Live and Let Pie

by Ellie Alexander

  With lunch service complete, I wandered over to A Rose by Any Other Name to place our order for flowers for tomorrow’s event. It was such a relief to have Torte running smoothly. I was irritated with myself for not hiring more staff sooner, but in the same breath reminded myself that there would have been no way to cram Rosa, Marty, and Sequoia into our old space.

  At the flower shop, Thomas’s mom suggested red roses, artichoke hearts, eucalyptus leaves, and white hydrangeas to capture the rustic, Italian vibe of the dinner. I loved adding some extra touches to the dinners like flowers, candles, and plenty of wine.

  At least preparing tomorrow night’s feast would give my mind respite. My cell phone rang on the walk back to Torte. Finally, the Professor or Thomas was returning my call.

  Alas, it was Lance.

  “Where are you?” he asked without waiting for me to answer.

  “A Rose by Any Other Name.”

  “Wait there. Don’t move a muscle. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Why?” He hung up.

  Less than five minutes later, Lance’s car sped up to the curb. “Get in.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He threw open the passenger door. “Get in, darling. Time is wasting.”

  I got into the car. “Where are you taking me?”

  His face held a puckish delight. “Anna Mill’s house.”

  “What?” I considered opening the car door, even though we were already moving. “We can’t go back there.”

  “Relax, relax. I’ve taken care of it.” Lance looked regal as always. He wore a pair of tailored teal shorts, a gray shirt, and matching loafers. Not many men could pull off teal shorts, but Lance wasn’t like most men.

  “Taken care of what?” I fumbled through my purse in search of my sunglasses.

  “Of everything, darling.”

  “But the social worker. I already talked to her. They were going out to do their assessment earlier. Thomas made me promise that we wouldn’t snoop again. I told you all of this.”

  Lance cranked the air-conditioning to high. “I know. Don’t worry your pretty little head. I made my own phone call to the social worker. I explained my position and my connection to Anna.”

  “What connection?” I found my sunglasses and put them on. The glare from the afternoon sun made my eyes hurt.

  “That her house is a treasure trove of invaluable Oregon Shakespeare Festival history.”

  “Lance, stop!” I shouted for him to brake for a family of deer crossing the street.

  “Damn, deer.” He pressed the brake just in time. The deer trotted across unscathed.

  “No more schemes, remember?” I shot him my best scolding look.

  “This isn’t a scheme. We’re simply going to take a look around the property. We’ll scour every room and corner for any valuable items that might hold historical significance and then I’ll report back to the social worker.” He pointed to a massive magnolia tree. “It’s like that gorgeously devastating tree. Did you know that it’s officially on the historical registry? It’s one of Ashland’s oldest trees. Planted in 1880. The state deemed it a heritage tree a few years ago thanks to a wise homeowner who did some sleuthing into the tree’s past. When she learned that the tree had been planted by one of Ashland’s original political powerhouses, the tree’s status shot up and it’s now to be preserved forever. That’s exactly what we’re doing for Anna Mill. You should consider it your civic duty.”

  I stared at the magnolia’s shiny leaves. “I don’t understand. How are we going to get in? Anna will never let us in, especially after involving the authorities.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s all taken care of. Anna is safe and sound. I personally chipped in for a full spa day for her, followed by a shopping excursion, and the very best of housecleaning teams who will sort and scrub every inch of the farmhouse. The house is vacant. The social worker and my hired team did their initial intake assessment earlier. They’ll begin going through the house later in the week, but they have deemed it unfit for living in, which means it’s sitting there empty. Waiting with eager anticipation for us to come along and allow the house to spill its secrets.”

  “Lance, this is a terrible idea in a string of terrible ideas.”

  “No, it’s a golden opportunity that we need to seize. You’re missing the key point here. Don’t get stuck in the details, darling. Think about the big picture. We are on a mission to preserve the past.”

  I sighed and stared out the window. Lance changed the topic. “Do tell, what’s the news with your staff? I heard word of a Sunday Supper.” He unclutched the wheel momentarily to clap.

  It was futile to argue. I told him about Andy’s decision to drop out of school and Sequoia’s unique drink ideas while we drove past organic farmlands and wound through twisting mountainous curves.

  A notice had been posted on Anna’s fence and front door warning of NO TRESPASSING when we arrived.

  “Lance.” I pointed to the sign.

  “That’s for strangers. We’re here on official business, remember?”

  “We’re going to end up in jail.”

  He shuddered. “Banish the thought. I’ve done my time. Never again. Never. As I said, Anna’s social worker knows that I’m here.”

  “She thinks that you’re here to recover OSF documents, not snoop through an old woman’s personal items.”

  “Details, darling. Details.” He carefully placed each toe on the gravel to avoid getting dirt or dust on his leather loafers.

  Lance opened the creaky door. “The question is where to start.”

  “We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

  “Anything on George’s disappearance.” Lance held the door for me. “Why don’t you start with the papers in the dining room and I’ll tackle the office?”

  “For the record, this is a bad idea.”

  “Noted. Now, on with you. The faster those pastry fingers search the faster we’ll be out of here.”

  Getting out of Anna’s house was motivation enough for me.

  “Lance, finding anything about George in the ten-foot-high stacks of newspapers is going to be an impossible job.” I pointed to the towering stack of papers. “Why don’t we go to the library or the historical society?”

  “What? Please, that would take all the fun out of sleuthing.” He blew me a kiss. “Good luck. I’ll be in the office.”

  I started by sorting the piles. It didn’t appear that Anna had had a system for stacking the discarded papers. Dates ranged from the 1950s to the 1970s in the same stack. I didn’t want to sit on the floor for fear of contracting a virus, so I removed all the stacks from the dining room table and worked my way around the room. I piled papers by decade.

  It was hard to concentrate. The room was musty and thick with the smell of old newsprint and mold. Not to mention the fact that my pulse pounded in my chest as I leafed through Anna’s discarded newspapers. Lance had been known to stretch the truth in the past. Had he even asked permission of the social worker? What if someone from the state or the police came by and caught us?

  Sweat dripped down my neck as I scanned each paper. Anna’s house, like the homeless council’s headquarters, had been built long before the invention of air-conditioning. The afternoon heat was sweltering. I willed myself to work faster.

  “Find anything yet?” Lance called from the office about a half hour later.

  “No. What about you?”

  He appeared in the door frame. The heat must have been affecting him too. His usually pale cheeks were red and dewy, and his shirt was splotched with sweat. “That depends on what you consider anything.”

  “You found something about George?” I perked up. “Thank goodness, because it’s miserable in here.”

  “I know. How could the poor woman live like this?” He fanned his face. “Alas I’ve yet to find anything on our dear departed George, but I found an old playbill from a production at OSF that starred Ginger Rogers. As I suspected there
’s a treasure trove of history from the Rogue Valley in here.”

  “Don’t take anything,” I cautioned him.

  “I won’t. But I am going to begin cataloging a pile that OSF will likely be very interested in acquiring.”

  “Yes, and the instructions were NOT to take anything, right?”

  Lance let out an exasperated sigh. “Always the stickler for rules, Juliet. Always.”

  My fingers were black from the newsprint residue. My shoulders ached, and I was starving. I realized I hadn’t eaten lunch. My eyes started to burn, as I had to squint to make out the year on some of the papers that had been badly damaged by water over the years.

  The smell of mildew was giving me a headache. I wanted to quit. For a change of pace, I walked to the closet and opened it. I should have looked there much sooner. Stacked in the dusty closet were dozens of paintings. I recognized the artist immediately—Henry. Like some of his more modern paintings I had seen, these were of dismembered body parts. A yellowed letter was taped to one of the paintings. It read: “To Anna, my one and only love.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Lance! I found something,” I yelled. The letter felt like it was burning my fingertips.

  He dashed into the dining room. “What?”

  Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion as I showed him the letter.

  “Don’t just stand there. Open it.”

  My mind swirled through every conversation I had had in the past two weeks. I flashed back to the fateful afternoon at Emigrant Lake when Hannah and Ellen had recovered George’s skull. I thought about everyone whom I had suspected and wanted to kick myself for not trusting my first instincts.

  “Juliet, read the letter.”

  I peeled open the envelope. The letter was written in gorgeous calligraphy—obviously by an artistic hand. In it, Henry professed his love for Anna, begging her to run away with him and leave her family and brother behind. Had he lied to me about Edgar being in love with Anna? He had been in love with her.

  “My God.” I handed Lance the letter.

  “What does it mean?” Lance stared at me with eager anticipation.

  “Give me a minute. It’s right on the tip of my brain.” I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to center my thoughts. I blocked out the stuffy room, the dank smell, and the fact that I felt like I was trapped in a sauna. The word “connection” repeated again and again in my mind.

  “The two cases are connected,” I said to Lance. “They had to have been from the start, but the issues over Edgar’s property distracted us. Edgar’s murder was never about the lot or property.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “I think Henry killed George because of Anna. Edgar must have known. The question is, was he involved somehow and living with guilt, or did he suspect that Henry had killed his friend but could never prove it because there wasn’t a body? When Hannah and Ellen found George’s skull at the bottom of the lake, Edgar finally had proof. Henry must have gotten desperate. He had to kill Edgar to keep him silent. If there was a body, Edgar could go to the police and tell him what he knew and had been keeping quiet all of these years. Henry has a heart problem. He told me the other day that he had to go take his medication. They had a drink together every night. It would have been so easy to slip some of his heart medicine into Edgar’s drink.”

  “My God, Juliet, I think you’ve cracked the case.” He swept sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “Why didn’t I think of it sooner? I was just talking to my staff this morning about learning to trust their instincts. My instincts told me from the beginning that the cases must be connected, but this entire time I’ve been so focused on the lot. I was sure that Edgar’s real estate was the killer’s motive for murder, but I was wrong. It didn’t have anything to do with the lot.”

  Lance whipped out his cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Calling the police.”

  My mouth must have hung open. Lance never called the police. He lived for a big reveal. I was always the one who had to convince him that we needed to loop Thomas or the Professor in.

  He handed me the phone. “It’s Thomas. Tell him everything you said to me. Spare no detail. You were brilliant, darling. Absolutely brilliant. A pastry maven and murder-solving mastermind.”

  “You can drop that phone.” A loud voice echoed behind us. I was so startled that I did drop the phone.

  I turned to see Henry standing in the doorway holding Anna’s gun. He blocked the doorway

  “Henry. What are you doing here?”

  “Coming for you.” He positioned the gun directly at me. My heart rate spiked. How did he know we were here?

  Lance threw his arms up. “Let’s all take a step back and calm down. There’s no need for a gun. Juliet and I were just on our way out.” He started to take a step toward Henry.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Henry shifted the gun toward Lance, then he held it at eye level and nodded at the letter in my hand. “Drop the letter on the floor and both of you move back against the wall.”

  Lance and I complied with his command. I pressed my back up against the tattered dining room wallpaper. I kept one eye on Henry and scanned the room for any potential weapon.

  “Stay calm,” Lance whispered through clenched teeth. “Keep him occupied.”

  “I don’t understand. How did you know we were here?” My voice quivered. If my theory was correct, Henry had killed two people. What would stop him from killing us?

  “I’ve been watching you. For someone who makes pastry, you sure ask a lot of questions. You should have listened earlier when I told you the past needs to stay in the past.” His eyes were hard, but they were strangely clear and focused, which sent my stomach swirling. “I followed you out here. Should have stayed out of it, but you kept snooping.”

  I placed one hand on my stomach in an attempt to quell my nerves. “So did you lie about Edgar being in love with Anna?”

  Lance had scooted slightly toward the dining room table.

  Henry moved closer to me and placed his foot over the letter. “No. Edgar loved her too. He didn’t have a chance. I loved her more. He took her to prom, but she was in love with me. I was the one she would sneak off with every night. George found out. We got in a fight. I didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident, but a well-timed one. He had already been going on about protesting the loss of that dirtbag of a town, Klamath Junction. I dumped his body in the abandoned auto shop and let Mother Nature take care of the rest. I started the rumor that he left town. No one was ever the wiser, except Edgar.”

  Lance muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t understand.

  “Edgar knew?”

  “He suspected, but he never had proof. I made sure of that, until those two girls went and ruined everything.”

  “But why now? And why come get the letter from Anna?” I realized that Lance was slowly working his way toward one of the dining room chairs. I had to keep Henry talking.

  “Edgar told me he was going to see Anna and then to the police. I had to kill him.”

  “You were going to kill Anna too?” The overstuffed room was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

  “No. I still love her. I would never hurt her.”

  “You told me that you were married and that your wife died.”

  Henry shifted the gun. He hadn’t noticed that Lance was almost parallel with him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t love Anna. I told her she should run away with me, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she loved Edgar. I knew that wasn’t true. She never looked at me the same after George disappeared.”

  Sweat poured from the palms of my hands. Anna’s musty house felt like it was closing in on me.

  Lance motioned for me to keep talking. He was inches away from the chair.

  “Did she know that you killed her brother?”

  “No. I was there to console her when George went missing.” He let out a hal
f chuckle that sent a cold shiver down my spine. “She thought her family was cursed. Moved out here and lived alone all these years. We could have been together.”

  Lance picked up a chair. In a flash he slammed the chair on the side of Henry’s head. I shielded my face and ducked in anticipation of a gunshot, but nothing happened. I looked up to see Henry facedown on the carpet.

  I couldn’t move. My feet felt like they were cemented to the stained green carpet. “Thank God, Lance. You move like a cat. I don’t think Henry ever noticed.”

  “Teamwork, darling.” Lance held out his hands. His fingers were shaking like crazy. “I think it’s time to call the police.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I reached for Lance’s phone, while he picked up the gun and placed it on the dining room table. I’m not even sure what I said to Thomas, but whatever it was it must have worked because within minutes the sound of sirens wailed nearby. Lance clutched the chair that he had used to knock Henry out. When the first police officers arrived on the scene, Lance was still hovering over Henry with the chair ready to strike. “We’ll take it from here, sir,” one of the officers said, prying the chair from Lance’s hands.

  They had us sit and drink some water. Shortly after, Thomas appeared. He was wearing his typical summer uniform of navy blue shorts. “Guys, seriously?” He surveyed the scene, making sure that the first responders had Henry contained before coming over to take our statements.

  “You better start from the beginning,” he said, pulling out a rickety dining room chair and straddling it backward.

  “Juliet figured it out,” Lance said. I noticed his hands were still shaky. “It was quite masterful if you ask me.”

  Thomas took notes on his iPad while Lance and I relayed what had happened. When we finished he let out a sigh. “I don’t approve that you took matters into your own hands, but I will say it was synchronistic timing. We were on our way to meet the Professor at Henry’s place. He obtained a warrant for his arrest.”

  “You guys knew?” I felt a twinge of disappointment.