MURDER IN RETROSPECT (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 5)

by Leslie Leigh

  Case in point.

  Her car’s temperature gauge was climbing slowly yet steadily toward overheating.

  Don't panic, Allie. Remember what Dad taught you.

  Vermont was approaching the winter months. Not a problem for native Vermonters. The service stations offered some great deals on winterization jobs. Allie was meaning to take the car in one of these days.

  The real problem was the fact that the days were relatively warmer than they had been in recent times. And Allie had been hypnotized into thinking she didn't need the winterization service, not just yet. But another, more seriously immediate effect of the warmer days was yet to impact her. For in order to combat the overheating, she did what her dad had taught her to do when she was just first learning to drive: In the event of overheating, crank the heater. The car heater will draw the heat away from the engine.

  So she did just that. And it worked.

  She pulled up to Sara's Bridge, completely ignorant of the incredible effect that ten minutes of car heat blasting at full force, coupled with said heat irritating the eyes and facilitating the production of tears can have on substandard eyeliner.

  There was an eerily warm wind picking up that night that foretold of bad news ahead. It whipped through Sara's Bridge, whistling through the rafters. Beauchenne stood there, a mysterious figure peering out over the dried-up landscape. She was grateful he was always on time. She hated the thought of waiting in this place alone, what with the legend of Sara's ghost wailing in the night.

  She approached him and saw that he had a manila folder in his hand.

  Beauchenne nearly gasped when she approached.

  "What?" she said.

  "What happened?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Your face."

  She blinked twice, felt the unfamiliar sensation, and then put her finger to her left eye.

  Upon drawing it away, and then upon analyzing the inky smudge across her fingertip, she felt the blood drain from her face.

  Later on, thinking about this very moment, which the universe in all its sadistic humor had failed to black out from her memory, she realized that the blood draining away from her face must have indeed accentuated the zombie stains around her eye sockets.

  She had a feeling how bad it must have looked just by the way Beauchenne was avoiding looking at her.

  "I can’t believe this," she said.

  "I wouldn’t worry too much about it," said the sergeant, obviously hemorrhaging internally trying to squelch the laughter.

  "I am mortified."

  "Would it make you feel any better if I gave you this?"

  With that, he extracted another photograph of the crossword puzzle from the folder and handed it to her.

  "I assumed you wanted to be able to see the clues," he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. "Here, this might come in handy."

  He handed her a tiny compact magnifying glass that slid open and closed.

  "Neat!" she said.

  "Have fun with that. Oh, and here." He handed her a handkerchief from his back pocket. "Unused, I promise."

  "Thank you."

  She wiped diligently at her eyes and looked at him for approval.

  "Better," he said. "The raccoon look wasn't suiting you. So take a look at that. What are you looking for, may I ask?"

  "I'll let you know when I find it."

  It was hard to read, but it didn’t take her long to realize what she'd suspected.

  "The clues don’t match the answers," she said.

  "Show me," said Beauchenne, leaning in.

  "Look at the clue for 51 Down. It says blank, dash, and then the word Unis. That's French.

  "I know," said Sgt. Beauchenne. "My father's French."

  "Of course! Beauchenne!"

  "The answer should be Etats," he said. "Etats-Unis. United States."

  "Excellent, mon ami. Now look at this word here: TEST. The clue says blank and then Hari. Obviously Mata Hari, the famous World War I spy. So MATA should go right here instead of TEST."

  "So the big question is why would Hawkes substitute these words instead of the right ones?"

  "It's the million-dollar question," said Allie. "Are we sure this is Hawkes's handwriting."

  "We're sure. It's the first thing they checked."

  "Ah ha, so Tomlin is on the ball, isn’t he? The darling little ferret. Well then, I wonder if his weaselness thought of checking into why the words were written in the order in which they were written."

  "What do you mean?"

  "They get progressively more scribbly. It's hard to tell, but if you look closely, you can see that MARSH looks a tad awkward, but nothing too out of the ordinary. TEST gets a little worse. Then my name here, that's the most scribbly. Hawkes wrote this as the poison was taking effect. He wrote them in this order: MARSH, TEST, ALLIE GRIFFIN."

  "Ok. Why?"

  "I'll let you know when I find out."

  "So you’re unofficially on this case now."

  "You're not going to give me hell for this, are you?"

  "Listen, Allie, I know now that I can’t stop you from doing anything you put that strong will of yours toward, but whatever you do, please try and do it within the constraints of the law. And no messing with evidence."

  "Franklin," she sang, "surely you know me better than that."

  "I do, which is why I'm saying this. This case is more sensitive to you than any of the others were. You are now personally involved and that could be dangerous. It could cloud up your judgement. Just be careful, is all."

  "Come here," she said, gesturing for him to bend down.

  He did so and she took his head in her hands and kissed him softly on the cheek.

  Big, tough Frank Beauchenne was blushing when he pulled away.

  She got into her car and Googled. It wasn't fifteen seconds that had passed before she got out and realized that Beauchenne was already gone. Marsh test. Clever, Dr. Hawkes.

  She texted Beauchenne: SWORDFISH!

  9

  She got home late, having taken the scenic route in order to do some heavy thinking. Nothing made sense. She hated this part of the case. It'd happened to her a number of times. Early on in a case, all she had was a bunch of frayed ends, and nothing added up. It was frustrating and she almost drove herself crazy. She needed grounding. She needed to drive aimlessly. She needed someone to share laughs and tears and ice cream with.

  She pulled into her driveway and noticed something on her front stoop.

  It was a plastic bag with something in it. She approached it cautiously, more than once looking around to see if the bearer of the package was still lingering somewhere close by. With the moon dipping behind the clouds, and the lit parts of the driveway suddenly melting into the shadows, her pulse quickened, and she picked up the package and fumbled for her keys and let herself into the house. She locked the door behind her and then stared at the plastic in her hands.

  It felt like a book.

  She opened it.

  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

  She stared at it as if in a dream. It was a battered library copy from the Verdenier Public Library. Someone was trying to get a message to her. Someone who knew her. But that didn’t exactly narrow the field, as Allie Griffin was becoming more and more known within the confines of tiny Verdenier, Vermont.

  She opened the book and saw an index card taped inside it.

  Written in a neat hand was this: This book is overdue. Please return it tomorrow at noon. Feel free to bring it straight to the shelf.

  #

  Thanks to the healthy donations from a half a dozen wealthy Vermonters, the Verdenier Public Library was able to thrive over the past few years. This was good news to Allie Griffin and every other bibliophile, for in addition to procuring the first three-dimensional printer in all of Vermont, state of the art computers, and enough free facilities and services to keep the pickiest of patrons happy, the library also boasted the best assortment of books Allie had e
ver seen in any small town library. She'd always loved libraries, ever since she was a kid. And she'd always loved being surrounded by books of all kinds, especially classics. There was something immensely comforting in the notion of surrounding oneself with all that knowledge, all that accumulated intellectual wealth, and all that art. It felt good to be there, which was why she considered it her own personal sanctuary among all others. She even preferred it to her own home at times.

  She paced the stacks, Alice in hand. Why, she asked herself, did she even bother to pursue leads like this when they’d only led her to greater mysteries—and even danger—in the past. The answer: Allie Griffin loved it, that's why. There was an adrenaline rush to be had in chasing phantoms.

  She turned the aisle into the 800s section—the literature section.

  And there was Richard Teller.

  Allie gasped.

  "Don’t be alarmed," the man whispered. "I'm sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you. We need to talk and this was the best place I could think of. Then again, I'm here from seven to nine every evening, rain or shine. So I guess you could say I have the home team advantage."

  She refrained from telling him that he was a man after her own heart.

  "I couldn’t talk to you at the hospital with Hawkes breathing down my neck. At first I thought you were kind of a pain on the phone. But you have to understand, I had to be cautious. But then I started to think, and my conscience was getting to me...and then with Hawkes getting killed..."

  "Hold on," said Allie. "Back up a bit. Start from the beginning."

  Teller took a breath and let it out slowly. "This isn’t easy."

  The suspense was getting into her veins now. "One thing at a time, Mr. Teller."

  "Call me Richard."

  "Richard. Take it easy. You’re in a safe zone here."

  Teller looked around nervously. "I love libraries. Can't say I've read much in my life. Not as much as I should. But I do love the comfort of a library. But it's got to be at the right time of day, though. You get here sometimes and people are talking out loud, like they're in the supermarket or something. No one respects the quiet of a library anymore. Now banks, banks are quiet places. If only they could get a little of that into the libraries."

  "Richard, stop stalling."

  He stared at her.

  "You said 'accident' the other day. Start there."

  "It wasn't my fault," he said. "There were defective parts in the backup generator."

  "Transfer switches?"

  A surprised look fell across his face. "You know?"

  "I took a guess."

  "Well, it was a good guess."

  Thank you, Jimmy Welles, she thought.

  Teller closed his eyes as he spoke. "I know I should have tested the parts before installing them. But I was under a lot of pressure. I know that's no excuse. I took the word of the guy who sold them to me."

  "Who was that?"

  "That I won’t tell you. But what I will tell you is this: I was pressured to keep the whole thing quiet."

  "Pressured? How?"

  "Use your imagination. Subtle threats. Nothing stated flat out, just implied. 'We wouldn't want this to get out. It could look very, very bad, and could have extremely dire consequences.' That's an exact quote. I'll never forget his voice when he said it."

  "Whose voice?"

  "Hawkes, of course. The cover-up was his idea from day one. He covered up the hospital's negligence—my negligence—and the negligence of my associate from Maine, and he went and ensured that your husband's death would be left unrelated to the events."

  "Your associate from Maine?"

  "The guy who sold me the parts."

  What was the name Jimmy Welles had given her? MLA? MTL?

  "MTS," she said, "the company in Maine that manufactures semiconductors."

  This time, there was a look of surprise and awe on Teller's face.

  "Exactly."

  Allie thought for a moment. "So these parts came directly from the factory. There would be no reason to want to test them again, being factory-certified and all. Richard, you have nothing to worry about. I don’t hold you responsible. Testing those parts would have revealed their defectiveness, but you had no reason to do so. The real culprit here is the guy who slapped a certification on those parts and let them go as defective as they were. All I need is a name."

  Teller rubbed his hands together. Allie could see that he was beginning to sweat.

  "Richard, if it's any consolation, nothing would ever come back to you. You can trust me."

  He looked around again. Uttering the name was weighing on his conscience. Then a change came over his face, and he said calmly, "Ganz."

  "Ganz?"

  "Don’t write it down. Eddie Ganz. Works for Morley. Still works there. He gave me the parts. He was paid off with hospital money. Hawkes was afraid that if Ganz was implicated in the accident, then he would be too."

  "Richard, being a whistleblower doesn’t make you a rat fink."

  A look on the man's droopy face let her know that there was some comfort to her words.

  "I've got to go. I'm on my lunch break, you know."

  "I know, thank you. I'm going to stick around here and browse a bit."

  He smiled. "I'd give anything to join you. Instead I gotta go back and deal with Cass Hawkes: The Wicked Witch of the West."

  "Robert Hawkes's wife? What's up?"

  "She returned a POC to me the other day and she's been on my case."

  "A POC?"

  "Portable Oxygen Concentrator. Hawkes was in worse shape than any of us thought. Anyway, she wants—"

  "What is that? Is that like one of those things you use for emphysema?"

  "Exactly."

  "Interesting. And I'm sorry, what does she want you to do with it?"

  "She's been on my case about processing it for disassembly."

  "What's involved in that?"

  "I take down the serial number. I contact the manufacturer. They send me authorization to send the thing back. Then I send it back and they take it apart and they test the parts and make a log of all the ones that need fixing, if any. Then they fix what needs fixing and throw away what can't be fixed. Based on the state of the thing and how long we had it, we could be in line for a credit."

  "And you’re going to do that now?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you mind if I come with you, Richard? I want to take a look at a couple of things."

  He hemmed and hawed for a moment. "Aw, jeez, I don’t know..."

  "I know I'm not welcome, Richard. You can say it. But if I get caught, it's my problem. I'll deal with it."

  He sighed in exasperation. "Just try to keep your distance. Please."

  10

  The tech room was Richard Teller's office. It was also a repository for all things mechanical that one could possibly find in a hospital. Teller was the man at the heart of technological repairs and procurement. Either he knew how to fix something himself, or he knew where to send it. These days, he explained, his job was mainly to process the damaged or defective merchandise for return, and to receive in the new goods. There was little else for this man with the mechanics degree to do.

  "Take me through the process," said Allie, watching Teller roll an oxygen machine the size of a small suitcase over to his desk.

  "Ok, here's how it works. The patient returns the machine. It's got this yellow tag on it. They put that on there when the machine was lent out. See? It's got their name on it and the date it was picked up. See that? Robert Hawkes. June 5th. When I get a machine back, I log the info on the tag along with the serial number off the machine into a computer database over here on the desk. Then I slap a FedEx label on it and send it back. A week later I'll get an email telling me if we're due a credit."

  She looked at the serial number: 3086305

  Three oh eight was the number of her first apartment.

  Sixty-three, or 1963, was Pete Rose's rookie year (Thank you, Tom, the obsessed sports f
an.)

  Oh five—May—was her favorite month.

  In reverse: In May, rookie Pete Rose moved into my first apartment.

  This kind of thing worked for the short term. Hopefully long enough for her to get back to her place and jot this down.

  "Richard, I want to thank you for this little tour."

  "It's alright. Just make sure no one sees you leave. I’ve got enough trouble here."

  #

  While still in the hospital parking lot, she looked up the number and dialed it.

  "Morley Technology Solutions, how may I direct your call?"

  "Hi there, I just need to do a routine employee verification on a Mr. Edward R. Ganz, G-A-N-Z?"

  "Sure, I know Eddie."

  "You do?"

  "We're a pretty tight-knit group here at MTS. One moment, please." Clicking in the background, and then, "Ok, Ganz, Edward R. Eddie's been working here for ten years, no interruptions in tenure. I'm afraid that's all the information I'm allowed to give out."

  "That'll be all. Thank you very much. Can I just ask…is there any way I can speak with him?"

  "He's away from the office this week, I'm afraid."

  "Oh, that's too bad. Where'd he go?"

  "Not sure. I think he's away on business. If that's the case, you can try him in Verdenier, Vermont."

  "Verdenier."

  "Yeah, try the Tree Top Inn in Verdenier. That's where he usually stays when he's there."

  "Huh. Funny, I was just in Verdenier. Ok, thank you very much."

  "You're quite welcome."

  11

  She'd passed the Tree Top Inn on her way to Verdenier General. It was a picturesque bed and breakfast, a mid-sized Victorian house done in baby blue gingerbread. Inside, the atmosphere invited every one of the senses to linger. The burgundy hues and the plush pillows on the settee in the waiting area were enticing to eyes as well as the fingers. There was a Vivaldi string concerto playing softly on hidden speakers, and the smell of something warm and freshly baked wafted throughout the place.

  "Welcome to the Tree Top Inn," said the matronly figure behind the front desk. She had a puffy face with red cheeks and she wore her hair in a tight, blonde and gray-streaked bun that looked like it had been cemented into that shape for all of eternity.