Plaster and Poison

by Jennie Bentley

  So had she had an accomplice? Someone she had gone off with after the body was discovered?

  But no, Beatrice had seemed genuinely shocked when I told her about Gerard’s murder. Or maybe not; maybe what she had been shocked to hear was that the body had been found. Maybe she had an accomplice, and that accomplice had told her to sit tight; he or she would get rid of the body. Beatrice had thought Gerard would end up in the water or in a shallow grave somewhere, and instead, he’d ended up in our carriage house. And that’s when she’d left.

  Jemmy and Inky appeared and began winding themselves around my ankles, a sure sign that I’d forgotten to fill their food and water bowls this morning in my excitement to get out of the house to tell Derek my news. I padded down the hall toward the kitchen to remedy this oversight while I continued thinking.

  What was the point of leaving Gerard in our carriage house in the first place? Why not just dump him in the ocean? Unless it was personal. Someone who knew who he was, that he was Kate’s ex-boyfriend and Shannon’s father, and that they, along with Wayne, were the logical suspects if something happened to him. Someone else with a can’t-miss motive for wanting to get rid of him, then. Someone who’d have reason to worry that they’d end up on the police’s radar, and who wanted to make sure there were even more obvious suspects for the authorities to focus on. Peter was an obvious suspect. He had to have known that the police would find his criminal record and link him to Gerard. And Peter was a muscular sort of guy; he’d be able to carry Gerard up the stairs to the loft. He had access to plenty of cars to transport the body in, too. But if he’d committed the murder, why admit that Gerard had been blackmailing him? Why admit having spoken to Gerard at all?

  I scooped cat food and ran water while my thoughts skittered and jumped. And now, on top of Gerard’s murder and Bea’s disappearance, the puzzle of Emily Ritter and William Ellis had taken a nasty turn. They’d looked so happy together in that picture Dr. Ben had shown me. It was still in my bag, and now I pulled it out and looked at it. Maybe Emily was faking . . . ? No, they really did look happy. Both of them were smiling, with their eyes as well as their lips. So how had they gone from this, in the summer of 1917, to his death at her hands just a year later?

  What would make a woman who was obviously in love with a man marry someone else less than a year later? I curled up on the love seat in the parlor, still staring at the two faces forever frozen in happy ignorance of what was to happen to them both. Had William jilted her just after this picture was taken? Did she fall in love with Lawrence on the rebound? But if so, why would she take up with William again the next spring? There was nothing in this world that would have made me agree to go back to Philippe, not after the way he treated me. But of course things were different ninety years ago. Women didn’t have the options they do now. And William might have been the love of Emily’s life, the one she never managed to say no to.

  Her marriage to Lawrence couldn’t have been very happy, anyway. If she’d been in love with her husband, surely she wouldn’t have cheated on him, even with her former love. No matter how handsome or charming he’d been. Maybe it had been a marriage of convenience. Maybe she hadn’t loved Lawrence, ever. Maybe she’d always loved William, but for one reason or another, she couldn’t have him. He was engaged to someone else? Or maybe her family had wanted her to marry Lawrence and she couldn’t really say no?

  But if she loved William, why had she killed him? Why not kill Lawrence, so she could marry William? Or had it been a case of feeling that if she couldn’t have him, then no one could?

  None of it made any sense, and on a whim, I pulled out the Xerox copy of Helen Ritter’s wedding picture, too, and put the two side by side. The quality of the latter was poor, but I could clearly see the resemblance between Lawrence III—Larry—and his mother. The fair hair, the facial shape, the nose. The smile, though, must be his father’s, because it wasn’t Emily’s. But familiar, for all of that . . .

  Then I looked at the man standing next to Emily, and the brick dropped.

  “Look!” I told Derek the next morning, holding the pictures side by side. “Just look. The hairline, the eyebrows, the dimple. The smile, for God’s sake! No wonder old Mrs. Ritter told you that you reminded her of her husband. He was William’s son. Not Lawrence Ritter’s. William Ellis’s. Your . . . great-uncle?”

  “Something like that.” His voice was distracted, his eyes on the photographs, the truck idling at the curb outside Aunt Inga’s house while he processed this new information.

  Derek himself was looking better today. The shadows under his eyes were diminished, if not completely gone, although his eyes still looked hollowed. But if nothing else, he must have gotten at least a few hours’ sleep last night.

  “You can see the resemblance, can’t you?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Clearly.”

  “I wonder if people knew. Like your . . . what would she be? Great-great-great-grandmother? Mallessa? William’s mother? ”

  “Who knows. I’d be more interested to know if the Ritters knew. He was brought up as a Ritter, so maybe not.”

  “Not something Emily would have wanted them to know, I think. If she married Lawrence for his money, and then had someone else’s child, they would have kicked her out on her fancy behind. And the baby, too.”

  Derek nodded. “I don’t see Anna Virginia putting up with raising her daughter-in-law’s bastard, do you?”

  “Not at all. Poor Emily.”

  “She got what she deserved,” Derek said, a little callously, I thought. When he saw my expression, he added, “She killed my great-uncle. Actually, she got off easy. She died before they could execute her. Or before she could spend the next fifty years behind bars.”

  “I guess that’s true. Still, it can’t be fun being married to one man and in love with another.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” He straightened up. “This is interesting, but I think we have more immediate concerns, don’t we? Are you ready to head over to Cortino’s? See if the dog is there yet, and if it has found anything?”

  I nodded. “The sooner they can prove that Peter didn’t kill Gerard, the sooner the police can get busy finding the real murderer.” And Beatrice.

  “So you don’t think Peter did it?” He glanced down at me as we walked toward the front door.

  “I’m hoping he didn’t. For Jill and the kids’ sake. And also because I think the murderer is the one who has Beatrice, and I don’t think Peter is a kidnapper.”

  Derek shook his head. “I’ve known him for more than five years. He’s married to one of my best friends. And Jill’s a decent judge of character. So am I, marrying Melissa to the contrary. Even if Peter killed Gerard in a fit of temporary insanity or rage because Gerard was blackmailing him, I don’t think he would have hurt Beatrice. Not just because she’s my sister, or stepsister, and Cora’s daughter, but because Peter just wouldn’t hurt a woman. That’s not the way he is.”

  I nodded. “I agree. So let’s get over there to see what happens.”

  “Right.” He closed the truck door behind me and hoofed it around the hood to climb in on the driver’s side.

  By the time we got to Cortino’s Auto Shop, everyone else was already there. Jill was in the office with a cup of coffee, watching what was going on in the shop through the back door. Reece Tolliver and Wayne were standing by, each with his own cup of coffee—courtesy of Jill—while Brandon was gazing raptly at Hans the German shepherd. Or maybe it was Daphne, Hans’s handler, he was watching so intently: a pretty girl around his own age, tall and trim in the uniform of the state police, and with a light brown ponytail sticking out of the back of her cap. I guess with a hot suspect in custody, Wayne was allowed back on the case again.

  “Anything yet?” Derek asked Jill, his voice low.

  She shook her head, and when she turned and I got a good look at her face, I saw that she was another one who had spent a mostly sleepless night. She was pale and her eyes were sunken and shadowed, bloodshot from lack of sleep. When she spoke, her voice was raspy with fatigue. “They’ve only just st
arted. The dog will smell the perimeter of the shop first, and then they’ll look at the various cars afterward.”

  She glanced up at Derek, noted the signs of fatigue written on his face as well, and added, “There’s coffee over there if you want some. You, too, Avery.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” I said, “but thanks. Excuse me a moment.”

  I ducked out of the shop and over to where Reece Tolliver and Wayne were standing.

  “. . . not admitted anything . . .” the latter was saying, and then he bit back the rest of the thought when he realized I was within hearing range. “Hello, Avery. What can we do for you?”

  “I just wanted to know if the dog had found anything,” I said. “Who hasn’t admitted anything?”

  Wayne sighed. “Peter Cortino. He maintains that he was with his wife during the time Gerard was killed.”

  “He probably was. I mean, can you really picture him murdering someone? In cold blood?”

  “He has a motive,” Reece Tolliver said, “which is more than anyone else does.”

  “So does Wayne. Kate may have decided to dump him after seeing Gerard again. Not that I think she did, but it’s possible. And motive is secondary, anyway. Or so I’ve always been told. And if he has an alibi . . .”

  Reece shook his head. “He doesn’t have an alibi. There’s a reason spouses can’t testify for their significant others at trial.”

  “They lie.”

  He nodded, jowls shaking. “Exactly. The fact that Mrs. Cortino vouches for him doesn’t mean squat.”

  “If he wanted to kill Gerard, though, isn’t it more likely that he’d haul back and hit him? With his fist or a handy wrench or something? There are plenty of tools around here he could use.”

  “We have not been able to make a connection between Cortino and the digitalin,” Reece Tolliver admitted. “He doesn’t have a medical history that requires taking heart medicine, nor does his wife. Nor do his in-laws or his parents in Boston. We’re looking into the possibility that he got hold of a prescription pad at some point—one of Dr. Ellis’s, perhaps—and wrote himself a prescription for digitalin. He’s visited Dr. Ellis’s house, and also Dr. Ellis’s office.”

  “So now he’s a thief as well as a murderer?”

  “He already was a thief,” Chief Tolliver said. “The chop shop conviction, remember?”

  “He was a mechanic. All he did was work on the cars. He didn’t steal them.”

  Reece Tolliver tilted his head. “And how do you know that? ”

  “Jill told me,” I said.

  “And how did she know?”

  “Peter told her.”

  “Exactly,” Reece said.

  I shook my head. “Sorry. I don’t believe it. I don’t think the dog is going to find anything, because I don’t think anything happened here. I don’t think Peter had anything to do with it. I think the dog is barking up the wrong tree, no pun intended. And while you’re wasting your time here, Beatrice is somewhere, probably with the real murderer, in God knows what kind of condition. If she’s even alive.”

  My voice was shaking. I hadn’t known Bea long, but she was family—sort of—and her death would be absolutely devastating to her mother and sister and husband, and that in turn would devastate Derek and Dr. Ben. And Derek being devastated would devastate me, in addition to the fact that I liked Beatrice, too, and didn’t want anything to happen to her. I fisted my hands in my pockets, nails digging into the skin of my palms.

  “You have to find her. Please.”

  “We’re doing everything we can, Avery,” Wayne said, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  I would have answered, but before I could, a single short, sharp bark echoed under the high ceiling of the auto shop. All of us turned to look where it had come from.

  Hans had moved from sniffing the perimeter of the shop and had started to move from car to car, smelling the trunks and interiors. He was sitting at attention at the back of a black vehicle parked in the farthest bay, rangy body quivering. The hatch was open, and he was staring fixedly into the interior of the car. It was a ten-year-old Ford Explorer, beat-up and worn, and the logo on the side identified it as belonging to Stenham Construction, LLC.

  20

  “We didn’t get the car until Tuesday morning,” Jill insisted. “It was parked outside when we got to work that day. With the key under the mat.”

  The same morning Gerard’s body turned up.

  “And you don’t know who dropped it off?”

  She shook her head. “It was just here. Nobody had called to tell us to expect it. So we did what we always do: checked the car for any problems, changed the oil and checked the other fluid levels, fixed anything that needed fixing, and cleaned the car real good inside and out.”

  “On Tuesday.”

  Jill shook her head. “We already had a car here that needed attention—it belonged to Kent Williams, over on Clarke Street, and it had a hole in the muffler—so Peter worked on that on Tuesday morning. And then around lunch, Avery’s mom and dad brought their car in.”

  She avoided looking at me when she said it.

  “And what was wrong with that?” Wayne wanted to know. He and Reece Tolliver both had their little notebooks out and were writing down every word she said.

  “Um . . .” Jill said. Her eyes flickered from face to face before they landed on Derek.

  He shrugged. “You can tell them. She’s gonna find out sooner or later.”

  “What?” I said. The car had had an invisible scratch on it from where Noel had brushed against a branch on the way here, when some other driver forced him onto the shoulder of the road.

  Jill sighed. “There was nothing wrong with it. They bought it in Boston before they came up here. They needed help getting it registered, so they could get a set of Maine license plates put on it.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Why?” Wayne added.

  Jill glanced at me before she responded to Wayne. “It’s supposed to be a surprise for Avery. Christmas gift.”

  My jaw dropped, and I turned to Derek. “My mom and Noel are giving me a car?”

  “You don’t have one,” he answered with a shrug, “and Noel can afford it. Just don’t let them know that you know. When they hand you the keys before they leave, act surprised.”

  “Wow.” I nodded. “I will. Definitely. But . . . a car? Wow!”

  Now that that was established, Wayne and Reece Tolliver turned back to Jill. “So Avery’s new car was brought in Tuesday afternoon.”

  Jill nodded. “Avery and her mom left, while Derek and Mr. Carrick stayed. That’s when they told us what they needed help with. Derek could probably have taken care of it himself, but he and Avery are together so much of the time that he thought it would be easier to ask Peter to do it. That way she wouldn’t catch on. Plus, he knows we could use the money. Business is slow in the winter.”

  “And is that also when you heard that Mr. Labadie had been murdered?” Reece Tolliver kept his pencil stub poised over his notebook.

  Her face pale, Jill agreed that it was. “We were shocked, of course. That we’d had another murder in Waterfield in the first place—this used to be such a quiet place—and then that the victim was Kate’s ex-husband. I know Kate. And Shannon.”

  None of us saw the need to correct her assumption that Kate and Gerard had been married. It wasn’t like it mattered, after all. Especially now.

  “So no work was done on the Ford Explorer on Tuesday?” Reece Tolliver wanted to know.

  Jill shook her head. “It’s just Peter working here in the winter. And he worked on Mr. Williams’s car in the morning, and on getting Avery’s car registered in the afternoon. The Explorer just sat here all day. Peter said he’d work on it the next morning.”

  “And he did?”

  Jill nodded. “All day. It’s been a long time since we’ve had this particular car in the shop—it’s not one the Stenhams drive much; they have newer cars they prefer to drive—so it needed some attention.”

  “By Thursday morning, when we arrived to speak to your husband, he was vacuuming the interior.”

  Jill paled but
agreed. “He had finished the work the night before, but since the Stenhams have other cars, we didn’t think there was a hurry getting it to them that night. They hadn’t even called to ask whether anything was wrong with it. So we kept it until the next morning. Peter was cleaning it, and then I was going to call and tell them they could pick it up.”

  “Did you ever find out who had dropped it off?” Wayne shot in.

  Jill shook her head.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to hold on to it for a while longer,” Reece Tolliver said and nodded to Brandon, who immediately stood at attention. “See if you can get some kind of evidence from it. If there’s a vacuum with a vacuum bag somewhere, confiscate that, too, and go through the contents. What you’re looking for is evidence that this car is what was used to transport Mr. Labadie’s body to the carriage house.”

  Brandon nodded, quivering with excitement. If there’s one thing he loves, it’s forensic investigation. Nobody’s better at picking through debris for hairs and fibers. Or more excited about doing it, for that matter.

  “C’mon, Hans,” Daphne said. “Good boy. Let’s go get a treat.”

  Tail wagging, Hans followed her out of the workshop and over to the K-9 vehicle parked outside.

  “Guess we’ll have to go see the Stenham brothers,” Reece said to Wayne. “Someone has to have dropped the car off. When we know who, we’ll know when. Then we can go from there.”

  Wayne nodded. He took a moment to give Brandon some instructions regarding the evidence gathering, and Reece paused to say good-bye to his canine and canine handler. I turned to Derek.

  “My mom and Noel bought me a car?”

  He nodded. “They knew you needed one. And your mom knows you like Beetles. So they bought one in Boston—didn’t you notice that it had a dealer’s plate on it when they first arrived? Not a rental plate?—and they brought it up here. They’ll use it while they’re here, and then it’ll be yours when they leave. But you’re not to say anything. They want it to be a surprise.”