S'more Murders

by Maya Corrigan

  She called Bethany and suggested going with her to pick up the leftover food on the yacht. “I also want to get the mystery game booklets.”

  “Good idea. I’d like to know what happens in the scenes we didn’t get to play.”

  “By the way, did you see anyone fill a plate with s’mores and take it to the bridge?”

  “Louisa put several on a plate, but she gobbled them up quickly. Trey took a plateful away from the grill, and so did Cheyenne. I don’t know where they went with them because I was busy making more. Why are you asking?”

  “Jerome visited us after you left here. He said someone had brought him a plate of s’mores. I wondered who.”

  Not that it mattered, unless there was a way to prove that the s’mores had contained drugs. Val would mention that possibility to Chief Yardley.

  * * *

  The next morning, the chief strolled into the café as Val’s breakfast crowd was thinning and her lunch bunch had yet to arrive. She’d planned to stop by police headquarters on her way home from the café in the afternoon. The chief had saved her the trip.

  He greeted her and sat at the eating bar. “I’ve got some time to spare before a meeting, so I came here for my coffee instead of drinking the sludge at headquarters.”

  She poured his coffee and plated a blueberry muffin for him. “Anything new on Otto Warbeck?”

  “I just gave the press a brief statement. He took a bullet to the head, but I suspect your friend Bethany already told you that.” He sipped his coffee. “Good stuff. Your granddaddy told me you made notes on the comings and goings of the passengers on the yacht.”

  “Based on what Bethany, Granddad, and I remembered, we came up with the order in which the guests went outside after Otto left the table. I can e-mail you my notes.”

  “Please do.” The chief sipped his coffee. “What’s the bottom line?”

  “Granddad, Bethany, and I were the only ones who didn’t leave the room. Trey was gone for almost thirty minutes. He told Granddad he was on the bridge all that time. Except for Louisa Brown, who used the inside staircase to visit the guest bathroom, the others all left the saloon to go out on the deck.”

  “Singly or with another person?”

  “They left singly, but often more than one of them was on deck at the same time. If all they did was use the head on the deck outside the saloon, they wouldn’t have overlapped. They’d have just passed each other, one coming back into the saloon and then the other going out.”

  The chief shrugged. “They could have stayed outside for a breath of fresh air.”

  “Or a break from the loud music in the saloon.” Val stopped talking long enough to make what she hoped was a pregnant pause. “Or they could have grabbed the chance to shoot Otto.”

  “Was Otto left- or right-handed?” the chief asked.

  His question surprised her. She’d expected him to ask how the shooter came to have a gun so near at hand, and she had no good answer for that. An image popped into her mind of Otto signing the catering contract. “He wrote with his right hand.” A right-handed man would shoot himself on the right side of the head, so a bullet hole there meant either suicide or murder. But a bullet hole on the opposite side would suggest murder, not suicide. The chief didn’t volunteer information about the location of Otto’s wound. No point in asking. She’d find out when the information went public. But why had he asked her about Otto’s dominant hand? “Cheyenne would know if her husband was a righty or a lefty.”

  “She hesitated when I asked her. So I went for a second opinion from someone observant.” The chief raised his coffee cup as if toasting her. “What sort of man was Otto Warbeck?”

  “He struck me as controlling and manipulative.” Val remembered how skillfully he’d talked her into making an elaborate dinner on short notice. “He got me to cater that dinner with a combination of flattery and bribery. He appealed to my pride and my pocketbook.”

  “Two vulnerable spots.”

  “Exactly. He wouldn’t postpone the dinner to give me more time to prepare. The date, the place, and the guests are in perfect alignment, he said. The date was the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, and the place was his new yacht, but the people he invited seemed anything but perfect guests. He barely knew some of them. He couldn’t have come up with a less compatible bunch if he’d deliberately chosen people who would grate on one another’s nerves.”

  “Like the ex-wife and the wife.”

  “For starters, but they at least ignored each other. Stacy’s son ridiculed his former stepfather and picked a fight with the poultry lobbyist on environmental issues.” Val waved to a trio of women who came into the café. “Take a seat. I’ll be right with you.” She caught the chief’s eye. “I’d like to know why Otto’s ex-wife and ex-stepson accepted his invitation.”

  “If someone invited me to a ten-course dinner on a yacht, I’d probably go. I don’t know about the son, but the former wife might have been curious to see the new one.”

  Val doubted many women would want to meet their younger replacement. “To convince me to cater the dinner, Otto pushed my buttons and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I wouldn’t be surprised if he used similar tactics to get his ex and her son there.” She walked around the counter. “Give me a minute to wait on these customers.”

  He’d finished his coffee and the last crumb of his muffin by the time she came back to the counter. She told him about the s’mores as the possible vehicle for drugging Jerome.

  The chief looked skeptical, glanced at his watch, and stood up. “Gotta get to my meeting.”

  “Any idea when the police will finish going over the yacht? I want to pick up the leftover food before it goes bad.”

  “If there’s evidence of a crime, it could take another day or two. Otherwise, they should be done by the end of the day even if they start late. I’ll call you.”

  He hurried out of the café. Telling him about Otto’s mystery game would have to wait until the next time they talked. By then she might have read the scripts and figured out if they meant anything.

  Val usually tuned the TV on the café wall to a sports station, the preference of most of the customers at the athletic club, but at noon, she switched to the Salisbury, Maryland, station for the local news.

  In the first segment the anchorman announced, “Breaking news about Otto Warbeck, the man whose body was pulled from the bay yesterday. The retired yachtsman had a gunshot wound. When asked if it could have been self-inflicted, Chief Earl Yardley of the Bayport Police Department responded that the case remains under investigation. Stay tuned for an exclusive interview related to Mr. Warbeck’s death after this short break.”

  The weather forecast and another commercial break occurred before the reporter who’d interviewed Granddad at the marina appeared on the screen with the promised exclusive interview.

  “This is Sissy Reynolds outside the Bayport home of the late Otto Warbeck. Initial reports suggested that he fell from his yacht and drowned during a squall Saturday night. New information today indicates his death was no accident. I spoke to the victim’s widow, Cheyenne Warbeck.”

  When the camera zoomed in, Val was taken aback by how haggard the widow looked. Otto’s death had taken a toll on her.

  “We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Warbeck,” the reporter said, “and appreciate your taking the time to speak with us. Earlier today the police revealed that your husband had suffered a gunshot wound. They didn’t rule out that it had been self-inflicted. What’s your reaction to that?”

  Cheyenne looked directly into the camera. “Impossible. Otto wasn’t the sort of man who’d commit suicide. He’d recently retired and bought a yacht. He was living his dream.”

  The widow’s response sounded rehearsed. Cheyenne must have expected that question, Val thought. So much for Granddad’s suspicions about Otto’s wife. If she’d murdered her husband and wanted to get away with it, she would have welcomed suicide as an explanation for his death.


  Val made chicken Caesar salads for her customers as she listened to the interview.

  The reporter said, “You and your husband threw a dinner party on your yacht Saturday night. Can you tell us something about the occasion?”

  “Yes, Otto collected Titanic souvenirs and knew everything there was to know about that ship. Saturday was the anniversary of its sinking. He hired a local caterer to re-create the dinner the first-class passengers ate right before the ship hit an iceberg. He insisted the caterer—Val Deniston—make the dinner authentic down to the last detail.”

  Val stiffened.

  “That’s you, isn’t it?” one of the retired men waiting for his Caesar salad called out.

  She nodded. Everyone in the café was now watching the TV or staring at her.

  Cheyenne wiped away tears.

  “Did your husband throw a similar dinner party every year on that date?” the reporter said.

  “He did it only once before, in 2012, on the hundredth anniversary of the Titanic going down. That time the dinner was on land. Having dinner on our yacht, the Abyss, made it more authentic. We were all dressed like passengers on the Titanic.” She smiled with effort. “He reminded me of a little boy looking forward to his birthday party. Why would he shoot himself during his party? We were only halfway through the meal and the game he made up.”

  “The game?” the reporter prompted Cheyenne.

  “One of those role-playing mysteries. We took the parts of passengers on the Titanic. We were all suspects in the death of another passenger.”

  “Amazing. Life imitated the game. While your guests were playing the roles of suspects, your husband was shot.” The reporter turned away from Cheyenne and faced the camera. “Now those guests are real suspects in Otto Warbeck’s death—a death on the Abyss.”

  Cheyenne opened her mouth as if she had something to add, but the reporter signed off. Val spent the next half hour fielding questions from café customers about the dinner on the yacht. She described the various dishes she’d prepared and avoided talking about Otto’s guests or his mystery game by saying she’d spent the whole evening working in the kitchen.

  At two o’clock she turned over the café reins to Jeremy Pritchard, her assistant manager’s twentysomething son. Though he didn’t cook, he made sandwiches, salads, and smoothies, which sufficed for the few customers who came into the café during the afternoon. His mother would take over at four and prepare the food for the café’s evening customers.

  Val’s friend and tennis teammate, Chatty Ridenour, was waiting for her outside the café alcove. Chatty’s turquoise shirt matched her eyes, thanks to her colored contact lenses. She had contacts in various shades to coordinate with her clothes. Her earrings echoed the blue-green of her shirt. Pushing forty, average in height and weight, with straight brown hair a nondescript shade of brown, Chatty wouldn’t have attracted notice except for her flawless complexion, expertly applied makeup, and the constant gush of gossip from her mouth. Her nickname suited her better than the name her parents had given her, Charity—though at times, Catty would make a more appropriate nickname than Chatty.

  “Ready for your massage?” Chatty peered at Val. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. I owe you a massage, and I won’t let you postpone it again.”

  A free massage was Val’s payment for supplying food for the grand opening of Chatty’s massage and spa concession at the club. Last summer when she moved temporarily to Florida to take care of ailing parents, she’d left as an itinerant cosmetologist who gave facials in her customers’ homes. She returned to Bayport seven months later as a licensed massage therapist and convinced the club manager that a storage room could become a profit center if she set up her massage table there. Judging by the number of club members who sported T-shirts emblazoned with Chatty Kneads Me, her business was going strong.

  “I don’t want to occupy your massage table space when you might have a paying customer on it.”

  “My next appointment doesn’t show up until three. You’ll get a nice long massage if you hurry. Last night Bethany told me all about the Titanic dinner. She said the two of you didn’t know much about any of the guests—or should I say suspects? After this morning’s news about the bullet hole in the body, I guess we can call them suspects.” Chatty arched an eyebrow at Val. “I can tell you about one of them if you’re interested.”

  “I’m all ears.” Val knew she’d pay a price for this free massage in Chatty’s currency—her friend would dispense information freely, but demand some in return.

  Chapter 10

  Chatty ran her hands along Val’s upper back. “You’re really tense, Val. By now you should be used to people getting murdered around you. How many times has it happened since you moved here?”

  “More times than I want to count when I’m trying to relax.” Val was lying facedown in a headrest the shape of a doughnut with a bite out of it, her nose in the center of the doughnut hole, her mouth in the opening left by the bite. She could breathe and talk, but couldn’t see anything. Just as well. Chatty’s work space, a windowless room smaller than many walk-in closets, awakened Val’s claustrophobia. She fought it by focusing on the scents drifting her way from the oil in the aromatherapy diffuser. The room smelled of cinnamon, coconut, and vanilla, like cookies in the oven. She sniffed a floral scent too, but she didn’t let it interfere with the aromas that made her mouth water. “Which of the yacht’s guests do you know?”

  “Louisa Brown. She comes here for a massage twice a week.”

  “She visits the café too.” But usually at a time when Val was too busy working to stop and talk. On the other hand, Chatty’s work involved massaging and talking in equal measures. “Tell me about her. I know almost nothing, except that she has a taste for sweets.”

  “She’s an only child, and she’ll inherit Purty Poultry. Her parents maintain total control of the business for now, but in a few years she’ll ascend to the throne.”

  Val remembered Louisa’s reference to the family business. “I didn’t realize her family’s chicken coops had a throne connected to them.”

  “The company has farms in Delaware, all over Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and in North Carolina. Haven’t you noticed the Purty Poultry label in the supermarkets around here?”

  “No, because I only buy free-range chickens from nearby farms.” Val felt herself relaxing as Chatty continued to rub, this time in a circular motion. “How did Purty Poultry get so big?”

  “The company grew slowly over several generations. It contracted with small farmers to raise chickens for its processing plant. TV ads lifted Purty Poultry above the competition. I remember seeing their ads when I was a teenager. One of them showed an elegant dinner party with a beautifully browned roast chicken on the table. The host is about to carve the chicken when a bumpkin in overalls bursts into the room and drawls, That there’s a mighty purty chicken.”

  Val laughed at Chatty’s exaggerated country dialect. “That one commercial made the Purty company a big player in the chicken world?”

  “It was part of a campaign, which included spoofs of their own ad. One of them won an advertising award. A stiff-upper-lip butler announces in a British accent, Dinner is served, Madame, and it’s . . . He pauses, looks pained, and drawls, a mighty purty chicken. People started asking for Purty chickens by name, and the family business expanded by taking over small, struggling farms.”

  Val saw a chance to feed Chatty some useless information. “On the yacht before dinner, a heated argument started over the poultry industry gobbling up more land for chicken farms. Otto’s former wife protested the inhumane way chickens were raised, and Louisa lashed out at her.”

  “I can tell you why she reacted so strongly. Animal treatment is a hot-button issue for the Purtys, going back decades. The animal rights folks ran a commercial that turned the tables on Purty Poultry. It started with a close-up of chickens crammed into cages where they can’t even turn around. The same actor who played the bumpkin in the Pu
rty-sponsored ads came into a huge building full of chicken cages and drawled, Those sure are purty sad chickens.” Chatty stopped kneading. “Tell me if I’m working your trapezius muscle too hard.”

  “I wouldn’t know a trapezius from a trapezoid, but I’ll let you know before you hurt me too badly. Did the animal rights ads hurt the Purtys much?”

  Chatty moved her hands to Val’s left leg. “Enough so that they pulled the mighty-purty-chicken commercials off the air.”

  The story of the ad war made Val wonder if Otto had known about Louisa’s family feud with animal rights activists. Had he invited her and her husband in anticipation of a clash between them and his ex-wife? Why had they accepted the invitation of a man they’d just met? Chatty might know. “Did Louisa talk about being invited to dinner on the yacht?”

  “She talked about nothing else last week. She was thrilled with the invitation to a formal event she could brag about. Louisa’s house is on Belleview Avenue, on the same block as Bayport’s mayor, a state senator, and at least one Daughter of the American Revolution. Louisa expected to party with that crowd when she moved to the neighborhood, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”

  “My great-grandparents moved here a hundred years ago. My grandfather is still a newcomer to the people who inherited houses on Belleview Avenue. Those families go back two or three centuries in Bayport.”

  “They don’t snub all newcomers. I’ll bet that when the secretary of state and the vice president bought houses on the Eastern Shore, the Belleview elite sent them invitations. A chicken heiress doesn’t qualify as prominent.”