Killer Crab Cakes

by Livia J. Washburn

  “And he’s my father,” Raquel said.

  “Yes, that’s true,” Jefferson said. “Now, Chief, if you’d be so kind as to tell me what’s going on here …”

  Clifton’s answer was blunt. “A murder investigation. One of the guests staying here was poisoned sometime yesterday morning or late the night before.”

  “Who was the victim?”

  “A man named Ed McKenna.”

  “McKenna!” For the first time, Jefferson’s air of perfectly coiffed and dressed composure appeared to be shaken. “Of McKenna Electronics in San Antonio?”

  Roger practically sprang forward. “Don’t say anything else, Charles! Not a word!”

  Anger flared in Jefferson’s eyes, probably at the notion that one of his employees would speak to him in that tone of voice, Phyllis thought, but he followed Roger’s orders and didn’t say any more.

  Frances Heaton did, though. She stepped forward and demanded of Jefferson, “How do you know our father?” When Jefferson just gave her a stony stare in return, Frances turned to her brothers. “What do the two of you know about this? Have you been keeping secrets from me about the company?”

  “I’m the CEO of McKenna Electronics,” Oliver told her. “I don’t have to answer to you, Frances.”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Oscar scoffed. “He never knew anything except what Dad told him. He’s always been content just to be a figurehead and a yes man. I wasn’t, and that’s why Dad canned me.”

  “That’s a damned lie!” Oliver said. “You don’t know anything about it, Oscar.”

  “I know you’ve never been anywhere near as smart as you think you are.”

  The twins clenched their fists and glared at each other. Phyllis wondered if they were about to start throwing punches. It wouldn’t have surprised her a bit. With all the tension and anger in this room, she was sure that chaos would have ensued by now if not for the presence of Chief Clifton and the other officers.

  Clifton acted to make sure that didn’t happen by saying, “All right, everybody settle down. We came here to conduct a search, not to referee a free-for-all.” He glanced at Charles Jefferson. “Although I am mighty curious about your connection with Ed McKenna.”

  “Don’t say anything, Charles,” Roger Fadiman warned. “Not a word.”

  Jefferson lifted his chin defiantly but followed his attorney’s advice, keeping his mouth shut.

  Clifton looked around the room. “I’ll be talking to all of you later,” he said. “If you’d like to have a lawyer present, of course that’s fine. We’ll be in touch.”

  “You can’t take any potential evidence with you until I’ve seen that warrant,” Roger reminded him.

  Clifton took a folded document out of his pocket and handed it over to the lawyer. Roger studied it for several minutes with a frown on his face, flipping through the several pages. Finally, with a grimace, he handed it back.

  “Everything appears to be in order,” he said, sounding disappointed.

  “Just like I said.” Chief Clifton put the search warrant away and motioned for the other officers to leave the room. They filed out, taking the evidence bags with them, and Clifton brought up the rear of the procession.

  He paused in the foyer and looked back at the group gathered in the parlor. “I really don’t want to be called back here to break up a riot,” he told them. “Keep that in mind.”

  He went on out, heading for one of the cruisers parked in front of the bed-and-breakfast. The search was over.

  But the case was far from concluded, Phyllis told herself.

  And a moment later, that riot Chief Clifton had warned against seemed to be on the verge of breaking out, as seemingly everyone in the parlor began talking loudly and angrily at once.

  Not all of them were arguing, though. Consuela left the room, heading toward the kitchen, and Phyllis went after her.

  Bianca had gone in that direction when she fled the parlor, and Phyllis found mother and daughter in the kitchen. Bianca was dry-eyed now, but the streaks left behind by the tears she had shed were still visible on her cheeks and she was obviously shaken and upset. Consuela was speaking to her in rapid Spanish. Phyllis caught only a few words, but they were enough to indicate to her that Consuela was demanding to know what in the world Bianca had been thinking by posing in the nude for Leo Blaine.

  “He was lying, Mama,” Bianca insisted when her mother let her get a word in. “I never offered to pose for him. It was all his idea.”

  “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was! You should have told him no! You should have told me what he asked you to do!”

  Bianca looked like she might start crying again. “But you would have told Papi, and then he would have hit Mr. Blaine and there would have been a lot of trouble—”

  “You think there’s not a lot of trouble now?” Consuela asked with a disgusted snort. “What were you thinking?” she asked again, in English this time.

  Bianca began to sob again and didn’t answer.

  Consuela shook her head and turned to Phyllis. “I’m so sorry, Señora Newsom. We’ll all quit and leave this house. We’ve brought shame on Oak Knoll—”

  Phyllis didn’t let her go on. “Don’t say that,” she said. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Consuela, and I’m sure that if Dorothy were here she’d tell you the same thing. She certainly wouldn’t want you to leave. Any of you.”

  “The shame is that I raised my daughter to be a puta.”

  “Mama!” Bianca cried. “That’s not true. I didn’t do anything with Mr. Blaine. I swear it!”

  “You let him take those pictures of you!”

  “For the money! I didn’t think it would do any harm. I didn’t think anybody would ever find out about it.”

  Phyllis said, “Did Mr. McKenna find out about it, Bianca?”

  The young woman blinked teary eyes in confusion. “Mr. McKenna? The old man who died?”

  “Chief Clifton thinks that if Mr. McKenna knew about the pictures Mr. Blaine took of you, he might have threatened to tell Mr. Blaine’s wife, or your parents.”

  Bianca shook her head. “He didn’t know about it. Nobody knew about it except me and Mr. Blaine. Unless … I guess he could have found out somehow. Maybe Mr. Blaine told him.”

  Leo wouldn’t have done that, Phyllis knew. Leo wanted the whole thing kept secret, and for good reason.

  “He didn’t accidentally come in while Mr. Blaine was taking pictures of you or anything like that?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Phyllis believed that Bianca was telling the truth … as far as she knew it. But it was still possible that Ed McKenna could have stumbled over Leo’s little photography session and threatened to expose him. Considering what was going on between Leo and Jessica, and Sheldon and Raquel, some people might think that Jessica didn’t have any right to be upset with Leo over a few pictures, but from the way she had attacked him downstairs, clearly she had been. Leo must have known that she would be.

  It was a motive for murder, and Phyllis had learned that the question of whether a motive was good enough could be answered only by the person who committed the murder. Whatever the motive, it had been good enough for him or her to lace Ed McKenna’s leftover crab cakes with poison, that was certain.

  “How many times?” Consuela said.

  Bianca blinked up at her. “Mama?”

  “How many times did this happen? How many times did you degrade yourself for that man?”

  “Just the once, I swear. I … I was too ashamed to do it again, even though Mr. Blaine wanted me to. That’s the truth, Mama.”

  “Where was Mrs. Blaine when it happened?” Phyllis asked.

  “She had gone shopping with their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Forrest. It was one morning when Mr. Blaine told them he didn’t feel good. I came in to clean and he was still in the room. I told him I would come back later, but he said it was all right. He had his computer open on the table, but I didn’t pay any attention to what was on it unt
il he … he showed me. There were pictures of women … and he said he would pay me if I would let him take pictures like that …” Bianca took a deep, ragged breath. “I started to run out of the room—”

  “You should have,” Consuela said.

  “But then I thought of the money … and he promised he wouldn’t hurt me, and that nobody would ever find out … and I thought maybe it would be okay—”

  “You thought wrong,” Consuela said.

  “I know that now, Mama. But then I didn’t. So I said I’d do it. It didn’t take long, and then … and then I put my clothes on and left. That was all. I swear it on the Blessed Virgin.”

  Consuela crossed herself, then glared down at her daughter. “You’re gonna be grounded for so long—”

  “Mama, I’m eighteen! You can’t ground me.”

  Consuela snorted again. “You don’t think so? You just watch!”

  Phyllis wanted to stay out of this part. She had come to the kitchen to make sure that Bianca was all right, as well as to ask a few questions of her own. Now that she was satisfied she had learned all she could from the young woman, at least for now, she would leave the rest of it to Consuela.

  She gave Consuela a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and then left the room, returning to the parlor. The Blaines and the Forrests were nowhere in sight, and Frances Heaton and her brothers were gone, too, as were Charles Jefferson and Roger Fadiman. Nick and Kate Thompson were still sitting there with Sam, Carolyn, and Eve, though, and Tom Anselmo paced back and forth across the rug, pausing occasionally to smack his right fist lightly into his left palm.

  Theresa met Phyllis just inside the door. “How’s Bianca?” she asked.

  “Well, she’s upset, of course—” Phyllis began.

  “Of course she’s upset,” Tom said. “She acted like a slut.”

  Theresa rounded on him. “Papi! Don’t talk like that. You know better. You know Bianca is a good girl.”

  “Good girls don’t do what she did,” her father said with a stubborn shake of his head.

  “They do if they make a mistake. I know Bianca. I know she didn’t think it would hurt anything. And really, what did it hurt?”

  “She shamed herself and her family!”

  “The shame is in your eyes,” Theresa said.

  “The shame is in the eyes of anybody who’s decent,” Tom insisted. He flung his hands in the air. “Ah, I’m not gonna argue about this! I’ll go mow the grass. I got to have something to do!”

  He stomped out of the room, and Theresa headed for the kitchen to join her mother and sister.

  Nick Thompson looked around and said, “Boy, lot of fireworks today, huh?”

  “Don’t make fun of it,” his wife scolded. “Those people are really upset.”

  “I’m not making fun of it,” Nick said. “It’s just that murder really brings out everybody’s dirty laundry, doesn’t it?”

  “I never thought that Mr. Blaine would have done such a sleazy thing,” Kate said.

  “I’m not a bit surprised,” Carolyn said. “I didn’t like him right from the start. I could tell that he was a terrible man.”

  And Carolyn didn’t even know everything that was going on, Phyllis thought.

  “That Charles Jefferson was certainly a handsome, well-dressed man, though,” Eve put in.

  “Oh, don’t start,” Carolyn said. “Anyway, I’m sure he has a wife. A trophy wife, more than likely, some nipped and tucked and silicone-enhanced twenty-five-year-old.”

  “I don’t think they use silicone implants anymore, dear. They turned out not to be safe. Of course, I never needed anything to attract a man other than what the Good Lord gave me.”

  Carolyn rolled her eyes. Phyllis sat down and forestalled any more bickering between the two of them by saying, “Jefferson certainly had heard of Ed McKenna before. That was a surprise.”

  “McKenna was in the same business as Jefferson, right?” Sam asked.

  “A related business. Jefferson’s company designs guidance systems for the aeronautics industry. McKenna’s company actually manufactures electronic components.”

  Carolyn frowned at Phyllis. “You’ve been studying up on these people, haven’t you? I knew you were going to try to solve the murder.”

  “I just want everything cleared up before it ruins things for Dorothy and Ben,” Phyllis said. “If Chief Clifton or somebody else—anybody else!—solves the murder, that’s just fine with me.”

  “With your competitive nature? That’s a laugh.”

  Eve leaned toward Sam and laughed. “Pot, meet Kettle.”

  “I heard that,” Carolyn snapped.

  Nick said, “You know, if there is some sort of connection between Jefferson and McKenna, then maybe he had something to do with the murder. Maybe McKenna was standing in the way of some business plans Jefferson has, and he decided to get rid of the old guy.”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “He didn’t look like the kind of man who would break into somebody’s house and poison some crab cakes.”

  “Well, he probably wouldn’t do it himself, of course. But he could hire somebody to do it. Or get somebody who already works for him to do it.”

  “Like Leo Blaine?” Phyllis asked.

  Nick nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “Or maybe Mrs. Forrest,” Kate suggested. “She’s Mr. Jefferson’s daughter, after all. And did you see the pathetic way she kept trying to get his attention? He must not have ever paid any attention to her when she was a kid. I’m sure she’d do anything to try to please him.”

  “Maybe, maybe,” Nick agreed, sitting forward in his chair. “Hey, we’re really getting into the spirit of this detective stuff, aren’t we? Maybe we could solve this murder, honey.”

  “Oh, no. This is a vacation, remember? At least, it was supposed to be before poor Mr. McKenna dropped dead.”

  “Yeah, but people go on mystery cruises and things like that, where there’s a murder for them to solve.”

  “A fake murder,” Kate said. “This is the real thing.”

  Nick looked a little ashamed of himself. “Yeah, that’s true. McKenna’s really dead. It’s not a game, is it?”

  It wasn’t a game at all, Phyllis thought. It was real, deadly real.

  But Nick had definitely been right about one thing.

  Murder brought out everyone’s dirty laundry … and Phyllis had a feeling that there was plenty of dirt that hadn’t even seen the light of day yet.

  Chapter 13

  It was a subdued lunch. The Blaines and the Forrests didn’t come down to eat and didn’t go out, either. They remained in their rooms. Phyllis kept an ear out for the sound of things being thrown. She would have to intercede if Jessica started heaving things at Leo. She couldn’t allow them to bust up Dorothy’s furnishings.

  Everything was quiet, though … almost ominously so.

  Nick and Kate shared lunch with Phyllis, Sam, Carolyn, and Eve. They seemed to have forgotten about worrying over whether the food might be poisoned. They hadn’t forgotten the murder, though, and were still discussing various possibilities.

  “I think this guy Jefferson is the key to the whole thing, myself,” Nick said. “He’s rich, and where you’ve got a lot of money in play, you’ve got a motive for murder.”

  “And we all saw the way he reacted when he heard Mr. McKenna’s name,” Kate asked. “There’s definitely some sort of connection there.”

  Phyllis said, “I’m sure the police will look into that. Chief Clifton and his daughter both strike me as competent investigators.”

  “But you’re better, Mrs. Newsom,” Nick said. “Heck, from what I’ve heard about you, I’ll bet you’ve solved more murders than those cops have. How often do they have unsolved murders in a place like this?”

  “I don’t know,” Phyllis admitted. “Probably not that often.”

  “So Mr. Thompson’s right,” Carolyn said. “You’re better qualified to investigate what happened.”

&
nbsp; Phyllis shook her head. “You’re forgetting that I have no official standing to question anybody.”

  Carolyn snorted and said, “That never stopped you before, did it?”

  Phyllis knew there was no point in being irritated with her old friend’s attitude. And she supposed that Carolyn had a point. She had poked into things in the past without any official standing. She could do it again. She wanted to do it again.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “I’d start with Oliver McKenna, if I were you,” Nick suggested. “It seemed to me like he knew something about the connection between his father and Jefferson.”

  That had seemed possible to Phyllis, too. She nodded but didn’t commit herself to anything.

  After lunch was over, she went out into the kitchen, where Consuela was cleaning up. The woman’s face still bore lines of strain from the confrontation with her daughter earlier that day, but she was going about her work with her usual enthusiasm.

  “Let me give you a hand,” Phyllis offered.

  “That’s not necessary, Mrs. Newsom,” Consuela said. “I just have to finish putting a few things in the dishwasher and get it started; then I can go home for a little while. I already have everything on hand I’ll need for supper, so I don’t have to go to the store.”

  “Is Bianca still here?”

  Consuela’s face turned stonier. “No, I sent her home. It’s not fair to Theresa, making her do some of her sister’s work that way, but I wanted to get some distance between Bianca and Tom.” She nodded toward the kitchen window. Phyllis heard the lawn mower still running outside. Tom had already had time to cut all the grass. He had to be going back over it again, distracting himself with work from what his daughter had done.

  “You know,” Phyllis said, “it’s really none of my business … and I admit that I have a son, rather than daughters, and I guess it really is different whether it ought to be or not … but I don’t believe that Bianca meant any harm. She just made a decision without thinking it through. Eighteen-year-olds do that all the time. I’ve read that it has to do with how some portions of their brains haven’t developed as much at that age.”