Claw & Disorder

by Eileen Watkins

  Sarah frowned. “Robin did, but she says they won’t even come out again. Having been in the house once, I guess, they can’t imagine anything of value could be missing. The one Robin spoke to joked that if Chester was lucky, some thief would come with a moving van and cart it all away.”

  I had the distinct impression, by now, that the Dalton cops weren’t particularly sympathetic to the widower’s plight or terribly conscientious about their jobs. I’d gotten spoiled, I guess, by the efficiency of the Chadwick police.

  “I’ll talk to Bonelli,” I told Sarah. “I’ll tell her that when I went up there with the FOCA kids, Chester sounded like he had a good grasp on what things were missing, and there’s a real chance that someone’s been stealing from him. Maybe she can talk to the Dalton guys.”

  “Would you? They’ve got a Chief Hill over there. I take it he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he sounds stubborn . . . and kinda mean.”

  I laughed, with an edge. “He’s probably never dealt with our gal. She’ll kick his butt!”

  Chapter 11

  We were ready to close up that afternoon when Linda Freeman, Gillian’s interior designer, walked in our shop door. I introduced her to Sarah and asked, “Are things settling down at the Fosters’, I hope?”

  Linda frowned, and I noticed faint circles under her dark eyes. Though dressed in a cute, trendy-casual outfit—a side-knotted tunic over leggings that played up her tall, slim figure—she gave off a troubled vibe. “Unfortunately, no. If anything, they’re getting worse. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  I glanced at Sarah. “You can handle things if we go in back for a few minutes?”

  When she nodded, I opened the wire-mesh door to the playroom and asked Linda, “Are you all right around cats?”

  “Absolutely,” she said with a grin.

  In the play area, a gray Persian named Stormy, taking his hour of recreation, eyed us from a perch halfway up the wall. Though one of our most temperamental boarders, he always received five-star treatment because once he had helped to save my life.

  I tossed a clean throw over a sturdy, carpeted perch and invited Linda to sit; I was long past worrying about cat hair on my own clothes. “So, what’s up?”

  “Basically, Gillian is still going nuts over what happened at the historical society reception. The police lab did find wheat flour in that pudding. I got the sense they might have dismissed it as just an accident—that someone added it without realizing one of the party guests had celiac disease—but Gillian insisted the cops find out who did it, anyway. So, they’ve been questioning the caterers, the cook, Donald and Whitney, and even the historical society members.” Linda shook her head. “If Gillian had any prayer of winning those people over, and getting her home onto the register, of course that’s blown to smithereens by now.”

  “And no one has owned up?” I asked.

  “Not so far. Oh, they grilled your friend Nick Janos, too. Apparently Gillian overheard him making fun of the whole ‘gluten-free’ issue, and thought maybe he wanted to prove his point.”

  I’d forgotten he did that, but hurried to defend him. “Nick was with me the whole time. Once he finished repairing that kitchen cabinet, he never went back in there.” Secretly, I was glad Linda had come by to feed me all of this new information. Bonelli probably wouldn’t approve, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  “Well, there’s some doubt about when the stuff was added to the porridge,” the designer continued, shifting on her makeshift seat. “The caterers swore they used no wheat in the recipe, so the cops asked Herta if she ‘stirred anything into’ the pudding just before it was served. She also denied doing such a thing. But since they questioned so many of us who weren’t involved with cooking or serving the food, they may think the wheat flour was added at the last minute.”

  I followed her train of thought. “Which would mean it was a deliberate attempt to make someone ill. But who? Adele?”

  “I wondered, too,” Linda said. “Her husband told me that maybe half of the historical society members who attended knew about Adele’s condition ahead of time, and he couldn’t think of any reason why any of them would want to harm her. But they probably didn’t know Gillian had a wheat sensitivity, until she started talking about it at the reception.”

  Stormy had been making his way carefully down the stairsteps of wall shelves to approach us. He rubbed against Linda’s legs and she reached her hand out to him.

  “Watch out, he’s a cranky one,” I warned her. “Only pet his head, and if he stiffens up, back off!”

  With a chuckle, Linda followed my advice and went for just a brief head stroke. But the big, pale-gray Persian sprawled at our feet, as if to eavesdrop on the gossip.

  The diversion gave me time to think. If someone at the reception had a sudden brainstorm to doctor the pudding, they’d have had a very small window of opportunity. Plus, they still would have needed to get wheat flour from the kitchen—or somewhere else?—and to stir it in while no one was looking.

  “The upshot,” Linda went on, “is that Gillian thinks she was the target. Either someone on the historical society board wanted to make her look bad, or the caterer, the cook or someone else close to her pulled a nasty prank.”

  “If no one’s confessing, I guess we’ll never know,” I concluded.

  “Until we do know, she’s on the warpath against everyone who came to the reception. Especially me.” Linda lifted her gaze to the ceiling, as if praying for strength. “She thinks Donald and I are having an affair.”

  I could hardly have blamed Donald Foster if that were true, but still . . . “Why does she think that?”

  “Just because he and I get along well, I guess, and because she knows I’m divorced. He and I have kidded around sometimes, about the décor or the renovations, but always while Gillian was nearby. Once he hung a chandelier for me, and that was probably the only time we were even alone in a room together. But there’s absolutely nothing else going on! Why would I risk losing one of my most lucrative clients?”

  I heard the subtext. Linda was attracted to Donald, and the feeling might be mutual, but neither wanted to incur his wife’s wrath. On the other hand, Gillian saw her husband enjoying the company of a younger, prettier woman who also was easier to get along with. This might explain why she’d treated Linda so harshly the day the designer had been putting the final touches on the house.

  “Of course,” Linda continued, “anyone who’s worked for her could have had a motivation. The way she talks to poor Herta, sometimes—! And she was micromanaging the catering staff that day, until I thought one of them would go at her with a carving knife.”

  I’d overheard some of that, too. “At least Nick had no motive whatsoever. She complimented his work and paid him on the spot. And he’s not mean enough to make someone sick just for a prank.”

  “Yeah, I think he’s safe enough. Donald even said he might ask Nick back to help him with the cellar restoration.” Linda finally smiled again. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Gillian suspects you, either.”

  “I heard her being pretty hard on her daughter, too, a couple of times.”

  “Poor Whitney. She’s smart enough to stay out of her mom’s way whenever Gillian gets like this. Donald told me she’s spending even more of her time out at Stirling Hill Farm—all afternoon, every day, lunchtime till supper.”

  I took a guess. “That’s the stable where she boards her horse?”

  “And complains to her, I think. Glory must be getting an earful this summer!” Linda straightened her posture with an air of relief. “I guess that’s why I stopped by here, too—just to let off some steam. I’m sure there’s nothing you can do about the situation.”

  “At least it sounds as if the Chadwick cops have been taking the food tampering seriously,” I pointed out. “But if no one confesses and there’s no proof... I guess Adele has recovered by now?”

  “She’ll have some aftereffects, but she�
��s on her feet and back to work. She might like to sue the Fosters for negligence, but again, that won’t wash if Gillian was the main target.”

  Could that be why Gillian was pushing the idea that she’d been the intended victim? I wondered. To dodge a possible lawsuit?

  With a shrug, my visitor got to her feet. “I’ve taken enough of your time, Cassie, but thanks for listening.”

  I saw her back out to the front of the shop, where she and Sarah said their goodbyes. After Linda left, I rejoined my assistant at the sales counter and relayed the gist of my discussion with our visitor.

  Sarah shook her head with a patient air. “Even when you try to stay away from the drama, Cassie, it keeps reaching out to find you, doesn’t it?”

  “No denying that I was a witness,” I noted. “Though no one is even sure there was a crime, and even if someone did tamper with the food, the results weren’t too serious. I’m mostly curious as to why someone would do such a strange thing, and whom they wanted to hurt—Adele or Gillian.”

  “And if it was Gillian, is that person satisfied now that they’ve embarrassed her?” Sarah wondered aloud. “Or could they try something else even more drastic?”

  I stared at my normally level-headed assistant. “For someone who keeps telling me not to get involved, you’re doing your best to plant suspicions in my head!”

  “Sorry.” She laughed. “Guess all of this detective work is starting to get under my skin.”

  It was just about five o’clock, which was quitting time for Sarah, at least. She gathered her things, and I wished her a pleasant evening.

  But my amateur-sleuth instincts did not turn off so easily. Left alone in the shop, I hit speed dial on my cell phone for Detective Angela Bonelli. She also worked long and irregular hours, so I caught her in her office and asked if I could drop by.

  For a town that liked to play up its minor link to the American Revolution, Chadwick boasted a sleek, modern police station. This was hardly my first visit, though so far—knock wood—I’d never been brought in wearing cuffs. In fact, these days the clerk at the entry window waved me right through if I said Bonelli was expecting me. The bench where troublemakers usually sat was empty, but after all, it was a sleepy June Monday; it would fill up by Friday night.

  Bonelli occupied a glass-walled office, as if she considered solitude less important than awareness of what was taking place around her. The private office and a little burgundy Keurig coffeemaker were her only apparent luxuries; she sat at an old L-shaped desk, its Formica top pretending to be granite, with a corded, black multiline phone in plain view. When I entered, she was on her personal cell, telling someone—probably her husband, Lou—that she should be home in half an hour. I’d never met Lou Bonelli, but knew he was a square-jawed, solid guy with a furry chest; her desk displayed a vacation photo of him at the beach with their two preteen boys.

  When Bonelli put away the cell phone, I apologized for keeping her at work. “No problem, Cassie. Always a pleasure,” she told me dryly. “Got something new on the Foster case?”

  I hesitated to tell her about Linda’s visit, but decided I should. “She’s upset because Gillian thinks she and Donald are having an affair, and Linda swears they’re not. Of course, it sounds as if Gillian’s been pointing fingers at a lot of people.”

  “She has, and I was on the verge of suggesting she get some medication to calm her down. We’ve heard all of her theories, but . . . If the flour was added to the pudding at the last minute, there are only four sets of prints on the serving spoon. One set belongs to the maid, Herta, who served it. The others match up to Nick Janos, Adele and Gillian.”

  That would make sense, because I didn’t see anyone else sample the strange-looking dish. “Nick ate some, but he certainly didn’t tamper with it. He’d have had to bring along a packet of wheat flour in the pocket of his work pants!”

  Bonelli dismissed that idea with a wave. “We grilled Herta pretty thoroughly, but she swore she wouldn’t put her job at risk, and the Fosters have never had any problems with her before. Of course, there’s a chance someone at the reception used a different spoon to stir in the wheat flour. Frankly, though, I think contaminating the dish after it was served would have been too difficult for any of the guests to pull off without being seen. It must have happened in the kitchen.”

  “The caterers?”

  “Could be. Gillian harangued them about that dish in particular. She never told them anything about Adele’s allergy, if she even knew about it. She only emphasized that she, herself, couldn’t tolerate gluten. Some smart-aleck might have decided to get revenge by spoiling Gillian’s big event for her. By the time she got sick, the pots and utensils used to make the porridge would have been washed, and their staff would be off the premises. Who could prove anything?”

  “Kind of the perfect crime,” I agreed.

  “And not much of a crime, if Gillian suffered only a mild gastric upset. Of course, now that there have been more serious repercussions, no one on the caterer’s staff is admitting to anything.” With a restrained smile, the detective concluded, “I’m afraid this incident will have to go into our ‘unsolved’ file, which I like to keep as slim as possible.”

  I sensed Bonelli encouraging me to move me along so she could get home to her family.

  “Actually, I wanted to discuss another case, though I know it’s a little out of your territory.” Trying to be succinct, I explained the Tillmans’ living situation and about Bernice’s unexplained death a week earlier. “For a while the Dalton cops believed Chester smothered his wife in her sleep, but they’ve never arrested him. I guess they found no proof.”

  The detective tilted her head at me in confusion. “And you have reason to think he’s guilty?”

  “Not at all. But I don’t believe it was an accident, either. Chester said things have been disappearing from his house since the night his wife died. The local cops think he’s going senile. But I was over there yesterday, and he sounded pretty lucid to me. The house is still a mess, but he remembers where certain items were kept and when they went missing.”

  “If Sarah and her church friend have been helping to clean the place out, maybe they threw away those things by mistake.”

  “I’m sure they would have known better, or at least asked him first.” I explained that his children had visited only briefly, after Bernice’s funeral, and showed no interest in any of the mementos; also, that Chester was out of the house most of the day of the funeral, and never locked his rear door. “It sounds as if someone may be handpicking certain objects, though I have no idea why.”

  “Valuable items?”

  “Most don’t sound like they would be. But he did claim to lose a baseball signed by Roger Maris. Would that be a big collectible?”

  Bonelli arched one dark eyebrow, then swiveled to face her desktop computer. “Let’s find out.” The detective typed a phrase into her search engine and pulled up headers for several sites dealing in baseball-oriented memorabilia. She pursed her lips as if impressed by what she read.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Did he say what year it was from, or a particular game?”

  “No, but he might remember. Why?”

  “Depending on those factors and its condition . . . could be worth more than twelve thousand dollars.”

  I sank back into my chair, feeling I’d made my point. “See?”

  She swiveled to face me again. “Y’know, it’s possible Chester killed his wife by accident, and has made up this story about some burglar to divert suspicion. Or that he feels so guilty, he’d rather believe it was done by an outside bogeyman.”

  I didn’t like either of these explanations. “We can’t rule anything out, of course. But I’ve talked with him a few times now, and Chester seems like an honest, standup guy. He misses his wife a lot, and I think if he’d been responsible for her death, he’d admit it and take his punishment.”

  Bonelli sighed and clasped her hands on the flat desk calendar
in front of her. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”

  “I know this is a lot to ask, but the Dalton PD doesn’t have a detective on staff. Would you consider taking a look at the case? At the very least, someone could have taken advantage of Bernice’s illness, and Chester’s poor eyesight and mental fog, to rob them of what possessions they had that might actually be worth something. And at worst, that person might have killed Bernice to cover up what they were doing.”

  I took it as a good sign that Bonelli didn’t dismiss the idea immediately. “Dalton . . . that would be Chief Hill.”

  I said nothing, not wanting to repeat the negative gossip Sarah had heard about the police chief.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time he let something slip through the cracks,” Bonelli muttered. “But he’s not keen on surrendering his authority to an outsider, either.”

  “I’m sure you’ve handled tougher characters,” I egged her on.

  Her side-eye reminded me she would not be snowed by flattery. “Yes, but this time I might have to use a weapon I rarely pull out of my holster. Tact.”

  I grinned. “I’m sure you’re an expert at that, too.”

  She locked eyes with me and seemed to weigh her words. “I have to warn you, Cassie—if I take over the Tillman case, I’ll be looking at all of it. I’ll want to see any evidence the Dalton cops may have against Chester. If I think it implicates him . . . he could go to jail.”

  Chapter 12

  Mark had returned from Philly by Monday, but had his guitar lesson that night after work, so I suggested we have dinner Tuesday night at my place. Enthusiastic and skillful cook that I am, I picked up a Margherita pizza from one of our favorite local restaurants, Slice of Heaven. He showed up at seven, having stopped back at his condo to shower, change and retrieve a bottle of chardonnay.

  I at least transferred the pizza to a large platter before slicing into it with the cutting wheel. Meanwhile, Mark opened the wine.

  By the time I asked about his weekend, I already knew his team lost to the Mets. But Mark had half expected that outcome and wasn’t the kind of sports fanatic who brooded about such things.