Crowning the Slug Queen (A Callie Stone Mystery Book 1)

by L. M. Fortin

  "He was a real strange one and not what you'd expect for Alex." She rocked the baby slower as it quieted down.

  "How so?" asked Callie.

  "Steve was shy and sort of plain. Alex was a real beauty. She could have had any one of these rich frat boys that live nearby. They were always stopping her on the sidewalk asking for her phone number. Instead, she goes with a guy in square glasses who's losing his hair. It didn't make much sense."

  Callie shook her head. "Who knows when people are in love?"

  "You got that right. I had love and I now have a baby and no boyfriend. Life's funny that way."

  "Did Alex have a lot of other friends? People that hung out with her?"

  "None that I saw. She pretty much stuck to Steve and the library for her social life. Although..." she paused.

  "What?" said Callie.

  "Well, this is more like gossip and not something you'd be wanting to put in any tribute, but once a week or so I'd hear her meeting someone real late at night. I could hear it 'cause I live next door and these walls are paper thin."

  "She was seeing someone other than Steve?" asked Callie.

  "No, it was fairly regular, but their meetings were too short to accomplish much, if you know what I mean," she said. "There were two guys. First, it was a short weaselly looking kid. He was the kind that if you saw him coming, you'd cross to the other side of the street. Just looked like trouble. Then, about two months ago, there was a new guy, much more of a looker, started coming by. A real Latin lover type with this gorgeous long black hair. I didn't want to ask her about them since it looked like she was trying to keep it quiet. It's sort of hard to hide anything around here though."

  Callie didn't really believe in coincidence and wondered why Sheldon Normal might have started coming around right after he got out of prison. Maybe he hadn't gotten as far away from his former business as he said.

  Callie changed the subject. She was here to get information on a memorial after all. "Did you ever hear her sing?'

  Sarah smiled. "Sure did. Some evenings Steve would bring out a guitar and they'd do a few sing along songs with us. But she was so good the rest of us would stop singing and just listen. Sometimes she'd take the guitar and play songs from her home in that funny foreign language. She played the guitar better than Steve did."

  "Maybe I can get him to play one of her songs at the pageant," said Callie thinking out loud. "Although I don't know if it would be a good tribute to someone who seemed to want to be an American so much."

  "That she did. For some reason, she seemed fascinated by the city council. At first, I thought it was just part of her studying for the citizenship exam, but it got to be a real obsession. She knew who all the members were and some of their politics. I'm lucky if I can remember to vote."

  "Why do you think it interested her?" asked Callie.

  "After the mayor got reelected again, she said something about how easy it seemed to be to get into power here. She had a lot of stories of Estonia and how bad the government treated people. Of course, our mayor has been around years and we know it's not something that happens overnight, but for some reason Alex seemed to think she could be on the council once she was an American citizen. She kept talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger."

  "That makes sense in a way," said Callie. "Foreign born, but elected to an American office."

  "Yeah, but he had a bazillion dollars and a wife from the Kennedy family. I don't think Alex had that kind of leverage."

  Callie wondered. She thought about the words she had heard backstage the night Alex was killed. Maybe Alex had thought she had leverage on someone and attempted to use it.

  "Sarah, thank you so much for letting me know about Alex. I think I have enough to put something together for the pageant."

  "Don't forget to talk to Steve. He'd be able to add something I know," said Sarah.

  "I think he'll still be in the pageant and I'll ask him when I see him at practice tomorrow."

  On her way home, Callie stopped by the store and got a bottle of wine. One of the Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs that Peter had turned his nose up at. She figured she might as well enjoy the wine as she had no legitimate excuse to avoid yet another of her mother's dinners.

  But when she arrived at the house it was to find her mom and grandma out and dinner not even started yet. Callie looked in the refrigerator and realized that with the vegetables, goat cheese and eggs, she could throw together a decent quiche. Maybe not such a good pairing with a Pinot, but better than Coral's vegetarian stew.

  Callie liked cooking, but didn't find much time for it in New York. On the few nights she wasn't working late or out on a business dinner, she and Peter had usually gotten take out or went to one of the myriad of small ethnic restaurants that dotted the New York City landscape. She realized that cooking was much like the work she did, make a plan, put it all together and bake until done.

  Once the quiche was in the oven, Callie headed to her cottage. She turned on the computer and checked her email. Mara said the entire office not only missed Callie, but had now begun actively lobbying Bill to change his mind on letting her go. Callie didn't reply and turned off the computer. She wasn't ready to go back to New York. This vacation may have been accidental, but she was enjoying it thoroughly and wanted to take full advantage of it. Once she went back, who knew when she'd get to Oregon again? Besides, Mara hadn't said that Bill himself wanted her back, and unless that happened she wouldn't have a job in New York anyway. Callie changed into a North Face hoodie and grabbed her book and went back to check on her dinner.

  Right as she was pulling the quiche out of the oven, Callie heard the door open. Grandma Minnie's voice came from the hallway. "What's that smell? Something smells good?" she asked as she came into the kitchen.

  "Carline, that smells wonderful!" said Coral coming in behind Grandma Minnie. "You didn't need to make dinner. I could have thrown something together. But I'm glad you did."

  "Mom, how come you always call me Carline?" asked Callie.

  "Well, I named you. I get the prerogative of calling you that for the rest of your life."

  "I might agree with you except that you are no longer called by what your mom named you. You choose your own name." said Callie.

  "And if my mother was alive today, you'd better believe she'd still be calling me Esther. She was meaner than Grandma Minnie."

  "Hey!" said Grandma Minnie. "I'm right here. Don't be talking about me like that."

  They all laughed. Callie opened the wine as Coral got out the ingredients for a salad to go with the quiche.

  As they sat down to eat, Grandma Minnie said, "You never mentioned that you were the one to actually find that dead slug queen, Callie."

  "I didn't think it was anything I could talk about. Now that people are starting to hear the details, I guess it's ok to mention."

  "Do you know what happened?" asked Grandma Minnie. "The scoop at the hair salon was that the guy died of a drug overdose."

  Callie found it interesting that Alex's actual gender remained unknown. "From what little I know, that is technically true, but I believe the police suspect the overdose was engineered by someone else."

  No one had anything to say to that.

  After dinner was over and the dishes were washed and put away, Callie went over to the cottage and brought back her laptop.

  "Here, I've got something to show you guys." She played the dancing cat video. "This is the reason I'm in Skinner. My boss wasn't happy I forgot to bring the CD, so you could say I'm between jobs right now."

  "If he fired you for something as silly as that you probably didn't want to work for him anyway," said Grandma Minnie.

  Coral nodded, for once in agreement with her mother-in-law. "Whatever the reason, I'm glad you came out to visit."

  Callie spent the remainder of the evening watching a movie and chatting with her mom and grandma. She couldn't remember a better spent evening in a long time.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

&
nbsp; On Wednesday, Callie made the mistake of telling her mom she had no plans until later in the afternoon. As she had shown a willingness to be out in the garden, Coral took that as permission to set Callie at tasks all morning long. She picked more zucchini blossoms, which Coral added as the last items to her truck piled high with vegetables to take to the farmers' market. Coral didn't have her own stand, but participated in a collective where she brought the vegetables and someone else sold them for her.

  Coral had left Callie a list of tasks written on the blackboard in the barn. How Callie had hated that board when she was a teenager. As there was always something to be done on the farm, the list never got any shorter.

  Callie weeded the carrots, fed Basil the kid and then went out to her personal nemesis, the green bean patch. The bean plants had been grown on sticks laid together and Callie always imagined them to be some sort of Native American teepee. She thought the shape actually made the beans harder to find as the cone was bushier and broader at the bottom than at the top. Callie had seen other green bean patches where the beans were grown straight up in tall, narrow rows and had even suggested this variation to her mom during some of those long vegetal summers. But Coral said this shape provided more shade for the beans and less use of water and fertilizer, so the bean teepees remained.

  She picked as many as she could find, although she was convinced there were still large bunches of beans hiding out of sight. That had often happened in high school. She would present a teepee to Coral as fully picked only to find her mom would always be able to get another pound of beans off the thing. Callie thought they were treacherous plants.

  She had a 5 gallon bucket over half full by the time she was done and she took them into the kitchen for Grandma Minnie to clean and freeze.

  The next task was one of her favorites and she spent a full hour in the raspberry patch picking what would probably be the last batch of the year. Callie thought she probably ate as many as she managed to get into her berry containers.

  Lunchtime took her back to the kitchen where she enjoyed toasted cheese sandwiches with her Grandma.

  Callie was satisfied with her day's labor and felt like she had definitely paid her room rent to the farm, so she retreated to the cottage to get cleaned up before heading to the theater. Practice for the pageant had been set for 2:00 p.m. instead of later in the day to accommodate the schedule of the emcee, Kit Carter.

  Callie drove into town and parked in the garage near the Newsome Center. Instead of entering through the lobby and theater as she had done before, Callie now knew enough to come in through the side door where the stairs led down to the basement level dressing and storage rooms.

  She hesitated a moment before heading down the hallway to the sound room. The last time she had been there, she had found Molluska, dead.

  There was no body this time, only Wade sitting at his desk mournfully staring at the space where his computer used to be and sipping a cup of coffee.

  "Afternoon, Wade. Where's your computer?"

  "Hi, Callie. They took it thinking there might be something they could find about the murder, and haven't given it back yet. I'm thinking of renting one. They couldn't tell me how long they'd be keeping it."

  She looked at the cup of coffee in his hand. "Is the coffee safe to drink?"

  "They took that, too. This is my machine from home," he said. "I figured I'd need it more here than I did there."

  Callie sat down in the only other chair in the room. "Are you the one setting up the a/v for the outdoor version of the pageant?"

  "Nope. They hired one of the local outfits, although I usually end up working as part of the crew since there's no show or anything going on here that day. Why do you ask?"

  "I just want someone to walk me through the stage set up as I won't get to see it until the actual event."

  "Well, I worked on it last year, so I can at least give you a run down." Wade and Callie spent a half hour talking through the logistics of the outdoor stage set until Callie felt comfortable she knew what types of audio visual equipment would be present.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Callie looked up and saw a trim, dark-haired man wearing a gray striped suit. In fact, his hair was so jet black Callie couldn't help but wonder if it came out of a bottle. He was sporting a tan that would not be able to be supported by the Oregon climate without a lot of outdoor field work, but from his well-manicured nails and smooth, uncallused hands, Callie assumed outdoor work was not his forte.

  The man's eyes passed over Wade as if he wasn’t standing there and landed on Callie. "Ah, you must be the event planner from the East Coast. I am Kit Carter, weatherman at KVAL." The way he announced himself gave Callie the idea she was supposed to have known of him prior to the introduction.

  "Kit, it's nice to meet you," she said standing and shaking his hand. "I'm Callie Stone and this is Wade Taylor, the stage manager here at the Newsome."

  Kit nodded his head in an almost regal manner and continued to talk only to Callie. "I take it you are familiar with the greater New York metropolitan area? I have reported from Albany. The New York state capitol, not the Oregon wood chip town." From his tone Callie could tell he thought any place in Oregon could be considered at the wood chip town level. Wade, whose back was to Kit, rolled his eyes at Callie.

  Callie had assumed she was getting an emcee, but she knew instead she could add Kit Carson to her list of pageant divas right along with the slug queens.

  She told Wade they'd start the practice as soon as all the slug queens arrived and then took Kit out to the stage.

  Callie had made a copy of the production schedule, updating it with a spoken script for the emcee and printed it out at the library after speaking to Steven the day before.

  "Because the stage set outdoors is a little more basic than what we have here, you have a choice of either staying on stage for the entire show or announcing from someplace in the audience. I think we could arrange to have you sit with the judges on stage, which would give you a good view of the action."

  She could see him consider where he would get the most exposure. "Would there be a special seating area for me if I choose to sit in the audience?"

  "No, we'd just have a seat held for you in the front row. It would allow you to work the crowd if you wanted."

  He shook his head. "No, I think my public would expect me to have a more prominent place, so I believe I'd like to sit on the stage. If I want to mix with the crowd I can do it before or after the show."

  Callie was happy to settle that so easily. "Well, let's practice that way. She went stage right and grabbed a chair for him to sit in. Wade brought out a wireless microphone for Kit to use. "If you aren't talking, you'll want to turn this button off, otherwise you'll broadcast through the whole theater."

  Kit brought the microphone to his mouth. "Testing, testing," and the sound filled the theater. "Yes, this will do fine," Kit said to brusquely to Wade.

  He turned to Callie and focused his full attention on her. "It's nice to meet someone from the civilized part of the world," he said giving her a wide smile. Callie thought his brilliant white teeth seemed overlarge for his mouth. "What brings you to Skinner?"

  "I'm visiting my family," she said. "I was born here."

  "You have my sympathies." He seemed unconscious of the fact she might be slightly offended by his characterization of Skinner, although it had been one she had held at one time in her life.

  "Maybe places like New York exist to give us a greater appreciation of these somewhat uncivilized places," she said.

  "I can't think of any other reason for them to exist," he said, leaning in to her and laughing at his own witticism.

  Callie smiled at him. "I think I can see why you must be very popular in New York."

  He slid his thumb along one side of his coiffed jet black hair, preening at her implied compliment. She contrasted that gesture with Scott's habitual hand running through his thatch of hair. He'd never be able to maintain Kit
's well moussed style. As she wondered why Scott came to mind, she saw him coming on stage from the dressing room area.

  As she saw him, she realized Kit was standing uncomfortably close and took a step back. "Oh, Lieutenant McMillan, have you come to join our little shin dig?" asked Kit.

  "I was just coming off my shift and I thought I'd do a walk-through of the theater. We still really don't have a full picture of what happened here Monday, so we can't be too careful." He looked at Callie with a distant expression in his eyes. "Everything fine here, Miss Stone?"

  She wondered at the formality and looked at him curiously. "Umm...yes. Everything seems fine, although I think Wade was wondering when he could have his computer back."

  "He'll get it back when we're done with it. I really can't give a time estimate," he said curtly.

  Callie wasn't certain what had changed between them, but she realized any conversation with Scott at this moment would be less than productive. "Well, thanks. Just let him know. Excuse me, I think some of our contestants are arriving."

  Callie left Kit and Scott on the stage. She wondered what they'd have to talk to each other about.

  In the large dressing room, Sheldon Normal had arrived and was setting up at the station farthest from the door. He was already in costume, but his hair was tied back in a ponytail and not yet up in the beehive style he performed in.

  Callie said, "Well, you look almost ready to go."

  "I wait until I get here to tease up the hair. Otherwise my head is too high to fit into my car for the drive over," he said.

  Callie thought she probably wouldn't have a better chance alone with Sheldon to ask him about Monday. "I know this might sound like I'm prying, but do you realize you and I were the last ones in the theater on Monday night? Did you see anything before you left?"

  He didn't turn to face her, continuing to comb his hair. "You mean we were the only ones left except for Molluska and the killer, right? Or is that what you're accusing me of? Once a criminal, always a criminal, is that it?"

  "No, no, that's not what I meant," Callie said apologetically. "I was just hoping you had seen something, that's all."