The Quiche and the Dead

by Kirsten Weiss

  Maybe she’d gone shopping and had forgotten to close up? As a good neighbor, I should leave and lock the door. But the sense of wrongness weighted my shoulders, tightened my neck.

  I took another step down into the home office. Okay, I’d take a quick look around to make sure everything was okay. That was neighborly, wasn’t it? And since the door had been open, I wasn’t breaking and entering. Just entering.

  I walked to the desk, scanning the room. A woman’s sensible blue shoe stuck out behind it, toe pointing toward the ceiling. Groaning, I edged around the desk.

  Antheia lay on the floor, her eyes wide and blank. Her face was bluish, mottled. A thick green and gold cord knotted around her neck. Her blond hair was rumpled. Her skirt rose up around her thighs.

  I stood staring, nauseated. I should move, take charge, help. But no sensible plan of action burst into my brain.

  Charlene’s tinny shouts recalled me. Dropping to my knees, I felt for Antheia’s pulse, found none.

  She stared at the ceiling.

  Antheia was dead.

  I put the phone to my ear. “I found Antheia. She’s dead. Murdered. I have to go.”

  “What?”

  Hanging up, I called 9-1-1, then went to the front porch to wait. I sat on a swing chair and rocked, mindless. The swaying turned my stomach. I stood and leaned against the railing, jammed my trembling hands in my pockets.

  A siren sounded in the distance, grew louder.

  I thought of the thick cord around her neck. It was a curtain tie. She’d been killed in her home. Had the killer been one of her clients? Or had someone snuck in and surprised her? There had been no signs of breaking and entering at the front of the house, but I hadn’t explored further than her office.

  A squad car stopped across the street. Officer Carmichael stepped out, and a measure of my tension leaked away.

  He strode onto the porch. “What happened?”

  “I found Antheia in her off ice, inside. She’s dead.” My voice shook, and I cleared my throat.

  “Wait here.” He went into the house.

  I waited.

  A few minutes later, he emerged. “Did you touch anything?” His tone was hard, impersonal.

  Had I? I struggled to remember. “I knocked on the door, and it opened, so I didn’t touch the knob. And then I went inside. I might have grabbed the desk for balance when I checked her pulse.”

  “You touched her? Did you touch anything else?”

  “I don’t think so. I called nine-one-one on my phone and then came out here to wait.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “What are you doing here?”

  For a brief moment I considered lying, but that wouldn’t fly. Too many people knew I’d been asking Antheia about Joe’s case. And I couldn’t ask Charlene to cover for me.

  “Val?” he asked.

  “Sorry. Today Joy and I found another casebook, but of her uncle’s. He and his buddy, Frank, were armchair detectives, investigating local mysteries for fun.”

  “I know. You told me at lunch.”

  I cleared my throat. “In the casebook, we found an entry about Frank’s death last month, as if it were a case Joe was investigating. And he had an entry about someone on the library board, called it the Case of the Bloated Blond. Antheia and Mark are the only blonds on the library board, so I came here to ask her if she knew anything about it.”

  His lips whitened. “What time did you arrive?”

  “Around five-thirty.”

  “Did you see anyone or anything unusual?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll need to take your fingerprints to separate them from any others we might find inside. Stay here. There will be more questions.”

  An ambulance and fire truck arrived at the same time, followed by another squad car and a blue, midsized sedan. Shaw got out of the sedan and stretched. He spotted me, and his eyes narrowed.

  An icicle pierced my heart. It didn’t take a psychic to see a trip to the police station was in my future.

  * * *

  The police released me three hours later, and I stumbled down the station’s brick steps. Fog coiled on the dark street, light from the streetlamps reflecting off the sheen on the macadam. A Jeep flashed its high beams at me. I hurried down the sidewalk and opened the passenger door.

  Charlene leaned across the seat. “I always knew it would come to this.”

  “Always?”

  “One of us, in jail. It’s the fate of the misunderstood investigator.”

  “Sounds like a title from one of Joe’s casebooks. How did you know they’d let me out?” I got inside and buckled my seat belt.

  Frederick, draped around Charlene’s neck, raised his head. He regarded me, his blue eyes heavy with disdain.

  “I’ve got someone inside the station,” she said. “My source told me they’d taken you away in a police car and you might need a lift. Now we still have time for that stakeout at Pargiter’s—”

  I groaned, rubbing my forehead.

  “But maybe not tonight. You’re not dressed for it.” She handed me a short, black leather tube with a red button on top.

  “What’s this?”

  “Pepper spray. It’s past its sell-by date, but they just use those expiration dates to get you to buy more.”

  I massaged my temple. “Of course.”

  “So what happened inside the station?” she asked. “Did Shaw give you the third degree?”

  I handed her the pepper spray. Knowing my luck, I’d end up spraying myself. “The phrase obstruction of justice was used. Repeatedly. I told them I was in Joe’s house with you.”

  She pocketed the spray. “But he didn’t charge you.”

  “No, because he doesn’t believe there’s anything Sherlock Holmes–mysterious about Frank’s death.” Shaw had actually seemed to think it was sweet I’d indulged my piecrust maker’s home invasion. The worst of it was, I had sort of gone to Joe’s house to pacify Charlene. Was I guilty of patronizing the aged too?

  “What happened at Antheia’s house?” Charlene asked.

  I told her about Antheia and the drapery cord, the casebook Joy had found, Joe’s investigation of Frank’s death.

  “I knew Antheia wasn’t a killer.” Charlene started the Jeep. “She must have had some information on the real murderer.”

  “Were she and Frank acquainted?”

  “He was a semiretired CPA, and she was a semiretired estate attorney. Of course she knew him. This is a small town, and those two professions work hand in glove.”

  “At least we know her murder doesn’t have anything to do with Miss Pargiter’s trespassers or the lights in the harbor.”

  “Untrue,” she said. “Joe’s murder is connected to Antheia—her death proves that. But for all we know, it may be linked to the other cases as well. We can’t leave any loose threads hanging. They may all have a bearing on Joe’s death. Now, where’s your car?”

  “I left it parked in front of Antheia’s house.”

  Pulling away from the curb, she turned onto Main Street. The restaurants and boutiques were closed at this hour, their windows blank, black eyes. I shuddered, remembering Antheia’s dead gaze.

  “We can’t even be sure Frank was murdered,” I said, “only that Joe thought it was worth investigating.”

  “Falling down the stairs.” She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “I should have known something was wrong.”

  “What can you tell me about Frank?”

  “He was my accountant, the quiet type. But he was friendly once you got to talking. A good man. Solid. Honest.”

  “Accountant . . . Could he have discovered some wrongdoing on the part of one of his clients?”

  She turned onto a residential street. Cypress trees reached across it, their branches forming a dark tunnel. “He was semiretired. His clients were all small potatoes at the end, folks like Miss Pargiter. And if they did do anything wrong, they’d be fools to tell him. Accountants aren’t lawyers. They’re not covere
d by privilege, and Frank was a stickler for doing things right.”

  “Miss Pargiter was one of Frank’s clients?”

  “Most of the over-fifties were with Frank. He was a San Nicholas institution.”

  “Who can we talk to about his death? You said you had a contact in the police department?”

  Her eyelashes fluttered. “Oh, I couldn’t abuse my source.”

  “Charlene . . .”

  “I can’t! I only get so many favors, and then that’s all she wrote.”

  Augh. “There must be someone we can talk to.”

  “He had a daughter. I think she lives in San Francisco.” Charlene pulled behind my VW, still parked in front of Antheia’s house.

  “Tandy Potts?” I asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Frank’s daughter it is. Thanks for the ride.” I yawned and stepped out, shutting the door.

  The passenger window glided down, and Charlene leaned across her seat. “No problem. I’ll call Miss Pargiter and tell her we’ll come tomorrow night instead.”

  I watched her drive off. She was not going to let me escape the Pargiter stakeout. But at least she hadn’t mentioned the mysterious harbor lights. UFOs—ha!

  Who was I kidding? Right now, a UFO abduction would make a relaxing getaway.

  Chapter 14

  Carmichael did not make a lunch appearance the next day. I must have fallen out of his good graces after “obstructing an investigation.” Which was a lot of nonsense. I’d told Shaw about every bit of evidence I’d found. Was it my fault they’d ignored the clues until someone else was killed? I wasn’t sure.

  Now I sat in Carmichael’s empty booth, the afternoon sun warming my shoulders, and researched library board members on my laptop. I found nothing suspicious. It was a library board. Nothing bad ever happened at a library.

  I paused, gnawing my lower lip. Had it been my fault that someone had murdered Antheia? If I’d verified Charlene’s story about the break-in earlier . . . But even after I’d confessed last night, Shaw hadn’t given it any credence. The break-in wasn’t the sole root of my guilt, however. By following in Joe’s footsteps, had I, like Joe, stirred up a killer?

  Dice rattled in the corner booth. “Yes!”

  My hands stilled, poised over the computer mouse. Should I stop looking?

  A gamer howled. “No way.”

  I moused on, but everything I turned up seemed routine— the library board thanking a local donor for a gift of five thousand dollars, the library board hosting a bake sale. The biggest news was the new library, completed a year ago, and the bond measure to raise funds for its construction. People had had to vote on the bond. That meant opinion pieces pro and con, the mayor making speeches about the importance of literacy, etc., etc. Aside from a couple odes to the historic architecture of the old library in the paper’s Letters to the Editor section, there’d been no real opposition to the library funding.

  Moans of despair rose from the corner booth.

  I glanced the gamers’ way, then returned my attention to my laptop.

  Would my coupons bring people into Pie Town? Manic, my brain bounced between crises. I blew out my breath, scraping my fingers through my hair. My research was going nowhere.

  A shadow fell across my table, and I looked up.

  The redheaded gamer shuffled his feet, his T-shirt untucked from his loose jeans. In fairness, given the size of his beer gut, it was unlikely tucking it in would have had any lasting effect.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

  “Our sea hag had to go. Want to finish the game?”

  I parsed that through my gamer-to-English translator. “You lost a gamer and want me to take his place?”

  His bushy brow furrowed. “That’s what I said.”

  I looked around the dining area, forsaken by all but me and the gamers. “Sure.”

  We’d been at it about an hour when a customer came in—an out of towner, was my guess—and ordered a blueberry pie to go. I sold her the pie and returned to the game. I’d already lost one round, and was going for two out of three. The boys turned out to be engineering students. They were decent guys, even if I didn’t get all their jokes. I lost the next two rounds, and was on the verge of winning the fourth (we were on four out of seven now) when Charlene strolled in. Frederick lounged over one shoulder, depositing white cat hairs across her purple, knit tunic.

  Hoping the gamers wouldn’t notice the cat, I checked my watch. It was past closing time.

  “Monsters and Madness?” Charlene adjusted her glasses. “That stuff will rot your brain.”

  I straightened, indignant. “It’s a game of strategy. Sorry, guys,” I said to the gamers. “I’ve got to close up.”

  “Sure thing, Sea Hag.” The redhead, whose name was Ray, chuffed my shoulder.

  The gamers left, and I cleaned their table. With only one table to clean, closing up was a breeze. “You can’t bring Frederick into the dining area.”

  Charlene sat on a bar stool, swiveling back and forth. “He’s a comfort animal.”

  “Oh, that is the most abused excuse.... He is not.”

  “Is too!” She checked her watch. “Besides, it’s after hours.”

  I glanced at the clock again and frowned. “Hold on, it’s only six o’clock. Our stakeout isn’t until after eleven.”

  “I thought you might want to get out, go to dinner. There’s a great new pizza place in the mini-mall. The crust is perfect—thin and flaky. The owner uses fresh herbs he picks himself.”

  “I was thinking of taking a potpie over to Miss Pargiter’s.” And I’d planned on going alone.

  “Why?” Charlene asked.

  And that was why I’d planned to go alone. “It didn’t look like she was eating too well.”

  Charlene hopped off the bar stool. “You may be right. I can’t stand it when old people get old. Okay, Pargiter’s it is. Bring the turkey, that’s my favorite.”

  I boxed one up, along with a strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert. The few remaining pies I put in the freezer. We’d dropped way off on pie production, so I didn’t have the waste of those first two days. One of the staff members would eat the pies eventually. Still, it killed me to see my freezer full of perfectly good pies.

  Charlene drove, the pies in my lap. We took Main Street, passing the bright pink feed store and the cutesy herbal apothecary. It would be Saturday tomorrow, bringing the weekend tourist hordes and clots of traffic. I couldn’t wait. Tourists meant business, and I hoped news of Joe’s death in Pie Town hadn’t reached far beyond our borders. Silently, I prayed for sunshine and surfers and families with screaming children, looking for a place to rest.

  “I’ve been thinking about Antheia.” Charlene slowed at a red light, drifted through it.

  I bit back a comment. “Me too. I spent the day researching people on the library board, but I couldn’t find anything.”

  “Most murders are committed by spouses. Maybe her husband figured instead of alimony, he’d go for the whole whack by knocking her off.”

  “But why would Joe and Frank investigate Antheia, or conduct an investigation on her behalf? From what everyone’s told me, they investigated local petty crimes. They weren’t PIs, peering through windows and trying to get the goods on cheating spouses. His note specifically mentioned the library board.”

  “Have you ever been on a board?”

  “No.”

  “I have. And while we all had fantasies of killing our fellow board members, it’s only a board. The meeting ends and you go home with boring tales to gripe over.”

  “But what if there was some funny business on the board?” I asked.

  “What sort of funny business?”

  “Misuse of funds or embezzlement or something.”

  “The library board reports to the town council,” she said. “All budgets are approved there. It would be tough for someone on the board to get away with anything.”

  “Oh.” But there was always a w
ay, wasn’t there? People got away with it until they got caught, and then everyone wondered how it went on for so long. “Do you still have Frank’s casebook? I want to take another look at it.”

  She snorted and turned onto Highway 1, joining the flow of traffic. “Thinking he wrote a message in invisible ink?” Headlights from a car passing in the other direction cast Charlene’s face into a gargoyle scowl. “Knowing Frank and Joe, he might have. I hear lemon juice works.”

  “Lemon juice?”

  “As invisible ink.” She snorted. “Weren’t you ever a kid? To read it, all you need is to apply a little heat.”

  “Don’t set our biggest clue on fire without me.”

  “I won’t set it on fire.”

  Arguing amiably, we pulled alongside Miss Pargiter’s house. I slid out of the Jeep, balancing the pie boxes in my hands, and pushed the car door closed with my hip. The old-fashioned streetlamp in her garden was on tonight, and light streamed across the porch of the green Victorian. We crunched up the driveway, our footsteps creaking on the worn porch steps.

  The front door opened, framing a masculine silhouette. I took a step back. “Officer Carmichael?”

  He tugged at the collar of his fisherman’s sweater, and my heart turned over. Carmichael looked good out of uniform, in his jeans and hiking boots.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?” a querulous voice called from inside the house.

  “It’s Miss Harris and Mrs. McCree,” he said over his shoulder. “What are you two doing here?”

  Charlene’s expression grew solemn. “We’re on a mi—”

  “We wanted to bring Miss Pargiter some pies,” I said loudly. “I had a few extra. It seemed a shame to let them go to waste.”

  Miss Pargiter appeared behind him, her oversized gray sweater and skirt sagging on her narrow frame. “Pies? What kind?”

  “Turkey potpie and strawberry-rhubarb,” Charlene said.

  Miss Pargiter clapped her hands together. “How lovely. Come in, come in.” She backed into the hall.

  Carmichael stood aside.