by Aysia Amery
Helen was looking more like the main suspect by the minute. Either this family was anxious to put the banyan tree vines around her neck or remove any suspicions off them.
“Until you brought up the pufferfish, I didn’t think anything of it. It hadn’t occurred to me that somebody would murder Tony. Murder seems like something that happens to other people. Never in my life would I have thought it would happen to us, or that the murderer would be somebody we knew.”
“It could happen to anybody, ma’am.” Pako knew that, all right. His own uncle found his life cut short by the depth of a sharp blade several years ago. Horror and tragedy struck in all forms. Nobody’s exempt from any of it.
“Detective, I have something else to tell you. Previously, I’ve never gotten involved with the money side of this business, but after Tony died I had the books audited. I just got back the report yesterday and was going to go over it with Helen tomorrow when she dropped by. I was up all night studying it.”
By the sound of what she just said, this could be a major clue to why Tony was killed. Didn’t seem like personal hatred or scorn would be the only factor.
“There’s a suspicious supplier account whose invoices are for orders for supplies unaccounted for. I almost missed it because it’s closely named after another account we do business with. There’s only one letter that’s different, and it’s hard to spot unless you look at it carefully.”
She glanced at Nolan, then resumed addressing Pako. “This bogus account slipped by for some reason. They’ve been paid for six invoices from about a year ago now. Not a lot of money, all under $1,000 per invoice. The person was careful not to be too greedy so as not to get caught, I guess.”
“When Elaine told me about it I looked up their address, and it’s a virtual mailbox site on the mainland,” Nolan said.
I heard about those. You can use that company’s address to stay anonymous and have mail forwarded or scanned as PDFs, or even checks deposited into your bank account. The other thing about these virtual mailbox sites is that you don’t have to reside in that state.
The perp probably opened a checking account with an online bank to have those checks deposited. You can create business entities, have bank accounts, and mailing addresses as if you were in any of the other 49 states.
“Ms. Ryker took care of the books, am I right?” Pako asked.
“Yes, she did,” Elaine replied. “Maybe I shouldn’t discuss this with her, now that she might be a murderer. I wouldn’t want to be her next victim.” The woman hadn’t said that as a joke. She was dead serious.
So, to boil this down...somebody on the property that day put slivers of liver from that stripebelly pufferfish into that leftover fish stew. It could be the same person who was embezzling, or even two of the suspects could be in cahoots. Heck, maybe even three. These three.
Every one of the suspects had a motive. Even though Elaine divulged all this new info, it didn’t exclude her from being a part of a murder scheme. In fact, everything she volunteered implicated Helen. Lance sure made his animosity toward the bookkeeper known.
I studied each of their faces again one by one as my thoughts pondered on who it could be, or whether they were telling the truth and Helen indeed was the guilty party. All of them were looking a bit jolted by now. The mention of the pufferfish and embezzling had gotten all of them rattled. Whether that was just from being surprised by all this or they were nervous we were getting close to solving this case, I couldn’t say. It could be either.
And what about Ken? Could he have sneaked into the house and contaminated the stew? Once Elaine, Nolan, and Lance left the property, he could’ve easily gone unnoticed. It would take less than a minute to add the poisonous content to the thermos. There’s no doubt it was prepped ahead—the perp premeditated this murder.
It was time to talk to Helen.
:: Chapter 15 ::
“You ready to make a guess and bet who’s the guilty party?” Pako asked once we left the Mins’ farm and was headed back to town.
“You that anxious for your free lunch, eh?” I laughed. “Well, after today’s disclosures, we both may be picking the same person. It seems too obvious though.” But this was real life and not some TV show or cozy mystery where it’s never the obvious one. Sometimes it just is.
“I don’t think this one is that obvious. You think it’s Helen Ryker?” he asked.
“Don’t you? I might’ve not been that sure with just the pufferfish bit, but the embezzling sort of clinched it for me,” I said.
“Why’s that?” he asked, although he probably already knew why, but just wanted to hear my version of it.
“Helen took care of the books. How could she have missed a bogus account? She would’ve questioned invoices for purchase orders that didn’t match up with the inventory.”
Even if my CPA took care of my accounting and taxes, I did my own bookkeeping. Home business accounting software made that easy to do. But correlating an invoice my supplier sent to a purchase order I had placed didn’t need software to track. Somebody trying to bill me for unallocated goods wouldn’t go unnoticed.
The only way I could see Helen screwing up was if she procrastinated, letting the paperwork pile up for several months. That happened to me once, and boy, did I learn my lesson from it.
“Some businesses have their billing department separate from their sales department. Also, if the inventory wasn’t confirmed with being received by Min or the farm hands or whoever the hell took care of that, then stuff like that could be easily overlooked.” Pako was right about that, I had to admit.
“That wouldn’t happen with Kim though. That woman crosschecks each credit card purchase with a magnifying glass. I can’t even get her a surprise gift without having to get cash first so she doesn’t suspect. Then she asks me what I took out so much cash for. Man, life ain’t easy with that woman.”
I had to laugh at that. But I don’t blame Kim for making sure all charges are accounted for. I’ve had fraudulent ones on my business credit card before, and good thing I always double-checked my statements too.
“Yeah, but normally that’s bigger companies. I just don’t see Min’s business as needing separate departments for that stuff. I mean, just how much manure, pesticides, seeds, and the like did they need to order every month, and from how many different sources? They probably only had a handful of suppliers they worked with. But what do I know? I’m not in the protea farming business.” I shrugged.
“Well, even if I don’t wanna admit it, you did make sense,” Pako said. I waited for a wise-butt add-on remark to immediately follow, but surprisingly he didn’t shoot me one. Or maybe the ‘don’t wanna admit it’ part was it.
“Okay, so you go first then. Who do you think murdered Min?” I asked.
“If I had to guess on what we know so far, I’d say Helen Ryker.” His grin made me think of Dennis the Menace.
I gave him a blank-faced stare. “Uh, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What?” Nope, I wasn’t buying the halo act.
“You made me go through that whole explication, when you already knew all that and had come to the same conclusion? I knew we’d be picking the same suspect.”
“You know I like to hear your super-sleuthing deductions.”
“Are you being facetious?” I couldn’t tell. Most of the time his wise remarks leaped out at me like a tiger from the brush. But there were other times he played his poker face well. This was one of those times.
“I ain’t. I’m being serious.”
I quirked an eyebrow. Hmm.
“Okay, I’ve changed my mind,” I told him.
“On the suspect?” he asked, turning his head to look at me while he drove.
“Yeah, what else would I be talking about?” I glanced out the window at the cane fields that had just been burned. Even with the windows up and the AC on, the acrid smell seeped up my nostrils. My allergies were going to take a hit soon.
“I dunno, ma
ybe you were still on about me being facetious.”
“Well, I’m not, so my new guess is...wait for it...”
I paused long enough to be irritating. If there was a fly swatter in his car, he’d probably make a grab for it.
“Ging, I ain’t got all day.”
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t got a clue.” I sighed.
“Seriously? You can’t even take a wild guess?” He kept glancing back and forth between me and the road.
I shrugged.
“We can tie on this one then. The most plausible suspect from what we know so far is Helen Ryker.”
“Yeah, no matter how I shake it up, the embezzling part keeps coming up with her name on it.” I stared out the passenger-side window. “But something just isn’t feeling right about it.” I said that last part as if it were just meant for me to hear.
“Woman’s intuition, huh?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“We’ll go over to Helen Ryker’s place and get her side of the story.”
“Now?” I sat up in my seat.
“Yeah. Why? You don’t wanna go today?”
“Oh, no, let’s go. I’m ready to hear what she has to say.”
“All right then. Pull out her address from the manila folder in the backseat and plug it into the GPS.”
I reached behind me and grabbed the yellow folder. I diddled with the GPS.
“Okay, done.”
“Cross your fingers that she spills. We could be wrappin’ this baby up pretty quick.”
“I hope so, Pako.”
* * *
“Helen Ryker?” Pako asked when she opened the door. He flashed his badge.
“Yes.”
Being the size he was, my body was tucked behind the big lug until I stepped to the side and she spotted me.
“Aren’t you the woman I met in the parking lot at Min’s Protea Farm?” she asked.
“Hello, Helen,” I said. “Can we come in?” I took it upon myself to invite ourselves, which is what Pako normally did. It just seemed like the next thing to say at the moment.
“What’s this about?” she asked. “Did something happen at the Mins’ farm?”
“If you let us in, we can tell you,” Pako said.
Helen opened the door wider to let us enter.
“Can we see your aquaponics?” I asked.
“Why? What does that have to do with the Mins?” She seemed distraught.
I touched her arm, and blinding me from everything else were flashes of a woman undulating her hips, swirling veils around, removing them one by one in a seductive dance. Then another scene flashed where another woman, older than her, possibly her mother, was talking to her in secret. Another flash of a man’s head on a platter, and the older woman smiling as though justice had been served.
I removed my hand to break the connection. The veils gave it away as to who that was, but I had a feeling Helen’s past life wasn’t the younger girl. No, she was the older woman, the mother. I’ll have to Google who she was. That’ll be easy since I knew the daughter’s name.
“There’s something we need to see,” Pako told her.
“Don’t you need a warrant or something?”
“Do you have something to hide?” I asked.
That took her by surprise. “No, I don’t. I just don’t think I have to show the police anything without a warrant.”
“Ms. Ryker, I can come back with one, but your cooperation would make this easier on you.” Pako knew getting a warrant was going to take some time, but he played that card a lot. Most times, especially if they weren’t guilty, they’d come around.
“Am I under some kind of suspicion for something?” Her voice cracked.
“We’re just doing some routine interviews. We can do this here now, or you can come down to the station.” That was another good one to use. Most people didn’t want the inconvenience of having to do the latter, so they’d normally comply. Also, it was more intimidating to be questioned on police turf instead of in the comfort of one’s own home.
“Helen, this won’t take long. We just need to check a few things with you. We’ve already had interviews with the Mins and Ken, so the only one left is you,” I said.
“You interviewed Ken? Why him?” She sure was full of questions. I would probably be too if I were her.
“We’re interviewing everyone who was on the farm the day of Tony Min’s death,” Pako said.
Her eyes darted from my detective friend to me.
“Didn’t Tony die of a heart attack? I was there. I called the ambulance. He looked like he had suffered a bad one.”
Seemed she wasn’t up on the latest news. Although, nobody had the full autopsy report yet, not even Pako, so that shouldn’t be a surprise. Also, it looked as though the Mins or Ken hadn’t told her they’d already spoken to us, so she hadn’t been prepared for any of this.
“As I said, ma’am, we’re just making inquiries for now. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Yeah, if you’re innocent, I mused to myself. But of course, these were all routine things Pako needed to say.
“Okay, I guess what choice do I have. Follow me,” she said as she led us through her cozy home to the back sliding door that opened out to an immense Japanese garden.
There were bonsai on wooden benches in one section and two ponds: a large one with lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, and tomatoes in rectangular wooden planters on each side above it, while the smaller pond had basil, mint, green onions and chives.
Stone lanterns ornamented the garden along with a small rock bridge that provided stepping stones to either side that separated the two ponds.
On each side of us, before heading into the garden, were aquariums, three per side, and all were in the smaller size except one. Hers weren’t as impressive as Tony’s collection, but for an outdoor aquarium setting they added a nice touch to the garden’s ambiance.
Pako and I headed to opposite sides to scrutinize the contents of the tanks. One tank in particular caught my eye. It was the large one that stood in the middle of the smaller ones on my side.
This tank had crustaceans and invertebrates making their home with the fish. What drew my attention was the starfish’s legs. A few were partially missing as though something had taken bites out of the poor creature. Also remnants of shells from shrimp and crab were nestled in the sand.
Pufferfish dined on invertebrates.
I called Pako over to see this. “See that?” I asked, but it was more of a quiz to test his astuteness.
I watched his eyes scanning the tank and then, wham!—they zeroed in on the carnage.
He looked at me with a grin that said, ‘Got her!’
“You’ve had a pufferfish in this tank, didn’t you?” Pako asked.
If she lied, she was a goner.
“Yes. How did you know that?”
Okay, why wasn’t she denying it?
“The damage and remains of the invertebrates gave it away.”
“Ah.”
“Where did you get the pufferfish from?” Pako asked.
Waiting for the lie...
“Tony gave it to me.”
What the...? Normally a guilty suspect would be trying to deny anything pointing to them. Even though she didn’t know why we were asking about the pufferfish, if she did poison Tony with it, she’d be nervous about the fact that we were even bringing it up. She’d be stumbling on her words and lying through her Invisaligns.
This wasn’t the case with her.
“Where’s the pufferfish now?” Pako still asked the questions.
“I gave it back to Tony. When it started eating some of the invertebrates, I knew this wasn’t going to work unless I put it in its own tank, which I didn’t want to do. I don’t have the room for it.”
“You had the stripebelly pufferfish, am I correct?”
“Yes.”
Hmm. If she gave it back to Tony, why was it missing from his tank?
“The fish was
missing from Tony’s aquarium,” I said. “Wouldn’t he have put it back in there?”
“I would think so. But I didn’t give it to Tony directly. He was out of town on a business trip, so Ken picked it up.”
Holy cow! This was a turn of events.
“When did he pick it up?” Pako asked.
“A couple of days before Tony returned. I had mentioned to Lance about my dilemma, and since Tony was on Oahu, Lance said he’d send Ken to come get it. I assumed he had put it back into Tony’s tank. I didn’t bother to check.”
“Helen, on the day Tony died, you brought a gift bag with you. What was in it?” I asked her. Now Pako and I played tag team.
“Banana bread. I had come from the shopping center and some kids were selling them for their baseball team. I bought two. I left one of the tins on the kitchen counter and gave the other one to Ken.”
Those were normally in small loaf-sized foil tins. Blaine and I buy them to support the kids too.
“Do you know what happened to the one you left in the kitchen? Elaine said she didn’t see it.” That was me again.
“When I went into the kitchen later in the afternoon, I noticed it was gone. I figured Tony ate it.”
Tony’s pantomime gave me the impression he hadn’t eaten anything else after lunch. He would’ve acted out the banana bread after the sandwich, I would think. Then again, maybe he forgot about it or didn’t think it was important.
If Helen was telling the truth, then Lance and Ken both knew about the pufferfish. And according to Helen, it should’ve been put back into Tony’s aquarium before he got back from his trip. He arrived home the day before his death.
“There is one other thing, Helen.” She wasn’t going to like my saying this. “Somebody’s been embezzling money from the company.”
My eyes focused on her expression. Was she going to twitch? Even if she might not be the murderer, she could’ve still been embezzling the funds.
In the way her eyebrows lifted, I got the feeling she knew she was the number one suspect on that one.