“Chris?” Griz asked, as she rolled down the window and hit the button on the intercom. “Is something on your mind?”
“Nope. I’m just hungry.” I didn’t like keeping secrets from Griselda, but she’d had a tough day at the Burger Bar, and it would only make her worry if I told her my suspicions about Nelly, her brother, and everyone else I’d run into this week.
“Good thing we’re here, isn’t it, dear?” Virginia asked.
“Don’t worry, Watson,” Missi said, gripping a bowl on her lap. “If Nelly’s not prepared, we can always eat the salad.”
“That’s what’s in the bowl?” I asked. “Salad?”
“Greek Salad.” Missi lifted it, tapping fingers on the Saran wrap covering the top. “Don’t you look at me like that, Watson. It’s a delicious salad.”
The gates swung open, and Grizzy steered the car up the drive before Missi could launch into a full verbal assault. Apparently, she was touchy about her salad, and if she was feeling on edge, the last thing I wanted to do was ‘invoke the beast.’
We parked on the cobbled drive, next to a circular patch of garden—flowers I didn’t recognize populating it—and clambered out of the car together.
“Would you look at this place,” Griselda whispered, standing in front of the stone steps that led to the porch. If it could be called that.
Wraparound, caught between magnificent columns, and decorated with potted plants and two double swing-sets, the front of Nelly’s house was more impressive than any place I’d lived in before.
“Somebody lucked out,” Missi said.
“Oh, sister, don’t talk like that. She’s probably devastated about losing her mother.”
“If she’s devastated, then I’m Santa Claus’ long lost cousin, Esmerelda,” I said.
The three women looked at me.
“I’m just saying, she hasn’t seemed overly unhappy about her mother’s passing.”
“Maybe it’s the head injury,” Grizzy said. “I heard about this one guy who got hit on the head in a car accident and afterward, he could see sounds.”
“Seesaw?”
“No, see sounds. He saw sounds as colors and got really good at math,” Grizzy said, nodding.
“Honey, how many times do I have to tell you?” Missi patted Griz on the shoulder with her free hand. “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
“The one thing you can believe is that she’s not unhappy about any of this,” I whispered.
“Oh now, see, this is becoming awkward.” Virginia clicked her tongue. “We’re hovering around outside gossiping about Nelly, and she’s invited us for dinner. It’s just wrong. We should be ashamed of ourselves.”
Griselda grimaced. “You’re right, Vee. Of course, you’re right. We shouldn’t—”
“—no idea!” The shout had come from inside the mansion. The massive dark wood doors stood open to greet us. Or perhaps, they were open because someone else had gone in before us.
“Was that Nelly?” Grizzy asked.
“No. Deeper voice.” I moved up the steps, and the women followed me.
“—think you are?” Now, that had been Nelly. “You’re not even my blood, not really.”
“We’re half-siblings,” a young man replied. “That’s the definition of blood, you idiot.”
“Grayson,” I said. “It’s got to be Grayson.”
Glass crashed inside, and Virginia hopped on the spot. “Oh my.”
“Sounds like things are getting heated in there.” Grizzy had gone pale.
There was only one thing for it. I marched into the entry hall and headed toward the shouts and tumult. I came out in a living room with parquet flooring, Persian carpets, and a chandelier overhead.
Nelly stood near a fireplace, grasping a picture frame to her chest. Glass lay shattered at her feet. “How dare you,” she hissed. “How dare you ruin our mother’s memory?”
“Our mother’s memory?” Grayson stood nearer to the door, his fists balled at his sides. “You didn’t even know her. You didn’t even like her. She told me how you treated her when she first came to town, yet here you are, sharing the profits now that she’s gone. It’s not fair.”
“Grow up.” Nelly hadn’t noticed me yet, and I remained dead still, observing. “What happened between me and mom is none of your business. What did you expect? I didn’t know either of you. I didn’t even believe you were real when I first met you.”
“It’s wrong. I had to spend my days working for my money, working to prove that I was worthy of an inheritance, and you meet her for a week, and, suddenly, you’re in the will?” Grayson came forward, but didn’t move past the glass coffee table. He pointed at Nelly. “I’m not going to let this happen. You’re going to move out of this mansion, do you hear me?”
“Get out!” Nelly yelled. “Get out of my house.”
“It’s not your house.” But Grayson stalked from the living room, casting a nasty look at me as he passed.
Nelly’s face screwed up and tears streaked down her cheeks. She turned and kicked the fire poker’s stand. The brass poker clanged and dropped to the floor.
“Nelly?” Was it safe to approach?
She turned, eyes widening. “Christie! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry you had to witness that. I-I can’t believe that just happened.” She lifted the picture from her chest and peered down at it, then turned and placed it on the mantel.
The frame had no glass, but the image was clear. A new photo with a glossy sheen—Nelly and her mother standing together, smiling at the camera. Martha had been Nelly’s spitting image, with mousy brown hair and the same innocent eyes. Better fashion sense though. No droopy cardigan in sight.
I had so many questions and none of them were sympathetic. “Grizzy.” I needed the cavalry to come in and sweep up the emotional pieces.
Griselda, Vee and Missi entered and flocked toward Nelly, immediately. They cooed and patted her on the back. Missi tried cheering her up with the news of her fantastic Greek Salad.
Finally, Nelly’s eyes dried, though her cheeks remained a splotchy pink. “This is not how I imagined the start of our evening together. I had the chef prepare us a delicious meal, Salmon En Croute, and now this happens. I’m so sorry, you guys. I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
Truthfully, I’d never seen Nelly that angry before. She’d looked ready to grab the fire poker and assault her half-brother. I might’ve been reading too much into it.
“He’s such a horrible little man,” Nelly said, and her eyes flashed. “I’ve never met anyone I didn’t like until him. He’s all greasy and mean, and you’d think he would’ve found what he wanted to do by now. He doesn’t look it, but he’s twenty-three-years-old. But no, he’d prefer to work in Sal’s Pizzeria and live off my mother.”
Twenty-three? Talk about stunted growth development.
“Sorry about this,” I said, briskly.
Grizzy drew Nelly into another hug. “Let’s try to forget about it. We can eat dinner and relax together, talk about happier things.”
“Thanks, girls,” Nelly said, and dried her eyes with the ends of her cardigan sleeves.
We progressed from the living room into a grand dining hall, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a palace, and took our seats at a long banquet table. Places had already been set for us at one end.
Missi plonked her ceramic bowl down between the crystal glasses and peeled off the cling film on top. “This should go well with the salmon,” she said, stubbornly.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that about French and Greek foods,” I replied.
She pointed a gnarled finger at me.
I shrugged it off. Nelly had already launched into the tale of how Grayson had come barging in to ruin her night. Every now and again, her jaw would clench, her nostrils flare.
I’d misjudged her. She did care about her mother’s passing. That or she cared about the money.
Either way, Nelly and Grayso
n had both risen on my suspect list.
The meals came out, and we tucked in. The salmon was tender, pink and delicious, and the greens served with it were tasty, as well. I took some of Missi’s Greek Salad, simply to avoid her wrath, and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor.
While the women chattered on, my thoughts took a turn.
This was the crime scene. Sure, it had been cleaned up, but it was still—
“—shot in the upstairs living room,” Nelly said, and sniffed. “She fell right on the carpet in there. They removed it. Thankfully, there are no … markings from what happened, but still. It’s just terrible. Terrible. And I don’t want to point any fingers, but I’ve got to say, the person who knocked me aside seemed quite skinny.”
“Like Grayson?” Grizzy asked.
“Exactly. But like I said, I don’t want to lay any blame. The police will figure it out. Or Christie.” Nelly favored me with a smile.
I didn’t trust it. “Where’s the ladies’ room?” I asked.
“Oh, there’s one in the hall next to the stairs,” Nelly said. “I can have Jeffrey show you if you like?”
“No, I can find it on my own, thanks.” I got up from the table and exited the room, trying to keep a straight face.
It was snooping time.
I made my way down the hall and to the stairs, my footsteps muffled by the thick carpets placed to accent the tapestries on the walls. I ignored the downstairs bathroom, placed my hand on the polished balustrade, and made my way up to the second floor.
Shot in the upstairs living room.
That was what Nelly had said. If I’d daydreamed any longer, I would have missed it. I had to stop doing that in company.
I reached the landing and looked left and right. Every inch of this place was fancier than the last. I started my search and, finally, found the upstairs living room. It would have been easier to ask Nelly to take a look around, but a part of me didn’t want her to know.
She was a suspect, plain and simple. Though she had been knocked out by the killer, there was the off-chance that she’d planned that and had been working with an accomplice.
I stood in the center of the upstairs living room, the light on overhead, and turned in a circle. The floors were wooden and clean. Scratches on the floor near the sofas. Someone had pushed them out of position. Forensics team? Probably.
Bookcase had been moved too—some of the books had dropped onto their sides or been placed back upside down. Shoddy work.
A Grand piano sat underneath a set of French windows, polished to a sheen. No scrapes on the floor near it, though it had wheels. It might have been moved.
“Shot where?” I muttered, and tried to place myself in the scene.
What would Martha have been doing in this room?
Playing the piano? A folder sat atop the stand attached to the front of it. Sheet music. And there was no TV. She might have been reading books, but there was dust on the spines of the ones that hadn’t been moved.
Dust on the spines, but Martha had recently moved into the mansion. Perhaps, it had come furnished by the previous owner? Why hadn’t the maids been up here to dust the shelves? House had been empty for a while? New staff?
I didn’t sit on the velvet-topped stool in front of the Grand Piano, but stood behind it, my hands clasped at my back.
Sitting here, and then… killer enters.
I looked over my shoulder at the door, turning.
The killer has a gun and points it. Martha gets up. Why wouldn’t she have gotten up? Confronted with a gun, would she have wilted against the piano? No, if that was the case, the piano would have been damaged by her falling on it.
Martha puts her hands up. She’s shot and falls on the carpet.
I scanned the floor and caught the faint outline of a circle.
Carpet was removed.
I strode to the other side of the room and stood next to the sofa, surveying the scene from that side, but it was too far from the dark circle on the floor—clearly, the carpet hadn’t been moved in a long time. If Martha had been on either of the sofas, it would have taken her extra time to leap up and get to the patch.
Either way, she had died on it. Could she have been standing randomly in the room, peering out the window? Possibly. But my gut directed me toward the Grand Piano.
Something was off about it. Or around it.
I moved to it, scooched around and scanned the dark polished sides.
Killer fired the gun. How many shots?
I didn’t know. I didn’t have any information on the actual crime, and it irked me. If I’d had one more clue…
A hole had punctured the side of the piano, and I studied it, opting not to touch. I tracked its trajectory through to the other side of the piano, then followed that line toward the window’s sill. Just beneath it, a hole sat in the plaster.
Something metal glinted inside.
Good heavens, they missed it. How did they miss it?
But it was an obscure spot, and, without a ballistics expert around, it might have been an easy miss.
I had left my bag on the coat stand downstairs. I crept down to get it, the hum of talk from the dining hall a comfort—they weren’t worried about my absence—and moved back upstairs. I extracted a tweezers and a trusty pack of Kleenex then removed the projectile from the plaster. It sprinkled dust beneath the window.
I deposited the bullet into the tissue and wrapped it up. There was no casing on the ground—they had found that, but not the projectile? Or had someone interfered with the scene before the police arrived?
Regardless, I had a hard evidence. Illegally, but still. It was something I could use to find out more about the murder weapon and the case.
“Christie?” Grizzy called from downstairs. I hurried to the door, tucking the bullet carefully into a side pocket of my purse.
8
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Grizzy said, as she strode down the sidewalk at my side. “I should be in the Burger Bar, minding my own business. And you should give that bullet over to the cops, immediately. This is none of our business, Christie.”
“See, now, when I agreed that you could come along, I meant you could do so if you didn’t complain and tell me I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.” I sighed, my pace brisk as we headed toward the gun store in Sleepy Creek. “You see, I’m well aware of how dangerous this is. And how stubborn I am.”
“As a mule,” Grizzy muttered, but there was a spring in her step.
Whether Griz liked to admit it or not. She got excited about these investigations too. The look of horror she’d given me when we’d gotten back from Nelly’s mansion the night before had faded fast and been replaced by curiosity.
We entered a side street off Main, and found the gun shop with its dusty glass windows, gate at the entrance, and a glinting golden sign overhead that read ‘Sleepy Creek’s Guns Galore.’
I walked up to it and buzzed the button outside.
The gate clanked and admitted us into the warm and leather-scented store. A woman stood at the back, behind a thick glass topped counter. She leaned on it, paging idly through a magazine, and wore her hair bright pink and cropped short.
“Morning,” I said, and walked up to her.
“And morning to you,” the woman said. “Name’s Candy.”
I took her hand and shook it. “Christie, and this is Griselda.”
Grizzy gave a timid wave. “Hi Candz.”
“Griz.”
“I wonder if you can help me with something,” I said.
“Sure can do,” Candy replied, straightening and dusting off her studded jacket. “If what you need help with is guns, of course.”
“It is.” There was no point whipping out the bullet I’d removed from the plaster at Nelly’s new mansion. It was deformed, and identifying a bullet without its casing was nearly impossible without the murder weapon. It was clear it hadn’t come from a shotgun, though. No pellets or scatter. That left rifles and han
dguns. I would have to hand the evidence over soon, but not before I had the information I needed.
“Then fire away,” Candy said. “Excuse the pun.”
“I was wondering if you’d sold a handgun recently,” I replied.
Candy blinked. It was an ambiguous question. I didn’t blame her. “Recently? You know what type of gun you’re looking for?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you a police officer?” Candy asked.
“No.”
“She’s a detective from Boston,” Grizzy put in. “But she’s not technically on duty.”
“Sure, sure. Just, it’s a strange question to ask in light of what happened recently. I’ve already had the cops come in here asking question about Martha Boggs, and now you’re asking…”
I nodded, but kept my lips together. She could choose to help me or out me.
“Look, I know who you are,” Candy said. “You’re the detective who solved Franny’s case. Franny was a good friend of mine.”
“I didn’t technically solve it on my own.”
“Oh, that’s not what I heard,” Candy said. “Gossip on the streets says that you got to the bottom of it, and without your help, the police wouldn’t have solved the case.”
“No,” I said. “The police here are good at their jobs.” And it was true. I just happened to be working in a way that was quicker and easier because sticking within the confines of warrants and the law hadn’t been my M.O.
Thankfully, the extent of my law-breaking had yet to be discovered. If it had been, the sparse evidence I had collected wouldn’t be permissible in court.
“I’m not saying they aren’t good at their jobs.” Candy offered me a gap-toothed smile. “But, they don’t get results as fast as you do.”
I’d take it as a compliment. “That mean you’ll help me?”
“Give me a second.” She disappeared through a doorway behind the counter.
“Let’s hope she’s not calling Liam,” I said.
“Don’t be so negative. She wants to help.”
“Now who’s excited about partaking in an investigation?” I nudged my friend, and Grizzy gave a sheepish grin.
The Breakfast Burger Murder Page 4