by Libby Klein
“How could it be the same MO when Aunt Ginny has never killed anyone! Maybe he had a bunch of takeout containers lying around because he’s a slob. Did you check to see if anything was taken?”
Amber thumbed through the incident report. “The victim lived alone, so there is no one to account for missing items.”
“So, you’re basing your entire case on the fact that the guy didn’t clean up after himself?”
“The victim lived two-and-a-half blocks away from you, well within Mrs. Frankowski’s zone.”
“Aunt Ginny never left our street! And she only went to neighbors she actually knew. You searched our house, you checked under the trapdoor, where are the knickknacks? Where is the murder weapon? You’ve got nothing. You know Aunt Ginny didn’t do this, Amber.”
“So, you’re a cop now? You think because you stumbled upon a killer once before that you know all there is about detective work? Is that it?”
“I’m saying, just think about this rationally. You know how this town likes to gossip. Tales of Aunt Ginny’s nighttime raids have been told in every supermarket line and hair salon for days. It was in the Cape May Star yesterday morning. If someone wanted to frame Aunt Ginny, the paper gave it to them down to every detail.”
“You’ve got quite an imagination, McAllister. I’m sorry this is happening to your aunt, but you’d better stay out of my way this time. Interfere with my case and I’ll have you in your old cell before you can say Miranda rights.”
I fought the urge to punch Amber in the face. Mostly because the other cops in the room were eyeing me and I didn’t want to make things worse for Aunt Ginny. I’d already posted bail, now I just wanted to get her home as soon as possible. Aunt Ginny had been through so much over the past few weeks, and she was old and frail. I was worried about what the stress of being in lockup would do to someone with her constitution.
Amber led me down the hall to the familiar holding cell I had spent a few hours in just a couple of months ago myself. Weak, old, frail Aunt Ginny was sitting on a bench with her sleeves rolled up, elbows on her knees, playing three-card monte and conning the other cellmates out of their cigarettes and a pack of Juicy Fruit.
“Come on, follow the queen, ladies. Some of you should be good at this.”
“Aunt Ginny?”
“Oh hey, Poppy. You want a piece of this?”
I shook my head and looked around at her cellmates, spotting a familiar face.
“Hey, girl, is this your aunt?”
“Hi, Bebe. You still here?”
“Naw, I was sprung the day after you. Just doing another tour.”
“You’ve gotta learn to recognize the cops better, Bebe.”
The caramel-colored inmate in hot pink short shorts, silver tube top and six-inch silver stilettos shrugged her shoulders and her Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in her neck. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a pretty face.”
Aunt Ginny threw a med alert bracelet on the pile. “Put up or shut up, ladies.”
Amber took a heavy ring of keys on a chain off her belt and unlocked the cell. “You’ve got to get your aunt out of here before she forms a gang.”
The other cellmates groaned as Aunt Ginny hustled them out of their few possessions. I took Aunt Ginny by the elbow and led her down the hall past the intake room. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but if I had more time I bet I could have won that drag queen’s silver shoes.”
“What would you do with size thirteen stilettos?”
“Show ’em off.”
Sawyer was waiting in the car for us behind the police station. She handed me a paper cup of something warm from Gia’s shop. “He made it special for you and said he would call you tonight to check in.”
I took the cup and sipped. My almond-coconut latte. He’s so sweet.
Aunt Ginny looked in the car window. “Anything for me?”
“Aren’t you a little juiced up already there, Capone?”
Aunt Ginny cut her eyes at me and grunted.
Sawyer reached into the car and pulled out another paper cup. “Of course there’s one for you, Aunt Ginny. Gia wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Aunt Ginny gave me a victorious smirk and took a slug of her coffee.
We arrived home to find Figaro moaning loudly in the foyer. Georgina threw the front door open before I could grab the knob. “Oh, thank God you’re home, Poppy.”
Aunt Ginny picked up Figaro. “I didn’t know you cared so much, Georgina.”
“What are you talking about? That infernal cat hasn’t stopped howling since you were led out of here.”
I sighed. “Georgina, really.”
“What? Why do you have that tone with me? I’m not the criminal.”
Sawyer, Aunt Ginny with Figaro, and I passed Georgina to sit in the sunroom to discuss our newest predicament.
Sawyer shook her head in disbelief. “How in the world could they think Aunt Ginny is capable of killing anyone?”
“I think we may be dealing with an opportunist,” I said. “Someone who heard about the recent happenings here in the neighborhood, and decided to take advantage of Aunt Ginny’s notoriety.”
“Who would have time to plan something that quick? It was just in the paper yesterday morning.”
“Maybe they heard the gossip around town about the robberies, and started forming a plan then.”
“Have you ever met the man who was killed, Aunt Ginny?” Sawyer asked.
Aunt Ginny had a faraway look in her eyes. She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“It sounds like their evidence is circumstantial at best,” I said. “They have no witnesses, no murder weapon, and no motive. What do you think, Aunt Ginny? You’re being awfully quiet.”
Aunt Ginny wouldn’t look either of us in the eye. “What if I did it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t remember going to any of the neighbors’ houses either. What if I went to this man’s house and …” She trailed off and tears welled up in her eyes.
Sawyer put her hand on Aunt Ginny’s knee. “There’s no way you did this. It’s not in your character.”
I took Aunt Ginny’s hand in mine. “Every house you went into, you were friends with the owners. They’d told you where the keys were in case of an emergency. You’ve been so worked up about strangers being in the house, I think your subconscious was hiding everyone’s valuables to keep them safe. I don’t believe for a minute that you hurt anyone.”
Aunt Ginny wiped her cheek. “I know you’re both just trying to help, and I love you for it, but I don’t think I’ll have a hairsbreadth of peace until I know for sure that I didn’t kill that man. How could I live with myself if I find out I’ve done this?”
She was so pitiful and tiny, it was easy to forget that this was the woman who lived through the Great Depression, three major wars, five husbands, and the Newark race riots of the ’60s. Back in the day, her friends called her the Scarlet Dragon.
Sawyer and I tried to come up with a plan to prove Aunt Ginny’s innocence. Sawyer pulled out her phone and opened her Facebook account. “What if we start a social media campaign showing how the cops are trying to pin this on a little old lady who was sleepwalking?”
“That might embarrass them enough to look for other suspects at the very least.”
“And I can try to find Brody Brandt’s profiles to see what he’s been posting and tweeting about. Maybe that will give us some leads for who he’s been hanging out with.”
“Check to see if he’s posted anything about personal conflicts too. From what I’ve seen, people love to use Facebook as a passive-aggressive way to vent on the Internet.”
Aunt Ginny sat quietly and rocked in her chair while petting Figaro. She ignored us while we talked, until she piped in with, “They sure have spruced up that jail cell from the seventies.”
Um … say what now?
Before we could ask Aunt Ginny to expound upon that revelation, we were
interrupted by a familiar bald little gnome. “Mrs. Frankowski, it is so good to see you back home again.”
“Thank you, Smitty.”
Smitty stood with his hat in his hands, and a timid look that we’d come to know as the forerunner to spilling bad news.
“Uh, while we’re on the subject of problems, it seems that Georgina has hidden the waterfall sink for the Emperor Suite.”
From down the hall we heard, “I’m trying to help you, Poppy!”
“Give him the sink, Georgina!”
From down the hall again, “I just think you’re trying to be too trendy.” Then Georgina stuck her head into the sunroom. “Stick to what you know … like beige.”
“Georgina!”
“Fine!” Georgina stomped out of the room followed by a gloating Smitty.
“We have to get this figured out and clear your name so we can get the B and B off the ground before those two destroy it for good.”
Figaro jumped down from Aunt Ginny’s lap and she brushed enough hair off her slacks to make another cat. “What are we going to do? We don’t have any money for a lawyer. And that first set of lodgers didn’t go so hot.”
Sawyer picked a tuft of fur off her suede skirt. “Maybe I can take some money out of the bookstore.”
Aunt Ginny smacked Sawyer’s hand. “Absolutely not, missy! Over my dead body.”
“That’s very generous, Sawyer, but no. I think we just need to find out who really killed Brody Brandt, so Aunt Ginny will be cleared. And I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to that house to see the crime scene for myself. The cops said it looked similar to the neighbors’ houses after one of Aunt Ginny’s raids, but I want to see it with my own eyes.”
“Oh no, you are not!” Georgina stomped back in the room. “You are NOT breaking into a crime scene. Don’t you remember what happened the last time?”
“Were you lurking in the hall?”
“I’m serious, Poppy.”
“Georgina, I’m a grown woman. This is happening.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“You’re out of your mind, you know that?”
“I’m serious. No one is going to buy this house if they think a murderer lives here. As far as I’m concerned, this affects my investment. We need Ginny cleared, and fast.”
“So, you only want to clear Aunt Ginny to flip the house?”
“I wouldn’t say that’s my only reason.”
“Georgina, I can handle this on my own.”
“I mean it, Poppy. If you think you’re going into that house in the middle of the night, I’m coming along to keep you out of trouble.”
“Who said anything about the middle of the night? It’s not even five. No way …”
Smitty stood in the doorway with his giant, pleading cow eyes imploring me to get Georgina out from under his feet for a couple of hours.
“Fine. But you stay out of the way.”
“You’ll see that I’m right, Poppy.”
I left the room and muttered under my breath, “Well then, that would be a first.”
Chapter 16
I waited until the sun was setting, then googled the address for Brody Brandt. He lived two-and-a-half blocks down the beach. No way Aunt Ginny would sleepwalk that far to go to a random stranger’s house. Georgina met me in the foyer dressed in black wool slacks, black cashmere sweater, black pumps, and black opera gloves.
“What, no black ski mask?”
She let out a heavy sigh as if she was thinking I was an idiot. “If we’re going to break into someone’s house, I want to be as inconspicuous as possible. Stick to the shadows and all.”
“It’s dinnertime. How are you going to skulk around in the shadows while people are coming home from work?”
Figaro came into the foyer, saw Georgina in her black camouflage, and walked over to rub up against her, leaving a wide swath of gray fur.
“Ack! Stay away from me, you pest. Poppy, your stupid cat always chooses the worst time to show affection.”
Figaro sat on the step and gave himself a congratulatory bath for a job well done. As I was shutting the door I gave him a reproachful look. “You’re very sneaky, you know that?” A pair of innocent orange eyes blinked back.
I unlocked the car and hollered to Georgina, who was ducking behind a bush at the end of the sidewalk. “What are you doing?”
“Shhh! I’m trying to blend in. Why are you getting in the car?”
Just then, Mrs. Petricino came around the corner walking her toy Pomeranian, Thor.
Georgina froze like a statue.
Thor sniffed her shoe, which was peeking out from the bushes.
“Hiya, Poppy.”
“Hello, Mrs. Petricino.”
When they had passed us I said, “Because if we walk down there, everyone on this street will know exactly what we’re doing, and I’d rather not announce it to the neighborhood.”
Georgina looked around. “No one is watching us.”
“Oh, trust me, they are. What happened to inconspicuous?”
“I was saving that for when we arrived at the house.”
Oh, good plan.
I drove the car around the block and approached the victim’s house from the ocean side. I parked in front of the Bagel Depot; its only customers this time of day were a couple of combative seagulls. I took a moment to listen to the sound of the surf crashing against the rocks of the jetty. Was there any sound more peaceful and relaxing than that? But then the breeze coming off the ocean blew my hair into a stringy mess, the salt air made my face feel sticky, and Georgina drove an icepick through my brain with her criticisms.
“This is why you don’t get anything done, Poppy. We’re supposed to be investigating a murder and you’re lollygagging here, staring at the water.”
Count to ten. Don’t push her into traffic. “Let’s get this over with.”
We walked the rest of the block to Brody’s house. From the sidewalk, I could see that there was yellow crime-scene tape across the front porch, and the front door appeared to be taped shut. There were no lights on inside the little white Cape Cod. We walked around to the backyard. Georgina got her heels stuck in the lawn and she had to call me back to lean on me while she extracted them. So much for discreet. The side door to the garage was unlocked. I pulled out the rubber kitchen gloves that I’d brought from home and snapped them on. I looked inside a few coffee cans that were lined up on a shelf by the door to the house until I found one with a key inside.
“What are you doing?” Georgina hissed.
“We’re going in the house. I told you that at home.”
“How did you know that key would be in there?”
“This is Cape May; people are more worried about tan lines and property taxes than getting robbed.”
“Yeah, well, no one expects a sleepwalking old lady to crack them over the head with a bat either.”
I threw Georgina a black look and jammed the key in the lock. “Listen, I learned the hard way, don’t touch anything. Don’t move anything. Don’t leave any trace that we’ve been here. And most importantly, follow my lead. Don’t go off on your own.”
Georgina huffed. “I’m not an idiot, Poppy. I wore the gloves.” She straightened the seams running to her elbows.
“Yeah, well, if Renée Fleming is in here warming up, you’ll be prepared.”
We entered through the mudroom. A utility sink sat to one side, next to a washer and dryer. Overhead was a shelf holding a row of economy brand laundry detergents and cleaning supplies. A pair of dirty old sneakers sat on the floor next to a basketball.
The mudroom led into the kitchen. Georgina followed so closely behind me that she bumped into me with every step. “Georgina, give me a little space, will ya.”
“You said stay close.”
“I didn’t say for you to hop on my back though.”
“Well then, you should be more specific,” Georgina hissed, then reached up and flicked on the kitchen light.
I flailed my arm out to flick it off as fast as possible. “What are you doing? Why don’t you just call the neighbors and tell them we’re here.”
“How am I supposed to see anything?”
“Use your screen light on your cell phone.”
While Georgina tried to figure out her apps, I got to look around. The kitchen was a hoarder’s delight. The counter was covered with empty pizza boxes from Brother’s, Chinese food cartons from Dragon House, Styrofoam containers from various local restaurants, and a couple of empty two-liter bottles of pop.
“Well, there’s your proof right there that Aunt Ginny had nothing to do with this.” I pointed to an unopened box of Twinkies on top of the microwave. “She loves those. If she was going to snack on anything, Twinkie wrappers would be all over the kitchen right now.”
Georgina tiptoed around the room, holding her cell phone out, leaning away from anything that looked dirty. “I think you’re grasping at straws, Poppy. There’s no telling what a sleepwalker would do under the influence of drugs. And where is the candy that was supposed to be on the floor?”
I looked in the trash can and saw what looked like a few pounds of M&M’s. “The crime scene techs must have swept it up already.”
“Look at his refrigerator door, Poppy.”
“Brody must be the man in all these shots. Each picture is of him with a different kid.”
“This one is at a graduation. This one looks like a medal ceremony of some kind.”
“That one looks like he’s camping with a whole group of them. They all look to be between fourteen and seventeen years old.”
“Maybe he was a scout leader or something like that.”
“I don’t think so. No uniforms. Plus, it’s both boys and girls. No, I think these must all be kids from his teen program.”
In every picture, he looked so happy and proud. I found myself wanting to find his killer for his sake as much as to exonerate Aunt Ginny. I took one last look at the kitchen and found Georgina with her head in a cabinet and her butt in the air. Her cell phone near the ground.
“What are you looking at?”