“Just tell the police what you found out. They’ll do the digging.”
“They think they have the culprit—Fawn’s husband. If I’m going to convince them otherwise, I’ll need something more concrete. Everyone in that wedding group is holding back something. The question is how to get them to talk.”
He slipped his hands through the loops he’d made in the rope. “What do you expect to learn from acting out the murder?”
“I just want to make sure I haven’t missed anything.” She sat down on the bench, with her back to the house. “I’ll dip a strawberry in the chocolate and eat it. Meanwhile, you creep around the side of the house and come up behind me, put the rope over my head, and tighten it as if you were going to strangle me.”
She had just swallowed the last bite of a chocolate-coated strawberry when he took her by surprise. She flailed, dropped the fondue fork on the ground, and then slipped her index finger under the rope.”
“No fair,” Gunnar said. “You can’t get your finger between the rope and the neck if I’m pulling it tight enough to strangle you.”
“Okay. We need another take. So far, we’ve proven that Fawn wouldn’t have heard anyone sneak up behind her. I didn’t hear you even when I expected you to come.” Val speared another strawberry. “Let’s run through it again from the top.”
“Are you sure this isn’t an excuse to gorge on chocolate fondue?”
“Of course it is.”
This time Val had finished eating a strawberry and put down her fondue fork by the time he threw the rope over her head. She grabbed the fork, whipped it behind her, and poked him in the leg with the blunt side of it.
“Ow!” Gunnar rubbed his leg. “I saw that coming a second too late to get out of the way.”
“Fawn’s strangler wouldn’t have seen it at all in the dark. To hit you with the fork’s wood handle, I twisted my wrist outward. Fawn just had to reach back and stab her attacker with the business end of the fork.” Val mimicked the action and touched her finger to the tips of the two prongs. “They’re sharp.”
“Assuming Fawn succeeded, the strangler would have puncture wounds. If I’d been stabbed while strangling someone, I might loosen up on the rope for a second when the pain hit, but then I’d be really mad and jerk the rope even tighter.”
“And you’d have blood running down your leg.” The strangler’s blood might be on the bandages Granddad had fished from the trash, but there was no way to prove that the blood on them came from a wound made by a fondue fork. Val stood up. “Show me where I hit you.”
He pointed to a spot on the outside of his right leg just above the knee.
She moved her leg next to his to see where the fork would have hit someone shorter. “Fawn would have stabbed me or Jennifer a third of the way up the thigh. Sarina and Noah would have puncture wounds a few inches below that. Payton’s ex, Whitney, has long legs. The fork would have hit her about where it hit you.”
“If Fawn stabbed the strangler, the fork would have DNA on it.”
Val felt a tingle of excitement. “That’s why it disappeared the night of the murder. The killer must have taken it to wash the blood off. It still hasn’t turned up.”
“Bleach could have removed the blood and the DNA from the tines. Is this fork like the one that’s missing?” At Val’s nod, Gunnar picked up the fork she’d used and pointed to the place where the metal was set into the wood handle. “Even a droplet of blood can leave a trace in a place like this or in one of these scratches on the wood. If the killer knows that, you’ll never see the fork again.”
“It’s not easy to dispose of a ten-inch long fork. You can’t just put it in the trash and expect no one to notice.” Especially with Granddad practicing his garbology.
“You can throw it in the river or bury it in the ground, but someone might see you do it.”
“It’s not necessary to find the fork. If Fawn managed anything deeper than a scratch, her killer may still have tine marks on the leg. Wait much longer, though, and the wound will heal without leaving a trace. That’s why the police need to identify the murderer fast.”
“They can’t ask your guests to roll up their pants or raise their skirts based on your speculation that one of them has a fork wound. But you can try strip poker and hope the strangler loses.”
She laughed, sat down on the bench, and pointed to the strawberries and the bowl of chocolate. “Have some. Did you know that the original chocolate fondue was made from triangular-shaped chocolate bars? Swiss chocolate in the shape of a mountain.”
He sat next to her and took a strawberry. “I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised. There are triangles everywhere this weekend.”
“And text messages. Five texts in all, counting the one sent ten years ago from Jennifer’s car. On Friday afternoon Jennifer texted for directions to the house. That evening Fawn texted Noah, asking to have dinner with him, but he turned her down. Then Payton received a text in a restaurant, shortly after Noah sent one. On Saturday morning Jennifer got an intimidating verse in a text.” Val took a strawberry. “I want to know who sent the text to Payton, what was in it, and who texted the verse to Jennifer. I suspect Noah has the answers.”
“Don’t corner him in a dark alley and grill him.”
“I won’t, but I wish the police would take him into the grilling room.”
Gunnar’s cell phone dinged. “That’s a message from my calendar, reminding me about my appointment. I have just enough time to walk home and put some papers together for my pitch to a client.”
“Thanks for helping.”
“See you later.” He kissed her and left by the side yard.
Val took her props to the kitchen and found Granddad there. “Are Noah and Sarina still in the house?”
“They just left with Jennifer and Payton. They were going to walk around town and get some lunch before the parade. They may be back if it starts raining. Why don’t you go to Bayport Outfitters and ask about those tags I found in Jennifer’s trash? Find out what she bought.”
Val couldn’t imagine it would matter. She had the impression he was trying to get rid of her. “Don’t you even want to hear about the crime reenactment?”
“Not unless it told you who murdered Fawn.” He pointed out the window. “You’d better get going or you’ll get caught in a downpour.”
She’d rather do more online research into the accident, but he wouldn’t give her any peace until she went to Bayport Outfitters.
A ten-minute walk brought her to the shop. Despite not much frontage on Main Street, the shop had a large sales floor because the building was deeper than most of the older structures in the historic district.
Val approached a middle-aged salesclerk. “A friend who was visiting this weekend bought some things here and really liked them. She was sorry she hadn’t bought more. When I found the tags, I decided to surprise her and buy them for her as gifts. Can you tell me if you have more of these?”
The clerk looked at the tags Val gave her and held one up. “This is a tag for our skinny capri pants. They’re popular this weekend because the weather is warmer than most people expected for October. I’ll check if we still have them in the size your friend bought.”
Val followed the clerk to a clothing rack along the wall. Hanging there were yellow capris like the ones Jennifer had worn Saturday afternoon and yesterday. Val pointed to them on the rack. “Those are the ones she liked.”
The clerk checked the tags on the ones hanging on the rack. “They’re the right style, but we don’t have any more in her size in any color. We have a similar style here somewhere.” She flipped through the hangers.
“I’d rather stick with what I know she’d liked. What about the other item?”
“That’s a skirt. Let me see if we have another one like it.” The clerk moved to a different rack. She held up a pencil skirt in a length that would skim the top of Val’s knee and a width that would cling to her hips and thighs like elastic wrap. “The ta
g you showed me is for this skirt in electric blue. Here it is in an eight. That’s the size your friend bought.”
“I’m not sure she’d want another skirt in that bright blue. Does it come in other shades?”
“We sold out in the other colors. You might like this skirt for yourself.”
“Not my style.” Val gestured toward her loose khaki skirt with patch pockets. “But thank you for your help.” She’d learned one thing here—however many clothes Jennifer had packed into her massive suitcase, they hadn’t sufficed for her weekend in Bayport.
The clerk gave back the clothing tags and hung up the skirt. “If you see anything else that interests you, let me know.”
“Thanks. I will.” Val stopped to look at the sweaters folded on the shelves lining the wall. Then she ambled toward the rear of the shop and poked through a rack of sale items. Even at clearance prices, the clothes in this shop were no bargain. The prices would decrease in another month, when the tourist season wound down.
As she was about to make a U-turn and retrace her steps, she came to the children’s section. Stuffed critters sat on shelves along the back wall. Birds perched on one shelf, including a red-winged blackbird like the one she’d fished out of Jennifer’s tailpipe. Val picked up the blackbird and stroked its wings. It looked and felt exactly like the one in the tailpipe.
She forced herself to keep an open mind. Just because Jennifer had shopped for clothes in this store didn’t mean she’d shopped for stuffed birds too. Val shifted the stuffed toys on the shelf, looking for a Baltimore oriole, the bird Jennifer had plucked from the tailpipe. No luck.
Val approached a young woman who stood behind the cash register counter. “I was looking at your little birds over there.” She pointed to the shelf. “Do you happen to have a Baltimore oriole?”
“I’m sorry. I sold the last one this weekend. We’ll be getting more in stock, but I don’t know exactly when.”
“I was hoping to give it to an avid bird watcher who’s particularly fond of orioles.” Val chose her words carefully to avoid saying whether her friend was male or female. “Maybe my friend bought your last one. Do you happen to remember the person you sold it to?”
The clerk frowned in concentration. “Sorry. There were so many people here this weekend.”
Val regretted not having taken the wedding group’s photos Monique had printed for Granddad. Seeing a picture of the customer might have jogged the clerk’s memory. On the other hand, whipping out photos and asking the clerk to identify the buyer of a stuffed bird would have been decidedly weird. Val had enough information to draw tentative conclusions without a positive identification.
She left the shop and weaved through the crowd on Main Street. Probably Jennifer had bought the birds and stuffed them in the tailpipe. Did that mean she’d lied about someone running after her in the maze? Not necessarily. She’d seen how promptly Payton had left his parents’ party to join her when he believed her threatened in the maze. Maybe she decided to trump up another threat to get more attention from him. The birds in the tailpipe convinced him she wasn’t safe anywhere but in his parents’ house. She finally got her way.
The phrase reminded Val of the verse someone sent Jennifer. If her sole purpose had been to persuade Payton she was in danger, why did she brush off the intimidating text message? She’d passed up a chance to reinforce the idea that someone was targeting her. Payton might have whisked her away even sooner to his parents’ house if he’d known about that message.
Val turned onto a side street. Fawn’s death gave the threats against Jennifer a force they wouldn’t have otherwise had, but was the murder related in any other way to the threats? Val was back to the question she had from the start—who was the intended victim?
Her phone chimed. She pulled it from her bag. The caller ID displayed the number of her grandfather’s cell phone. Either he was on the road or he didn’t want someone in the house to overhear him talking on the hall phone.
“Hey, Granddad. Where are you?”
“Home. Get the police. Quick!”
“Why?”
Val heard only silence on the line.
Chapter 22
Val lengthened her stride and scrolled through the contacts on her phone. She found Chief Yardley’s cell phone number, phoned him, and told him her grandfather needed help. “I don’t know why he asked me to call you instead of phoning you himself. He didn’t ask for an ambulance, so I don’t think anyone’s hurt.”
“I’m on my way,” the chief said.
He was responding in person to this plea for help, maybe because of the murder at the house or because of his close relationship with Granddad . . . or both.
Val sprinted, running along the curb instead of on the brick sidewalk. A police siren wailed and, when she was half a block from Granddad’s house, a squad car pulled into his driveway. She went in the front door ten seconds behind Chief Yardley and Officer Wade.
She heard male voices upstairs and took the steps two at a time. Panting, she joined the four other people standing in the upstairs hall.
Granddad was blocking the doorway to Noah’s room, his arms out like a school crossing guard. The two policemen were in the hall and so was Noah, red-faced and baring his teeth.
He swept his arm toward Granddad. “He won’t let me into the room I paid for. He’s ranting that I’m going to destroy evidence. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I want to pick up something that belongs to me.”
Granddad didn’t budge, blocking the door next to the Rope poster. “I know what you want to get. The rope you hid in the magazine basket. It matches the one you used to strangle Fawn.”
After finding the plant hanger that was missing two lengths of rope, Granddad would recognize the matching rope when he saw it. Obviously, his search of Noah’s room had gone beyond poking in the trash.
“I didn’t put any rope in any basket.” Noah glared at Granddad. “You were in the room. You must have put it there.”
Val stepped toward him, seeing a chance to turn Noah against his friends. “Why would my grandfather plant a rope in your room? He doesn’t have a reason to frame you, but someone else staying here might want—” She broke off as the front door slammed.
Sounds came up the stairs from the hall below—Jennifer’s breathy voice, Payton’s clipped syllables, and Sarina’s grating tones.
Chief Yardley motioned his junior officer toward the staircase. “Keep them downstairs, Wade. Everyone here, follow Officer Wade downstairs, please.”
Val lingered until Granddad and Noah had started down the stairs. Then she turned to the chief and kept her voice low. “One of the people in the wedding group killed Fawn. I can’t prove it yet, but I might get them to turn on one another. That’s the fastest way to find out the truth before they lawyer up.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Uh-huh. On Saturday Jennifer received an intimidating text message. On Sunday someone messed with her car. Noah spied on her before the murder Friday night. I know you don’t think she was the strangler’s target, but—”
“I haven’t ruled it out. Fawn’s husband came up with a solid alibi for Friday night. Right now, I have no other suspects in her murder and no reason to detain any of those folks downstairs. You gonna give me a reason?”
“I’ll try my best.”
He pressed his lips together and gave a curt nod. “Okay, but I’ll cut you off if you go too far. I don’t want the case compromised.”
They went downstairs. He stopped halfway down the staircase and addressed the group gathered in the hall. “Would you mind going into the sitting room, folks? There are new developments in the investigation into your friend’s death.”
Val waited in the archway between the hall and the sitting room while the guests filed into the sitting room. Sarina sat at the end of the sofa near Noah’s armchair, Jennifer next to her, and Payton on Jennifer’s other side. He sank into the old sofa, the bent knees of
his long legs higher than his backside.
Val checked out the other knees in the room—Jennifer’s exposed below the hem of her Bayport Outfitters skirt, Sarina’s hidden under the gaucho pants she’d worn all weekend, and Noah’s visible beneath his cargo shorts, but only on the left side. Val would have to squeeze between the sofa and the bay window for a view of his right side. From where she was standing, she couldn’t see marks from a fondue fork on any of them.
Officer Wade set two dining-room chairs beside the fireplace. He caught Val’s eye and silently offered her one of them. She shook her head.
The chief stood in front of the fireplace. “Val has some information to share. Let’s start with that.” He nodded to her and sat in the chair next to Wade, facing the group on the sofa.
She felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her as she stepped into the place the chief had vacated in front of the fireplace. “On Friday night, when we found out that Fawn had worn a crab hat, I wondered if the strangler might have mistaken her for someone else because the hat hid her face. Jennifer and I are about Fawn’s height and we both wore crab hats. I was worried I might have been the intended victim. Did you think the same thing, Jennifer?”
The bride-to-be hesitated. “Not at first, but when someone ran after me in the maze, I was afraid of that.”
“But what happened in the maze could have been a random prank,” Val said. “Teenagers chased people in the maze, trying to scare them. So did maze employees in monster costumes. If you’d been with other people when someone chased you, you wouldn’t have been scared.”
Jennifer nodded. “That’s true.”
“So what happened to Jennifer in the maze doesn’t prove someone intended to kill her.” Val decided not to mention the rope she’d found on the ground there. No way to know who’d dropped it, and talking about it would just muddy her argument. “But the next day, when Jennifer found birds in her tailpipe, it was clear that someone was specifically targeting her.”
Final Fondue (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) Page 21