Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

Loni materialized from out of nowhere, coffeepot in hand. “Usual, Lew?” she called.

  Lew hesitated then slowly shook his head. “No thanks, Loni,” he said, eyes still on Ronnie. “I’ve changed my mind. Sorry to bother you.” With that, he pushed through the door and into his cruiser, slamming the door behind him before pulling away. Loni and Ronnie continued to watch the street after the dust cleared, then Ronnie turned to find the deli owner scowling at her.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “You know damned well what. You had Ash Lake’s most eligible bachelor practically eating out of your hand, and now you’re throwing him to the curb to fulfill some crazy urge to go slumming.”

  “I am not slumming, and I’ll thank you to be a little more charitable towards Landon Dennis. He is sincere in trying to reform, you know,” Ronnie said defensively. “Besides, you wouldn’t be so supportive of Lew if you knew—”

  Ronnie stopped. Loni’s antennae extended, and the woman rushed closer to the table, as if to not miss a single word issued. What Ronnie did not expect was for Loni to nearly dive next to her and press her against the wall.

  “Would you like some pie?” she asked. “Compliments of the house.”

  “Loni, for crying out loud, it’s eight-forty in the morning.”

  “Hey, people eat cold pizza pie for breakfast all the time. Why not regular pie?”

  “Forget it. This bit of gossip stays in the vault.”

  Loni huffed and extricated herself from the booth. “Fine, be that way,” she said. “If you need me, I’ll be in the back looking for a safecracker.”

  ~ * ~

  Three calls to Lew from her cell were immediately patched to his voice mail, and Ronnie decided not to further harass him with messages she did not know would be answered. She could not honestly be certain how much of her conversation with Landon was heard, and what he had interpreted from it, so she let the ball dribble in his court. When he would decide to return serve, she did not know, but hoped it would not take long.

  The temptation to forget her troubles with a shopping trip to Regency Square in Jacksonville passed, as Ronnie did not feel like dealing with traffic on the Dames Point Bridge. Instead she milled around the shops in Ash Lake’s downtown square, taking in shelves of pastel curios, nautical plaques, and blown-glass dolphin sculptures. She saw a number of things that would have looked nice in her new place, but each inspection of their exorbitant price tags kept her wallet in her purse.

  In the bookstore next to the French Deli and Bakery, Ronnie purchased a few paperback mysteries and a crossword puzzle magazine, something to occupy the long, dateless nights she was certain were ahead of her. Bag in hand, she was about to unlock her Firebird when a movement inside the deli caught her eye.

  Nora Daily stood before the counter, gesturing wildly, as Loni shook her head and wrung a checkered towel in her hands.

  “Would you at least think about it?” the young woman was saying as Ronnie quietly reentered the deli and took a position behind Nora as if to order something to go. Loni looked relieved to see her, but shifted her glance back to Nora and sighed.

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong,” Loni said. “I’m a paid member of Allayne’s fan club, and while it’d be nice to do something for her memory, I can’t do this. Ask Ronnie Lord, right behind you.” Loni pointed, and Ronnie masked her displeasure as Nora turned with a scowl. “She knows all about this kind of stuff.”

  “Pray tell, of what stuff are we discussing?” Ronnie clasped her hands in mock interest.

  “I was talking with Mrs. Humphrey about having a sandwich named for Allayne,” Nora said testily. “I’m looking at this menu and I see a number of sandwiches named for people I’ve never heard of. Why not Allayne? She was a native of this backwater town, she deserves some recognition.”

  Loni snatched the paper takeout menu from Nora’s hand. “The Uncle Louis is named for my husband’s uncle, who loaned us the money to set up shop. The Miss Eulalie is for my grandmother, who gave me the slaw recipe that goes on the sandwich, and the Walter Meadows special is named for a local who was once listed in Guinness as being the oldest man alive. He ordered that particular sandwich every time he came in to eat.”

  “Which was every day the French Deli was open, until the day he died,” Ronnie added. “That’s his dollar bill framed on the wall behind Loni.”

  “Allayne patronized your restaurant, too, you know,” Nora said. “Every time she came to town.”

  “And I appreciate her for it, but if you’d give me a moment to talk you’d know that I once approached Allayne with this idea and she declined. Said she didn’t want a fuss, and I intend to honor her wishes, even in death.” Loni grasped the edges of the counter and furrowed her brows, effectively ending the discussion. An exhausted looking Nora threw up her hands in defeat.

  “Fine. All I want to do is keep Allayne’s memory alive, is that so much to ask?”

  “No, but surely there are other ways to do it,” Ronnie said. “For what it’s worth, there’s no sandwich named for my great-great aunt Lorena.”

  “That’s ’cause you said—” But Loni halted at the warning look on Ronnie’s face.

  “How about this?” Ronnie moved to the counter and brushed aside a stack of flyers advertising a Rotary Club fish fry. “How about Loni puts a collection jar on the counter, with the money going to The Allayne Foundation? It’s subtle, yet it’s for a good cause, and people in this backwater town are rather generous when it comes to charity.”

  “I’d be willing to go along with that,” Loni said.

  Nora nodded complacently. It was not the name in lights on the menu board, but Ronnie saw that the young woman was appeased. “We have jars specially made for that,” she said. “I’ll bring one by next time I’m here.”

  “I’ll make a space for it.” Loni smiled as Nora exited without a farewell.

  “Thank you so much,” she added when the two were alone. “I’ve never seen anybody go ballistic over a sandwich before. Not since somebody ordered the Walter Meadows in his presence and asked for Swiss instead of Muenster. You’d have thought the customer was pledging allegiance to the Communist Party, the way ol’ Walter carried on.”

  “I don’t see the point in naming sandwiches for people, anyway,” Ronnie said with a shrug. “I don’t think I’d want my name attached to something containing dead meat.”

  “Oh, this from the woman who orders extra bacon in her oatmeal.”

  Ronnie leaned on the counter. “You know, I should call your husband and suggest a new dish. The Loni Humphrey: grilled cheese and a glass of whine.”

  “How about the Veronica Lord? Just one big plate of chicken.”

  Ronnie stopped smiling and appraised Loni with a curious stare. “Why would you say that?” But Loni’s sly smile told her everything. “Tell me you didn’t crack the safe.” How had she done it so quickly, too?

  Loni pursed her lips. “Just ‘cause you’re not talking doesn’t mean Lew isn’t, either.”

  “Spill.”

  “Lew to Dwayne, Dwayne to his wife Shirley, Shirley to me.”

  Ronnie tensed. “I’ll kill him.”

  “Who? Lew or Dwayne?”

  “Both of them. All of them. The whole damned police department!” Ronnie exploded. How dare Lew make his deputy, of all people, privy to their relationship! Dwayne likely knew things she had yet to share with her own sister now. “These guys are supposed to be serving and protecting, not prattling like a house full of hens.”

  “Now, girl, don’t sweat it. I’m proud of you, actually. We need more people in this world with your sense of values.” Loni patted her hand and produced a Styrofoam container from the dairy case. “Don’t blame Lew. He probably just wanted to vent, and told the wrong person. You don’t have to worry about Dwayne’s wife, either, ‘cause she’s not the gossiping type.”

  “She told you.” Ronnie peered into the carton and saw a slice of pie. It was as if Loni had this prepared for her, to ease
her anxiety.

  “I have ways of making people talk,” Loni drawled in an exaggerated accent, “and don’t you worry, ‘cause this is going into my vault, and Dick doesn’t even know the combination to that.”

  Ronnie was not consoled, and Loni sighed. “Anyway, I can more than pay you back for my burning curiosity if you’ll just wait a few minutes.”

  “How?”

  Loni only held up her forefinger and reached for the phone. “That Nora girl was puttering around the pharmacy before she came in here,” she said as Ronnie turned to look at the pharmacy across the street, next to the Vilano Theater. “Candis is working today. Maybe we can get some dirt.”

  “Dirt. What dirt? She was a probably buying a candy bar. If so, that only tells us she’s not very bright, because the markup over there is outrageous.”

  Loni pinned the receiver between her ear and shoulder. “You know, Dakota’s right. For someone with a college degree you sure don’t pick up on much.”

  Ronnie opened her mouth to respond but was silenced when Loni turned her attention to the voice on the other end of the phone. Several seconds of pleasantries volleyed back and forth before Loni went for the kill. Ronnie bent her ear closer, trying to interpret the “uh-huhs” and “oh, reallys” on Loni’s end before she replaced the receiver.

  Loni stretched her arms across the counter. “Candis reports that Nora Daily dropped by to fill a prescription on insulin and hypodermic needles,” she said. “Myra’s working the register, and she said the girl also bought a bag of Funjuns, horrendously marked up—my words, not hers.”

  “I admire Candis’s chutzpah, telling you something so confidential.”

  “Hey, Candis isn’t a doctor. Everything’s fair game.”

  “Insulin and needles, huh? Diabetes.” Ronnie closed her eyes and tried to remember where she had seen a needle recently. She had not been many places over the week, save for home and Two Witt.

  Two Witt. There was a needle in the trashcan of Lorraine’s bathroom. “Do you suppose Nora was picking up a prescription for somebody else?” Ronnie wondered aloud.

  “Oh, no. It has to be hers,” Loni said. “They’re really strict about showing ID over there, ever since all that trouble with the OxyContin a few months back. People forging prescriptions and such.”

  “I see.” It seemed unlikely that Lorraine and Nora would both be diabetic. Possible, but it troubled Ronnie.

  Then she remembered Dakota’s remark. There’s a lot of trash that hasn’t been taken out.

  It made sense then to see discarded needles in Two Witt, but why in Lorraine’s bathroom?

  Unless Lorraine was being framed.

  Ronnie clutched her purse and dashed for the exit. “Loni, I just remembered something. I’ll see you later.”

  She was already out the door and in her car when Loni called after her. “Ronnie, hon? You left your pie.”

  Chapter Ten

  Bingo.

  Lorraine was right all along.

  The outer shell of the cookie was cracked slightly from where Allayne had bitten into it, to say nothing of the sweet’s treatment over the past few days, but Ronnie could clearly see the microscopic pinprick where the chocolate coating was thinnest. Somebody could easily have injected the cookie with insulin or something else lethal enough to put Allayne to sleep for good.

  Damn it! Why had Lorraine neglected to mention Nora’s diabetes? Did she even know? Had she known that fact, she might have given serious thought to Lorraine’s accusations earlier, and had the cookie analyzed by professionals. Or pressed Lew to look into the matter.

  Ronnie gingerly set the cookie back on her dresser. If the chocolate-covered treat did indeed have an extra ingredient, Lew was going to kill her for withholding information, and evidence.

  “You’re kidding,” Gina exclaimed when Ronnie called her with the news. “That pinprick could be anything, Ronnie. It could have formed from a bubble in the chocolate when the cookies were dipped. This doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Well, you never know. I got to thinking about that Mexican singer who was killed a few years back. Serena, Sabrina…”

  “Selena.”

  Ronnie snapped her fingers. “Yeah, her. She was killed by her fan club president. Maybe there’s a parallel here. Maybe Allayne was unhappy about Nora’s methods of promotion and tried to can her. Nora gets even and tosses her needle in Lorraine’s trash, thinking in the event it is discovered that Allayne was murdered, Lorraine will take the fall.”

  “I don’t know.” Gina’s voice was muffled. “I still think it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Since when is murder supposed to make sense in order for it to happen? Now, get off the phone. I need to call Lew.” Again.

  This time Lew answered, sounding distant as he greeted her, but Ronnie took it as a good sign since he did not hang up immediately. A few minutes into the conversation when she brought up the cookie, however, she wished he had.

  “What is wrong with you, Ronnie?” he exploded. “Damn it, girl, why didn’t you come to me immediately with all this? Why didn’t Lorraine Witz come to me if she had these suspicions?”

  Ronnie did not want to tell Lew what Lorraine had told her, about her lack of faith in local law enforcement. She did not want Lew thinking that somehow she had influenced the grieving woman into believing that. “I don’t know why,” she said finally, convincing herself of the half truth. “You were so sure Allayne’s death was attributed to natural causes, and I thought maybe Lorraine was looking for some sympathy. I didn’t really believe her, either, until I found out about Nora’s diabetes and saw the pinprick in the cookie. Besides, you know Lorraine’s story; she had a bad marriage, and she doesn’t really get along with Danny Cushing, so maybe she’s distrustful of men in general…”

  “I’m the law, Ronnie. She should have said something to me.”

  “So talk to her, then! I can’t account for her actions.”

  “You can account for yours, though,” Lew said, his voice cool. “Have you become distrustful of men, too? I wouldn’t know from this morning.”

  Ronnie’s heart numbed. “Lew, about that…”

  “No,” Lew cut her off gruffly. “I don’t want to know about that. I want to know why you felt, despite our personal problems, you couldn’t come to me with this, even if you didn’t believe Allayne’s death was foul play.”

  Ronnie sighed. “I didn’t say anything because you were so set on the natural causes findings, and, yes, I was still mad at you.” She frowned. If he still believed there was nothing suspicious, why was he so upset now? He would not be feeling this way unless…

  “Oh, no.” She gasped. “You know something, don’t you?” she accused him. “You think Allayne was murdered, too?”

  Lew was quiet. Double bingo.

  “What changed your mind, Lew?” Ronnie asked. “Tell me. I can probably help you. I’ve been around these people a lot in the last few days.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Lew said in his best sheriff’s voice, “except this: yes, I’ve been given reason to look deeper into Allayne’s death. I’ve also been trying to keep my investigation quiet, and so far it’s working. I won’t break what works.”

  Ronnie bit her lip. Had Dakota gone to the police? That might have explained the girl’s reluctance to talk with her. She tried to ask another question when Lew interrupted.

  “Had I known about that cookie, you might have been a bigger help than you are right now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ronnie countered hotly. “Take it. I’ll bring it right over.”

  “Won’t do any good, Ron. You know that. As long as it’s been in your possession, no judge would admit it into court as evidence even if I could make an arrest. I wouldn’t be surprised if some defense lawyer tried to persuade a jury that you tainted it yourself to frame somebody else.”

  “Me?” Ronnie squealed. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know myself
, but I’m sure a good lawyer would think up something to discredit you. That’s why they make the big bucks. It could be said you were jealous of Allayne’s fame and wealth, or maybe, given your past entanglements, you’re just the bad seed of the saintly Alger family.”

  “Hey, Paul Dix brought on his own fate, nobody can fault me for that.”

  “Word it in the right way, Ronnie, people will believe what they want to believe.”

  Ronnie sighed. Lew was right. She should have said something from the start. Even if Allayne had died of her illness, at least the cookie would have gone through proper analysis procedures. “Do you still want it?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do. We still need to have it tested so at least I can be one hundred percent sure.”