The Tell-Tale Tarte

by Maya Corrigan

“You’re talking about Simone. She’s not a librarian. She teaches in the English Department at Chesapeake College.”

  Better than a librarian for Val’s purposes. College Web sites usually included the names and academic credentials of faculty, a good starting point for her research on Simone. “Was she the one who picked out Rick Usher’s book for discussion?”

  “We all decide together on the book for the next meeting. I can’t remember who proposed it first, but it was Simone’s idea to invite Rick Usher. At the December meeting I’d talked about knowing his wife, Rosana. A few days later, Simone called to suggest I invite him to the book club.”

  “Having an author come makes it special.” Simone had the manipulations skills of a puppet master. “Nice talking to you, Judith. I hope I get the chance to cook for your book club again.”

  Val hung up, drove home, and parked as usual in the driveway. As soon as she went into the house, she smelled burnt sugar. Fortunately, she didn’t smell smoke. Granddad no longer burned food as often as he used to, but he still had the occasional cooking disaster. She went into the kitchen and found him grating cheese.

  “What are you making, Granddad?”

  “I decided on a Super Bowl party theme for my column this week. I’m making bean dip and guacamole. Your recipes had five or six ingredients. I cut them to three ingredients each.”

  In the last six months, he’d pared down many of her recipes to five ingredients for his newspaper column. Now, starting with a recipe that already had five ingredients, he still couldn’t resist throwing out a few of them. “Why don’t you just follow my recipes?” Maybe he wanted to put his personal stamp on them to justify using them.

  “Because both of those called for fresh chopped tomatoes. In the winter the supermarket sells things that look like tomatoes, but they sure don’t taste like them. I’m using salsa from ajar. The tomatoes, onions, and peppers are in there already, so I don’t have to chop anything.”

  A salsa jar, a can of refried beans, lemons, and avocados sat on the island counter. None of those could have produced the burnt sugar smell. Val opened the oven door. The smell was stronger there. “Did you bur—I mean, bake—a cake?”

  “Not a cake, the same dessert you served last night. Just because a recipe has only five ingredients doesn’t mean it’s easy.” He added grated cheese to a bowl containing refried beans and salsa.

  Val glanced into the sink and recoiled. Something resembling charcoal was sticking to her cast iron pan. “What happened to the tarte Tatin?”

  “The recipe said to cook the sugar until it was a rich golden brown. Well, one second it wasn’t golden enough, and the next second it was real brown.”

  More than a second had elapsed between one stage and the other. “Caramelizing sugar is tricky. When it cooks too long, you just have to dump it out and start all over.”

  “I had the apples all cut up. I thought the juice from them would loosen the gooey stuff at the bottom of the pan when I put it in the oven. Instead, everything except the crust turned black in the oven.” He pointed to the pan. “You think we should toss that out?”

  They wouldn’t have many pots and pans left in the kitchen if they got rid of the ones Granddad had blackened. “It’s Grandma’s pan. Even charred food comes off cast iron if you clean it right, but it takes time.”

  “I can’t do it now.” He put the bowl with the bean dip in the microwave to warm it. “I’m on a tight schedule today. After I turn in my column for this week, I’m meeting Ned for pizza.”

  “You can clean the pan tomorrow.” He probably expected her to clean up, as she usually did after his failed cooking experiments. He’d have to deal with this mess himself. Maybe the next time, he wouldn’t take his eye off the sugar that was caramelizing. “How did you get hired to impersonate Rick Usher?”

  “Rosana contacted me. She’d read about me in the newspaper, the article that talked up my business.” Granddad pushed the start button on the microwave. “We got together at a coffee shop in Treadwell on Wednesday. She asked if it would bother me to pretend to be someone else. I had no problem with that. I thought she wanted me to work undercover and spy on somebody.”

  “What else did she say about the job you were supposed to do?”

  “Not much. She said I’d have to learn some things first. She’d pay while I got trained up. She gave me directions to her house and told me to show up there Thursday after lunch.” The microwave beeped. Granddad took the bean dip out. “First thing I had to do, when I went there, was memorize a bunch of facts about someone, just like spies learn their cover stories. Birthdate, schools, jobs, travel, that sort of thing.”

  “Facts about Rick Usher.”

  “I didn’t know that then. Once I proved I could remember all that stuff, she introduced me to Clancy.” Granddad stirred the bean mix. “Ned’s invited a couple of people at the retirement village for happy hour before we go for pizza. I’m going to bring the dips. You want to try this one?”

  Val loaded some onto a chip and crunched down on it. The flavors of tomatoes, beans, and cheese blended well. “I like it.” Sometimes Granddad’s cooking experiments turned out well.

  Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her shoulder bag. Gunnar was calling, saying he had a rehearsal that evening. He could meet her for a quick meal at five. She suggested the Bugeye Tavern and told him she’d walk there. She could use the exercise.

  Granddad had left the kitchen by then and gone into the study. He was sitting in front of her computer, pecking at keys.

  He looked up from the keyboard as she joined him in the study. “Don’t ask me any more questions. I gotta finish typing my column for this week.”

  His typos always slowed him down. He caught them on the page, but never noticed them on the screen.

  “I’ll type your column,” she said. “I’m not making a habit of this. It’s a onetime deal because I want to hear more about the Ushers and get on the computer to research Simone.”

  “Here, have a seat.” He gave her the desk chair and sat on the sofa across the room. “I’ll dictate the rest of the introduction and say something about each recipe. I jotted the ingredients and instructions on those papers I left on the desk.”

  Val typed what he dictated and the recipes. She printed a copy for him to proofread. Then they exchanged seats so he could e-mail the column to the editor at the Treadwell Gazette.

  Once he’d done that, he told her more about the days he’d spent at the Usher house. On Friday, he found out he might be called upon to represent Rick Usher if the author wasn’t feeling up to going out. Clancy introduced him to Rick, who was working in his study. It was a brief meeting with no mention of Granddad’s role. Then Clancy filled him in on the author’s career and gave him a list of book titles to memorize. On Saturday morning Clancy quizzed him on Usher’s bio. Then he explained what kind of clothes to buy and where to get them. He also gave Granddad the money for them and a pair of glasses Rick Usher no longer wore. They had tinted, nonprescription lenses.

  “They work okay for me,” Granddad said, “because I have good distance vision, but I can’t read with them.”

  “So Clancy was your mentor, Granddad.” Had Usher’s protégé also mentored the other impersonator? Probably. “What’s your impression of him?”

  “Friendly, easygoing, a cheerful fellow on the surface. I don’t think he’s happy inside. Now and then he stares into the distance as if something out there is haunting him.”

  “It’s not the ghost of Rick Usher. That’s a figment of your imagination. Don’t project it on Clancy.”

  “I don’t know what’s eating him, but something is.”

  She was about to tell him she’d visited the Usher house that morning when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket. The caller ID read Clancy Curren. Speak of the devil.

  Granddad stood up and went to the door. “I’m going to Ned’s place.”

  Chapter 8

  Clancy didn’t sound as upbeat
on the phone as he had in person, or maybe Val only imagined that because of Granddad’s comments about him.

  “If you’ll be at your café tomorrow morning,” Clancy said, “I’d like to bring you a contract for catering. Is there a time when you can get away for a break?”

  “I don’t get any breaks, but it’s less hectic between ten and eleven.” She’d like to talk to him too. Coaxing information from him about the impersonations might take a while, and she’d prefer no audience for it. “I’ll be free after two. If we talked then, we wouldn’t be interrupted.”

  “Morning’s the only time I can get away. I’ll arrive at the café at ten thirty. What’s the address?”

  Val knew what he’d be doing in the afternoon—working with Granddad at the Usher house, grooming him for his next appearance as Rick Usher. “The café is in the Bayport Racket and Fitness Club. It’s on a country road between Bayport and Treadwell.” She gave him directions.

  “Thanks. See you tomorrow.” He hung up.

  Val cradled the phone in her hand. If she could get him to confirm that Emmett Flint had impersonated Rick Usher, the investigation into Emmett’s death would widen to include his dealings with the Ushers. Of course, Clancy would be reluctant to admit any connection between himself and a man who’d died under suspicious circumstances. Possibly Simone could confirm the identity of Granddad’s predecessor. If she’d followed him home, as she had Granddad after he appeared as Rick Usher, she’d know where the previous impersonator lived.

  Val put away her phone and turned to the computer. She opened a browser window, navigated to the Web site for Chesapeake College, and found Simone Wingard among the English Department faculty. Simone had a master’s degree in comparative literature and a Ph.D. in English from Boston University. A brief online bio revealed Simone had written her dissertation about Poe’s influence on French literature. She had previously taught at Northern Virginia Community College.

  Val typed Simone’s full name into a Google search box. Up popped references to articles she’d written about Poe for scholarly journals. Val added Rick Usher to the search box. No sites came up that mentioned both Simone’s and his name. Val would love to know why the scholar was so interested in Usher. She could call Simone in her office at the college, but she’d rather see her in person. It’s easier to hang up than close a door on someone.

  Val navigated to the White Pages site and entered S Wingard in the name box and Maryland in the location box. Bingo. Simone lived in Treadwell. No telephone number was listed. Val jotted down the address. She’d need a good chunk of time to drive to Treadwell, talk to Simone, and drive back to Bayport.

  Val penciled in a Simone hunt on her mental calendar for tomorrow and checked her watch. She had just enough time to walk to the Bugeye Tavern to meet Gunnar.

  With the sun going down, the air had turned frigid. She put up the hood on her parka and walked briskly toward Main Street. In winter Bayport resembled a sleepy town. But from March through October, cars clogged the streets and tourists the sidewalks. This evening, by tuning out the purring of the occasional car motor, Val could imagine what life must have been like two centuries ago when Main Street’s narrow wood buildings housed the families of shipbuilders. Now antique stores, gift shops, and small restaurants occupied those buildings.

  A gust of wind blew her hood back off her head. She shivered as she approached the Bugeye Tavern. Named for the two-masted sailboat used to dredge oysters in the nineteenth century, the tavern had served beer and whiskey to the watermen who gathered there when they returned to port. Now it catered more to tourists than to the dwindling number of men and women who made their living from the bay.

  Once inside, Val walked past the tavern’s polished wood bar and through the archway leading to the back room. Six wooden booths lined the sides of the narrow room. She paused, amazed at the room’s transformation. A couple of months ago, the place had looked as if it hadn’t changed for a century, with the odor of beer spilled long ago wafting up from the floorboards. Whatever the tavern owners had done in the interim to turn the floor shiny had sealed in the odor. The room also appeared twice as big, thanks to a mirror on the far wall. Ceiling mirrors between the wood beams and plush red cushions on the benches in the booths completed the retro bordello décor.

  This early in the evening on a winter Monday, only two of the dozen booths in the room were occupied, one by a pair of older men drinking beer. Val walked past them toward Gunnar. He was studying a menu in a booth halfway between the entrance and the far end of the room.

  He jumped up to help her out of her parka. She didn’t see the dazzling smile he usually gave her, but at least she got a big hug.

  She was sorry when he released her. “You’re nice and warm. It’ll take me a while to thaw out.” She slid into the booth across from him.

  “I’d keep you warm from now until tomorrow morning if I didn’t have a rehearsal starting in an hour.” He handed her a menu.

  She skimmed it. “What are you going to order?”

  “Beef sliders with fries and a side salad.”

  She wasn’t hungry enough to eat that or any of the dinner platters. “A Caesar salad with grilled salmon sounds perfect for me.” She closed the menu. “I visited the chief today. He hinted that Emmett may have OD’d on prescription meds, possibly ones that lowered blood pressure.” Val repeated what the chief had said about Emmett’s sister.

  Gunnar grimaced. “She was right to rule out suicide. Emmett wasn’t the type to take his own life.”

  The waiter arrived at the booth and delivered water. “Can I get you folks something to drink besides water?”

  Val eyed the ice in the glasses. Her hands still hadn’t warmed up after her walk here. “Hot cider, please.”

  “Same for me. And we’d like to order the food too.” After the waiter took their order and left, Gunnar said, “What else did the chief tell you?”

  “Not much.” Val poked around her ice water with a straw. What the chief hadn’t told her bothered her more than what he had. “He was surprised at how little I knew about what he called your dealings with Emmett Flint. What went on between the two of you?”

  Gunnar gulped some water before he answered. “He and I had a fight at the theater after our rehearsal Thursday evening.”

  For a moment Val was too surprised to speak. That must have been a heck of a fight if Chief Yardley knew about it. “The police were there?”

  “No, but Emmett filed a complaint with them and threatened to sue me for assaulting him. I was only trying to protect myself. He also demanded the director bar me from the theater group.”

  And then he was murdered. A pang of fear shot through Val. Gunnar not only had a grudge against Emmett but also benefited from his death. Now that Gunnar’s accuser couldn’t testify against him, the lawsuit would go away, but a murder charge might replace it.

  Val tamped down her growing anxiety. “Tell me what happened from the beginning. How did the fight start?”

  “The understudies sit in the audience and watch rehearsals so we know what to do if we have to fill in. I stayed behind after Thursday night’s rehearsal ended to make notes on Emmett’s performance. As I was leaving I saw him in the hall with Maddie. She plays the part of Laura in The Glass Mendacity. She’s one of the characters plucked from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.”

  Val had seen the Williams play off-Broadway. “Laura’s the introvert who daydreams and polishes her glass animals all day.”

  “And lies. Maddie has that in common with the character she’s playing. Thursday night Emmett grabbed her arm and said something like I’m calling the shots now. Do what I say unless you want your secret to get out. I told him to let her go. He told me to shut up and mind my own business.”

  Val knew him well enough to guess what happened next. “You tried to help her.”

  He nodded. “No good deed goes unpunished. I went up to her and asked if she wanted me to walk her to her car. Emmett shouted
, ‘Get your ugly mug out of here.’ He swung at me. I ducked. Then he came at me again. I hit him in self-defense.”

  Val would have run or yelled for help instead of swinging back, as most women would.

  The waiter arrived with their ciders, giving her a chance to collect her thoughts about Gunnar’s actions Thursday night. The ugly mug comment had riled him. No one would call him handsome. He looked like a hit man, according to Granddad. Would Gunnar have ducked a second time rather than fought back if Emmett hadn’t insulted him? Maybe, but that’s not what had happened. The person who landed a punch looked like the aggressor, not the person whose punch missed its mark.

  When the waiter left, she said, “Did you have to hit him? Couldn’t other people have kept him away from you?”

  “Maddie was the only other person there.”

  “Then you have her as a witness that you were provoked and hit Emmett in self-defense.”

  He shook his head. “She lied about it. She told the police she turned away and didn’t see him go for me. The only thing she saw was me knocking him down.”

  Val wrapped her hands around a mug of warm cider. Her fingers would warm up quickly, but the chill inside her would be harder to get rid of. “If she lied about what happened, she was probably afraid of him. He can’t hurt her now. Maybe she’ll retract what she said.”

  “I asked her to do that. She stuck by her statement to the police. I have a scene with her where I accuse her of lying. Tonight, when we rehearse that scene, I’ll bellow ‘Mendacity! Nothing but mendacity! ’ with more feeling than I ever have before.” He spoke the line as if he hailed from the Deep South.

  “Has she lied about other things?” When he shrugged, Val tried to figure out why the actress wouldn’t change her statement after Emmett’s death. Either she really hadn’t seen Emmett go after Gunnar, or she couldn’t afford to admit lying to the police. “He obviously had something on her, what he called her secret. Maybe she doesn’t want the police to know he was blackmailing her because that gives her a motive to kill him.”