Murder Most Fermented

by Christine E. Blum

  “You have reason to believe that it isn’t?”

  “Reasons, several. Bardot is relaxed now but this is her home, and if a stranger broke in, they’d be sorry. Remember what she did to the thieves at the Marina last year.”

  Augie had to nod as he recollected. Bardot had literally made a drug bust, and I couldn’t have been more proud. She’d taken a beautiful leap from the jetty onto a boat of drug smugglers who’d kidnapped me and sent them sprawling to the deck. The Coast Guard then blocked the boat from moving past the breakwater.

  “So this had to be someone that Bardot knew and at least tolerated. The feeling appeared to be mutual, otherwise why put her safely in the bathroom? He or she could have kicked her out of the house and left through the front.”

  “She’s got a point, Augie.”

  He gave Marisol a disgusted, relenting look. I recognized it immediately as it was my standard reaction when she was right.

  “So you have a theory?” he asked me.

  I filled him in on my encounter with Malcolm, his strange behavior, and the discovery that Abigail Rose was most likely his relative. Augie confirmed this and told me that they were still investigating, but so far everything about the inheritance seemed legit.

  “So why is Malcolm keeping this a secret, Augie?”

  “Maybe because it’s none of your business and he wants to preserve his privacy?”

  “Never trust a redhead, they don’t tan and they’re terrible at hide and seek,” Marisol said on her way out of the room.

  No words.

  I then launched into the Bobby Synder story, and he kind of chuckled at what seemed to him to an obvious con attempt. I explained that Bardot had met both men.

  I could see that I was getting nowhere with Augie, and I realized why. I dreaded to admit to him that I had withheld evidence, but I had to tell him about the deed, knowledge of its existence provided a motive. But who wanted it the most?

  When I’d finished telling him the details, I gave him a good look to make sure that he hadn’t had a stroke. I had watched his neck’s jugular vein grow and pulse as I was speaking.

  “Who wants a snack?” Marisol asked, coming out of my kitchen with a cheese tray.

  WTF????

  The uniforms wanted to pounce, but Augie gave them the death stare.

  “Just give me the cigar box and all the contents, Halsey, and we are out of here. After I talk to some people at the station, I’ll let you know what charges they may want to impose.”

  “Um, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I whispered.

  “Why not?” He pretty much screamed.

  “Because I don’t have them anymore.”

  True.

  “What do you mean you don’t have them, where are they?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Marisol and Bardot sampling a wedge of my runny Port Salut cheese.

  “The deed is with an historian I know being analyzed, the ring is at a museum being appraised, and the tin went along with it.”

  Half true. I didn’t have the deed because I’d hidden it in a safe place after Malcolm’s visit.

  “I need to leave right now,” Augie said.

  “Want some wine to go with that cheese?” I said to Marisol.

  She stopped chewing just long enough to consider my offer and then shook her head.

  Chapter 10

  “I’ll have the Gulf Stream, dressing on the side, please,” Penelope said to the server.

  “The Spruce Goose sandwich,” Peggy chimed in, “but instead of that whole wheat business can you make it with a nice, warmed roll?”

  As the rest of the orders were taken, I admired my surroundings and smiled at the comfort of being with my friends at our favorite local eatery. That just happened to boast a well-represented wine list.

  We were having lunch at the Spitfire Grill on the grounds of the Santa Monica airport. The restaurant was opened in the ’50s to give the Douglas Aircraft personnel a place to eat in between working on DC-3s, B-17 Flying Fortresses, and the B-47 Stratojet. The walls are filled with WWII military memorabilia, maps, posters, props, and other Douglas Aircraft souvenirs. And it has all the major food groups: bar, flat screen TVs, and booths.

  Once we were done with our food selections it was on to the requisite wine choice, though we weren’t celebrating anyone’s birthday. Brilliant Sally had remarked that we’d gone a week without another murder and that had provided sufficient excuse to imbibe. We chose the medium-bodied Hess Select Chardonnay for its refreshing Monterey fruit forward style.

  With glasses filled and condiments on the table for every possible flavor profile, it was time to compare notes in our investigation. I began since I probably had the most news to share and because it might help clarify some of their findings.

  “What?” Paula said while loading her veggie burger with, you guessed it, more veggies. “Malcolm is the kindest, most obliging young man I’ve ever met. He is also very modest, which is probably why he hadn’t gotten around to telling us about his great- grandmother. But you know what they say, ‘sometimes it’s the quiet ones.’ ”

  “It does seem awfully risky and pointless to kill her, after all she was in her nineties and suffering from progressive degenerative brain disease,” Sally clinically said. “Time was not on her side.”

  I continued eating my aquaflight fish tacos while listening to the others theorize. It was good to get some perspective.

  “Now that Bobby Snyder is another story entirely,” Peggy said.

  “Were you able to get more on him from your, um, contacts?” I knew that Peggy liked to keep her past CIA affiliation on the down low.

  “Just scratching the surface but if he is a lawyer, there’s no record of it with the bar.”

  “Interesting, and how did he get involved in mineral rights, I wonder?” Penelope had been quiet up until now, not being a fan of Malcolm she’d followed the “if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all” rule.

  “That’s the key,” I said. “Is this just an opportunistic scam that he happened upon or is he working on a bigger scheme?”

  “Interesting, go on,” Peggy said, starting to catch my drift.

  “Well, just suppose that somehow he knew or had heard that a deed could be around out there that gave the bearer mineral rights for the entire area? Maybe he got Howard the developer to float that story about finding oil to try and flush the deed out?”

  “You said, and I agree, that it was his voice we overheard during the argument at Howard Platz’s property,” Sally told the group. “I think that we have to establish a connection between those two men.”

  “I say we add them to the list but not forget about Malcolm,” Penelope said.

  Why was Penelope so against Malcolm? From what I could see they’d had minimal contact with each other. Yet she was clearly trying to paint him as a murderer.

  “So, I’ll keep digging into Malcolm and Snyder’s past, and see what else I come up with,” Peggy announced.

  “And I’m going to apply some serious scrutiny to Mr. Howard Platz. I might go downtown to look up all his property records,” Sally decided.

  “Great, Penelope you said that you have some initial analysis on the ring that I found?”

  “Yes, I’ll go over it with you when we’re outside,” she softly said directly to me. Odd.

  “Paula, anything more on the possibility of oil being under Rose Avenue?”

  “I’ve gotten a box of Max’s papers down from the attic,” she said to me. “I have to go through them, but I’m waiting for a time when he is out of the house for a couple of hours.”

  We all looked at her.

  “Seeing anything to do with his study upsets him,” she offered as a reason.

  * * *

  “I’m dying to know, what did your appraiser think of the ring?” I asked Penelope.

  We’d moved next door to a bench facing the DC-3 “Spirit of Santa Monica” monument in front of the Mu
seum of Flying. Above us, abundant date palms had carpeted the lawn and walkway with their delectable fruit.

  “Grace says that it clearly is from the Victorian era, and this is why she needed the ring, she found a hidden latch on the face that opens to a small compartment. It’s called a ‘poison signet ring’ and in those days it held powders that could be slipped into a drink with fatal results to the consumer.”

  “Wow, they didn’t fool around back then. So is Grace sure it is real?”

  “Not a hundred percent but not all the metallurgy tests are back,” Penelope said, getting up to leave.

  “Okay,” I said, catching up with her. “May I have the ring back now, I want to see this compartment for myself, and I guess I need to eventually turn it in to Augie for evidence.”

  “Grace needed to hold onto it for more testing and such,” Penelope said, walking quickly away. “Must run, have an appointment. Ta-ta for now, Halsey.”

  I stopped and watched her disappear up the hill. What was so secret about this discovery that it couldn’t be shared with the group, I wondered. Is it because this ring is potentially worth a fortune? And why did the jeweler need to hold onto it, she’d had it for a week.

  Something didn’t seem right here, or maybe I just needed to stop drinking at lunch....

  * * *

  I spent the afternoon doing a little housekeeping and trying to sort out this mess in my mind. The sooner I can move myself off the suspect list the better.

  “Feel like a hot dog and a beer?” Jack asked, coming into the house.

  “You spoil me,” I said, noticing how cute he looked in a baseball jersey and cap.

  “You remember my friend Mark?” he asked, kissing me. “DEA K-9 team? His son is in Little League and they have a big game tonight. I said I’d watch and cheer him on.”

  “Whatever will I wear? Seriously, I’m going to have to change. What time do we have to leave?” I asked, heading to my bedroom closet.

  This actually sounded like fun, and I needed to be appropriately attired. Meaning Daisy Dukes, sports socks, and Jack Purcells. Was it too much if I wore a baseball shirt too?

  “Game starts in about twenty minutes, but don’t worry, we’re just going up the hill.”

  “You want me to return to the scene of the crime?? I’m not sure that this is a good idea.”

  “Why? We’ll be on the inland side of the hill, facing away from the gardens. Sitting with all the other parents watching their kids play.”

  I could tell by his grin that he’d said this just to get a rise out of me. Jack was always trying to steer our relationship into a more serious direction. I was still gun-shy from my divorce and enjoying my freedom. We did this dance more and more often lately.

  “I don’t think I want to go,” I said not liking the Daisy Dukes look.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun for the whole family. I’ve got Bardot’s leash on and she’s very excited.”

  “She’s always excited.”

  * * *

  I completely avoided the gardens as we made our way to the top of the hill, making a beeline for the diamond. I figured that if I didn’t look over there, then no one would notice me. You could feel the excitement in the air as the players, all suited up, took the field.

  Okay, I was having fun, and the kids are super cute. I’d stuck with the Daisy Dukes and that had maybe not been such a good idea because the bleacher seats were metal and cold. I decided not to complain. When Jack told me he’d be right back and then re-appeared with a towel to warm my butt, all was good again in paradise.

  “How old are these kids supposed to be?” I asked Jack, watching the pitcher do his wind up.

  “Eleven or twelve, why?”

  “Because the guy pitching looks like he could drive farm equipment.”

  “All depends on what you feed them. There’s Mark, I’m going to go over and say hi. Back in a minute and I’ll bring hot dogs.”

  “Say hello from me too, and find out which boy is his so we can cheer loudly!”

  I watched my gentle giant make his way around the field and jog over to his friend. Jack wasn’t what I’d call a deep thinker, but he sure did enjoy life. Where I come from, guys like that get snapped up in a New York minute. Maybe it was time.

  Or no.

  My mind raced back to the day I realized that my ex-husband, the guy I’d married, was actually a figment of my imagination. The person who emerged from my woolgathering was not the man of my dreams, he was the man of my bad dreams.

  But Jack was different, wasn’t he? I knew the real Jack. I let my mind drift into the reverie of a perfect marriage.

  Crap, I’m doing it again.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a bit of yelling and commotion coming from behind me at the entrance to the gardens. I couldn’t quite make out everything that was being said over the noise of the game and fans, but I did hear this:

  “I just wanted to take a look, I’m sorry.”

  If I didn’t immediately recognize the voice, I sure did when I turned and looked at the speaker. It was Malcolm apparently trying to sneak into the gardens by jumping the fence. His hands were raised in a surrender position and I saw him backing away. He had no reason to look in my direction, so I could spy undetected. Something else was said to him and he nodded, turned tail, sped off down the hill.

  Now that was interesting.

  “Here you go, babe,” Jack said, handing me a hot dog. “The one to watch is number five in the blue jersey, his name’s Donny.”

  “We’ll have to eat on the way, we’ve got to check on my garden plot,” I said, hopping down from the bench.

  * * *

  My curiosity and Bardot’s nose led the way. The police tape was finally gone but the boards they’d used to cover the grave were still a reminder of the horrible discovery. It was hard to tell if anything had been disturbed recently, the whole plot looked like a troop of scouts had marched through it.

  “I found dessert,” Jack said, showing me a handful of strawberries.

  “We’re not supposed to take other gardeners’ produce; it’s a cardinal rule, Jack.”

  “They were very ripe and needed to be picked. So what’s going on, why are we here?”

  I explained about Malcolm, Jack had never met him, and about the altercation I had just witnessed when he was trying to jump the fence.

  “Why do you think that he was up here trying to sneak into the gardens?”

  “Could be a number of things ranging from innocently wanting to visit his great- grandmother’s grave to knowing about and wanting to find the deed and the ring. He was trying real hard to sneak looks at my desk and computer screen when he dropped by my office.”

  “Maybe I should pay him a visit and bring along Clarence to get his take on the Malcolm dude.”

  Clarence was Jack’s giant schnauzer, a large and imposing dog that Jack had so well trained you could take him to tea at the palace.

  “Hmm, what would you say to him?”

  “Just welcome him to the neighborhood, say I was passing by, walking my dog, and explain my connection to you. And, if Clarence were to accidentally slip his collar and barge into the house, well, I’d have to go in after him. I could throw in a little growling at Malcolm if you’d like?”

  “I like the way you think but let’s leave out the growling, I’d like Clarence to give him a true litmus test.”

  “You got it. So you’re really going to plant grapes here?”

  “That’s the plan, but right now I’d prefer to drink them. Shall we go home?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 11

  Peggy dropped by on her afternoon walk the next day to say hello and get in some quality petting time with Bardot.

  “You are so beautiful, Bardot,” she said, snuggling her. Bardot naturally was eating this up.

  We were having iced teas out back, and I was loving the fact that daylight was finally getting longer.

  “I’ve got a bit
more to add on the research my associate was doing,” she started. “It appears that Mr. Bobby Snyder, Esq. is not qualified to use the identifier ‘esquire’ as part of his formal address.”

  “What do you mean? He said he was thinking of dropping it, I guess I never really understood what it meant in the first place.”

  “Well, historically in England it was used to show respect to men of higher social rank. These days it should only be used as a suffix for someone who is a licensed attorney.”

  Bardot was bored with the direction of the conversation and had opted to roll on the grass on her back in serpentine fashion.

  “So Snyder lost his license to practice law?”

  “It appears that he never had one, unless it was under a different name.”

  “So this oil rights offer is just one big scam?”

  “It would seem so. Question is, is he working alone?”

  “We know we heard his voice in the argument at Howard the developer’s construction site. I think that it’s time we did an inspection of our own.”

  “It’ll be fully dark by nine. Shall I swing by and pick you and Bardot up?”

  “Great, and bring a couple of flashlights if you have them. Should we ask Sally to join us?”

  “Nah, let’s leave it to all the single ladies.”

  “Put your hands up,” I said to Bardot, and she stood on her hind legs and did just that.

  * * *

  For our mission that night I’d changed into jeans and traded my sandals for Keds sneakers. I even had the common sense not to wear my white ones. I heard footsteps on my front stoop and opened the door for Peggy. Beside her stood Marisol, dressed in black and wearing sneakers over fuzzy, multi-colored, calf-high socks.

  “Oh, no, this is not going to work at all,” I said to Marisol.

  “Are you kidding, it was my idea and I’m going with you.”

  Peggy gave me a cocked head, questioning look, and I realized that it wasn’t worth trying to explain. It was Marisol who had made a suggestion of going at night when I returned from our first visit to the construction site.

  “Can I borrow one of those flashlights?” Marisol asked me as I locked the door.