I was working on it. “Okay.”

  “Okay? Is that a yes?” I nodded. His smile lit up his eyes. “Great! Tomorrow night work for you?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Alright then,” T.J. said, standing up. “I’ll pick you up about six.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He stood on my side of the table, bent over and kissed me. “Thank you for giving me another chance,” he whispered, kissing me again.

  “Oh, for the love of all that is holy,” Gladys exclaimed from the front of the café. “Young people nowadays have no sense of modesty or decency.”

  “Oh, dry up, Gladys,” I said before kissing T.J. again.

  “Is that any way to talk to your elders, Elizabeth Crenshaw?” Gladys replied. “You just wait until your mother comes home and hears about this.”

  I watched T.J. leave before looking over at Gladys. We stared at each other for a minute, the old animosity back again. Then she winked at me and turned her attention back to the other women at the table.

  Ah yes, things were getting back to normal in Brookdale. And I was just fine with that.

  ###

  Acknowledgements

  As always, my thanks go out to my support crew: