by Tonya Kappes
“Mama,” I mouthed when I realized she’d just become my number one suspect.
“What?” Max asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Do you have a report?” I asked, trying to forget all the evidence against Mama and be a lot more objective.
“Yep. It’s on the counter.” He nodded.
Incomplete thoughts swirled in my head, and my legs felt spongy. Swaying a bit, I leaned up against the counter.
“That’s your copy,” he said, making me grateful for his words.
“I’m going to head back to the office and go over this. I’ll give you a call.” I took a deep breath to get enough strength to push myself off the counter and headed out of the morgue.
Later I knew I was going to have to explain my strange actions to Max, but first I had to get to Finn.
When I got back to the Jeep, Duke was busy letting everyone who passed pat his head that was stuck out of the window.
“Finn, where are you?” I asked as soon as he answered his phone.
“I’m on my way back to the office. Toots called to tell me someone with the fake handicap tag was in Dixon’s. But by the time I got there, they’d left.” He sounded a little frustrated. “Are people that lazy they’d buy fake handicap tags?”
“Did you check with the county clerk’s office to make sure there wasn’t a special breast cancer drive where they turned the tags pink?” It was a good thought.
“I did. Doolittle Bowman said no,” he said. “What about you? Anything back on Frank Von Lee?”
“I was just at Max’s and his initial autopsy shows Frank Von Lee was poisoned by a compound called 1080.” Gripping the wheel with both hands, I decided to tell him what I was thinking. “And without really digging too deep into suspects, I’m fearing Mama is number one.”
“What?” He exaggerated the “wh” out of disbelief.
I drove down the alley and pulled in behind Finn’s Charger. I could see his silhouette from the back window.
“I just pulled up behind you.” I clicked off the phone. Duke took a leap over me and out the window before I could even open the door.
Finn got out of the car and met me. “What on earth is going on?” There was a tenderness in his expression that in an odd way made me feel somewhat better.
I looked both ways down the alley. “Let’s go inside.”
Betty was aflutter when we walked in.
“The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the news about Frank Von Lee’s death.” She jabbed a button and said, “Sheriff’s department. Calm down. Calm down. There’s not a serial killer on the loose. Yes, Mayor.” Betty snapped her fingers at me. “She’s right here, Mayor.”
I walked over to my desk and threw the file from Max on top. I slumped down in my chair.
“Mayor, line two,” Betty said before she answered the next call. Finn also jumped on the phones. “He said that Frank was murdered. Is that true?”
I help up a finger for her to hold on.
“Hello, Chance.” I tried to sound as upbeat as I could. “I’m sorry. I just got the report from Max and I haven’t read it yet, but...” The mayor informed me that Max was doing his job, keeping him abreast of the situation. “Yes, sir. I’m more than happy to go over the report and come see you. I really don’t think there’s a need for a council meeting.”
“I’m worried that if the rumors are true and your mother is a suspect, you won’t be able to investigate without having a biased opinion. Not that I think Viv did it, but it’s not ethical.” He was right, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“What rumors?” I asked.
“According to Max’s report, he was poisoned. According to your report, there was a chicken pot pie on his desk and it had some bites taken out of it. According to Max’s report, there was chicken pot pie in his stomach,” Chance said. “It don’t take no genius to figure out that Frank was only in town because of your mama’s chicken pot pie that she was making for him.”
“Kenni, your mama is on line three.” Finn put three fingers in the air.
“Mayor, I’ll give you a call soon. I’ve got a call about the case that I need to take,” I said.
I clicked the receiver before he could protest and hit the blinking button on line three. I had to give myself some thinking room on what he’d said. I knew he was going to ask me to step down from the case. It was something that anyone would question. But now that the shoe was on my foot, there was no way I wanted to back off the case.
“Mama. What’s going on?” I asked.
“There’s a matinee at Luke Jones’s at two this afternoon. Meet me there. I’ve got something to tell you about Frank Von Lee.” She hung up.
I held the phone up to my ear and let out a few laughs, uh-huhs, and okays pretending it was a no big deal conversation with her.
“Okay. Love you too, Mama.” I faked a giggle and hung up.
“What did she do?” Finn asked after he sat in one of the chairs in front of my desk.
“Who?” I asked.
Betty was running around the room doing odds and ends to make it appear as if she wasn’t listening, but I could clearly see her eyes snapping in my direction to see what I was doing.
“Your mama.” His brow rose.
“Nothing. Why?” I kept it short and sweet. I should’ve told him that Mama had something to tell me, but I just couldn’t. It was my mama.
“Well, first off, you said a few minutes ago that she’s our number one suspect and secondly,” he exhaled, “you just told her you loved her with a giggle. You never do that.”
“Listen.” I could feel the frustration that Mama was clearly a suspect ripple deep in my gut. Through gritted teeth, I said, “You and I both know that was pot pie. Plus the note.”
“What about it?” he asked.
“Did you read it?” I asked.
“No. I just put it in the evidence bag in case it came back as a homicide.” A curious look crossed his face. “What did it say?”
“Go read it while I catch up on the report,” I suggested and opened the file.
A few more fielded calls later, a quick review of Max’s initial report—poisoning through the food—and Finn was back over to my desk.
“Kenni,” his voice was resigned, “this isn’t good.”
“What’s not good is that Katy Lee Hart can place Mom at the inn around Frank’s time of death.” I pushed the file across my desk to Finn.
He picked it up and opened it.
“What did she say?” He asked.
“Katy Lee owns that Shabby Trends. Every season she has a fashion show for the women in the community and it’s hosted at the hotel. She said that Mama was upset and practically ran into her after Mama had come from the stairwell. What doesn’t make sense is why he had the pot pie when he wasn’t supposed to have it until the next day,” I said.
Finn jumped up and started to write down things on the white board. Unfortunately, he wrote down Mama’s name right in the suspect number one block.
He loved that board. It was the first thing he installed after he’d been sworn in as my new deputy. He claims it helped him see holes along with alibis and theories for cases.
“And remember how she took you to lunch, but really went to check out the competition.” He reminded me of the gawd-awful event, making it worse by writing it down.
“Okay. Let’s do a timeline.” I pushed myself back from the desk and got up. I took one of the dry-erase markers and wrote down yesterday’s date with a big long line. “We can check dispatch, but we can start here when I went to eat with mama in Clay’s Ferry and then the diner to make the red carpet entrance.”
“Very good.” He nodded.
“Mama was there. She was happy and she talked to Frank. It was around two p.m.” I wrote down the time. Underneath the timeline, Finn wrote
down Mama’s actions. I specifically remember looking up at the clock when Betty had told me not to get too comfortable because Ben had called and wanted me to be at the diner upon Frank’s arrival.
“What time did she pick you up to go to Clay’s Ferry?” He gnawed on the cap of the pen.
“Around eleven a.m.” I watched as he wrote the activities and time.
“What time was the cooking class?” He asked.
“Seven,” I said matter-of-factly. “But it’s the space in between six and seven p.m. that we need to have her accounted for.”
“Why’s that?” He asked. “Just so we have clarification and get on the right page here.”
“Because Max said that once the poison is in your system, you have about thirty minutes at the most until you start having symptoms.” I walked over to the desk and pulled the file closer to me, flipping through to Camille’s statement. “Camille states here that he was fine when she first got there, but then became confused, angry, upset, and in pain. That was around six forty-five.”
“The records also show that the dispatch call came in around 6:50 and they got in touch with you around seven. Right?” he asked.
“Yes.” There was a hesitation in my voice because I was trying to figure out how mama could be put at the scene of the crime with all the driving time she’d been doing.
“You’re hesitating.” Finn had learned to read me so well.
“If Mama poisoned the pot pie, why? What would’ve been her motive at that point?” I asked.
“I see where you’re going with this.” He nodded. “If the pot pie was poisoned and given to him to eat, that would’ve been premediated and she’d had to have been mad about something with him before he’d even tasted her pot pie.”
“And that’s not Mama,” I said.
“So it’s more important than ever that we fill in this time.” He made an arrow on the timeline between two p.m. after Mama had dropped me off and six p.m. when mama was last seen at the Tattered Cover Books and Inn. “If she didn’t talk or see Frank between these times and their only meeting was with Ben at the diner around two, then she’d really have no motive to kill him. Especially since he wasn’t going to try her pot pie until tomorrow.”
“Right. All was good in Mama’s world. She was very confident that she was going to beat out the barbeque joint in Clay’s Ferry after we left.” Something else popped into my head. “She made a phone call.”
“To who?” Finn asked.
“I’m not sure. She didn’t want to tell me. If she won’t tell me, I’ll pull her phone records.” I gnawed on the thought for a minute.
I looked up at the whiteboard. There certainly wasn’t enough evidence to arrest Mama or even point the finger at her. In big letters I wrote “Suspect Number Two” with a question mark underneath.
“It looks like we have more digging to do.” Finn stood back and tilted his head to the right and left as if the killer’s name was going to magically appear. “Did you see or talk to her between the time you left the diner and the time you saw her at the cooking class?”
“Yes, at the diner when Frank got into town. But my dad said that she came home and muttered something about a new recipe. Got a change of clothes and left. After she’d gotten home from the diner, she was working on some different recipes. Not pot pie.”
“The next sighting of Viv was by Katy Lee, around dinner time.” Finn wrote down the time, place, and people who saw Mama. “Katy said it was around the time Nanette was about to serve supper. She serves around six o’clock, but by the time she made it around to the people who ordered room service and those eating in the restaurant, the time could vary. According to Max, the poison had to be ingested about thirty minutes before the symptoms. The poison doesn’t have a taste. Which puts it around six to six fifteen-ish, because Camille got the call around six-thirty.” He wrote his words on the board.
“Katy Lee also said that she thought she’d overheard Mama ask Nanette what room Frank Von Lee was in.”
I wrote Nanette’s name on the board with an arrow under it and wrote “owner of the Tattered Cover Books and Inn” along with the six o’clock supper time.
Both of us sat there in silence looking at the board, our heads shifting side to side as if seeing it from a different angle would give a different perspective.
“I went to see Mama this morning. She’s got a black eye.” Every word out of my mouth made it worse and worse for her. “You and I both know that it takes about twelve hours for bruises to show up.”
“The plate of chicken pot pie and the review were in his room.” Finn paced back and forth. “Your mama was nervous about the competition, gave Frank the pot pie, went back to see if he liked it and saw the note. She got angry and they got into a scuffle.”
Here we were, back to trying to make Mama the suspect. Or even just make sense of why she’d kill him.
“That wouldn’t make sense.” My eyes narrowed as my mind worked overtime trying to take Mama out of the scene of the crime. “If the pot pie was laced with the poison, mama wouldn’t’ve gone back to see if he liked it. I know mama. She might’ve lost her mind once she saw the review he’d written. She didn’t have motive to put poison in the pot pie.”
There were so many unanswered questions that only Mama could answer.
Poppa appeared with a little jig in his step. “I went by your mama’s house and looked around for some sodium fluoroacetate.”
“What do we know about sodium fluoroacetate?” I asked and walked over to grab the file.
“According to Max’s report, the sodium fluoroacetate doesn’t have a taste when put into food.” Finn made a good point.
“Symptoms are,” I read Max’s writing to Finn as he wrote them down, “nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain within one hour of ingestion. Victim had classic signs of sweating and reported to be confused and agitated before the heart attack. All of this goes with Camille’s recollection.”
Everything was there. What were we missing?
“Heart attack?” Finn asked.
“Yeah.” My brows drew together. “I guess I’ve been so focused on how the poison got into Frank’s system that I forgot to tell you that he actually died of a heart attack brought on by the sodium fluoroacetate.” I hesitated, but I knew I had to tell Finn everything. “When Mama just called, she told me to meet her at the matinee. She had some information to share about Frank.”
“Are you going to try to get her to clarify some things?” Finn watched me intently. My heart sank and it must’ve shown on my face. “She needs to help herself.”
“This afternoon I’m going to go question her. I’ll bring her in if I feel like she did it.” Only that would mean that she had premediated Frank’s murder, and I knew my mama. She didn’t like to get her hands dirty with dirt, much less a murder. “In the meantime, I’m going to head to the diner and question Ben about the meeting they had yesterday when Frank got to town. Maybe he can tell me something about the conversation or why Mama would take Frank the pot pie early.” I grabbed the file and stuck it in my police bag. “If she did take him the pot pie.”
Both of us stopped talking when Duke jumped up and ran to the door.
“Sorry.” Riley Titan, the contractor, stood at the door. “I tried calling, but the lines are busy and I didn’t have a cell number.”
“No problem.” Finn walked over. “Come on in.”
“I’m ready to get started.” He shoved his hands in his pocket. His eyes shifted around the department.
“Yeah. Great.” Finn’s voice rose. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and took his house key off the ring. “Here’s the key. Help yourself.”
“Great,” Riley said. “Have a good day.”
“Do you think you should’ve just given him a key?” I asked Finn when he stood up.
“Why not? Ben trusts him. He looks li
ke he does a good job and I just want to get it done.” Curiously he looked at me. “You’re the first person to tell a stranger how safe it is around Cottonwood and no one ever locks their doors.”
“True.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “You do listen to me.”
“Mmmhhmmm.” He hummed and bent down to kiss me. “I’m going to follow him out.” Finn gestured after Riley. “I thought I’d run and see Dr. Shively to get a formal statement because she called earlier saying she was booked with patients, but would squeeze me in for a few minutes. Now more than ever we need to get her statement.”
“Sounds good.” I forced a smile, though my mind was numb.
Chapter Twelve
Instead of driving down to Ben’s, which was only a short couple of blocks north on Main Street, I decided to take Duke and walk. Walking in the fresh spring air might clear my head and help me start to think logically. Not only had I thought about taking evidence from Frank Von Lee’s room where he was murdered, I’d also already convinced myself that Mama was a killer when I knew deep in my bones that she wasn’t. She might talk a tough game, but Mama was no different than any other red-blooded woman.
She had feelings. She was just better at shrugging them off and not letting the entire town see.
Duke and I took our time enjoying the spring sunlight on our faces. Why was it that the sun made everything so much better and the warmth put a little giddy-up in my step?
“Kenni! Kenni!” Viola White stood in front of her shop, White’s Jewelry, next to Polly Parker. They were trying to open the tripod chalkboard sign. Polly gave it a swift kick and it popped right open.
“Maybe walking wasn’t such a good idea,” I said to Duke.
Duke trotted on over to Polly and Viola, knowing a good scratch behind the ear was imminent.
“Oh, Kenni.” The words were so sympathetic but pretty as they flowed out of Polly Parker’s plumped-up lips. Not a normal look for her, but it reminded me of Mama’s appearance as of late.