7 Madness in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “How convenient.” I was beyond caring if I hurt Jeanine’s feelings. I felt myself getting angry as I did sometimes when a particularly good student did something to sabotage her grades. Or her future.

  “I know it sounds crazy, Mrs. Porter, but honest, we didn’t mean any harm. Me and Dana talked about reporting it, but we didn’t know anything for sure, like whether the notes had anything to do with why Mr. Palmer was killed. Then when Ms. Duncan was arrested, I figured I should tell someone and I almost told you when we were working together, but I didn’t want to get Mrs. Mellon in trouble.”

  “Or yourself,” I suggested.

  Jeanine’s eyes filled up. Her face went back to sad, after the relatively confident expression while she was defending her choices. “I know what you must be thinking. That I’m a really bad person.” I didn’t think that, but I also didn’t think it was the time to console her. Not until I was sure she was going to do the right thing now. “The whole thing is making me dizzy, first one suspect, then another,” she continued. And possibly another, I mused, as I thought of Leo, now in the hot seat at the LPPD.

  “Are you planning to go to the police now?” I asked.

  “Do you think I should?”

  I breathed out a long, frustrated sigh. I’d have thought that would have been obvious, but I humored Jeanine. “Yes, you should never withhold information that might have relevance to a murder investigation.” Or run with scissors, I thought, feeling like her nanny.

  “I guess you’re right, but…one question?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think we’d have to give back the money?”

  At last, I was speechless.

  * * *

  Once Jeanine showed her mettle, seeming to care more about the money than the ramifications of her actions, I called an end to our meeting. I ushered her out the door, getting no promises from her about taking her story to the police, and giving none myself about keeping her secret. For now, I had a worthy granddaughter to take care of.

  Maddie was at her computer playing a math game, a decidedly Porter choice, with no genetic input from me. I saw not one, but two, empty ice-cream sandwich wrappers on her desk. She gave me a grin. “They’re smaller than they used to be,” she said, echoing her Uncle Skip’s declaration about my latest batch of ginger cookies. “So don’t worry, I’m still hungry for lunch.”

  Buzz, buzz. Buzz, buzz.

  Maddie jumped up to answer the door while I stayed behind and stripped her bed. I didn’t want sheets with leftover tears to disturb her sleep tonight.

  I expected to hear Bev’s voice with a call to lunch, but Maddie came back to her room alone. “It’s the tall man from SuperKrafts,” she said.

  Leo Murray? At my house? “Did you let him in?

  “Uh-uh. I checked the peephole like you always say to do and I didn’t know if I should let him in. He looks kind of scrungy.”

  That description didn’t fit Leo, but maybe a couple of hours in a police interview room could scrunge up even a Madison Avenue New Yorker. “Good choice,” I said.

  I walked around to the entryway, with Maddie trailing, and looked out the window. There was Leo Murray’s rental car, its unmistakable shade of blue sending rays of sun in all directions. What would he be doing in this neighborhood? Obviously the police cleared him and sent him on his way, but why was he here? To find out, I’d probably have to let him in. I couldn’t figure out why I was reluctant to do so, other than that I was rattled by the events of the past days. Bebe Mellon’s confession about her confession, Catherine Duncan’s arrest, my interrogation at the mercy of Fred Bates, concern for Maddie and Taylor, ditto for Skip and June, and most recently, Jeanine Larkin’s fall from grace.

  I had no basis for being afraid of Leo, however, and as long as he didn’t hit me with a love interest problem or a cruel joke he’d played, we should be okay. I prepared myself for another counseling session and opened the door. One of these days, I really should remove the shrink shingle from my house.

  “Leo, what a surprise to see you here.”

  “I hope you don’t mind.” He pointed toward the interior of my home. “Would it be okay if I came in? I’m roasting in this weather.”

  Leo had never looked worse, slumped over, his face sunken, his suit rumpled, and his forehead deeply furrowed. It was as if some cloud of transformation had settled over SuperKrafts, changing Megan from the wimp I first met at Craig Palmer’s heels in Sadie’s to an unflappable force ready to take her career into her own hands, and changing Leo from the storming exec who presided over meetings to someone who looked like he couldn’t manage his own dry cleaning.

  “Of course,” I said, stepping aside to let him in. Leo walked by me, into the atrium. Maddie stayed close to me, but in plain sight.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Leo said.

  “Apparently, there isn’t anywhere else,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.”

  Leo took a seat and Maddie, likely judging the situation to be less interesting than the resources in her bedroom, took off. “I just came from a grilling by your nephew,” Leo said.

  “He’s good at that.”

  I wasn’t proud of myself, that I was enjoying having this upper hand over Leo, after all the meetings where he was king. But when I noticed his jacket and shirt sleeves were soiled, probably from the less-than-sterile interview room furniture, I felt a stab of pity.

  “It’s the craziest thing. The cops think I wrote some threatening notes to Catherine,” he began.

  How to get my attention, Leo! Confusion set in quickly as I considered whether I’d dreamt the recent visit with the confessed writer of the notes. Did Skip have different notes from the ones I’d seen in Jeanine’s handwriting? Maybe Bebe paid several people to write notes, backup in case one didn’t have the nerve to follow through. Was there another set of notes, written and sent by Leo? A set Catherine hadn’t bothered to tell me about?

  “Did you write notes to Catherine?” I asked.

  Leo straightened his shoulders and looked at me, a glimmer of his old, in-charge self coming through. “No, I didn’t write them. The cops think I did. They found notes in her room, telling her to get out of town, or else. Why would I do that?”

  “Why do the police think you did, Leo?”

  He hung his head, slumping down again. “It was my stationery. The notes were written on my personal stationery. They’re right about that.”

  I’d never given a thought to the stationery, other than to wonder about fingerprints. It had seemed to me rather ordinary kind of paper from a notepad, off-white in color, standard size, about four by six inches, unlined.

  “How did they trace the paper to you? Are your prints on it?”

  “I have a watermark on each sheet of my notepads.”

  Imagine that. Everything about Leo was status and class. Why was I not surprised? Didn’t watermarks go with gold cufflinks, designer clothes, a high-end briefcase? I wondered if watermarks were registered, but didn’t want to ask and risk sounding like the plain-Jane, small-town folk I’d become. I hoped Leo would explain, but he must have assumed I had my own watermark and knew all about them.

  “What can I do for you, Leo?”

  “Well, I’m okay for now. I convinced them that I leave my pads around and anyone could have lifted one from the meeting room at the store or from my briefcase or my hotel room. It’s not like I have document control on the sheets. It’s just a notepad.”

  A very expensive notepad, I guessed. Not like the small ones I picked up at the dollar table in an office supplies store. I still didn’t have an answer to why Leo was sitting in my atrium in the confessional seat, where Catherine, Bebe, and Jeanine had sat before him.

  “The police must have believed you if they let you go.”

  “Yeah, but these guys, the cops in this town, they…” Light dawned as he saw the folly of insulting the person he’d come to for help, the cherished aunt of one of the
cops. “I’m just afraid it’s not over—I’m sure they’re trying to tie the notes, and me, to Palmer’s murder, and I’m alone here. I have an attorney at home, of course, but I need someone on my side. Someone local.”

  “You’d be surprised how little that matters.”

  Leo leaned toward me, his dirty elbows on my table. “Listen, Geraldine, I’m at a loss here. I know how it works when everyone knows everyone else. I don’t mean to keep disparaging your town but don’t you see that the cops have been going down the list, accusing anyone associated with Craig? First one of your own, then Catherine. Well, she’s still their top one, I guess, since she’s still in jail, but as soon as her lawyer gets wind of how they questioned me, he’s going to have her out of there. The cops are acting like, like…”

  “Keystone Kops?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. I still don’t see what I can do for you, Leo. You’re free.”

  “And I want to make sure I stay that way until I can get myself back home. All I want is for you to corroborate my position that”—Leo held up his fingers and ticked them off—“one, you saw my pads all over the store, especially the meeting room; and two, I had no reason to harass Catherine, especially no reason to want her out of town. I just wanted me out of town. I’m much better off if Catherine stays here forever. I’d love for her to settle down with her Video Jack.”

  “Jeff,” I said. “The man’s name is Jeff Slattery.”

  Leo didn’t acknowledge my correction. I didn’t even blink, so accustomed was I to the SuperKrafts managers’ culture of the New York way or the highway. Nevertheless, I’d have no problem supporting Leo in his two assertions, if it came to that. I had certainly seen Leo’s notepads, though I’d never noticed a watermark (so what was the point of the personalization?) and as far as I knew, Catherine and Leo had shown no more animosity toward each other than any other two SuperKrafts employees, all of whom seemed to be at each others’ throats more often than not. But I didn’t have to make it easy for Leo. Since he was on my turf, and here to beg a favor, I thought I might as well bargain with him.

  “I can certainly make sure Detective Gowen knows about the ubiquity of your notepads and I can tell him about the interactions I observed at meetings,” I said. “In return I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Leo sat back and threw his palms open in the space between us. “Go ahead.”

  I wished I’d had a little warning and time to prepare for this cooperative spirit on Leo’s part. I thought of Leo’s row on Maddie’s capital-C Chart. She’d put a question mark under his location; all I had was hearsay that Leo and Craig had stayed in the SuperKrafts building after the afternoon meeting ended. Filling in the Leo row seemed as good a place as any to start. “Where were you during the earthquake last Saturday?” I asked.

  “You mean while someone else was bashing in Craig Palmer’s head?”

  “If you need to put it that way, yes.”

  “Sorry. That sounded pretty bad. We had our disagreements, Craig and me, but I’d never wish that on him, or anyone.” He shook his head. “It was a horrible way to go.”

  “The earthquake hit at six thirty-two. Where were you?” Gerry the interrogator, not easing up—I’d learned from the best.

  “I was at a ‘gourmet’ ”—here he’d drawn quotes in the air—“supermarket near my hotel in San Jose picking up dinner. And yes, I have a receipt because I turn everything like that in with my expense sheets.”

  I supposed Leo had already been through this with the LPPD, but I needed to evaluate him for myself. And for The Chart.

  “Did anything in the supermarket fall over during the quake? Anything break?”

  Leo gave me a confused look. I didn’t blame him. “No, it wasn’t that big a deal. That’s what the locals down there said, too. The dude at the register called it ‘puny.’ ”

  Not even our earthquakes measured up to Leo’s standards.

  I was out of questions. As pushy as Leo had been since I’d met him, I had a hard time labeling him a killer in his current state. Maybe that was his plan all along. Maybe I should join Jeanine in her psych courses.

  I was about to let Leo out, without even offering him a drink, I realized, when Maddie crept up beside me, her clipboard in her hand.

  “What’s the name of the store?” she asked Leo.

  Leo looked flustered for a moment. Perhaps Maddie was more intimidating than the LPPD? But he recovered, and before I could react, he bent down, too close to Maddie’s face, I thought. I pulled her back from him. “One of those chains with a big orange sign and a take-out section in front,” he said.

  I would have expected him to use the word “chains” with more fondness, given his association with one. Leo turned and walked down the driveway toward his car, his off-putting strut resurfacing. Maybe he’d already forgotten he’d come for my help.

  Chapter 17

  Back in the atrium with Maddie, I looked over her shoulder and saw that she’d filled in Leo’s row with “San Jose Store.”

  “Should we call the store and check it out, Grandma?”

  I was sure we could figure out which orange chain was closest to Leo’s hotel, but was it worth it? Leo had been grilled and re-grilled by Lincoln Point’s finest and I was sure they were more than capable of checking his alibi if they hadn’t already done so. A call more pressing to me was one to Jeanine to learn more about the Curious Case of the Watermarked Paper.

  Buzz, buzz. Buzz, buzz.

  Saved by lunch? Surely it was Bev this time. Maddie hopped to the peephole and I used the time to punch in Jeanine’s number.

  “Hey, Mrs. Porter.” Jeanine sounded rightfully anxious over the phone. I would have bet money that she and Dana had made no plans about taking their story to the police.

  “Jeanine, I have a question for you.”

  Her hesitant “Sure” sounded the opposite.

  “Where did you get the paper for the notes you wrote to Catherine?”

  “Oh, I thought you were calling to ask if I’d contacted the police yet.”

  How smart is it to remind me? I wanted to ask. Jeanine was still losing ground on my list of favorite teens. And Dana, her co-conspirator, had never made it to the list. I thought of calling Loretta at KenTucky Inn to let her know that one of her employees had taken advantage of her position to collude in what might now be construed as a crime. Wasn’t it stalking to slip a threatening note under someone’s door?

  “It’s Uncle Skip, Grandma,” Maddie called from the entryway.

  Not what I wanted to hear until I’d decided when and how I’d share what I knew about the notes. And besides, I was expecting his mother, with lunch.

  “Mrs. Mellon gave me the paper,” Jeanine said.

  I drew in my breath. The notes were taking on a life of their own.

  “Hey, Aunt Gerry,” Skip said, then when he noticed I was on the phone, “oops, sorry.”

  I gave him a smile, turned my back, counting on Maddie to entertain him, and whispered to Jeanine. “Mrs. Mellon gave you the paper for the notes?”

  “Yes, she was very specific about that, too. I thought I told you. She said it had to be on that paper. That was part of the whole joke, well, not a joke.” Jeanine chuckled, then turned it into a cough when I didn’t join her.

  Bebe certainly had access to Leo’s fancy notepads. It must have given her quite a thrill to see his personal paper used for her purposes—framing Leo for sending the notes to Catherine—Bebe’s only possible motive being to hassle both her perceived enemies with one shot. She couldn’t have had Craig Palmer’s murder in mind at the time, but she got a dividend when Palmer was killed and the notes were seen as connecting Leo to the crime. I was embarrassed for my fellow citizens. Bebe, Jeanine, Dana. Could I blame the influx of New Yorkers for what some of them had turned into?

  “Aunt Bev says to tell you she’s running late but she’ll be here soon,” I heard Skip tell Maddie. “And June’s coming over, too.�
� I gave a thumbs-up to that though no one was watching.

  Beep, beep. Beep, beep.

  A call from Henry, waiting. I was through with Jeanine anyway, in more ways than one. I thanked her for answering my question and switched to Henry’s call.

  “I left a message for you this morning,” he said. “Figured I’d try again.”

  “It’s been a kind of hectic day.” If you can call a parade of people hectic.

  “No problem. Are you and Maddie home now?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay if we come over?”

  “ ‘We’? You mean…?”

  “Taylor and me.”

  I looked at Maddie, playing some kind of slap-my-hand game with Skip, a big grin on her face. Did I want to spoil things? “Uh…”

  “It’s all good,” he said.

  Because I trusted Henry, I relaxed and a smile crossed my face. “Have you had lunch?”

  “Thought we could take you to lunch. That was my message earlier.”

  “Hold on, Henry.” I covered the phone mic and said to Skip, “Can you call your mom back and tell her to bring lunch for seven?”

  The day was looking up.

  * * *

  I gave Maddie the task of setting the dining room table. I was on pins and needles about the Maddie-and-Taylor reunion (which sounded like an album I used to own) and about telling Skip what I knew about the notes. Leo Murray was the last person I ever thought I’d be defending, but even though I wasn’t legally bound to share what I knew, I felt obligated in every other sense.

  With Bev, June, Henry, and Taylor on the way, this was my best chance to pull Skip aside. Before I talked myself out of it, I motioned for him to step into the atrium while Maddie was clattering around between the kitchen and the dining room with plates, glasses, and silverware.

  Skip took a seat and crossed his legs. “Is this about me and June?”

  “Should it be?”

  “Uh-uh. We’re good, thanks.” He made a circle with his thumb and index finger: A-OK. Just like that? If he could move on, so could I. “You want to know about my day with Maddie?” he asked.