Macaroni and Freeze

by Christine Wenger

  She left, and I sat down next to Ty.

  “So what’s the scoop, Sherlock?” he asked me.

  “Nothing exciting, really. Though she changed the subject when I asked her who wrote the cookbook the church ladies have a beef about.”

  Ty took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know if Dottie and Marylou are that crazy to kill over a cookbook—although stranger things have happened. Anything else?”

  “Jill doesn’t like Peter McCall.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s about it, Ty. I’m going to call it a night.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone?” he asked, pointing to Antoinette Chloe’s booth.

  “Oh, yes. My warden.”

  Mmm . . . maybe, just maybe, ACB would want to take a ride with me to her house to visit Peter McCall.

  I was sure he’d like a nice meatball sub, a peach hand pie, and a little conversation about Priscilla Finch-Smythe.

  * * *

  “Wait for me, Trixie! I’ll walk with you,” ACB yelled as I got ready to brave the frigid winter night.

  Her flip-flops sounded like the beat of a rap song as she hurried toward me.

  I handed her coat to her, and she shrugged into it as we walked into the frigid outdoors. We both gasped at the below-zero temperature and the frosting of ice on everything.

  “I wish you’d get some boots!” I’d told her the same thing last winter, to no avail.

  “You know I don’t like boots.”

  “Then put on sneakers or moccasins—something to cover your bare feet and keep your toes from freezing solid! You can decorate them with sequins and glitter to make them your style.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  It was hopeless. She wouldn’t give up her flip-flops any more than she’d give up her muumuus or fascinators.

  “Antoinette Chloe, I’m headed to your house to talk to Peter McCall.”

  “You are?” She grasped my arm when we came to an icy patch, and we both held on to each other. If one of us slid on the ice, we’d both go down together.

  “I want to hear what he has to say. I don’t like to be considered a suspect just because I shot off my mouth and was seen holding the infamous red scarf. Besides, as much as I like you, I don’t want to be stuck on you like a piece of lint. I have to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  “I’ll go with you. I need to get a couple of things from my house anyway,” ACB said. “Let’s see what Peter has to say. We could always play good cop/bad cop.”

  “Uh . . . we could just play ourselves.”

  “That’s no fun, Trixie.”

  I hope I wasn’t going to regret taking ACB along, but a lot of times she surprised me. Actually, we worked well together—like a squeaky, nonoiled machine.

  We walked to my car, and I yanked on the car handle, but the door wouldn’t open. It was frozen shut.

  ACB tried the passenger-side door, and it opened. I knew it was really winter when I had to get into the passenger side and somersault myself over to the driver’s seat.

  Which is what I did.

  And got a perfect ten from the French judge!

  I started the car and it groaned to life. We had to sit in it for a good ten minutes before the windshield defrosted and I could see out the windows. So we talked about everything under the sun to kill time, and, of course, the main topic was Priscilla.

  “She’ll always be Mabel Cronk to me. I told her that, too.” ACB liked to repeat herself.

  “You know, Antoinette Chloe, she probably had to take a fancier name for her business. That’s all.”

  “But why the phony accent? Puh-leeze.”

  ACB was quiet for a while, which allowed me to concentrate on driving. I was always worried about black ice—the kind of ice that you couldn’t see but would send you doing wheelies down the highway. I drove down Route 3 with the defroster blaring.

  “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” she said, interrupting the silence. “I’m sorry, Trixie.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you didn’t say anything awful, and you were always a good friend to her. She knew that. You invited her into the Tri-Gams so she could have some more friends, too, and look what happened. She became a famous chef.”

  “She always did like to cook. She had to. Her mother was usually too sick and her father was a farmer. She cooked for them both and all of their helpers. One of her first jobs was at the Golden Age Home. She ran their food service, and she was only eighteen.”

  “Wow. That says a lot about her.”

  “Did you know that she used to work at the Silver Bullet, too?”

  “Seems like I heard that before.”

  “It was only one summer, but your uncle Porky and aunt Stella taught her everything they knew. I think she was sixteen. And she made it pretty clear that she wanted to own the point someday. I think that’s why she wanted the tea at the Big House and wanted a special named for her at the Silver Bullet. It was like she was pretending she finally owned it.”

  “You think?” That was food for thought.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “And here I thought she was just acting like a diva. I feel awful, Antoinette Chloe. Priscilla had a lot of important things she was dealing with.”

  Speaking of important, I suddenly remembered the envelope from the law firm in New York City and was curious. It had been important to Priscilla, whatever it was.

  Whenever I thought of important legal documents, I immediately thought of criminal issues. Maybe that was just because I’d lived with Deputy Doug, my ex, for so long. But mail from lawyers could easily be about real-estate matters. Maybe she was buying or selling property somewhere. Or maybe it was a new contract related to her business or one of her new cookbooks. Or maybe Priscilla was making out a will or changing one that she already had.

  Oh, who knows? Maybe it was nothing, but maybe it would shed some light on what had been significant to Priscilla at the time of her death.

  But who on earth would kill her? Priscilla didn’t seem to be over-the-top awful. She was just obnoxious and totally lacking in expressing gratitude.

  Maybe Joan Paris, the editor of the Sandy Harbor Lure, had some insider scoop about the suspects who weren’t allowed to leave town—minus moi, of course.

  Joan was living with Hal Manning, the Sandy Harbor coroner and funeral parlor director. In my experience, Hal’s pillow talk usually netted top-notch information, which Joan passed along to her fellow book club members, particularly ACB and me. This was usually information that Ty Brisco would never give up in a million years.

  I’d have to put Joan on my list of people to talk to after Peter.

  I was about to pull into ACB’s driveway but found that a snowbank was blocking my way.

  “You’d think Peter would shovel,” she grumbled. “But I guess that I should have taken care of that, since he’s my guest.”

  “He’s not a guest, Antoinette Chloe. He’s a suspect.”

  “True. And Peter does seem a little . . . smarmy. But we don’t know if he had any reason to want to hurt his stepmother,” she said.

  “Well, that’s what we need to find out. Honestly, I’m still wondering about the whole cookbook thing,” I said. “The church ladies from the Church of the Covered Dish were pretty insistent at the cook-off that Priscilla stole everything from them—their recipes and the little family stories that accompanied them. Maybe we should compare the two cookbooks to see if it’s true.”

  “Well, I bought Priscilla’s cookbook at the fund-raiser,” ACB said. “So, we just need the other one.”

  “We’ll make a stop to see Marylou and Dottie and get one from them.”

  “No need,” ACB said. “I knew you’d want to talk to them, since they were on Ty’s suspect list, so I invited them to the Big House for lunch tomorrow. I’ll make sandwi
ches and a pot of split pea soup.”

  I grinned. “You’re the best.”

  “Someone had to do something to get the investigation going while you were acting like Sleeping Beauty.”

  I chuckled. ACB wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but she was mine.

  Right now we needed to climb over that snowbank and get to ACB’s very colorful Victorian. Her painted lady looked like something out of a Wild West house of ill repute compared to the others on her block, but it showcased her flamboyant personality perfectly.

  Shutting my car off, I turned to Antoinette Chloe. “Ready for some snowbank climbing?”

  “Ready.”

  We sank in past our thighs. Now the trick was getting our legs to take the next step.

  “On the count of three, grunt!” I ordered. “One. Two. Three! Grunt!”

  “Ugh!” we said together.

  ACB’s right flip-flop got stuck in the snow. Like I hadn’t seen that coming from a mile away. Now she had one bare foot, at about eight degrees below zero. I reached my hand into the hole she’d vacated and pulled out her flip-flop.

  “Don’t lecture me about boots, Trixie,” she warned.

  “I won’t. I’ve given up on you.” I sighed.

  Finally, after some stunning acrobatics, we were on level snow and able to slog through it to the front door.

  ACB rang the doorbell. Peter McCall didn’t answer. Then she pounded on the door. Still nothing.

  “Do you have your key, Antoinette Chloe?”

  “Yup.” She was already inserting the key into the lock. The door opened, and we both yelled his name.

  Nothing.

  I pulled off my boots and ACB walked out of her flip-flops. I stopped myself from looking at her feet, not wanting to see blocks of blue ice, size eleven.

  “Where could he have gone?” I wondered. “He doesn’t have a car. And even if he’d rented one, there aren’t any car tracks in the driveway.”

  “Maybe he’s asleep.” ACB herded me to the stairs going to the second level. “I have to go to my bedroom closet to get some things. Come with me?”

  “Okay.” It crossed my mind that ACB didn’t want to happen upon a sleeping Peter McCall alone. “Where did you put him?”

  “In my guest room. Where else?” she said.

  “Of course.”

  As we got closer, I could hear a masculine voice.

  “I hear him,” ACB said. “He’s on the phone.”

  “Do you still have a real phone?” I asked.

  “No. I canceled it. No sense having a landline here at the house when I have a cell phone.”

  “Peter must have bought another cell phone, since his was found in the snowbank by Priscilla’s frozen body, according to Jill. I’m sure that it’s in evidence down at the sheriff’s department.”

  “Should be.”

  As we passed, I heard bits of a heated conversation: “Priscilla’s will,” “my share,” “what’s next?” and “no arrest has been made yet.”

  ACB sneezed, and Peter’s conversation stopped abruptly and the door to ACB’s guest room flew open.

  “What the hell? Who’s here?” Peter McCall stood in front of us, blocking our way, his cell phone glued to an ear. He was wearing nothing but a floral towel and a scowl on his face.

  “We both yelled your name so we wouldn’t surprise you, but you didn’t answer,” ACB said. “I came to pick up a few things I need.”

  “I’ll call you back. Don’t go away. Stay right there,” he hissed into the cell phone. Then he snapped it shut.

  “I’m very sorry for being so abrupt,” he said, suddenly remembering his charming manners. “I apologize, ladies. Let me just go put some clothes on.”

  “Maybe we can enjoy a cup of tea together,” I suggested, feeling about as British as Priscilla. I wasn’t a committed tea drinker, but I didn’t feel like coffee this late. Besides, it’d be a great opportunity to get some information from him.

  “That sounds cool.”

  I walked past him. Taking a quick peek into his room, I saw beer cans on his nightstand and an open twelve-pack. It seemed like Peter McCall was enjoying a secret stash of Bud Light.

  Not that it mattered to me. I just thought it was interesting that suddenly he was switching to tea for our sake. Actually, I could go for a can of Bud Light.

  “Oh, Peter, I almost forgot,” I said. “I brought you a meatball sandwich and some dessert, but it’s in my car. If you are interested, you’ll have to get it. I needed all my appendages for balance or I would have brought it with me. The walk to the front door was an Olympic event.”

  “Which reminds me, Peter,” ACB said. “I’ll get Hiram Glazer from Residential Plowing and Lawn Service to keep the driveway plowed for you. I should have thought of it before.”

  Now would have been the perfect time for Peter to volunteer to keep the driveway shoveled, had he been well mannered, but he just nodded. I hoped Antoinette Chloe was charging him for staying at her house, but she was so kindhearted I knew she’d never take any money from him.

  Which reminded me . . . With Priscilla gone and her estate unsettled as of yet, how was Peter going to earn a living? For that matter, how was Jill Marley going to earn a living?

  I decided to fish. “Peter, I hate to sound . . . uh . . . nosy, but with Priscilla gone . . . well, do you need some money to live on? I could loan you some money for food and essentials.”

  He hesitated just a bit, clearly thinking about it. Yeah, he was broke.

  “Let me get dressed, and we’ll talk,” he said.

  “Certainly,” I said. I had actually forgotten that he was half naked. Peter wasn’t exactly eye candy.

  It’d be much more interesting to see Ty Brisco wearing nothing but a towel. . . .

  “I see you got a new cell phone, Peter. Did you get it at the Spend A Buck in town?”

  “Yeah.” That was all he said before pivoting on his bare feet and going back into ACB’s guest room. The door slammed shut behind him.

  That was rude, but he obviously didn’t like the fact that we’d interrupted him. Or maybe he was just uncomfortable lying. I happened to know for a fact that the Spend A Buck didn’t carry cell phones. In fact, if you wanted a cell phone, you had to drive to Syracuse, Oswego, or Watertown to get one.

  He could have bought one online, but he definitely couldn’t have received it this quickly, and he hadn’t had a shipping address until ACB had offered him her guest room.

  So where had Peter gotten a cell phone? And it wasn’t a newish smartphone like the one I’d seen him using before. It was the old gray clam type.

  “Let’s all meet downstairs,” ACB shouted to his closed door. “I won’t be long.”

  In her bedroom, I sat on the edge of ACB’s burgundy-and-purple-brocade, gold-tasseled-to-the-max fainting couch. I had a hunch. Since Peter’s cell phone was taken into evidence and there weren’t any cell phone stores in Sandy Harbor, I’d bet that Peter McCall was using Priscilla’s cell phone.

  But how had he gotten her phone?

  Maybe from her purse or her coat pocket? Or Priscilla’s motor home? Or maybe Jill Marley let him borrow it while his was in evidence. Or maybe Priscilla had asked him to hold it—like she’d ask me to hold her red scarf—and Peter had forgotten to give it back to her.

  The possibilities were endless.

  I wondered if Ty Brisco and his gang of deputies knew Peter had her cell, if it even was her phone.

  Maybe Ty had released Priscilla’s phone. Maybe he didn’t think of looking for it at all.

  No. That couldn’t be. Ty was good at his job. In fact, he probably already had the list of numbers stored in Priscilla’s phone. That would contain a treasure trove of people she knew—one of which might be the person who killed her.

  Since Ty would never share that
kind of information with me, I wanted to check out the phone Peter was using!

  ACB was humming some tune and piling up muumuus and matching flip-flops on her bed as if she were going to Hawaii for two years.

  Thank goodness there were a good dozen closets in the Big House along with clothes racks in the attic. ACB would need them all.

  “Antoinette Chloe, do you know if Ty released the contents of Priscilla’s personal property? You know, like her cell phone and her purse and whatnot?”

  “Gee, I don’t have a clue. You’ll have to ask him—not that he’d tell you. But what are you getting at?”

  “Priscilla’s cell phone. I think that’s the phone Peter is using right now.”

  She shrugged. “So?”

  “So, there’d be a lot of information stored in it. Right?”

  ACB let out a long whistle. “I see. So, like, let’s get it.”

  “Just what I was thinking. But how?”

  “Leave it to me,” she said.

  “Do you have a plan?” I hoped.

  She smiled innocently. “Of course not.”

  Hmm. This wasn’t going to be good. I swallowed hard, glad I was already seated on the fainting couch. I didn’t have far to go.

  Just in case, I’d come up with a plan, too. Basically, one of us had to steal the phone from Peter.

  I took as many muumuus as I could carry as ACB was stuffing flip-flops into suitcases.

  “I’ll put the water on for tea,” I said.

  After draping the muumuus over a chair, I went to the kitchen, filled up an orange teapot, put it on the stove, and cranked up the temperature.

  I set the table with cups and saucers, milk from the fridge, sugar, and tablespoons. If only I’d thought to bring an assortment of hand pies.

  No. I had to kick the hand pie habit.

  After a while Peter McCall and Antoinette Chloe came down the stairs. Peter was loaded with luggage and some of the muumuus.

  ACB was chatting up a storm. I noticed that Peter had a death grip on his cell phone.

  “Antoinette Chloe, where is your tea?”

  “I have an assortment in a tea box. It’s in the cabinet on the top right side.”