A Toast to Murder

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “How long do you think it would take to do it?”

  “Well, you’d have to get all the necessary permits, of course, and solicit bids from contractors, but once that’s done, the actual construction part shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks.”

  “I can deal with that. I’ve already survived one major construction job, so I can get through this one just fine.” I looked at the area for a second and then gave a decisive nod. “I think I’m going to go ahead with it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rued the fact that I didn’t put it in with the initial construction. And you’re right: it does provide access for the handicapped, which ironically, is me at the moment. Of course, I’ll need to have some sort of lock or access control that keeps people from being able to get into the basement.”

  “That’s easy enough to do when you order the actual elevator,” Mal said. “Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Since you’re going to open up the walls anyway, why don’t you put in a dumbwaiter as well as an elevator? You can connect it to that upstairs area where you were thinking of putting in a kitchen.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” I said, rewarding him with a big smile.

  “You know, if you want to try to get the permit right away, I can do some of the preliminary construction for you now while I’m on vacation from my undercover job.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That would be fantastic.” I paused and frowned. “But I don’t want to take advantage of you. I feel guilty enough as it is, given how much of your free time is spent with me.”

  “You’re not taking advantage of me,” Mal said. “If I’m going to keep an eye on you the way Duncan wants me to, I need to be here when you are as often as possible. Working on this project for you will give me something to do other than sit around and watch you, or follow you around like a little puppy dog.”

  That last comment made me feel a twinge of guilt. I had no idea Mal felt so helpless, useless . . . maybe even emasculated.

  Mal, perhaps realizing he’d said too much, tried to soften the blow. “Plus, I like doing this sort of thing.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’ll be happy to let you start work on it, but only if you let me pay you.”

  Mal shook his head and smiled. “How would it look to everyone else if I charged my girlfriend for a construction job?”

  “We don’t need to let anyone else know I’m paying you. We can make it appear as if you’re doing it for me as a favor, and I’ll pay you under the table.”

  Mal shook his head again. “If you do that, then I’ll have all sorts of tax issues to deal with. I don’t want any of those headaches. Honestly, Mack, it would be a hell of a lot easier if you would just let me do it for you for free.”

  I gave him a grateful smile. “You are far too kind to me, Malachi O’Reilly.”

  “Believe me, the pleasure is all mine. I’m psyched now. I want to get started. In fact, if you don’t have any plans to go anywhere in the next couple of hours, I’m going to go draw up a plan for the project so I can get that permit.”

  He did look psyched. His eyes were alight with excitement, his face had an eager expression, and he was rubbing his hands together as if with glee.

  “Well, there is the museum,” I reminded him.

  “Oh. Right.”

  “But I could go there by myself,” I suggested.

  He shook his head. “No way.” He looked so disappointed, it broke my heart. Then he said, “Well, given that today is Friday, we’ll have to wait until Monday to get the permit.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was already going on one o’clock. “Or we could do the museum tomorrow,” I suggested.

  “That’s cutting things awfully close,” he said. “The deadline is Sunday. What if we’re wrong and it’s not the museum at all?”

  “That still leaves us an entire day to figure it out and look somewhere else. It’s late already, and the museum is a huge place. We probably won’t have enough time today to cover it all anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am. You’ve got me all excited about this project now. I want to get it going.”

  “Okay then.”

  With that, we went back upstairs and returned to my office so Mal could fetch his coat. He gave me a quick buss on the cheek before he left, and as I watched him leave I saw there was a vibe in his step that hadn’t been there before. He was like a little boy at Christmas who had just gotten his favorite toy truck or BB gun. His excitement was contagious, and Cora didn’t miss out on the fact that Mal was revved up about something.

  “What’s up with Mal?” she asked me. “Did you just tell him you’re throwing Duncan over for him?”

  I shot Cora a chagrined smile. “No,” I said in a chastising tone. “I simply talked to him about an idea I had to put an elevator in beneath the stairs to the second level. Not only did he think it was a good idea, he wants to be the one to work on it. He just left to try to draw up a plan and get the necessary permits so he can start work on it right away.”

  “It is a good idea,” Cora said, nodding approvingly. “I know some of your staff members will appreciate it, and there are a few customers, like the Signoriello brothers, who will appreciate it too.” She paused, and looked tellingly at my casted leg. “I imagine you’ll appreciate it, as well, assuming you still have that thing on by the time it’s done.”

  “He won’t let me pay him for it,” I said. “I feel uncomfortable letting him do it without some sort of compensation.”

  “Why don’t you offer him drinks and meals on the house?” Cora suggested. “I’m willing to bet he’ll accept that.”

  I gave her suggestion a grudging nod of approval. “That’s a good idea, Cora, and as your reward, lunch is on the house.”

  “Thank you very much,” Cora said in an exaggeratedly polite tone.

  We smiled at one another for a moment, but then that moment passed and my expression grew more serious. “Any luck in your search efforts yet?” I asked.

  “Some, yes. It turns out that Whitney’s family has a number of connections with the university. They also offer a scholarship, one that’s in the name of Whitney’s grandfather, who was an educator there back in the fifties. Whitney participates in the decision-making process for those scholarship awards; however, the scholarships are limited to people of African American descent, and none of our package recipients meet that criteria.”

  “I think that’s how Billy met her,” I said to Cora. “Now that you mention it, I seem to recall a conversation I had with him a year or so ago about how Whitney was the one who asked him out initially. She was on the review committee that interviewed him for the scholarship, and she was so taken with him that she tracked him down and asked him out.”

  “The fact that both women are involved with scholarship programs may simply be a coincidence,” Cora said. “They both come from wealthy families, so it seems inevitable that their paths might cross in situations such as this one.”

  “You’re right,” I said, thinking. “It might be more relevant to see if there are areas involving the letter writer where the women’s paths don’t cross. See if you can find any connections between Whitney and the casino. We couldn’t find any connections between it and Suzanne. Maybe our original assumption about it being a public place where anyone could leave a clue is correct. But on the off chance that it’s not, we should check to see if Whitney has some connections to it we don’t know about.”

  “Good idea,” Cora said, tapping away at her keyboard.

  “There’s something else I’d like you to do, if you have the time,” I said.

  “Name it,” Cora said, not looking up from her screen.

  “I want you to see if you can find any commonalities between Suzanne, our package recipients, and Duncan’s partner, Jimmy Patterson.”

  Cora eyed me dubiously. “That’s a big can of worms you’re messing with there,” she said. “Even if we find some connect
ions, proving he has anything to do with the letter writer will be practically impossible.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh. “But I need to do it, if for no other reason than for my peace of mind.”

  Cora nodded, looking very solemn.

  “One other thing,” I said, biting my lip. “I realize that what I’m about to ask of you could get you into a lot of trouble, so please feel free to tell me no. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

  Cora looked intrigued, perhaps even a little excited, but not worried. “You’d be surprised at my comfort level,” she said. There was a wicked twinkle in her eye.

  “I want you to see if there’s any way you can get hold of the records involving Suzanne Collier and the shrink she supposedly was seeing. I’d really like to know if that woman has some serious psychological issues.”

  “That won’t be easy,” Cora said with a worried look. “A lot of psychiatrists are sticking to the old-school way of doing things and keeping paper charts. Even if this particular psychiatrist uses an electronic health-care record, the security on those is pretty high. They’re not easy to hack.”

  “I understand. See what you can do.”

  Cora nodded.

  “One more thing, and then I promise I’ll leave you alone,” I said.

  Cora gave me a sly smile. “Spit it out.”

  “I’m wondering if it’s time to tell the rest of the Capone Club about the letter writer. Do you think I should? And what do you think their reactions will be?”

  Cora leaned back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. “Wow,” she said. “What brought this on?”

  “I can’t see an endgame here,” I told her. “I’m afraid this letter writer is going to go on and on, and escalate with each event. I’m tired of being yanked around, and it’s time to try to put an end to it. We have to determine who’s behind it. Our focus on Suzanne and Whitney is part of it, but I feel certain there’s another party involved. And what’s more, I have a sick feeling that this party is someone close to us, someone we all know. It’s time to flush that person out. I have an idea about how to do that, but I want to think on it a little longer. The first step is to tell the group the truth.”

  Cora nodded slowly, her brows drawn together in deep thought. “That could be very dangerous,” she said finally. “Dangerous for you and everyone else.”

  “I know that. But I’ve given this a lot of thought recently, and it’s time to shift this game around. I want to take charge. I want to be the one calling the shots. And the more I can do to unsettle the letter writers, the better my chances are of getting them to expose themselves.”

  Cora drummed her fingers on the desktop, looking troubled. “Do you think the second person is someone in the Capone Club?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I admitted. “A strong one.”

  There was silence for a minute or two while Cora thought things through. “Okay,” she said finally, pinning me with her gaze. “I have three questions for you. One, if you tell the club members about the letter writer, are you going to tell them about the people we suspect? Two, are you going to tell them we think there are two people involved? And three, are you going to tell them that one of those people might be a member of the group?”

  “I’m still working on my plan, and I don’t have everything figured out yet,” I told her. “However, I’m pretty certain I’m not going to tell the group whom we suspect or that we think someone in the group might be involved. At least not yet. I don’t want to color anyone else’s opinion on the matter or create an environment of rampant paranoia among the group. If and when I do tell them, I need to make sure the timing is right. That’s where my plan will come into play.”

  “Care to share this plan of yours?” Cora asked.

  “I will,” I told her. “When the time is right and I have it better planned out. For now, I’m going to continue to play along as we have.”

  “Sounds like there’s lots of drama on the horizon,” Cora said, rubbing her hands together. “I’d best get my work done.”

  “When you do get done with all of that, I’d like for the two of us to sit down and look at each member of the Capone Club who is still on the suspect list. I want to dissect their lives, look for possible motives, determine who we can rule out.” I fished the list Clay had given me earlier out of my pocket and went over to my copier. Once I had a copy of it, I gave it to Cora and put the original back in my pocket. “These are the people who don’t have an alibi as of yet for the time when Lewis was killed. So work on these names.”

  “This will be fun,” Cora said, scanning the list. “I’m clearing my calendar for the next two weeks.”

  Chapter 11

  I left Cora in my office doing what she does best and made my way upstairs to the Capone Club room. But I was only halfway up the stairs when my cell phone rang and I saw it was Duncan. I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to answer the call. I looked around to see if there was anyone close by who might overhear, thinking that might give me an excuse to ignore the call. But there was no one within hearing distance, and just before the call would have flipped over to voice mail, I answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mack,” Duncan’s voice said, filling my mouth with the taste of fizzy, dark chocolate. The fizziness always came through when I spoke to him over the phone. “What are you doing?”

  “Not much at the moment,” I said. “I was just on my way upstairs to see what’s going on in the Capone Club room.”

  “Any chance I can steal you away for a little while?” Duncan asked. “I have the rest of the day free. I thought maybe we could spend it together.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, my thoughts ripped apart by indecision. On the one hand, I was eager to have some time with Duncan alone. But on the other, there was that little scene I had witnessed earlier between him and his ex-fiancée. I supposed I would need to get to the bottom of that, and his relationship with her, sooner rather than later. An uninterrupted period of alone time seemed like the perfect opportunity to do that.

  “That sounds doable,” I said. “How and where would you like to get together?”

  As soon as I said this, I regretted it. I knew the two of us needed to have a discussion that might get difficult, and if that happened I preferred to be on my home ground. Fortunately, Duncan played into my hands.

  “I can be at your back door in ten minutes,” he said. “In disguise, of course,” he added.

  “I’ll be there. The usual knock?” We had agreed upon a particular knock several liaisons ago so that I would have no doubt it was Duncan on the other side of the door.

  “You got it.” And just like that, he was gone. No good-bye, no see you soon . . . just a sudden cessation of the faint buzzing sound I always hear on any type of telephone call. I turned myself around and headed back downstairs. In order to disengage the alarm to the alley door Duncan used, I had to go back into my office. As soon as I entered, Cora looked up at me in surprise.

  “Something up?” she asked.

  I nodded and headed for the alarm panel. “Duncan will be here in a few minutes. I need to turn off the alarm to the alley door.”

  “Have you talked to him since . . . well . . . since the thing you saw?”

  I shook my head. After turning off the alarm, I turned around to face her. “I’m going to ask him about it when he gets here.”

  Cora arched her eyebrows at me. “That could get interesting,” she said in a tentative but curious tone. “Try not to jump to any conclusions before he has a chance to explain himself.”

  “I will,” I said a bit irritably. “Though I have a hard time understanding how he’ll be able to explain leaving my bed early in the morning and engaging in a lip-lock with his ex-fiancée a few hours later. Not to mention the fact that he hasn’t bothered to tell me that his ex-fiancée is in town or that he still has contact with her.”

  “Maybe they’re just friends,” Cora suggested.
<
br />   “If that were true, why didn’t he tell me about her?”

  Cora had no answer for that.

  “Why does he feel like he needs to hide her from me?”

  Cora opened her mouth as if she had an answer for that question, but before she could speak I continued.

  “I’ve asked him several times about what happened on his wedding day, because he’s mentioned more than once that he was left at the altar. But every time I’ve asked, he’s just blown me off. Now I think I’m beginning to understand why.”

  Cora looked at me for a moment, a collage of ever-changing expressions on her face. I’m sure she wanted to say something, but she looked hesitant and indecisive. In the end, all she said was, “I’ll be here if you need me.”

  I glanced at my watch. “He should be here in a few minutes. Would you mind waiting about fifteen minutes and then turning the alarm back on for me?”

  “Happy to do it,” Cora said.

  With that, I left my office and went down to the end of the hallway by the alley door. I unlocked the door to my apartment and opened it, propping it with my body. Having it open would obscure most of the exit doorway from anyone who happened to enter the hallway at the other end. That would make it easier for Duncan to slip in and head upstairs without being seen.

  I didn’t have long to wait. About five minutes later, I heard our secret knock. I leaned over and pushed on the door, using one of my crutches to keep my apartment door propped open. Duncan opened the alley door, slipped inside, and was standing in the foyer at the base of my apartment stairs a second later. I watched long enough to make sure the alley door closed all the way and then joined him.

  As soon as my apartment door closed, Duncan wrapped me in his arms and pulled me to him. The action was a little too reminiscent of the scene I had witnessed earlier, and I felt myself rebelling and pushing away from him.

  “Uh-oh,” Duncan said, looking down at me with a concerned expression. “What’s wrong?”