by Aysia Amery
“So you went outside only after you saw him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he already lift the trash can lid before you got out there?”
“I don’t recall.” She again switched the legs she had crossed.
“So you gave him the banana bread while he was taking out the trash.”
“No, not at the same time. He left to put the banana bread away first, then came back and finished collecting the trash.”
Maybe she didn’t have time to contaminate the stew the first time she was in the kitchen, especially if she knew Elaine was going to prepare Tony’s lunch. Even Lance or Nolan could’ve walked into the kitchen at any time, so she had to wait for those three to leave.
Oh my garsh, the pieces are all coming together now.
So it was the mayo jar in the gift bag when she revisited the kitchen. After seeing the jar in the trash, she must’ve taken it before Ken came back, then put it into her empty gift bag to wait for the right moment to poison Tony’s lunch.
Guess this wasn’t premeditated. When she saw the chopped up pufferfish, it must’ve occurred to her on the spur.
“Ms. Ryker, do you have anything else you want to tell us?”
Helen’s glassy-eyed stare seemed to be sending her thoughts into outer space.
“Ms. Ryker?” Pako broke her trance-like state.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?”
She shook her head. “No. I have nothing more.” Tension surrounded her like an aura.
The fact that she’s hid the blackmailing email from us told volumes. Now we wait for her next reply to our anonymous email. She’s sure to implicate herself on that one because getting ahold of what the blackmailer has on her will be her goal now.
If she does this one move that I think she’s gonna do—we’ve got her checkmated.
:: Chapter 19 ::
“You saw her? She was flustered,” I told Pako as we got into his car. We headed back to Kihei.
“She thinks she’s got a blackmailer with the goods on her. That’s a bad place to be, and she’s sweatin’ it.”
“Yeah. Having her know that the police are now aware of the mayo jar will make her even more nervous. Thinking she’s been seen, and worse yet, photographed, taking that jar from the trash is gonna have her doing whatever it takes to get the blackmailer off her back.”
“You know it.”
“I think we’re going to nab her pretty quick here, Pako.”
“Yup.”
“What if she asks for proof of the photo?”
“I doubt she’s questioning it. After we went over there and told her we know about the mayo jar in the trash, she’ll probably assume the blackmailer’s telling the truth. She’d wonder how they know so much if they didn’t actually see something.”
He was right. And with cell phones these days, taking a photo on the spot was easy.
My cell phone chimed. It was the ringtone notifying me that I had an email.
“It’s from her,” I informed Pako.
My finger tapped the phone and I opened it.
‘What do you want?’
“She wants to know what we want.”
“Ask her for money,” Pako said.
“How much?”
“25 gees.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
“We want her to have the funds. Anything too large won’t sound reasonable for somebody who’s not famous or wealthy.”
Hmm. I guess that made sense. Helen might not even have 25 grand.
I tapped out the response.
‘I don’t have that kind of money.’
Thought so.
“She says she doesn’t have it.”
“Ask her how much she can get by tomorrow.”
I did what Pako said.
‘How do I know you’ll delete the photos? You could blackmail me forever.’
I told Pako what she wrote.
“She’ll have to trust ‘em.”
‘You’ll have to trust me.’
“Don’t you have enough of a confession here to haul her in?”
“Yeah, I probably can get her to confess the rest with what we got, but let’s get as much voluntary confession in writing as we can.”
“Let’s ask her why she did it,” I said.
“Before we do that, we need to gain her confidence that we’re sympathetic to what she did. If she thinks that the blackmailer also wanted Tony Min dead, then she’ll be more willing to spill.”
“That’s why you’re the detective and I’m not.” I sighed, realizing my limitations in this police work.
“Eh. You’re a pretty damn good sleuth for being a caterer and crazy person.”
“I have an excuse as to why I’m crazy. What’s yours?” I laughed. “Okay, enough of the buttering up. I better send her something.”
‘Just between you and me, I don’t blame you for killing Tony. I would’ve done it if you didn’t beat me to it.’
I think that was good, wasn’t it?
‘Who is this? Ken?’
“She thinks we’re Ken.”
“Good.”
“Do we want her to think we’re Ken?” I asked, not sure it was a good idea. Better she didn’t know who it was, I would think.
“It don’t matter. I’m gonna pick her up after you finish the emails and I drop you off at home.”
Yeah, I don’t think I want to be in his car when he’s hauling her in. For some reason, I just don’t feel comfortable about that. I remember when I was in grade school, the teacher told me to escort another kid to the principal’s office. I knew he was going to get reprimanded. I hated having to do that. I’m sure it was embarrassing for that kid too. I mean, I was the same age as him, and having to be led like a sheep to the slaughter must’ve felt horrible. Well, of course the principal wasn’t that bad, but still. I had to listen to the kid get scolded and to him crying. I was only seven at the time. And then I had to walk with him back to the classroom. There are certain memories that just stick with you. That one sure did.
‘He really hurt you, didn’t he? I saw you guys arguing.’
Good thing we got the scoops from Ken. That’ll make her believe it’s really him.
‘He hurt you too. I know you’ve never forgiven him for what happened to your dad.’
‘Yeah. I hated him. I have to say, what you did took guts.’
‘It was easy once Elaine, Nolan, and Lance left. I never thought you’d catch me though. Why didn’t you turn me in? Oh wait. Yeah right. You wanted the money.’
OMG, she was so buying this. I’m kinda having fun reeling her in. Aren’t I terrible?
‘Can’t get ahead on what they pay me. You too it seems.’
‘I can’t afford what you want, Ken. You’re not going to get a lot of money out of me. I have none. How about we make a deal?’
Hmm. This was getting even more interesting. She’s got a scheme in mind.
‘What kind of deal?’
‘I don’t think the police can pin Tony’s murder on anybody. There’s no proof as to who actually put the poisoned fish into the stew. They don’t have the jar, and the thermos had been washed right after Tony ate from it. I made sure of that. So they have no fingerprints or anything to indict anyone. All they have is our testimonies, and Lance seems the guiltiest out of all of us. He cut up the pufferfish. I think he intended to kill his dad but chickened out. Why else would he cut up the fish? I wonder how the police got that info out of him. They must have trapped him with something.’
Elaine was a smart cookie.
‘So you’re saying we frame Lance?’
‘No, we blackmail them, just like you were blackmailing me. But the difference is...they’ve got the money. Elaine would pay $25,000 or maybe even $50,000 to make sure Lance doesn’t get pinned for the murder.’
‘What makes you think they’d fall for it? What would we threaten them with? I only have ph
otos of you, not them.’
“Hey, great job, Ging. That was a nice touch, reminding her that we might really have those photos.”
“Thanks.” I shined a proud grin.
‘We tell them that if they don’t fork over the money, we’ll both say that we saw Lance put the pufferfish into the stew.’
‘But he didn’t, so what if they don’t go for it? What do we do then?’
‘Leave it up to me. I’ll make sure they know we mean business. I was already scheming a way to get some money out of them before you went and did this to me.’
Man, people sure do incriminate themselves when you get them talking.
‘Ken, make sure to delete all these emails after we’re done. Empty the trash bin too. And I don’t mean the one outside Elaine’s kitchen door. Haha!’
Well, at least she had a sense of humor. Wasn’t going to do her much good in prison though.
“We’ve got her, Pako.”
“Yup.”
Pako pulled into my driveway and put the brakes on his car. He turned to me and said, “You did real good on this one, Ging.”
Then his brows hiked up a bit. “Well, you do good on most all of ‘em, but with this one you had some brilliant ideas.” He gave me a shaka sign (a hand gesture meaning: ‘all right,’ ‘right on,’ or ‘hang loose’).
“Gee, thanks, Pako. You weren’t so bad yourself. I always marvel at your expertise with these things.”
“Well, there’s stuff you think of that I don’t, so as always, we make a good team.”
“I can agree with that.” I nodded my head while my lips curved a smile.
I exited his car, and as I walked across his front end headed for my front door I gave him one last smile.
He poked his head out of the driver’s side window and said, “Hey, I guess our first guess was right after all?”
I stopped in my tracks. “You mean Helen?”
“Yeah.”
“Guess we’re square on the lunch then.” I shrugged.
“Guess so.”
I waved a hand and said, “Okay, go book ‘em, Danno.”
He gave me a grin and a nod and said, “You know it.”
:: The End ::
I hope you enjoyed this story in my cozy mystery series. Stay tuned for more rotten, stinkin’ murder mayhem in paradise with this quirky cast of characters and more.
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