A Killer Kebab

by Susannah Hardy

  “Where’s your cell phone?”

  Melanie looked at me blankly. “What?”

  “Your cell phone.”

  She pointed to the drawer in the night table. “In there.”

  I retrieved the phone to make sure she had charged it. The battery was half full. I plugged it in and set it on the night table. “Keep this out, right here, not in the drawer. Then if you need to call someone, you can.”

  She nodded, and her eyes drifted closed, then opened again slowly. I hated to ask her to do anything when she was so sick, but this couldn’t wait any longer. I reached into my bag and pulled out the authorization form I’d written and printed off back at the Bonaparte House. “Mel—”

  “Don’t call me Mel,” she whispered, then prepared to doze off again.

  “Fine. Melanie. Sheldon Todd, the genealogist, needs to see some documents out of the Bloodworth Trust file so he can finish up his work. You need to sign this so I can get copies made. You understand what I’m asking you?” This was probably illegal, no matter how you looked at it. She was clearly not of sound body, and her mind was wandering. But it had to be done.

  “Jim . . . he’s dead. In your restaurant.”

  The news was a couple of days old, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she knew. I sighed. “Yes, I found the body. They’ve arrested Russ Riley, Dolly’s son, who used to work at the Bonaparte House?”

  Her chin dropped toward her chest again. “Be . . . careful. I’ll sign.”

  She scrawled her name on the line I indicated. I folded the paper in half and stuck it back into my bag. Now I just needed Liza’s signature and I could get this ball rolling.

  “Thanks, Melanie,” I said, brushing a lock of hair back from her sweaty brow. “I should fax this in and stay with you till you’re on the mend.”

  “No. You go. I’ll be okay in a day or so.” I pulled the comforter up around her neck as she settled down into a prone position.

  “If you’re not significantly better tomorrow, I’ll have Liza call in Dr. Phelps. Maybe he’ll make a house call for a medical emergency. You don’t want to get dehydrated, so keep drinking.”

  “Yes, Mom.” Her lips curved up into a wan smile. “Check on Caitlyn. Call me tomorrow.” She dozed off.

  I stared at her, wondering how she’d picked up this sickness on an island where no one else seemed to be ill. At least Liza hadn’t mentioned anyone else, and I knew it had been a couple of weeks since Melanie had been on the mainland. Not that I understood anything other than the basics about disease transmission. Maybe this particular strain of bug had a long incubation period, and she’d been exposed to it weeks ago.

  Should I stay? It was tempting, and I was worried about Melanie. It had been a long time since I’d seen anyone that sick. But I really did have to get this authorization over to Lydia and I wasn’t sure if a fax copy would be sufficient, or if she’d need the original. Liza was keeping an eye on Melanie and Caitlyn, and I trusted she would let me know if their conditions worsened.

  I left Melanie’s door open behind me, and looked in on Caitlyn. Her tiny frame was dwarfed by the king-size bed, just her head visible on the pillow. Her black-framed hipster glasses were on the nightstand next to a cup of water, and a basin identical to the one in Melanie’s room lay on the floor. She was out cold, but since she seemed to be breathing, there was no need to disturb her. A little twinge of maternal sympathy rippled through me. Caitlyn wasn’t much older than my daughter. I wondered if Caitlyn had a mother or other family I should call. I could only hope that wouldn’t be necessary and tomorrow would be a better day for both her and my mother.

  I made my way back downstairs. I texted Liza, and she told me to come to her office. When I arrived, Steve was sitting in an armchair across from her desk. She appeared to be writing him a check.

  “Just as I thought,” she said ruefully. “Repointing and a new roof. I could buy a whole new house on the mainland for what this is costing me.” Liza looked over at Steve and smiled as she said it. He smiled back at her. She ripped the check along the perforations and handed it to him. “Here’s your down payment, balance due when the work is done next spring, as we discussed.”

  He folded the check and zipped it into a pocket on his fleece coat. “I’ll do the calculations and get the supplies ordered and delivered here before the snow flies again. We can store the materials in the carriage house, right?”

  “Carriage house, boat house, pick an outbuilding. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Steve rose and held out a hand to Liza. “Good to see you again, and thanks for the business.”

  The business. I didn’t like the thought that popped into my head. With Jim MacNamara’s death, the development project out at Silver Lake was in limbo. And Steve had had the contract to build those luxury waterfront camps. He was out a lot of money. I hoped he wasn’t scamming Liza by telling her the castle needed more work than it really did. But that was hardly a suspicion I could voice without concrete evidence to back it up.

  “Georgie, are you ready to go? I’ll meet you at the boat.” He left.

  Liza watched him go, a thoughtful expression on her face. “He’s cute,” she finally said.

  “Cute, but still married,” I reminded her.

  She waved her hand. “Pish. If he and Jennifer reconcile after what she did to him, I’ll eat one of my Ferragamo sandals.”

  “Liza, before I go, I need you to do something for me.”

  “Of course.” She closed up the checkbook and put it into a drawer, then locked it.

  “I need you to sign this authorization, so I can get a copy of the trust documents. For the genealogist.”

  She took the paper I handed to her, read it over, and nodded. She pulled out a pen and signed her name. “I asked Jim MacNamara for this information a couple of weeks ago, but he never got back to me.”

  Lydia hadn’t said anything about that. But of course, she might not know. If MacNamara kept the file in a locked drawer and had the only key, it stood to reason that he wouldn’t tell her about Liza’s request. Now I was more curious than ever to see that file.

  “So you think Jim’s son, Ben, might be more responsive?”

  “Let’s hope so. And while we’re hoping, let’s hope for multiple millions in that trust. It’s going to be an expensive year.” She handed the paper back to me. “A very expensive year.”

  NINE

  Steve dropped me at the docks. There was no time like the present, so I didn’t stop at the Bonaparte House but walked right on to the offices of MacNamara and MacNamara. Or just MacNamara, singular, now. Lydia was sitting at her desk, typing away. She nodded toward an interior office door. “Junior’s in there,” she whispered.

  I handed her the authorization. “Here you go. I know you’ve got your hands full, but I’d appreciate anything you could do to expedite this.”

  “I’ll try,” she said. “But it’ll depend on Junior giving me the go-ahead. And of course, I’ve never seen the file, so I have no idea how big it is or how long it will take to copy.”

  The interior door burst open and James Benjamin MacNamara Jr. stepped into the outer office. He stared at me. “Can she help you?” he said, pointing at Lydia.

  “I’m Georgie Nikolopatos. From the Bonaparte House? I’m so sorry about your father.”

  He ran his fingers through his perfectly barbered short brown hair and frowned. “You . . . found him.” His voice was tight, forced out as if an unseen hand were putting pressure on his throat. If he was experiencing any emotion other than agitation, which was rolling off him in currents, it was hidden under a well-schooled preppy demeanor.

  I gulped, remembering the skewer—my skewer—sticking out of Jim’s back, and felt a wave of sympathy and revulsion. I hadn’t been to prep school to learn to squelch my feelings. “Yes. I found him. I—hope he didn’t suffer.”
<
br />   “According to the medical examiner’s preliminary reports, Dad died pretty much instantaneously after that bastard Riley stabbed him. The skewer pierced his heart.” His face took on a purplish cast. “He killed him over hunting land. Hunting land. As if anyone else couldn’t just come along right now and offer Old Lady Turnbull money for the property and he’d lose it anyway. The idiot. And Dad was poised to make some serious money on that deal.”

  I wondered how much of that money Junior expected to share, then chastised myself. The young man had just lost his father. Grief made people act in unusual ways. Although my gut feeling was that Ben MacNamara was a spoiled, entitled brat.

  Lydia looked at me, then at Ben. “Georgie and her family need a copy of the Bloodworth Trust file. She brought an authorization from her mother and Liza Grant.”

  Junior stared at me. “Why do you need that? You’ll all see it when it vests in February.” He picked up a paperclip off Lydia’s desk and began to twist it into an unusable shape, then back again.

  Grief-stricken or no, Junior was getting on my nerves. And that response was suspicious. “My mother and my cousin are your clients regarding this trust, and they want me to look at that file. I am also your client, because you are handling my divorce. So maybe you’d like to lose all three of us? I’m certain I can find a lawyer in Watertown to represent us in both these matters and then you’ll be turning over that file anyway. What’s in it that you don’t want me to see?”

  My question hit home, as I’d intended it to. Lydia shot me an amused look, which I hoped, for her sake, Ben didn’t see. Ben slumped into one of the visitor’s chairs and put his face in his hands. Lydia’s smile turned into an expression of mild surprise.

  Ben looked up. “Look, I’m going to level with you.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. My truth-o-meter was ticking up into the Horse Apples zone. “Yes?”

  He took a deep breath. “My father was the only one who ever handled the Bloodworth file, and my grandfather and great-grandfather before him always handled it personally, to my knowledge. I guess Dad figured since the trust was going to vest and dissolve in a few months, there was no point in bringing me up to speed on it. I’ve never even seen the file, so I couldn’t hide anything from you if I wanted to.” Ben’s fingers gripped the armrests.

  “And?” I had no idea what was coming next.

  “Well, uh, the file was always kept in a locked cabinet in his office. I think he kept other personal papers there too, which I’m going to have to go through eventually. And he always kept the key on him, and as far as I know, there was only one. But his key ring wasn’t recovered from his body or at the crime scene. I know, because I asked for it and that Detective Hawthorne told me there were no keys.”

  So the killer had presumably taken Jim MacNamara’s keys. That could mean anything. Russ had a predilection for taking cars on joyrides, stinking up the interior with his Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation discount cigarettes. If he had committed the murder, of which I still wasn’t completely convinced, he could have taken the keys and hidden them somewhere or discarded them when he was done. The killer—whoever it was—could have wanted the keys for any number of purposes. To gain access to this office. To gain access to Jim’s home. To find something. To destroy something. Without more information, this was all just speculation.

  “Okay,” I said. “The keys are gone. So you just call a locksmith and have him or her open the cabinet, then I can get what I need.” I softened. “Look, Ben, I know this is a tough time for you. But you’ve got obligations now. Your dad would have wanted you to step up to the plate, otherwise he wouldn’t have brought you into the family law firm.” I hoped I was right about that, and Jim hadn’t just brought Ben in out of obligation, or because he’d paid for Ben’s law school and wanted him to work off the tuition.

  Lydia’s eyebrows rose and she gave me an almost imperceptible nod of approval. She’d probably wanted to say something like that to him for years, but never dared. But I was paying him, he wasn’t paying me, and I was almost old enough to be his mother, so I felt entitled to say more or less what I wanted.

  Ben stared at me, clearly unused to being given orders. But he wasn’t angry or defensive. He just looked . . . relieved? “Uh, yeah. Good idea. Lyds, can you find a locksmith?”

  “Socks, locks, I can do it all,” she said, and tapped at her keyboard. “Don’t forget you’re supposed to go meet with Clive at the Bay Funeral Home at four.” She clicked at her mouse. “Eureka. There’s no locksmith in Bonaparte Bay, but there’s one in the area. I’ll give him a call. I assume as long as the price seems reasonable I can book him?”

  Ben nodded. “Thanks, Lyds.” I wondered how many times in his short career he’d said thank you to Lydia Ames.

  Just as Lydia was picking up the phone, the front door opened and a rush of cold air and a whiff of expensive-smelling perfume preceded a woman, who stepped over the threshold.

  Jennifer Murdoch.

  She unzipped her North Face parka and shook out her long mane of expertly highlighted hair. Having just had the process done myself, I knew she’d spent a small fortune on it. She had at least three subtly blended colors that looked perfectly natural yet too perfect to be natural, if such a thing were possible. Her posture was erect, and I just knew she had a flat stomach and long, lean muscles under her well-fitting clothes, likely from hours of Pilates and yoga.

  Jennifer marched over to Ben and shoved her long manicured nail toward him, stopping just short of his chest. “I need to get into your father’s house.”

  Three sets of eyes stared at her. Three mouths were speechless. Ben came around first. Maybe he wasn’t as hopeless as I’d thought. “Excuse me?” he said. “Do I know you?”

  Jennifer’s eyes narrowed, but she lowered her arm. “Don’t play coy with me, James Benjamin. You know I was seeing your father.”

  “How does Steve feel about that?” My response was automatic. I liked Steve. But the little doubt that had been niggling at me resurfaced. Steve Murdoch had just as much reason to want Jim MacNamara dead as did Russ Riley. Maybe more, since his family was threatened. Although why anyone would risk their freedom to kill over this high-maintenance shrew was beyond me. Witch of November, indeed.

  She turned to me and glared. “You. You have a reputation for sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

  Well. If people I cared about needed my help, I would continue to stick my nose in anywhere I pleased.

  “If you don’t want me involved, why are you having this conversation in front of me?” My voice dripped sweetness like a fresh square of baklava. I saw Lydia put her hand to her mouth, clearly trying not to laugh.

  Ben’s lawyer training kicked in. “What do you want, Ms. Murdoch? I have an appointment shortly, so please get to the point.”

  Her eyes narrowed again, to the extent I wondered if she could actually see anything through the lids. “I told you, I need to get into your father’s house. Now.”

  “Have you been past the house? It’s a crime scene.” Ben folded his arms across his chest. “You can’t go in until the scene is released.”

  She blew out a sigh. “I know that, you little snot. But they’ll let you in, and I figured I could go with you.”

  Whoa. I actually thought Ben was a bit of a snot myself, but if she wanted something from him, calling him that was probably not the best way to go about getting it.

  Ben raised his eyebrows. “Do you know why crime scenes are sealed, Ms. Murdoch? It’s to keep people who don’t belong there from contaminating any evidence that might be present. By the way, I suppose you’ve been questioned by the police?”

  Her face darkened. “Yes, and my alibi checks out.” Her features cleared as an idea seemed to dawn. “If you won’t get me in, then you can get what I need for me. It’ll only take a minute.”

  “If I were to do this for
you, what would I be looking for?” Ben was maybe a better lawyer than I’d given him credit for. He hadn’t outright turned her down in an effort to keep her talking.

  She leaned toward him. “There’s a, um, video camera. In the nightstand drawer. It’s mine, and I want it back.”

  Double whoa. If she wanted it that badly, it was safe to assume there were more than videos of her kids on the machine.

  A muscle began to tic in Ben’s jaw. “Ms. Murdoch. Are you suggesting that I remove evidence from a crime scene? I could—no, would—be disbarred for that. Now, if there’s nothing else, as I told you, I have an appointment. So it’s time for you to be going.”

  Her face purpled. “Don’t you care about your father’s reputation?”

  Ben smiled. “My father was a grown man who made his own choices. Clearly some choices were not as smart as other ones.” He looked at her pointedly.

  She stuck that finger back toward his chest. “You listen to me, kid. I want that camera. I promise you will be sorry you ever crossed me,” she hissed. The door slammed behind her.

  We looked at one another. “Ten to one,” Ben said, “the cops have already found it and are watching the tape over coffee right now. Lyds, go ahead and call that locksmith.”

  “I’ll call you when the copies are ready,” Lydia said to me. She picked up the phone and dialed.

  Ben was already putting on his topcoat, presumably to head out to his meeting with Clive at the funeral home, which was my signal to leave as well. “Thanks,” I said, shrugging into my coat and putting on my hat and gloves.

  We parted ways on the front stoop. It was only a couple of blocks to the funeral home, and Ben went off on foot.

  I went in the other direction, toward the Bonaparte House.

  When I reached the parking lot around back, I hesitated. The back door with its squeaky hinge loomed above me. The huge stone octagon house always seemed friendly and welcoming to me, even through the events of a few months ago. But Ben’s reminder to me of how his father had died made me leery of going inside. It’s your home. Yes, it was for now at least, until my mother-in-law, Sophie, decided to up and sell it out from under me, or threw me out because I was divorcing her son.