Ladies Lunch Club Murders

by David Bishop

  “Okay, Mr. McCall. You’ve got my interest. I’ll get back to you after reading the drums on the street.”

  “Thanks, Eric. Truth is, on this one, we’re spending most days grabbing smoke. Should we solve it, you’ll get an exclusive interview on how we did it, including language like: Thanks to behind-the-scenes help from national syndicated columnist Eric Dunn, the case da da da.”

  Dunn harrumphed and hung up.

  Jack mulled over what Eric had told him, and planned a little about his anticipated meeting with the governor’s former chauffeur. He sacrificed another hour of sleep to enjoy some pleasure reading while sipping another whiskey and water. After reading longer than he’d planned, he turned out the light. Tonight would soon be tomorrow, and he was hoping the transition would not require more from him than sleep.

  25

  The early sun streamed in through the skylight over the atrium of the Embassy Suites. Jack looked up to see Max and Nora close in on the hotel table where they’d shared breakfast most mornings. It was away from where most of breakfast guests ate and close to the masking sounds of a water feature.

  “You two got your thoughts sewn together?”

  Nora set her tray from the breakfast buffet down and moved a cup of tea onto the table next to a buttered English muffin and a yogurt. “Don’t get your hopes too high. We’ve got nothing new, nothing earthshaking. On the drive back from Jacksonville, we focused on putting it all in some kind of order.”

  “A few new looks at old information.” Max put on the table his plate which carried a waffle struggling to breath in a sea of syrup. “This case is like shooting pool with the balls scattered from one end of the table to the other.”

  Jack sipped his coffee. “Let’s have it.” He added some catsup to his omelet and took a first bite.

  Nora conducted with her fork as she talked. “The thing about which we are most certain is we aren’t dealing with a serial killer. The serial killer angle was limited to statements from the governor and the media. The way we see it, the killings are either connected to the possible sale of the movie theater, owned and operated by four ladies in the lunch club, or the other murders are distractions with the real target being Mary Alice Phelps.”

  Jack put down his cup. “What makes you see Mary Alice as the primary target?”

  Max pushed his plate to the side, a quarter of his waffle uneaten. “The memo to the media indicated the killer knew she was the governor’s sister. That’s supported by the attempt to make her death, unlike the others, look like an accident. If that’d worked, it would’ve lessened the heat on him. Bottom line: Mary Alice Phelps didn’t die because she was in the lunch club. There were too many other members in that club to knowingly pick the governor’s sister. That sustains the thought she was the primary target.”

  Nora drank some of her tea. “And, Mary Alice was, by far, the wealthiest of all the victims. And, more often than not, money regularly plays a big role in this kind of stuff.”

  Max and Nora looked at Jack and waited.

  “Sarah Sims, Red Rider as she was known, was a theater owner against selling the theater. Her death lines up with your theater sale motive because it removed one vote against selling the movie house.”

  Max added another factor relevant to Red Rider. “Saints preserve, she’s also one of the league leaders on the retirees’ sex circuit. And, like Nora just said about money, sex often plays a pivotal role in these things.”

  Jack looked back at Max and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not seeing this as clearly as you two—not yet anyway. If the killings are about getting the theater sold to the developer, I agree, the killing of Red Rider makes clear sense. She was against selling the theater. But the killing of Mary Alice doesn’t. She counseled in support of the sale.”

  Max said, “It’s possible her recommendation to sell the theater gained impact through her death.”

  “Max has a point,” Nora said. “However, it’s equally possible that Mary Alice was killed for a reason unrelated to the theater.”

  Jack paused his arm and looked at Nora over his coffee cup. “Such as?”

  “Her wealth. Her relationship to the governor. Something to do with her son, or Franklin, the father of her son.”

  “That train of thought takes us to her being killed by either our client, her son, the boy’s father, or somebody completely off our radar. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “We don’t know what we’re saying with any certainty other than we think Mary Alice died for a reason other than her tangential role in the theater.”

  Max tagged onto Nora’s comment. “We believe we can eliminate the boy’s pappy, Alec Franklin. There were many years where he could have had a strong motive and he didn’t kill her, so why now when he’s no longer paying?”

  Jack spread his hands and looked to Max. “Describe the guy.”

  “Six-two, about two hundred pounds, with a receding hairline. He has eyebrows like mine and teeth too big for his face.”

  “You must be exaggerating.”

  “Nope. I got an uncle in the old country with the same kinda face fulla teeth. One of the tricks of remembering people and their faces is to exaggerate their most pronounced feature. Then, when you see them, you see the overdone feature and, like magic, their name appears in your mind. It’s a mnemonic technique taught by many memory experts.”

  Jack leaned toward Nora. “Is your number one suspect our client, Governor Lennox? You think he killed his own sister?”

  The corners of Nora’s mouth crept back in a playfully wicked way. “What about Norma Taylor? Remember, Mary Alice’s will was kept in Taylor’s house. Her eagerness to get Phelps’ house was obvious.”

  Max added, “With a pool.”

  Jack added, “Without a mortgage.”

  Nora pointed with the last wedge of her toast. “And a car.”

  They paused to laugh. A staff member cleared away some of their dishes, but Max waved him away from his leftover, half-drowned waffle.

  Nora spread her fingers. “If we’re right about the others dying in an effort to bring about the sale of the theater, then we don’t see a way to finagle a murder of Mary Alice to fit. She wasn’t a partner in the theater ownership, and she supported selling to the developer. The possibility that her counsel to sell gains prominence with her death could be true, but it doesn’t seem enough to motivate her murder.”

  “Okay.” Jack nodded. “We’ve made that point several times. It seems valid. What about her death being the only one staged to look like an accident?”

  Nora looped a loose hair behind her ear. “That’s why we think she was killed by someone else for some reason other than the movie house.”

  Jack looked at Nora, then at Max. “So, the governor coulda killed his sister for the inheritance.”

  “Regardless of how the governor fits, we still see this as two separate cases: The murder of Mary Alice Phelps, and the murders of the others.”

  “In which group are you putting the murder of Carter Phelps?”

  Nora pressed her forearms on the tabletop and leaned over them. “Has to be in with the murder of Mary Alice Phelps, his mother. He’s not related to the others in anyway. He doesn’t live in the retirement community. He isn’t a member of the lunch club. He isn’t involved in any way in the theater. Except for being the son, he’s the puzzle piece that clearly doesn’t fit with the others.”

  Jack ran his hand down over his mouth and off his chin. “The Carter Phelps murder is most likely about being the primary beneficiary of his mother’s millions.”

  “Jack.”

  He looked at Max.

  “When you connect the dots for the deaths of Mary Alice Phelps and her son, they point to our client, the governor. With mother and son dead, he becomes the heir to millions.”

  “I see the logic trail. I just don’t like it.”

  Nora reached over and put her hand on Jack’s arm. “But it’s there. Like it or not.”

 
; “Okay. It’s there. But we’ve got nothing that says he did it.”

  Max quickly added, “And nothing that says he didn’t.”

  Nora removed her hand. “We could comb his schedule against the dates of death, but, if he did it, he wouldn’t have done it hands on. He would’ve used a hired killer, maybe one found through a middleman, to distance himself from the act. That middleman could be the law firm of Walker and Greene, the firm known for going the extra mile to benefit their clients.”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. Murder? That’s a big risk for a law firm.”

  Max pointed both index fingers at Jack. “Payoff, chief counsel to the President of the United States.”

  “Okay. Okay, you two. We won’t find that answer, right now. Let’s keep all this to ourselves, but remain aware of it. Agreed?”

  Max and Nora looked at each other, then at Jack and nodded.

  “Moving on. Neither of you’ve said anything about the items for the days of recognition. What’s your position on that stuff?”

  “To quote Sheriff Jackson,” Max did his best deep southern drawl, “all that’s a crock of Cracker Jacks.”

  “Really?” Jack pursed his lips. “If so, we’ve got a pretty sharp cookie doing these killings. The run of the mill murderer strives to leave no clues. With what you’re saying, this killer went out of his way to scatter false clues to distract the investigation.” He looked at his two investigators. “What’re your thoughts on the possibility that the chocolate covered nuts were added to the scene of the Phelps murder at some point after she was killed?”

  “That’s a real speedbump, but, with a little jiggling, it fits.” Nora looked back and forth at the two men. “The M.E. told us there was no chocolate residue on Mary Alice’s fingers and nothing in her autopsy supported her eating any.”

  Max cut a bite of his now soggy waffle, but let it lie in the puddle of syrup. “Nobody buys and brings home candy, puts it in a bowl, and then doesn’t eat even one piece.”

  Jack smiled at Max. “Nobody I know. So, that means Mary Alice didn’t buy and bring the candy home. Okay, the nuts were added after the fact, but by your first killer, or by a second one? The fruitcake was left in the refrigerator, away from the first victim. The bubble gum in a bowl on a table inside the door, away from the second victim, so why not the chocolate covered nuts on the counter of the summer kitchen, away from Mary Alice? That lines up with the M.O. of your first killer, not some second killer.”

  “Yes.” Max frowned. “It does.”

  “But,” Nora said quickly, “we’ve assigned the first killer the task of working to effect the sale of the theater. That’s inconsistent with killing Mary Alice. She was the only one staged as an accident, so that doesn’t fit. The first killer would have left the candy at the time of the murder, like the items left at each of the other scenes. Nope. For my money, Mary Alice was killed by someone else, for some other reason. That killer set up a fake accident—a completely different M.O. The idea of adding the candy to tag it onto the first killer came later.”

  Max pushed his chair back and looked down at his chukka boots. “However, that spin does require the second killer know about the items left at the other scenes.”

  Nora countered Max’s concern. “We were told by one of the ladies that everyone’s talking about these murders. A few of the sheriff’s deputies and other personnel live in the community and feed the local gossip vine. As for the days of recognition bullshit, from the get go the sheriff’s office has been playing ‘that’s our secret,’ while the community was playing, ‘have you heard?’”

  “All right. Let’s ride that horse over the next hill. If Mary Alice was killed by your ‘first’ killer, like with the others, he would have left the nuts when he killed Mary Alice. Conversely, your ‘other’ killer, was playing her death as an accident so he didn’t want to leave anything. Then later, perhaps after rumors began that Mary Alice might have been murdered, he comes up with the angle of adding the nuts and putting his murder at the feet of your ‘first’ killer.”

  “Yeah.” Nora switched her crossed legs. “That works.”

  “That tune’s got rhythm.” Max added, along with an exaggerated shrug.

  Jack stayed quiet and looked from Nora to Max. “Could be. You guys did some solid reasoning. Okay. We’ve got some theories. Now we need to find something that lets us know which one is the one.”

  The old Irishman drew his mouth tight and ran his tongue across his lips. “Now that we’ve sold that thinking, what about this? Maybe the death of Mary Alice Phelps was truly an accident. Maybe Sergeant Wilmer stumbled into a correct reading?”

  Jack reasoned, “If Mary Alice accidentally snagged her radio and it ended up in her spa, she had no reason to add the chocolate covered nuts—remember the M.E. found no chocolate in her system or on her skin.”

  Max rapped his knuckles on the table. “Widen your view. An accident doesn’t have to be what CC concluded—that Mary Alice inadvertently snagged the electrical cord and pulled her radio into the spa. Someone else could have tripped over the cord and pulled it in, or, in anger, kicked it into the water without realizing the consequences.”

  Max rubbed the side of his nose. “Afraid of being charged with murder, that person leaves. Later, this person panics, agonizes, fears being arrested for murder, and comes up with a brilliant scheme: Add a bowl of candied nuts and avoid a charge of manslaughter by pointing the sheriff toward the murderer of the other women.”

  Jack scratched his cheek. “That brings us back to one murderer and an accidental death. Nothing we know contradicts that scenario.”

  Nora moved in tight to the table. “If it really was an accident, it’s equally possible the lone killer added the candied nuts after he hears about her accidental death. If he had a solid alibi for the time of Phelps’s accidental death, then adding the candied nuts would add her death to his list of crimes. Then, if he’s arrested later, he proves his alibi for Phelps and discredits the prosecution case against him sufficiently to either not be charged or not be convicted of any of the murders. Wow. Brilliant. A killer whose plan includes framing himself for a death he didn’t cause.”

  Max stayed quiet for a moment, then became animated. “I think we can agree under this thinking that Carter didn’t kill his mother. He would be the last one to hear the neighborhood gossip about the items of observation left at the murder scenes. He lives away and doesn’t socialize in the retirement community.”

  Nora crossed her legs. “If it was a pure accidental death, it could have been any of Mary Alice’s friends, relatives, neighbors, or even workmen—other than Carter. But I do agree with Max, it’s hard to figure that Carter would know about the items of recognition.”

  Max bobbed his head toward Nora. “I don’t see a workman in this situation. I doubt that woman would be in her spa when workmen were there. Her relatives are Carter, Franklin, the father of her son, and our client, Governor Trey Lennox. We’ve pretty much ruled out Franklin. Carter’s dead so if he were the killer then someone else would have to pop him.”

  Jack, after letting his detectives run with the scattered reasoning, spoke up. “You guys have a little time this morning?”

  Nora raised her eyebrows. “How little?”

  “An hour maybe, no more.”

  “What’d’ya need?”

  “At some point today, you two swing by the Phelps residence. I’m curious about that blue bowl the chocolate covered nuts were in.”

  Max picked up his fork and stabbed the cold, soggy waffle still on his plate. “What about the bowl?”

  “Are there any more of those blue bowls in the house, a set maybe?”

  “Okay.” Nora stopped freshening her lipstick. “Sure. If there aren’t, it probably means Mary Alice didn’t buy the nuts.”

  Max made a yukky expression, pushed his plate farther away, and extended Nora’s comment. “But, if there’s more of the bowls in the house, then maybe Mary Alice liked chocolate cove
red nuts. She could have taken the bowl out and left them on the counter while setting up the radio. In the midst of all that she trips and goes into the water with the radio.”

  “No. No. We need to look for more of the blue bowls, but we did look and didn’t find a partial bag of chocolate covered nuts. If it went down like that, we would’ve found a partial bag of nuts, or the empty bag.”

  Jack scratched his chin. “Agreed, but let’s do it anyway. If you find more matching bowls, check with Norma Taylor. It won’t prove anything, but if Mary Alice had a set of those bowls and loved chocolate covered nuts, it’ll favor the idea that Mary Alice bought the candy. That CC just didn’t see it over on the counter. Maybe it was a small bag and they were all in the bowl. While it’s unlikely, the wrapper could have blown out when the door was open.”

  Max put his palms on the table and started to get up, then stopped. “Anything else?”

  “Are we all leaning toward the reasoning that Mary Alice’s death was not about the theater and had nothing to do with her being a member of the lunch club? That she was either murdered by a second killer unrelated to the other deaths, or died in an accident of her own making or someone else’s.”

  When Jack finished, Max and Nora nodded.

  Jack took it one step further. “Are you thinking that her son, Carter, may have murdered his mother and then someone else murdered him in revenge?”

  Max shook his head.

  Nora explained. “Carter knew he was heir to his momma’s fortune. If he kills her he won’t get the big bucks unless he gets away with it. I don’t see him buying into the risk of possibly trading in millions for a prison cell. He’s, what, forty years younger, or whatever? He’s more apt to play it smart and wait her out. Besides, we’ve got no nominee for who would kill him in revenge for his killing his mother.”