What—no surfboard?
Her jewelry consisted of various shells—shells hanging from her ears, wrists, neck, and ankles, and several places in between.
A South Pacific ensemble for a Great Lake in New York State? Knowing ACB’s luggage and tote bags, she had a variety of wardrobe changes in store for us.
Maybe I’d stay for a while and see the contestants’ swimsuits or stay longer and see their evening gowns. I wasn’t sure how ethical it was for a judge to get a sneak peek, but it wasn’t like this was the Miss America pageant.
I turned right onto School Road and noticed that another vehicle was following Ty, a motorcycle. It was Billy, Mr. Toxic Waste. Must be that Juanita didn’t need him to help her cook after all, and he decided to go to the pageant.
Was the pageant really his thing?
Probably not, but Aileen—or, rather, Leslie—certainly was. Obviously they had renewed their relationship with the romantic backdrop of spawning salmon.
We found parking spaces right near the door. Good. ACB had a lot to unload. Even Billy helped. It took all four of us to get ACB’s stuff inside the high school and in the back where makeshift dressing rooms were set up through a creative use of curtains. School desks were set up with mirrors of all different sizes.
Evening gowns hung on racks made of pipes.
ACB was walking around in a state of horror. “No wire hangers!” she kept saying, and directing the contestants to find wooden hangers for their gowns.
Calm down, Joan Crawford!
Finally, ACB and I went to where the food was set up in front of the stage. The contestants were too focused to eat the baked ziti, the salads, the rotisserie chicken, the mixed veggies, the meat platter, and the steak fries.
More for me.
The contestants munched on my cookies instead and walked around with bottles of water.
“Antoinette Chloe, Chef Fingers did a fabulous job,” I said, bypassing the salads for the pan of steak fries.
“I know. I think I’ll give him another raise.”
Was that two raises in two weeks? I think I’ll go work for her.
ACB and I mingled with the other contestants. Luckily, one of the committee members thought to make stick-on name tags, so that broke the ice.
Finally one of the committee members grabbed ACB’s attention, and I walked around, trying to find Ty.
I found him and was ready to catch him up with the investigation when Aileen came over to talk to us.
“This is a wonderful event. I’m just so excited!” She turned to Ty. “What do you think my chances are of winning Miss Salmon?”
I could see Ty taking in her shiny hair, her perfect makeup and jewelry, and her short, short sundress with brown leather sandals. Her blue eyes were twinkling with excitement.
Oh, brother!
“I’d say you have a great shot,” he said, and flashed a big grin. He had a little dimple on his left cheek that liked to appear on occasion, and it chose to do so now.
Not that I noticed.
I took Ty’s arm. I needed a private place for us to talk, so I led him to the girl’s locker room. No one was in there, but just in case, I tugged him into the shower and pulled the white vinyl curtain shut.
“This is interesting, Trixie. You must have something important to tell me.”
“What I want to tell you will rocket your cowboy hat off your head.”
“You have the red crud creeping up your neck. You’re feeling guilty about something. You’d better spill it.”
I sat down on the bench in the shower. “You’d better sit down for this, too.” I moved over, but it still didn’t give Ty much room for his butt.
The two of us sat glued together on a seat in a shower stall in the girl’s locker room at the Sandy Harbor High School, in the middle of a reception for Miss Salmon. If Ty thought it was strange, he didn’t say anything.
“C’mon, Trixie. Spit it out. I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”
I decided to get the Impersonating an Ex-Wife Confessions over with first. “I called Sal.”
“You have to be kidding! I should lock you up for interfering in my investigation.”
He tried to stand, but my hips had a lock on his. “Just listen to me.”
“Go on,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Sal wanted to talk to you and confess to Nick’s murder.”
“I know he didn’t do it,” Ty said firmly. “He couldn’t have killed Nick.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
He looked at me with an arched eyebrow and didn’t say a word, so I continued.
“Anyway, I asked him if there was anything—anything at all—that he might have forgotten to tell us that would help Antoinette Chloe, the love of his life.”
“And?”
“And get this: He said that he and Chad Dodson had been running an illegal gambling club in the basement of Nick’s old restaurant on Monday nights. Chad and Sal were laundering money through the restaurant and through Brown’s Four Corners. Nick found out and was so livid that he skipped out on Chad.”
“I know,” Ty said. “I went back up to Auburn to see Sal early this morning.”
“Ty, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m the investigator here, not you. Seems like I keep reminding you of that fact.”
“But ACB is my friend.”
“But you’re not a cop.”
I wiggled on the bench seat, just to make him uncomfortable. Take that! And forget your discount for meals at the Silver Bullet.
“Anything else, Trixie?”
“Shouldn’t that make Chad your lead suspect? Chad was probably worried that Nick would spill the beans about the gambling and the fact that they were making tons of money. Sal told Chad that Nick would never tell and never bring down the cops on their restaurants, but Chad didn’t believe him. Then Sal went to jail for murder and couldn’t keep track of Nick to keep him in line. So Chad killed Nick and set up Antoinette Chloe with those dumb clues. And jackpot!”
“Makes sense.”
“Aren’t I right? Chad did it, didn’t he?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“That Chad is a prime contender for Suspect of the Year.”
“But you had ACB arrested anyway.”
“You know that I arrested her partially to protect her. I could have safely held her for five days before that Section 180.80 would kick in, but, no, you had to swoop in and get her out!”
“All right, all right. What’s done is done. I probably shouldn’t have bailed her out. But she’s fine, so it doesn’t matter. But I do have more news to tell you about.”
“Tell me.”
“Aileen Shubert is really Leslie McDermott, Toxic Waste’s former lover and the woman that Nick Brownelli left at the altar.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I searched her room. I found her wedding announcement in the paper, along with a picture. The picture was of Leslie McDermott—we know her as Aileen Shubert. What do you think of that?”
“Trixie, you searched the room of a tenant?”
“Not really. I just searched her jewelry box and found the clipping. And anyway, she’s not really my tenant; she’s a guest in my house.”
He sighed. “I’m concerned that Aileen is really Leslie McDermott. Go figure. I wonder if this is an identical-twin type of thing.” He seemed to be talking to himself, then turned to me and said loud and clear, “I’ll handle the investigation from now on, and I mean it, Trixie. If I have to, I’ll arrest you, and you can enjoy ACB’s decorating.”
“Oh, you’re so infuriating! You should be thanking me for all the information I gave you. You don’t tell me anything at all.” I sighed. “Let’s
get unstuck and get out of here.”
That was easier said than done. After unsuccessful wiggling on both our parts, Ty swiveled to the marble wall and pulled himself up on the grab bar. Then he offered me his hand. I shunned it and got up myself using both grab bars.
“You’re mad at me?” he asked. “Just because I won’t feed you information about an official investigation? Why don’t you ask Vern or Lou? They blab a lot.”
“Maybe I will.” I wasn’t going to throw Vern or Lou under the bus, but obviously Ty knew that they had loose lips.
He mumbled something under his breath, and we both went back to the reception.
The parade of contestants in bathing suits was going on. ACB must have already given her speech, because she wasn’t at the podium.
June Burke went up to Connie, who was in charge of this portion of the program, and asked for her to have the contestants march again, but much slower this time. June changed the music to a waltz instead of Beyoncé, which ACB had picked.
They all looked wonderful, but the five Wheelchair Grannies were definitely going to steal the show. They wore beach cover-ups with colorful beach hats and sandals instead of bathing suits. Everyone loved them, and the Grannies were content with rolling over the feet of the other contestants or wheeling into their legs.
Aileen was the picture of poise and confidence. She wore a one-piece cherry-red suit with gold looping designs that shimmered under the lights. She had on shiny red five-inch heels that had intricate gold piping designs along the sides. Everything was perfectly matched.
I had to admit that it was the perfect choice for her coloring.
Aileen, the woman scorned.
Aileen, left at the altar by charming, sexy, bad-boy Nick.
Aileen the liar. She doesn’t get seasick. She isn’t a grad student at SU.
And then I remembered that Aileen was the one who had been nagging ACB about a place to stay. What if she had been in Sandy Harbor the whole time? Since no one in Sandy Harbor ever locked their doors, Aileen could have helped herself to things from ACB’s house and from the Big House.
But so could have Chad. And Chad had lots and lots of money to gain from it all.
Chad could have easily buried Nick on ACB’s land. Aileen was a skinny beauty queen with perfect hair and nails, who’d probably squeal at the sight of dirt, but revenge was a powerful motivator.
We sat through the whole rehearsal again, and—merciful heavens—the Wheelchair Grannies sang and played the bells. They chose a song that they all had written together called “I’m a Sexual Camel Because I Haven’t Had Sex in Fifty Years.”
That sent Ty and me under the seats with laughter. They had to do it several times because they kept forgetting the lines or forgetting to ring their bells.
“I called Vern McCoy to check out Leslie. Now that we know her real name, maybe something will turn up,” Ty whispered to me.
Then it was time for Margie Grace and ACB’s unique choreography of salmon swimming upstream. According to the program, it was called Salmon Swimming Upstream.
When the New Age-ish music started, they fluttered onto the stage wearing their grayish-silver fish outfits. I thought they looked more like the stars of Shark Week instead of salmon. The salmon did a tango with the fishermen holding rods, and another dance that looked like an exercise routine or an exorcism—it was unclear. Finally the salmon were caught and the salmon cried as the fishermen marched around them in hip waders, twirling their fishing poles like batons.
Unable to keep a straight face, I said to Ty, “I’m going to see if ACB is okay. She has been angsting over her emcee duties since her script was stolen.”
“ACB just slipped offstage to change into her next muumuu. Do you want me to go stand outside the door? Or should I barge right in as everyone is changing?” he asked.
“I’ll take over now and check on her.”
“Bless you.”
I stopped at the buffet table and grabbed a snickerdoodle cookie. It was fabulous, if I do say so myself.
Backstage, I looked for ACB. She wasn’t in her dressing room. She wasn’t in the ladies’ room.
I moved a curtain to see if I had missed her, and saw the salmon swimming upstage as fishing rods tempted them. I counted. There were eleven. One girl was missing.
Where was Aileen? And where was Antoinette Chloe?
Oh, crap!
I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but both Chad and Toxic Waste were sitting in the audience. Then again, Aileen was supposedly in rehearsal. Perhaps she was somewhere backstage where I couldn’t see her.
Just as everyone was changing into their evening gowns, Janice, ACB’s lawyer, came around the corner along with Shaun Williamson, the bail bondsman and florist. He was carrying buckets of flowers.
He nodded at me. “Where should I put these?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Antoinette Chloe.”
“Where do I find her?” Shaun asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m looking for her, too,” I said.
Janice, ACB’s lawyer, put her arm around my shoulder. “I’m here to do my volunteering, but I need to talk to Antoinette Chloe first. It’s about her next court date.”
“Uh, when I find her, I’ll send her to you both.”
“You mean you can’t find her?” Shaun asked with a greedy gleam in his eyes. “I can picture myself owning the point now. I’ll use one of the cottages for my floral shop. No. I’ll put up another building right on Route 3. How much road frontage do you have?”
“Knock it off, Shaun,” Janice said.
“Yeah, knock it off,” I echoed.
I cupped my hands over my mouth. “Anyone see Antoinette Chloe?” I yelled to everyone backstage.
“I saw her go outside with Aileen. They were huddled together about something,” said Pam, one of the pageant committee members.
“Thanks, Pam.”
I ran outside looking for ACB and called her cell phone. No answer. She always answered. She’d answer today’s calls for sure. They’d be all about the pageant. Then I noticed a seashell on the ground beside some car tracks. She had to have gotten into Aileen’s car. But why?
I hurried to my car. I started it and called her again. Nothing. Where would they have gone?
I drove to ACB’s multicolored Victorian near downtown Sandy Harbor, thinking maybe she’d forgotten something there that she needed for her outfit change. I rang and knocked, but everything was dark. She wasn’t there.
I raced back to my car. Now what?
I was near Nick’s, so I turned my car toward his house. It was the only other place I thought they would go.
My heart was pounding in my ears, and I took a couple of deep breaths as I parked my car a couple of doors down.
A dim light peeked out from under the garage door. As quietly as I could, I snuck over to the side door and opened it a crack.
Aileen was holding a fish filleting knife on Antoinette Chloe!
ACB’s hands and ankles were tied with black electrical tape, and she was attached to Nick’s motorcycle by a boat rope. She looked uncomfortable sitting on the cement floor with her legs out in front of her. Her sequined flip-flops were barely hanging on to her toes. She did have on her faux-leopard cape, so at least that kept some of the cold off her.
I had to admit that Aileen looked lovely in her evening gown. It was white and fluffy and the Swarovski crystals shimmered in the light. She could have won the competition hands down, but I digress. . . .
I reached for my cell phone to call Ty, but I was too little, too late. Aileen knew I was there.
She hurled herself at me, and I fell to the cement floor. As much as I squirmed to get away from her, she clung to me like plastic wrap.
Aileen and I struggled for the knife.
She won.
“Aileen, you’re going to ruin your beautiful evening gown for the competition. There’s grease all over the floor,” I said from my spot on the cement.
She stood over me. “Get up, Trixie.”
It took me a while, but I got up and faced the point of Aileen’s fillet knife.
Aileen shook her head and got a strange look on her face. She rubbed her right temple.
“Look at how beautiful I am! How could Nick fall for a frump like her? I left Billy for Nick. And then Nick left me. I’m a McDermott. No one does that to a McDermott!”
ACB grunted. “So . . . you’re really Leslie McDermott? I knew you lied on your Miss Salmon application. And I’m not a frump. I’m colorful.”
I saw the hurt look on my friend’s face and couldn’t resist throwing a zinger at Leslie.
“Um . . . Leslie, why do you think that Nick skipped out on your wedding?” I asked.
I felt the prick of her knife on my neck. Okay. Bad timing. When would I ever learn to shut up?
“Leslie, put the knife down and go practice for the pageant. That gown looks like Donna Karan. Am I right?” I asked.
“It’s vintage Dior,” ACB said from the floor. “And white is a great color on you—very angelic.”
“Thank you. Why . . . how . . . how do you know that it’s Dior?” Leslie asked.
“I studied design in Paris and in New York City,” ACB said.
“Impossible! Look how you dress . . . and your makeup is a disaster!”
“I like being vibrant,” ACB said.
“You mean that you like being gaudy,” Leslie said.
“Colorful,” I said, still sticking up for my friend.
“Leslie, you set me up!” ACB suddenly shouted. “You scattered enough of my things all over my land to make it look like a yard sale. And how dare you enter my house and do something like that, especially after how nicely I’ve treated you!”
“Your house looks like a Victorian garbage heap. So did your room at Trixie’s house. What a dump.”
“I thought you couldn’t find a place to stay,” Antoinette Chloe pointed out. “You whined enough to me about the lack of accommodations. So, where were you staying when you killed my Nick?”
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Death: A Comfort Food Mystery Page 20