Death among the Roses: a Melanie Hart Mystery (Melanie Hart Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Anna Drake

  ***

  Later that night, safely ensconced in my bedroom, I called Ginger.

  “What now?” she demanded.

  “Geesh. Talk about cranky.”

  “Considering you went off to talk to Cordelia by yourself, you should count your stars that you’re still breathing.”

  Ignoring her ire, I carried on, eager to share my latest thought with her. “Ginger, I’ve decided Stepich wasn’t the only person who might have been Gary’s bookie.”

  “You’re kidding? What’s brought this shift about?”

  “Dad and I ate at Bella’s Place tonight. And I’ve had a thought. Stepich’s family isn’t the only one who’s family has possible mob ties.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not following you.”

  “Jimmy Gravits. His family is alleged to have had ties to Al Capone.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that too. But those connections existed back in the 1930s.”

  “I know that. But being mobbed up probably doesn’t just fade out with time. Or maybe it plants the dream of being a successful crook in an already corrupt mind.”

  “You think Jimmy’s mind runs in that direction?”

  “Truthfully, I don’t even want to think about Jimmy’s imaginings.”

  “So how do you have this figured?”

  “I think Jimmy’s a wanna be. Think about it. Mother’s only little boy is still firmly under his mother’s thumb. He doesn’t own the restaurant he works at. He doesn’t have a say in how it’s run. And more importantly, he has access to waitresses who work there. And I bet he isn’t above using them any way he pleases.”

  “You think he got Candy to call Gary?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Indeed.”

  “So Jimmy’s the murderer?”

  “That’s my suspicion.”

  “How do we prove it?”

  “First I think we need to search Gary’s room. See if we can find anything to support my theory.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I can be at your place in five minutes.”

  “We can’t do it tonight. Dad is back to being suspicious about my poking my nose into Gary’s murder. If I go out tonight, he’d probably jump in his car and follow me.”

  “Yes, but if you delay this, you put other people’s lives at risk. There’s a killer out there, who’s killed not once but twice. Jimmy might wipe out anyone to save himself. He might even come after one of us.”

  Back to that complaint again, I thought.

  Ginger ended our call on that note. Which left me fighting off images of dead bodies piling up endlessly overnight.

  That’s not likely to happen, I reassured myself later, when I switched off my bedroom light and flipped restlessly onto my side. With thoughts of even more murders dancing about in my head, I wondered if I’d fall asleep before day dawned? I wasn’t far off in my final guess. I tossed and turned in my tiny bed many times that night. Until the sun finally crept over the horizon.

  NINETEEN

  The next night I told Dad I had to go see Cordelia about a plea for help she’d put out. It was only half a lie. After all, Gary had been Cordelia’s intended husband. Stopping by his house wasn’t that much of a stretch from visiting hers.

  That’s how low I’d stooped to excuse my fibs. Besides, after my workday, the logical part of my brain was a little fried.

  If I’d spent the night restlessly tossing and turning, my workday had dragged on forever. Finally, the clock managed to crawl its way to quitting time. And I headed home, wolfed down dinner, and dashed out the door to go pick up Ginger.

  A few minutes later, Ginger and I pulled up in front of Gary’s house. When Violet responded to our knock, I told her that Cordelia was missing a pin she’d worn one night. The clasp had broken. Gary had taken the item with him for safe keeping. Cordelia never thought to have him return it before the wedding.

  Mrs. Pepper nodded, her mouth drawn down. “Gary’s room is at the top of the stairs. Just turn left and you’ll walk right in. Nothing’s been changed. If Gary had the brooch it should still be there.”

  “I appreciate your help with this,” I said.

  Violet shrugged. “I don’t know what I’ve been waiting for. I don’t want to turn his bedroom into a shrine. I know some parents do such things. Anyway, I’ll get around to clearing his things out when I feel a bit stronger.” She paused for a quick breath. “And if I don’t, I’m sure Mr. Pepper will remind me.”

  “I understand,” I murmured. Dad had once told me it had taken him almost a year to work up the courage to rid his room of my dead mother’s possessions. The death of a loved one never quite ends with the funeral.

  Now, Ginger and I thanked Violet and quickly mounted the stairs.

  We found the door to the bedroom closed tightly. Ginger reached out and swung the barrier open. After stepping inside, I noted the space smelled musty, like a space that hadn’t been used recently often does. The bed was neatly made. The dresser drawers closed. Only a blue suit, stretched out on top of the bed spoke of Gary’s intentions on the day he died. I assumed the suit was the one he would have worn when he and Cordelia departed Cloverton to leave for their honeymoon. Its lying there atop the bed, unused, was a crushing sight.

  I suddenly found myself thinking of all that rice that never been thrown, of all those happy hugs that had never been shared. I had to blink rapidly to contain my rising tears..

  “Let’s have at this and get of out here,” Ginger groused. “Remind me please. Just what is it that we are searching for?”

  “Anything showing to whom Gary might have owed gambling debts.”

  “Right,” Ginger said, “We’re looking to unmask a bookie. I think I’m on track now.”

  She turned to her right, opened dresser drawers and began pawing through stacks of underwear, socks, sweat suits. and sweaters. I took the closet, fingering my way through the pockets of Gary’s jackets and slacks.

  “Anything?” I asked over my shoulder as I heard a another drawer slam shut.

  “Not so far.”

  Finished with the low stuff, I dragged a chair over to the closet and got ready to climb up to search the two overhead shelves. “If this were a mystery novel, and not real life,” I said over my shoulder, “we’d find some matchbook revealing a serious clue to the killer’s identity.”

  “If you say so. I don’t read mysteries. They’re too grim for me. All that death and jealousy and rage and such.”

  “But you were the person who suggested we stick our noses into this one.”

  “That’s different. We knew Gary. We have a stake in this game.”

  I gave a shrug and started shifting things on the shelves. Making no progress with that effort, I finally pulled down two boxes stashed on the lower shelf. I set them on the bed. Then I removed the lid on the first box and found it stuffed full of papers. “Bingo,” I said upon casting my gaze across the first sheet.

  “What?” Ginger asked, rushing to my side.

  “These look like records Gary kept of his bets. Or maybe these are the records of his winnings. But from what Cordelia said he lost a lot more money than he won, so my suspicion is that these numbers identify Gary’s losses.”

  “Do they add up to much?”

  I studied a small grouping of numbers and whistled. “I’m not a human calculator, but I’d say Gary lost a ton of money.”

  Ginger leaned in closer to get a better look. “What was Gary doing, robbing his bank to pay off these debts?”

  I passed a few of the papers to her. “Cordelia said he’d been left a small inheritance, but she also said that he’d blown all that money. That was why things were getting so gritty now. He no longer had the cash to pay off on the bets.”

  “And Cordelia was going to put up with that?”

  “She said she loved him and would support him in his efforts to kick his addiction. She said wasn
’t about to abandon him.”

  “She’s a better woman than I am.”

  “I’ve always suspected that.”

  “Oh, go eat raw fish.”

  “Ew.”

  Ginger laughed.

  I retrieved the papers from her and slipped them back into the box. “Do you notice the down side to all this?”

  “None of papers mention the name of the bookie?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Maybe we haven’t hit the right piece of paper yet.”

  We both sat on the bed and dipped into the second box. We each extracted a handful of papers.

  “Given Gary worked in a bank,” Ginger said, “you’d think he would have kept better records.” She waved a hand at the box stuffed full of loose sheets of paper. “If I kept track of my business expenses like this, I’d go bankrupt.”

  “It was an illicit activity, Ginger. Gary could hardly write his debts off as business expenses.”

  “Still, I thought Gary operated with a more orderly mind than this. These scraps of paper should all be summarized in one easy-to-read ledger.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to see the big picture.”

  “Believe me, if you owe someone money, the smart person wants to know at a glance what the total is.”

  “Okay,” I said, “where would Gary keep a ledger?”

  “At work?”

  “I doubt it. The bits of paper are here. I can’t see him carting this box into work with him.”

  “On a computer?”

  “Look around. Do you see one?”

  “Maybe there’s one downstairs?”

  “Would you itemize debts you want to hide in a computer accessible to your whole family?”

  Ginger sighed. “Probably not. What about under the mattress?”

  “I believe his mother changed his sheets.”

  “So he hid it in the center of the mattress, where his mother can’t easily reach?”

  In unison, we jumped up from our seat on the edge of the bed. Turning, I bent over and lifted one edge of the mattress high into the air. Ginger stuck her head and arms into the yawning gap. In short order, she popped back out with a small book gripped tightly in her right hand. “How about this?” she crowed.

  But once we skimmed the pages, our sense of victory quickly vanished. The book noted the Gary’s losses and even totaled them up as a staggering sum, but it failed to mention to whom Gary owed money.

  I slammed the book closed. “We still have nothing thing that identifies his killer.”

  Ginger laughed.

  “What?” I asked, scowling at my cohort in crime.

  “Look at the nightstand beside the bed. What do you see?”

  I followed Ginger’s instruction and my glance rewarded me with the sight of an unopened matchbook. Just what I predicted would happen in a fictional murder yarn. Giggling guiltily, I reached out and snatched the matchbook up. The cover advertised Bella’s Place. I showed it to Ginger.

  “Wow,” she said, “do you think this points to Jimmy as the killer?”

  “That’s probably too much of a stretch,” I replied. “Everybody winds up eating at Bella’s at one time or another. Gary could also have brought the thing home as a souvenir of his bachelor party. Best we can say is that this doesn’t rule Jimmy in or Stepich out.”

  “You naturally would see things that way. But I think this pretty effectively drops Tony from the suspect list.”

  I saw no point in arguing. Instead, I listened to Violet moving around downstairs and wondered how much longer it would be before she came up to help us comb through Gary’s room. “We’ve spent too much time here. We’d better take off.”

  Ginger immediately agreed. We smoothed the disturbed bed covers. Made sure the suit was as it had been when we had first seen it. Then, I tossed the lids back on the two boxes and returned them to the closet shelves. No sense tipping Violet off to the nasty truth behind her son’s death yet.

  ***

  Later that night, I excused myself at home and returned to the newspaper offices. I hadn’t gotten a restful night’s sleep in several days. My productivity at the newspaper had nearly flatlined. I was yards behind in writing up routine reports and sorting through press releases. I hoped to put in a good hour or two of writing before returning home for the night. Plus, during daytime hours, I’d gotten a brief update from the detective working Candy’s case. I wanted to have that story prepped and ready to drop into the newspaper’s empty pages the next morning.

  Our suite of offices was dark when I entered. Only the yellow glow from an old street lamp at the far end of the block illuminated the reception area inside the front door. I didn’t bother to switch on the overhead lights. I knew these offices better than I knew the planes of my face. I moved swiftly and silently to take up my seat at my desk.

  Once settled, I turned on my desk lamp and glanced up, startled to see through the office window the glow of the red light on the old coffee pot showing itself in the break room. Each night, before going home, Betty would unplug the machine, wash it out, and prep it for use the next day. Apparently Betty had forgotten that task on this night.

  I groaned at the thought of how hot and strong and bitter the dregs in that coffee pot had to be now. But if needed, I’d force down a cup of the brew to keep me alert long enough to finish my night’s tasks.

  Turning back to my original intent, I pulled the recent notes on Candy’s murder from the right-hand desk drawer. As I read through the detective’s update, I became aware of the broad, wooden floorboards settling around me. Night sounds, I thought. They always seemed louder than those heard in the daytime. Come to think of it, I rarely picked up stray noises then.

  I was always too busy in daylight, I thought with a sigh, pursuing goals, tracking down sources, or banging out stories. Or maybe these sounds only sprang to life at night? What did I know? In part, I suspected, my uneasy awareness of the night sounds was linked to my continuing lack of sleep. Unwilling to let myself be further distracted, I pushed myself to begin typing up my stories.

  After about an hour of consistent production, I leaned back, stretched, and grabbed up my coffee cup. It was time for a shot of the much dreaded caffeine.

  I passed out of the puddle of dim light cast by my desk lamp and moved through the darkened space toward the break room. The reddish-orange light from the coffeemaker still glowed ahead of me. And like the Three Wise Men, I followed its summons, confident of myself and of my surroundings.

  I didn’t hear the tinkle of breaking glass. Nor the creak of an ancient floorboard. I didn’t notice a second footstep following my own.

  My mind was filled with what I had written and what missives I had yet to bang out. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice a shadow blocking the glow from the nearby street light. But by the time I reached the large old pot with its glowing light and hot metal sides, I had become aware of something amiss, although I couldn’t put into words quite what was bothering me.

  What would I do, I wondered, if I were attacked here and now? I batted the question aside as the product of a deranged brain. Too much prowling about in search of answers to Gary’s death and not enough time spent on my writing. Not enough time spent sleeping, either, I told myself grimly.

  Then there came a voice from out of the shadows, and I knew I was no longer alone in this cavernous old building. I was, I thought, standing where one could scream and be so far removed from any living creature as to be heard by no one.

  Oh joy.

  “Who is it?” I asked, my voice a bit unsteady. “Who’s there? Speak up. Dad? Betty?”

  I instantly chastised myself. It was most unlikely either of them would be here at this time of night. Besides the voice hadn’t been one of theirs either.

  Then, the person hiding in the shadows spoke again. “You couldn’t leave things well enough alone could you?”

  I turned. I stamped my foot, “Whoever you are please show yourself.”

 
; A sneering Jimmy Gravits stepped free of the shadows. The street light illuminated only one side of his square face, leaving the other side drenched in black. He looked haggard. Wild eyed. Like what I imagined a killer might.

  I stepped backwards, came up hard against the counter, felt the intense heat radiating from the old coffee maker behind me. “What are you doing here?” I asked in an unsteady voice.

  Jimmy chuckled. Confident of himself and his place. “Oh, Melanie. I like you. I really do. I’ve read all of your stories over the years. You’re a good little writer. And you’re clever. Do you know you’re the only person who’s figured out my little secret?”

  That’s not true, I thought. Ginger had a good idea of what’s been happening. But I didn’t say a word about my pal and what she knew.

  I cleared my throat, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Really? Then why did you pull that little session of yours with my mother, huh? Mom hasn’t looked at me the same way since then. I think you told her something about me she oughtn’t to have heard.”

  “You’re mother adores you. I’ve told her nothing that puts you in a bad light.”

  “Dear old Mother,” he returned. “She loved me for most of her life. But in her own way. You know her worst fault? She absolutely insisted on being captain of the ship. I didn’t even come up to the rank of first officer in her book. But that’s all changed now.”

  I recalled Bella’s absence at the restaurant tonight. He’s killed her, I thought.

  I bile rose into the back of my throat.

  “I’ve told your mother nothing. I know nothing.”

  He grinned. “You’re writing fiction now, Melanie. Come on. Fess up.”

  Jimmy moved closer. He withdrew a cord from the his jacket pocket.

  I sucked in a huge breath as realization struck. Jimmy Gravits intended to kill me. He would strangle me the same way he had Gary. And probably Bella as well. It was too late to pretend innocence now. “What about Candy?” I demanded. “Did you murder her, too?”

  “Of course,” Jimmy said, taking another step nearer. “She was helpful. She lured Gary out of the church for me. Then, she got greedy. Demanded money. Stupid cow.”