“Where’d you drop it?” a second beader, who wasn’t much older than Erin, asked. She had short purple hair peeking out from under her bonnet and a pronounced lisp.
“In the grass, where do you think? I’ll never find it now,” Beader Number One said.
The third beader, a rail-thin Asian woman with iron-straight black hair, stood and peered at the grass around Number One’s feet.
“Forget it,” Number One snapped. “You’ll never find it. It’s green and the darned grass is green.” She looked up to find me watching them. She gave me a motherly smile. “Sorry about that. I just hate to lose a bead.”
“I understand.” I returned her smile.
“I’m Celeste. This is Beth,” she said. “And that’s Jendy.” She pointed at the beader with purple hair.
Beth smiled at me shyly. “You’re Carmen’s sister, right?”
I nodded, steeling myself for another complaint about favoritism.
Jendy glanced up briefly from her pile of Czech glass beads. “You’re the one who found Tess.”
Beth opened a small tube filled with jungle green beads the size of eyeglass screws and poured them on the foam mat in front of her. Using needle-nose pliers, she picked up one of the beads and slid a fine metal chain through it.
“So what was it like? I mean, finding the body, was there a lot blood? Like on a cop show?” Jendy asked.
“Jendy, please.” Beth looked like she might be sick. She shot a quick glance at Celeste, who was concentrating on her beads.
“It’s not exactly like you see on TV,” I said as the image of the back of Tess’s head flashed in my mind.
Jendy’s eyes sparkled. “Who do you think did it?”
“I have no idea. Did any of you know Tess well?” I asked.
Celeste sniffed. “I know Jerry, known him for years. If you ask me, Tess was all wrong for him. You should have heard them fight. We’re all members of the same crafter co-op. The co-op owns an old farm on Delia Road. Most of the crafters, myself included, have space inside the converted barn. Jerry has his own forge on the property.”
I knew where the co-op was. It was right on the Summit-Portage county line and not far from Kent. The New Day Artists Cooperative was relatively new. It started while I was living in Chicago. I had meant to visit it after moving back to Stripling, but never got around to it.
“You see,” Celeste said, interrupting my thoughts. She held up a beautiful teal and lavender glass bead. “I’m not just a beader. I make many of my own beads with glass flame work.”
Jendy and Beth rolled their eyes at each other. Apparently, they’d heard about Celeste’s bead-making skills one too many times.
I nodded encouragement.
“Jerry’s the one who taught me how to use a blowtorch.”
“Oh?” I said.
She nodded. “We are very close. In fact, he told me six months ago he was going to break it off with Tess.”
I sat straighter in my chair. “Break it off how?”
Celeste paled. “I hope I’m not giving you the wrong idea. Jerry would never do anything to hurt Tess. He just wanted a divorce, or so I thought. He never said exactly what he planned to do.”
Beth shook her head. “I still can’t believe someone was murdered. It’s so awful.”
“Did you see anything out of the ordinary before you left yesterday?” I asked.
Jendy cocked her head. “That’s a weird question. What are you, an undercover cop using face painting as a front?”
I laughed. “Oh, no. I’m just curious. Since I was the one who found Tess, the police have been asking me a lot of questions like that.”
They shook their heads.
“On second thought,” Beth said. “I left just before seven, and Tess was still here. She hadn’t even started packing up her booth. I should have stopped her and asked what was going on, but I was in a hurry to get home to my kids.” She bit her lip. “I remember thinking she looked like she was waiting for someone.”
“Her son did mention that she planned to meet someone after the festival,” I said.
Jendy nodded. “I thought that, too, when I left. I guess if the police find out who that was, they’ll find out who did it.”
As if it were that easy, I thought.
“Well, hello, ladies,” Bobby greeted us in his most charming voice. “Those are gorgeous creations.”
The three women fluttered under his gaze and compliment. Erin stood behind Bobby and rolled her eyes at me. She was a tall, lithe, natural redhead, who had the body of a prima ballerina, but she wanted to be a college professor. Go figure.
I introduced them to the group. Jendy in particular took a shine to Bobby. She asked him if he could open one of her jars of glass beads for her, saying it was on too tight. I nearly snorted.
Erin peered at me. “Do you have time to take a break? We need to talk.”
I looked at my watch. It was after three, and I still hadn’t eaten anything besides a pack of questionable cracker sandwiches I’d found at the bottom of my shoulder bag. There was a sizable crowd on the grounds, but no one seemed interested in getting their face painted.
I put up a cardstock be back in ten minutes sign. “Let’s go over to the food vendors. I’m starved.”
I gravitated toward the elephant ears. “Extra powdered sugar, please,” I told the vendor.
“No problem,” he said with a plastic straw clenched in his teeth.
Erin wrinkled her pretty little nose. “Do you have any idea how many calories are in that?”
This concern must be why she was a size two, and I was, well, not. “Nope,” I said. “What did you want to talk about?”
She waved her hand vaguely. “Oh, just that you found a dead body. Nothing major.”
“Oh, that.” The vendor handed me my heavenly elephant ear, and I paid him. “How’d you hear?”
“I have friend who lives in Derek’s dorm.”
I took a bite of my snack and noticed the elephant ear vendor was leaning toward us, straining to hear our conversation. I led Erin out of his earshot.
“I can’t believe you are so calm about this,” she said.
“I’m not, trust me. Does Bobby know?”
“Oh, yeah. He found out when that lady police officer brought sniffling Derek into the library. The officer told Bobby you said he’d take care of Derek.”
“How’d that go over?”
She gave me a look.
“Just great. Does your friend know Derek well?”
Erin shook her head. It was like watching a shampoo commercial as her red-gold hair glistened in the fall sunlight. “No, he says no one in the dorm knows Derek that well. Not even his roommate. He’s a shy kid. A loner.”
“You make him sound like the Unabomber.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he is.”
“He’s not.” I paused. “He asked me to help him.”
“Help him how?”
“To find out who killed his mother.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“All I have to say is you might want to update your résumé, because Provost Lepcheck is not going to stand for you snooping around another mystery on campus.”
“There’s something else. Derek is Lepcheck’s nephew. Tess Ross was his sister.”
Erin eyes widened. “Whoa!”
“Yeah. Well, we’d better get back.”
Back at the booth, Jendy was showing Bobby her jewelry, and he oohed and aahed at all the appropriate times. When he saw me, he nodded his head to the right. I followed him to the other side of my booth. “I got your special delivery.”
“Derek. Erin told me. Did you call him a pest?”
“Well, that’s what he is. I can’t believe you sent him over to me to babysit.”
“His mother was just murdered. He had nowhere else to go.”
“Speaking of the murder, you could have called or texted me about it. Instead, I found out from a cop stopping by th
e reference desk.”
“Texted you? You want me to text you something like, ‘Hey, found dead body. All good.’”
“It would have been nice to have been told by you.” His eyes softened. “When I heard, I was worried. All I could think about was what happened last summer. You’re not planning to get involved, are you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You are, aren’t you? I appreciate what you did for me last summer, but this is different. You don’t know the people involved this time. You—”
“Bobby, let’s go.” Erin came up from behind me.
I was grateful for the interruption. “You’d better get back to the library, or Lasha is going to send out a search party for you.”
“This conversation is not over,” Bobby said.
That much I knew.
Chapter Ten
At the end of the day, I packed up my car with paintings and paints to head home, but at the last second, I turned left, which was the opposite direction from my duplex, when leaving campus. The hot dog vendor in the minivan behind me made an obscene gesture as I abruptly changed my mind.
I turned into a small strip mall and parked in front of the office of Lewis Clive, Esq. Lew’s office was in a storefront tucked in between a card shop and shoe store. I glanced into the shoe store’s window. The snow boots were out in force. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be needed.
A mechanical beep-beep sounded when I stepped into the office suite.
It was after six, so I wasn’t surprised when the secretary’s desk was empty. What did surprise me was who greeted me in her place. Sitting in the middle of the waiting room was none other than Zacchaeus, labradoodle extraordinaire.
Zach barked.
“Stop that confounded racket, Dog!” Lew bellowed from the back office where I knew he was smoking an unfiltered cigarette. The man was bound and determined to die of lung cancer.
I held out my hand to Zach and patted his head. That quieted him. “Lew?” I called. “It’s India.”
There was a pause. I could almost see him take a drag of his cigarette. “Come on back.”
I wove around the receptionist’s desk and down the short hallway to Lew’s office. Zach padded behind me down the carpeted hall.
“That dog had to come with you, did he?”
I patted Zach’s head. “He’s not so bad.” Zach leaned against my leg.
Except for the framed diplomas on his walls and picture of his family on his desk, the room had as much personality as a mock-up office in an office supply warehouse. The walls were off-white. The floor was covered with industrial brown carpet, and the ceiling was dropped tile. I found the lack of color depressing.
“Take a seat.” He motioned to the sofa situated underneath the lone window. Zach laid his head across my knees. Lew sat behind his metal desk, signing one legal-sized document after another at breakneck speed. “Just give me a minute. I promised my secretary I would get these signed before I headed home tonight.” He signed one last document. “There.”
Lew stood and patted his breast pocket. Deftly, he removed the pack of cigarettes he always kept there. He lit up, and I opened the window. A cold burst of late October air blew into the room, but it was better than the smell of Lew’s cigarette smoke. Lew was a red-haired-going-to-gray, stocky, barrel-chested guy who kept my parents out of jail on a regular basis.
He pulled an armchair closer to the sofa and sat. “What did your parents do this time? Do you need bond money?”
Not for the first time, I realized most children have never heard the words “bond money” in reference to their parents. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were.
I crossed my jean-clad legs, forcing Zach to lie on the floor. He placed one of his paws firmly on my sneaker. “This isn’t about Mom and Dad. As far as I know, they haven’t broken any laws recently.”
Lew blew out a long drag of smoke out the window. “I imagine I will hear from them soon enough. The school board is dead set on tearing down the bell tower. Personally, I think tearing down the ugly thing is the right idea. It’s a death trap. Don’t tell your parents I said that.”
My parents’ latest crusade was having the high school’s bell tower declared a historic landmark in order to stop the Stripling school board from demolishing it.
“So? What’s up? Mark back in town?”
I shook my head sharply. “Maybe I should be asking you what’s up. What’s Zach doing here?”
Lew glanced down at the dog. “Do you know this pile of fur?”
“We met at the festival.”
He focused on the Founder’s Festival emblem embroidered on my polo shirt. “Oh, heck, are you involved in this mess too?”
“I discovered Tess’s body,” I said somewhat apologetically.
“The detective told me one of the crafters found her, but he most certainly didn’t tell me it was you.” Lew took a drag of his cigarette as if fortifying himself. “Heck in a handbasket.”
Considering Tess was a basket weaver, I wondered if Lew knew just how appropriate his curse was.
Lew looked bemused. “You sure have a knack for finding trouble, don’t you?” Then his face turned sad. “Don’t tell me you are going to play gumshoe again.”
I shrugged.
“I’m sure Detective Mains will love that. If you’re planning to crack the case, you’re lagging way behind. He stopped by to drop off the dog.”
“Why would he give you Zach?”
“Victor’s will, of course. I imagine that’s why you’re here.”
“Victor who?” I blinked in surprise.
“Victor Lepcheck, the deceased owner of that dog—that very wealthy dog, might I add.”
“He wouldn’t be any relation to Sam Lepcheck, would he?”
“Don’t remind me. He was his uncle and therefore he is also Tess’s uncle, too.”
I looked at Zach, who had fallen asleep at my feet. “Tess took Zach after her uncle died.”
Lew nodded and took another drag from his cigarette. “And the sizable trust that came with him.”
“How much money are we talking?”
“Two million.”
I nearly choked. “Two million dollars? And it belongs to the dog?”
“It’s in a trust.” He flattened his hands on his desk blotter. “Please don’t tell me your parents are also mixed up in this.”
“Nope. They are too busy saving the bell tower right now to take on any other causes.”
His face smoothed. “Well, then, I’ll write a personal letter of thanks to the Stripling school board for putting up a fight against them.” He sat back.
I just thought of something for the first time. “Where’d Zach come from?”
Lew squinted at me. “I just told you. Mains dropped him off.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Where was he last night? Tess was at the festival, and Jerry was at the forge. I saw him before he knew about Tess’s death, and Zach wasn’t with him.”
“Mains told me he found the dog at Tess’s house. Jerry said he dropped him off there before going on to the forge because he knew Tess would be home from the festival soon.”
“So you are the Lepcheck family lawyer?”
“No, I only represented Victor and his dog by default.”
“How long were you Victor’s lawyer?”
“For twenty miserable years. Your parents are a walk in the park in comparison to Victor Lepcheck.”
I frowned. “That bad?”
He gnawed on the end of his cigarette. “Zach’s here because Victor never wrote in his will who would receive Zach and his sizable trust if Zach outlived Tess. Because Tess died before the mutt, I take possession of the dog until an agreement can be reached.”
“Wouldn’t Zach go to Provost Lepcheck as the surviving family member?”
“You’d be right if he were the only one. Tess also had a sister, Debra.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head.
“I wish I were. Debra Wagtail. She lives in one of those new condo complexes that are popping up all over the countryside like manicured weeds.” He shook another cigarette out of the pack. “And to make matters worse, Tess’s husband, Jerry Ross, insists Zach should go to him since he helped care for the dog. Tess’s son is also a possible heir. If they can’t all come to some kind of agreement, this is going to go on for years.”
I made a sympathetic noise. “Who has the best claim to the trust?”
He took a drag on his cigarette. “Both Debra and Sam have an equal claim, although they are both petitioning for sole custody of the dog and, of course, the dog’s money. As if it will help them, they’re both saying they’ll use some of the money for charities. They can’t do anything with it until Zach dies because it’s for his care, but after the dog passes away the caretaker gets everything to use as he or she wants.”
“What charities?”
“Sam claims Victor would have wanted him to have the money in order to support programs at Martin College. On the other hand, Debra claims Victor would have wanted her to have the money because she was Victor’s caretaker during the last few years of his life. He suffered from Parkinson’s. He was lucky though. He died before he lost the ability to speak or walk.”
I didn’t know if I would consider anyone with Parkinson’s lucky.
I held up a hand. “Back up. If Debra was the caretaker, why didn’t Victor leave the dog’s trust in her hands in the first place?”
Lew shrugged. “He never said, and I try not to pry when my clients ask me to draw up their wills. I think the more obvious question was why he left his fortune to a dog, but I didn’t ask that one, either. I wish I had.”
I wished he had, too.
“Victor has the remarkable ability to be an even bigger pain in the rear in death than he was in life. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
“I’ll do anything I can to help,” I said.
A glint sparkled in his eye, and I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Actually, I do have a way you can help me. My wife is terribly afraid of dogs. She was bitten as a child by a neighbor’s pooch.”
Murder in a Basket (An India Hayes Mystery) Page 6