Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 07 - Mad as the Dickens

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “That’s nice. I do enjoy seeing you two together. So much in love. Just like Mr. Gamp and I were.” She sighed. “He’s been gone such a long time.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Was he ill?”

  “No, dear, and that’s a blessing. Mrs. Harris says being sick takes such a toll on a person’s health. Mr. Gamp was making a delivery on wet roads and lost control of the car.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “My parents died in a car crash, too.”

  “It’s hard to lose somebody suddenly, don’t you think? Though at least it’s quick. Not like some of the poor souls I see at the hospital. Lingering for weeks or even days before passing on.”

  “At least they get a chance to say good-bye to their families.”

  “Yes, and that’s something I wish I could have had from my dear husband, but not if it meant he had to suffer. Like poor Barnaby Murdstone.”

  “I heard he lived quite a while after the accident.”

  “Over a week. Burns are so painful, but Barnaby truly believed that he’d get better, and that can make all the difference. The doctor had told him there was a chance he’d be home for Christmas, and Barnaby was hoping for that. He wouldn’t admit it, but I think he was afraid that Santa Claus wouldn’t find him if he was in the hospital.” She smiled. “You don’t often find a boy his age who still believes. I even helped him write a letter to Santa.”

  “That’s sweet,” I said, but I couldn’t help but feel badly for the boy that Santa would never find.

  “Now, now, dear,” Mrs. Gamp said, “don’t mourn for Barnaby. He’s in a better place, just as Mr. Gamp and your parents are. I truly believe that.”

  “I do, too,” I said, “but I still miss them.”

  “Just try to remember the good times. Every time I’m feeling lonely, I think about Mr. Gamp’s last gift to me.”

  “What was that?”

  “The dear man had signed up for a life insurance policy just before the accident, almost as if he’d known something was going to happen. I’ve been living off of the proceeds ever since.”

  “Really? That must have been some policy.”

  “With the baby coming, I’m sure you understand what a blessing security is. In fact, when Mr. Gamp passed away …” She stopped. “Anyway, it was such a relief when Miss Todger told me about it.”

  “Miss Todger?” I said. “Clara Todger?”

  “Do you know her? My husband worked for the Todger family, and the policy was arranged through work. Every month the insurance company sends them a check, and then they send me one.”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t believe that Mrs. Gamp was that naive. Didn’t she know what the Todger family did, or where that money really came from? Though I didn’t know much about bootlegging, I was fairly sure they didn’t have group insurance plans. Besides, the payoff for life insurance was typically a lump sum, not monthly payments. While the settlement from my parents’ death had paid most of my way through college, it had run out years before.

  “You should be looking into insurance, too, for your little one. You never know what could happen, so you have to plan for it.” She patted my arm and said, “I have to get back to work now. Mrs. Harris says idle hands are the devil’s work.”

  It was just as well that she left—I needed a few minutes to catch my breath. First, she’d given me far too much information about her relationship with Seth, but at least I was reasonably sure that she hadn’t been a woman scorned after all. Then she turned around and gave me a much better motive for her to want Seth dead. Her husband must have been the Todger deliveryman who’d died. Not only had Mrs. Gamp been left a widow, but she’d lost her baby, too.

  The question was, did Mrs. Gamp realize that Seth had been the cause of it all?

  Chapter 19

  After all that, I needed a drink, even if it couldn’t be anything stronger than water. I found Junior at the kitchen sink, elbow deep in soap suds.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  It looked like she was washing dishes, which was completely out of character, but I didn’t know if she’d appreciate my mentioning it. I reached into the refrigerator to get a bottle of water.

  “Is that bottle sealed?” she asked before I could open it.

  “I think so.” I checked the plastic screw-top to be sure. “Why? What happened?”

  “Nothing, but something almost did. I came in to get a cup of coffee, and was about to take a swallow when I noticed that it smelled funny.”

  “Poison?”

  “I don’t know about that, but there was something in there that wasn’t supposed to be. It smelled like dishwasher soap.”

  “Is that dangerous?”

  “Heck if I know, and even if it is, I don’t imagine people would have drunk more than a swallow, but I’m taking no chances.” She reached into the soapy water for the coffeemaker’s glass pot and carefully rinsed it. “I’m going to warn people to be careful of what they leave open; I’m not eating or drinking anything that’s been left unattended unless it’s sealed.”

  I checked the screw top again, just to be sure, then opened it to take a drink. “This is crazy,” I said.

  “It’s not the only thing I found while I was lurking. Jake’s got a workshop backstage to put sets together, and I got to thinking that tools can be dangerous at the best of times. So I took a look and noticed that the guard on his circular saw was so loose it was just barely staying on.”

  “You lost me, Junior.” In fact, she’d probably have lost me if she’d mentioned any tool other than hammer, pliers, or screwdriver.

  “You know what a circular saw looks like?”

  “Sort of.”

  “The guard is the round metal piece that covers up the blade until you start cutting. It’s supposed to help you guide the saw and protect you from pieces flying up. If the guard fell off while you were using the saw, you’d probably ruin whatever it was you were working on, not to mention what it could do to your hand.”

  “Jesus, that’s scary.”

  “Not as scary as knowing that there might be other traps that I haven’t found yet.” She finished washing up and dried off her hands. “I sure hope you’ve found something that will tell us who killed Seth.”

  “No such luck. All I’ve got is more maybes.”

  “Can’t you come up with a yes or no once in a while?”

  “How many definite answers have you come up with?”

  “Only that I definitely hate practical jokes. What have you got?”

  I told her about Tim first, ending with, “I know it’s not much, but other than Clara Todger, he’s the only one we’ve found who didn’t like Seth.”

  “The only one who admits it, anyway,” Junior pointed out. “Chances are that the killer wouldn’t come out and say he hated the man.”

  “Granted. But I wish I knew what Tim had against Seth.”

  “We’ll see what we can do about that,” Junior said. “Who else?”

  “Would you believe Mrs. Gamp?”

  “At this point, I’d believe Mrs. Harris.”

  I told her what Aunt Nora had told me about Mrs. Gamp and Seth dating, then repeated what Mrs. Gamp had said about it.

  “You are kidding me!” Junior said.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t heard it, but that’s what she said.”

  Junior scratched her head. “Just when I think I’ve heard everything … Anyway, if she’s the one who dumped Seth, doesn’t that let her out of the running? Unless you think she was lying about it.”

  “I don’t think she was. It was what she told me next that I’m thinking about.” I explained how I’d figured out that Mrs. Gamp’s late husband must have been Clara Todger’s delivery man. “So she had a whopping big motive to kill Seth.”

  “Maybe,” Junior said doubtfully.

  “You don’t think a hit-and-run makes a good motive? Not to mention the miscarr
iage.”

  “Sure, either of them could lead to payback when the emotions are running hot. But not this many years down the road.”

  “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

  Junior raised an eyebrow.

  “All right, it’s hard to imagine Mrs. Gamp carrying a grudge all this time and not doing something about it.”

  “Not to mention the fact that she’d hardly have slept with the man if she’d known he killed her husband. So we’ve got no reason to believe Mrs. Gamp knew it was Seth who caused the accident. She didn’t even know her husband was carting moonshine.”

  “It doesn’t sound reasonable to me either, but you’ve got to admit that a grown woman with an imaginary friend might do unreasonable things now and then.”

  “There’s crazy and then there’s crazy.”

  “Is that something Mrs. Harris says?”

  Junior didn’t answer. “What else have you got?”

  I ran through the other gossip I’d gotten from Aunt Nora, but without much enthusiasm.

  Junior wasn’t enthusiastic either. “Either Sid hit him for being absolutely right about his son a long time ago, or Big Bill got tired of trying to buy his property. Yeah, either one of those would drive me to kill a man.”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” I said, irritated. “How did you think I work?”

  “I didn’t know, but I didn’t expect you to come up with silly ideas like these.”

  “Why don’t you go see what you can find out?” I snapped. I shouldn’t have, but my feet were swelling and I was hungry again.

  “Don’t be that way, Laurie Anne,” Junior said. “If this is the way you work, then that’s the way we’ll do it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You want me to get you something to drink?”

  “That might be nice,” I allowed.

  She fetched a bottle of cold water for me, a Coke for herself, and some cookies for us to share. “Do you feel better?” she asked once I’d eaten more than half of the cookies.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said sheepishly. “I’m sorry for snapping. Blame it on the hormones.”

  “That’s all right. I’m sorry for calling your ideas silly.”

  “They were silly,” I said. “At least, this batch was. Most of my theories are pretty outlandish. But when I dig into something, eventually something starts to make sense.”

  “And that’ll be the answer?”

  “Of course not. The sensible one is never the answer. It’s always something even more ridiculous, which makes me feel like a complete idiot for not seeing it in the first place.”

  “This is something you do for fun?” Junior asked. “Why do you keep doing this, Laurie Anne?”

  “Why do you?” I countered.

  “It’s my job.”

  “You could get another job.”

  “I suppose I could, but I like being a cop. The thing is, I like the whole job, not just solving murders. I don’t think you’re interested in the rest of what I do.”

  “You mean making traffic stops and breaking up bar fights and all?”

  She nodded.

  “No, I’m not interested in that.”

  “You do like being a programmer, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely. It’s fun in a geeky way I won’t even try to explain.”

  “So why do you keep getting tangled up in murder?”

  I could have told her that I only did it because people asked me to. But that wouldn’t have been honest. My family wouldn’t have kept asking me if I’d told them not to. Well, maybe Vasti would have, but even she would have given up eventually. There was more to it than that. “You know what I think it is, Junior? The fact is, I’m a good programmer, but I’ll never be a great programmer. There are fourteen-year-olds who can write more elegant code than I can, and they can write it faster, too.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. The great programmers seem to be born to it, just like with other artists. I met some real-life geniuses in college, and that’s when I realized that I just wasn’t that good. Don’t get me wrong. I do solid work, and I make my deadlines, and I can supervise projects. That’s all important. But I’m not ever going to be anything special at work. The only time I feel like I’m special, that I’m doing something other people can’t do, is when I’m trying to solve a murder.”

  “But other people do solve murders. Other than cops, I mean. I was talking to cops from other parts of the state one time, and they told me there’s an older lady in Asheville who’s a peach of a crime solver, and a judge near Raleigh. Charlotte’s got a realtor and an antiques dealer.”

  “There are people other than Larry Bird who play basketball, but I bet he still feels special.”

  “You’ve got a point,” she admitted, then paused for a minute. “Laurie Anne, you know I’m not sentimental and I’m not good with words. Heck, if it weren’t for Hallmark, I wouldn’t be able to wish my own mama happy Mother’s Day. But I want to tell you something. You are special. Not just because of finding killers or programming or anything like that—it’s because of who you are. The way you dropped everything to come down here so Richard could direct this play, and the way you help out your family when they need you, and the way you put yourself out for your friends. I think that’s mighty special.”

  My eyes teared up, and it wasn’t the hormones that time. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Good,” she said firmly. “Because I sure as heck don’t want to hear that you’ve repeated this to anybody else.” She swigged down the last of her Coke. “Now let’s get back to work.”

  “Can I hug your neck?” I asked.

  “Lord, no.” Then she relented. “All right, but don’t expect a Christmas present from me!”

  Chapter 20

  Once Junior had endured my hug, I was ready and raring to go. All I needed was a direction. “Any suggestions?” I asked Junior. “We’ve still got the Murdstone brothers to talk to.”

  “I’ve been avoiding them,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “I’ve questioned bereaved parents, siblings, and spouses without blinking, but I have a problem with the recently orphaned. It’s probably because I wonder how I’d have felt if somebody had bothered me right after my parents died.”

  “I understand, but if we’re going to do this …”

  “I know, we’ve got to talk to David and Jake. Wouldn’t it be better for you to talk to them solo? Having the two of us approach them might make them suspicious.”

  “Laurie Anne, do you think there’s anybody in this building who doesn’t know what we’re up to?”

  “All right, which one first?”

  “Since David’s onstage, and I don’t think your husband would appreciate our taking him away, let’s try Jake.”

  We found Jake in the workshop backstage. There was a board laid across two sawhorses to use as a table, and around it were scattered bits of wood and cloth and a miscellany of tools. Jake was carefully painting a freestanding fake fireplace.

  “Hey, Jake,” I said cheerily.

  He turned our way briefly and said, “Hey,” before turning back to his work.

  I asked, “Is that Scrooge’s fireplace?”

  “Yep,” he said, not looking up.

  “It’s very convincing. If somebody didn’t know better, he’d try to set a real fire in there.” Then I remembered how his son had died, and hastily added, “All the sets look great.”

  “Thanks.”

  A minute passed. I said, “Can I help you any?”

  “You could hand me that rag on the table.”

  “Sure,” I said, and did so. “Anything else?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Junior and I stood there while Jake continued to paint. When I started to feel my feet swelling, I nudged Junior. She was the professional. Let her interrogate the man’s back.

  “Jake, I imagine you know Laurie Anne and I have been asking questions about your father’s death,” she said. />
  “That’s what I hear. Mark Pope said I don’t have to talk to you if I didn’t want to.”

  “No, I suppose you don’t,” Junior said, “but why wouldn’t you want to?”

  “You wouldn’t want to talk about it either if you were in my place,” he said, his voice catching. “But your daddy’s alive.”

  “Mine’s not,” I said softly. “We can’t bring Seth back no matter what we do, but if it were my father, I’d do everything I could to find out what happened to him.”

  He stopped painting—stopped moving at all for a few seconds. Then he put his brush down, wiped his hands on the rag, and turned around. “All right. What can I tell you?”

  Junior said, “Do you know why somebody would have wanted to kill your father?”

  “Everybody liked Daddy.”

  “What about in his business?”

  “You mean the chairs?” Jake asked, and I thought I heard sarcasm. Of course he must have known that Junior had wanted to arrest Seth for moonshining.

  “In any of his business dealings,” Junior said evenly.

  “Daddy wasn’t the kind of man to make enemies.”

  “Is that right? I hear he and your brother didn’t always see eye to eye.”

  Jake flushed angrily. “That doesn’t mean David would kill him!”

  “You know I had to ask,” Junior said.

  He took a deep breath and said, “I guess you did.”

  “What about Florence?”

  “Daddy wasn’t against the marriage, if that’s what you’re asking. Even if he had been, that wouldn’t have stopped them two. Daddy’s only regret was that at their age they weren’t likely to give him any more grandchildren.” He paused. “Anything else?”

  Junior looked at me.

  I said, “I heard that Big Bill Walters was interested in buying your house, but that your father didn’t want to sell.”

  “That’s right, but there wasn’t enough money involved to kill over.”

  “Are you going to sell the house now?”

  He flushed again but answered me. “I haven’t decided yet. I haven’t decided much of anything.”

  “What about your father’s business? I assume you inherit it.”