Murder Most Fermented

by Christine E. Blum

  I was at my computer early the next morning, enjoying that fresh, clean, and light feeling you get after having completed a necessary evil when Sally walked into the office.

  “Nine hundred ninety-nine, one thousand,” she declared, confirming the count on her fitness monitor.

  “If you’ve come in here to prod me to exercise more, I will have you know that I’ve accomplished a great deal this week and am reveling in the glow of progress.”

  “Actually, I was coming by to see if you wanted to go up to the gardens this afternoon to help Paula harvest her crops. Peggy’s bringing a nice chilled King Estate Oregon Pinot Gris.”

  “Are we driving up there and back?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in, and I’ll throw something together in the cheese/fat/carb food group to accompany the wine.”

  “Perfect.”

  * * *

  I was relieved to see that the gardens were fairly quiet and that there was no sign of Malcolm. Paula had led the way to her plots, or should I say her “horticultural fiefdom”? They clearly stood out as the Emerald City among the more organic and free-range gardens that were haphazardly doing their thing.

  We’d toted along stacks of small crates to transport Paula’s bounty and settled ourselves along the perimeter of her first plot that was producing asparagus, carrots, and fava beans. While Peggy worked the corkscrew and Sally readied the wineglasses, I watched Paula whisper something to each carrot before she pulled it up from the ground. She stopped after the second one and seemed to be going through some mental anguish. I’d hoped that this wasn’t some sort of Sophie’s Choice situation, but she did leave one in its place to grow another day.

  “Have you lived here all your life, Paula?” I asked, hoping to interrupt her malaise and worm my way into finding out more about her and her husband.

  She nodded, which got me exactly nothing.

  “Is this where you and Max met?” I asked, nodding to the gardens.

  This time she shook her head.

  “Paula’s story about finding Max is a good one,” Peggy said, urging her on.

  Sally passed around filled glasses, and I took the wrapping off a tray of bacon-wrapped figs stuffed with bleu cheese and panko.

  Oh, I can deliver.

  “Well.” She seemed a little flustered having the spotlight swung her way. She took a good sip of wine and settled in to tell her story.

  “It was 1968, right around here at the Venice Beach Rock Festival. I was braless, spirited, and twenty-one,” she said dreamily. “I remember how excited I was because Janis Joplin was going to appear. It was a psychedelic time, we were hippies, had gurus, soul, and believed in free love.”

  Who are you and what have you done with Paula?

  “Wow,” I said, trying to recover from this revelation. “And Max was there?” I was hoping to move her as quickly as possible off of the “free love” part of the story. This was an amazing about-face from the Paula I knew, but we were bordering on TMI.

  “The beach was wall to wall people. I was there with my housemates,” she continued. Looking to the sky to help her recollect, she listed them: “Begonia, Nico, Tranquilla, Honey, Kyle, Dylan, and Buzz.”

  “There were eight of you? Must have been a huge house,” Sally said.

  “Not at all, just three rooms and a small kitchen with a hot plate. We laid out mattresses and futons on almost every bit of floor space. We shared everything and everyone.”

  “Tell me about the rock festival,” I implored. I needed to quash any brewing mental images of Paula during her “experimental” period.

  “Well, you couldn’t see much of the beach as hundreds of people had lain down to form a giant peace sign. While most of the country was digging out of snow, we were smoking the wacky tabacky and grooving to reggae.”

  For about a minute she stopped talking, and from the way her upper body was swaying, I knew she was listening to Bob Marley in her head.

  “Just outside Muscle Beach, where Schwarzenegger was pumping iron in hopes of becoming Mr. Universe, was a three-guy combo playing Thelonious Monk. A drummer, a keyboardist, and this tall drink of water on the sax.”

  “Enter Max,” I said, pouring her more wine. We were getting to the good part.

  “He had on a straw porkpie hat and such a peaceful, eyes-closed expression on his face as he made that saxophone purr. I sat down cross-legged to listen, after a while my friends got bored and moved on.”

  “Wait, what were you wearing?” I needed to paint the whole scenario in my head.

  “Umm, let’s see. It was an unseasonably warm day, so next to nothing. A sheer knee-length spaghetti strap white dress. I remember I was the last to get up that morning so no one was there to help me zip up the back. I just left it open.”

  I suddenly looked at Paula in a totally different way. It may well be that we become caricatures of ourselves in our golden years, but I was seeing a young, hip, beautiful woman falling in love.

  “After a long time of staring at him play while his eyes remained closed, I sadly got up to leave. I figured this was a lost cause.”

  “Oh, Paula,” Peggy said, emotional even though she knew that a happy ending was nigh.

  “‘Where’re you goin’?’ he asked me in a silky voice. That’s how I met Max. I never did get to see Janis Joplin.”

  I took a deep breath and smiled. Nothing that romantic has ever happened to me, unless you count a college boyfriend who searched high and low for me at a party just so he could throw up in my hands.

  “What are we harvesting next?” Sally asked after we’d all thought about her story for a while. “These look ready,” she said, yanking on a handful of onion stalks.

  “NO! You can’t just pull them out of their beds like that! How would you feel?” Paula asked. She had tears in her eyes and she was starting to hyperventilate.

  “I’m sorry, I was just trying to help,” Sally said clearly startled by Paula’s response. We looked at each other and then at Peggy, all three of us not sure if Paula was having some kind of episode.

  “You are such a natural at gardening, Paula,” I said, watching her gently replant each onion. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking a look at my plot, maybe give me some pointers?”

  Sally smiled and nodded, thinking that I’d provided a good distraction for Paula.

  “What? No. In fact I have to go, right now,” she said, grabbing the few crates she’d filled with vegetables. She quickly stormed off, and we watched her disappear down the hill.

  “I got nothing,” Peggy said.

  “She really needs to start wearing a hat when she’s out here working in the hot sun,” Sally said. “Or she’s going to end up planting imaginary seeds in a garden with rubber walls.”

  Chapter 15

  Peggy had Wine Club this week and as much as I love her, I still found it difficult to go to her house. Oh, don’t get me wrong, her house is warm and cozy and so clean that even the five-minute rule doesn’t apply. I know because I once spilled a dish of Jordan almonds on her powder-blue carpet and managed to scoop them up before anyone noticed. And no one was the worse for wear after eating them.

  As I alluded to earlier, my discomfort is because the first Wine Club I ever attended was also held at Peggy’s. I’d walked into a house with an open door and walked straight through to the back garden where I assumed everyone had gathered. Instead, I found a woman named Rosa lying facedown in the grass with a knife sticking out of her back. It was the first murder recorded for Rose Avenue since, well, since they started counting. And here I am just over a year later at the heart of another murder in the neighborhood. Essentially I’m the “Murder Whisperer.”

  Peggy was old school when it came to Wine Club snacks and it always reminded me of coming home from college and Mom making me all my favorites even if it was just for a weekend. Today Peggy did not disappoint. Here is a sampling of her spread:

  Bugles Stuffed with Pimento Cheese (Bugles haven’
t

  been on shelves in fifty years!)

  Pigs in a Blanket

  Swedish Meatballs

  Homemade Chex Mix

  Sour Cream and Chive Stuffed Celery Sticks

  Turkish Delight (Pretty sure they’re the same ones

  nobody’s touched for over a year)

  This had been billed as the “Abigail Rose Murder Investigation” Wine Club and everyone was in attendance. To my enormous relief, Penelope had handed me back the signet ring as soon as I walked in and told me she’d explain her findings when it was her turn.

  Thankfully, Peggy’s tastes for wine did not mirror her food choices or we’d be tippling Muscatel and Thunderbird. Instead Peggy had procured a tasty selection of First Class Pinot Noirs from Aconcagua, Chile. Light and easy-drinking, bottles were being opened faster than a kid’s presents on Christmas morning.

  “Okay, now that we’ve been amply supplied with fortification and energy it’s time to review what we’ve got and what we need for the cops to make an arrest in Abigail’s murder.”

  It appeared that Peggy was driving the bus today.

  “Halsey, why don’t you refresh our memories by reciting the suspect list,” Peggy said.

  “Okay, here’s what we’ve concluded and why:

  Malcolm: Being Abigail’s great grandson, he had the most to gain. I did some research and found that Abigail had two grandsons, Charles and Michael. Charles was Malcolm’s father and as he told me, both his parents died in a car accident when he was young. Michael, his uncle, never married and therefore had no heirs. And here’s the kicker, he died last March, which was just before Malcolm appeared on Rose Avenue.

  “Also, may I remind you that he is putting in a basement as part of the remodeling of the house he’s inherited? Perhaps in anticipation of getting the deed to all the mineral rights?” Penelope said, proud of herself.

  “So the motive’s clear, but why not just wait Abigail out? She was not long for this world,” Sally said.

  “Good point.” Peggy nodded. “Next suspect, Halsey.”

  Howard, the developer: There are a lot of things that don’t add up here. He too is putting in a basement, as I know all too well. I can still taste that putrid muck. Someone started the rumor that he’d struck oil although he denies it. Why? Then there’s the unfortunate demise of his workman, Carlos. Augie said that Howard had a clear alibi for the night Carlos was murdered, but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have hired someone else to do it. Until Augie gets the CSI and autopsy reports, Howard is very much still a suspect in Carlos’s death.

  “But how does he tie into Abigail Rose?” Penelope asked.

  “Hasn’t anyone noticed how little progress has been made on the site?” asked Paula. “Howard started construction three months ago and has very little to show for it. What if he really has found oil, and heard about the possibility of acquiring a deed for the whole pie? Malcolm may have been able to wait for Abigail’s death, but Howard would need to steal it before anyone else got near it. Maybe he confronted her and tried to get the deed out of her hands and he went too far? Knocked her over or something?”

  “Excellent deducing, Paula,” I said. I was amazed at how lucid she was versus our last encounter in her gardens. I looked at Sally and could tell that she was thinking the same thing.

  “Any others?” Peggy asked, passing bottles of wine around for refills. She already knew the answer to her question.

  I took a sip of wine and continued.

  Bobby Snyder, the ersatz lawyer: This one’s like a rotten onion with layers and layers of lies to peel back. His name is actually Robert Snopes. He was a crooked ambulance chaser and he lied about his identity, probably to hide the fact that he’s been disbarred from practicing law ever again. Augie says that he avoided jail time with bribes. It looks like this is his latest “get rich quick” grift, selling phony mineral rights packages he’s “negotiated” and pocketing the money. He’s somehow tied to Howard, for one thing we know that he was part of the argument they had with the workman, Carlos.

  “But I’m guessing that until he actually makes a sale Augie has no cause to arrest him or even bring him in for interrogation?” Sally said.

  That gave me an idea . . .

  “For all we know Howard and this Snyder/Snopes could be in cahoots on the con,” Peggy said. “Did you have another, Halsey?”

  She knew I did, but I couldn’t bring myself to list Max in front of Paula, especially now that I knew how fragile she was. Besides, the rest of us had already talked about this at lunch.

  “Isn’t that enough?” I sat down, now done with my presentation but continued speaking. “Paula, you mentioned that you would kindly share some of Max’s research with us. Have you been able to procure any of his papers?”

  “I do have them for you. If you follow me home after Wine Club, I will give them over,” Paula said, taking a gulp of her wine.

  “So are we any closer to narrowing down the list of suspects?” Penelope asked.

  “It sure doesn’t look like it, this is more complicated than finding Waldo. Don’t you think, Halsey?”

  “It seems so, Sally, but I do have a plan.”

  “Perfect, lay it on us,” Penelope said, and they all moved in close to me. Even Paula’s face had lit up with excitement.

  “Okay, first order of business is to get to the bottom of Howard’s construction. We need to see the permits, find out how this project is being funded, and what sort of time frame they have committed to.”

  “I’m happy to go downtown and get copies of what the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety has on file,” Paula offered.

  “Great. Peggy, can you follow the money trail?”

  She nodded to me, and I saw her open up her contacts list on her iPhone.

  “And, Penelope, Howard’s never met you, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Perhaps you could walk by the site, introduce yourself, and tell him you are interested in hiring him to remodel your house next. That way you can find out when he thinks that he’ll be finished with the current one.”

  “And when you find out, add four months to that date.” Peggy harrumphed.

  “Any news on the deed and the ring?” Paula sat forward in her chair and looked directly at me.

  “Excellent question, Paula,” I said, wanting to include her and to reward her diligence. “The deed is with a noted historian friend who continues to perform his analysis.” I decided to perpetuate this little white lie otherwise people would try to guess where I’d hidden it. I did make a mental note to follow up with Frederick Ott.

  “What is his name? I wonder if Max knows him,” Paula said.

  “He preferred that I keep his name out of this at the moment,” I replied, remembering that when you tell a lie the KISS principle is the order of the day: keep it simple, stupid.

  “Of course.” This seemed to fluster Paula, and she got up and went into the kitchen.

  “What about the ring?” Sally asked.

  I held it up and nodded to Penelope to present her findings.

  “Firstly, the authentication process is almost but not entirely complete. According to my expert, Grace, the symbols on the band are Victorian although the metal is not pure gold. That doesn’t totally disqualify the ring but it raises some suspicions.”

  Penelope took the ring from me and showed it to the group. The reverence with which she did this told me that she must be very good at her job as docent.

  “If you remember Halsey telling us, there is an inscription on the inside. It says Memento Mori, ‘Remember you will die.’ ”

  “Such a lovely sentiment.” My mouth had snuck ahead of my brain again.

  “It’s a matter of how you perceive the message; it could be taken to mean live your life to the fullest.” Penelope smiled at me.

  “Which you’d have to say Abigail Rose did, living well into her nineties,” Peggy said.

  “Until she was buried alive,” pr
actical Sally interjected.

  “WHAT? I thought you said that someone murdered her and then buried her in the gardens?” Paula screamed.

  I nodded to Sally, remembering that Paula hadn’t been at lunch in the Marina when I told the other girls what Augie had said.

  “I’m afraid so. Augie got back the autopsy report results, and it showed that she had died from asphyxiation; they found soil in her lungs. She had been alive when she was buried.”

  “No, no, NO!” Paula stood and paced in circles.

  “Here we go again,” Peggy said. Sally waved her to be quiet.

  “Here, luv, how about a nice bit of Turkish delight?” Penelope soothed, offering a small plate.

  Paula froze in place. She was visibly working on slowing her breathing and trying to calm herself. I stood next to her and put my hand on her shoulder.

  “I—she was my next-door neighbor,” Paula softly explained. “For so many years. I can’t bear thinking that she suffered in any way. I miss her so.”

  “Peggy, it’s time for that sickeningly sweet confection to hang up its cleats,” Sally said, picking up the tray of Turkish delight. “It needs to ride off into the sunset on a camel, it would make anyone apoplectic.”

  “How about some more wine?” I asked Paula, filling her glass and sitting her back down.

  She welcomed the gesture and took a much-needed mouthful.

  “Penelope, was there more to report on the ring?” I’d decided to continue on with the meeting.

  “A bit, yes. These engravings on each side, although a bit hard to define due to wear, are actually crude images of coffins.”

  This time when she passed around the ring everyone took a minute to study it.

  “The etching on the lid of the locket part of the ring is a mirror image of a family crest, but Grace has not been able to trace its origin yet.”