Fish Fry and a Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  I laughed. “Well, thank you. I’ll tell her you said so.”

  “That would be nice,” he said. “What have you been up to?”

  “Well, I had a disastrous marriage that lasted ten years. Then I moved back to Sparrow from New York, and here I am.”

  “Well, you’re single?” he joked. “Maybe I should ask you to dinner instead of your mother.”

  “I’d be flattered, but I am in a very committed relationship,” I said with a chuckle. Barron had a way about him and even though he was much older than me, he managed to not come off as creepy.

  He nodded. “I’d be setting my sights far too high, anyway. What’s good today?”

  “Sam just got some fresh fish in, and there’s always the clam chowder,” I suggested. “Neither can be beat.”

  He nodded. “How about the clam chowder since it’s a cold day?”

  “You got it,” I said, jotting his order down on my order pad. I took it to Sam. “It’s just clam chowder, Sam. I’ll get it.”

  “Okey dokey,” Sam said as he flipped a hamburger patty.

  I got Barron his bowl of clam chowder and some crackers and took it to him. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, this is fine,” he said. “It sure smells good.”

  “It’s the best,” I said as I wiped down the far side of the front counter. I wanted to ask him about Rob, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. I hung out around the front counter, hoping he’d want to make conversation. He seemed lonely, and I thought he might open up eventually.

  After eating a couple of bites of the clam chowder, he looked in my direction. “Did you hear my nephew passed?”

  I turned to him. “I did. I’m so sorry.”

  “They found him in the lake. I can’t imagine what happened to him.” He shook his head and looked at his bowl of chowder.

  I sighed. “It’s terrible. I know this has got to be so hard for you and your family.”

  He shrugged without looking at me. “I guess so. I don’t have much to do with them. My brother, he was something else. Raised those boys of his to be just like him.” He turned and looked at me now. “Proud of themselves, they are.”

  “I’m sorry. Do you have children, Barron?” Being alone must have made things even harder when family members died.

  He shook his head. “No. I never married. I thought about it once. I dated Irene Black back in high school and I just knew she was the one. But, things didn’t work out, and we went our separate ways. Irene was a looker.” He chuckled at the memory and took another bite of his clam chowder.

  “I’m sorry you aren’t close to your nephews,” I said.

  “It’s okay. Rob, he used to come around when he was a kid. He had a newspaper route, and he’d stop off when he delivered the paper. We’d talk. I did like that boy. I’d fix his bike when it had problems. Changed the tire or fixed the chain when it got a kink in it. Good kid.”

  He sounded sad when he talked about him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m glad you have good memories of him from when he was young.” I couldn’t think of much else to say.

  He smiled at me. “He changed when he got older. Turned out just like his father. Selfish and greedy.”

  I was surprised at the sudden change in his tone. “Oh?” I said for something to say.

  He nodded and looked away. “Served Rob right to marry that woman he married. She’s something else, too. If you want to know the truth, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they figure out she killed him.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked him.

  “She was tight with money. She wouldn’t let go of a nickel if the Pope needed it to make a phone call to God himself.” He chuckled. “They fought all the time. I heard it from Rob’s brothers. They could hardly stand her. Said she tried to tear the family apart.”

  I shook my head slowly. “That’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear that. Some people just aren’t happy unless they can make others miserable.”

  “You can say that again,” he said. “Maybe you could say I’m bitter, but I asked Rob for a thousand dollars so I could have surgery to have my gallbladder out. It was for my deductible and I just didn’t have it at the time. I promised I would pay it back. Rob would have been okay with it, but she wouldn’t let him give it to me.” He snorted and shook his head. “Talk about tight-fisted.”

  “Wow, that’s kind of cruel,” I said. “But do you really think she could have killed her own husband?”

  He nodded. “Sure do. Rob had some money put away and if he was dead, it would be hers. She wanted to open up a business, but Rob wouldn’t let her. He even refused to put her name on the bank account the money was in because he knew she would spend that money if she had the chance. Seems she’s only tight with money if it’s hers. I heard from his brother Zack that she was livid when he refused to put her on that account. Said she’d pay him back.”

  “Really? She seemed so nice when we were in school,” I said thoughtfully.

  “Sure, but people change. You know how it is,” he said solemnly. “Well, I don’t mean to fill your head with negative family stuff. Maybe I’m just missing Rob. The Rob I knew when he was ten.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  It made me feel bad that he was alone in his grief. Even if he hadn’t been close to Rob in recent years, he clearly had good feelings about their earlier relationship. And what he said about Sarah made me wonder about her. She had admitted they had money troubles and fought about what to do with the money Rob had inherited. It was something to keep in mind.

  Chapter Ten

  “So what’s next on your list of things to fix?” Cade asked me. He was lying at one end of the couch and I was laying at the other, my legs draped over his. Maggie moseyed over and rested her head on my legs.

  “Hey, you’re too heavy,” I said, rubbing her head. “I think we should do some painting. I didn’t really notice how dingy the walls were until the floors were restored. Now it draws the eye to them instead of to these gorgeous floors.” The floors really were beautiful. They had been a medium brown, but I had chosen a honey color to give the rooms a facelift.

  He groaned. “I hate painting.”

  “Me too, but somebody’s got to do it.” I giggled and poked him in the ribs with my toe.

  His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket and frowned. “Sarah Zumbro.” He answered it, “hello.”

  I watched his face as he listened. “I’ll be right over. Thanks for the heads up.” He ended the call and looked at me. “Seems Sarah just realized that Rob’s boat is in the barn. She took a look through it and discovered his cell phone.” He pushed my legs off of his and got to his feet. Maggie stepped back and gave a snort at being asked to move.

  “I’m coming with you,” I said, standing up and grabbing my coat from the back of the couch.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said, picking up his own coat from the couch back and putting it on.

  “It may not be necessary, but I want to,” I said and grabbed my purse. “See? I’m all ready to go. You don’t even have to wait on me.”

  He sighed and headed for the door. “You are just an observer. I don’t need your input.”

  “Got it.”

  ***

  It was rare for Cade to allow me to go with him on official business, so I was trying to be unobtrusive, but I was excited. Getting information first-hand was a treat. I normally had to slink around and get what information I could on my own.

  “Hello, Detective, Rainey,” Sarah said to us when she answered the door. “Come in.”

  We followed her inside, and she picked up a cell phone from the coffee table and handed it to Cade. “I can’t believe I never looked in the boat.” She shook her head. “I really don’t have much reason to go out into the barn, so it didn’t occur to me to look out there.”

  Cade looked at the cell phone. “I hope the weather hasn’t ruined it. I’ll take it with me to the station and see if there’s an
ything on it that will help with the investigation.”

  “It needs to be charged, but I hope it will still work. I guess that explains why I couldn’t get ahold of him when I called it.” She sighed. “I know he kept it locked with a password, but I suppose you have someone that can figure that out.”

  Cade nodded. “We do. Can I take a look at the boat?” he asked her.

  “Sure. It’s just a small rowboat. Follow me.”

  We followed her out the door and down a narrow paved path toward a dark brown wooden structure that looked as if it had been built in the middle of the last century. The barn was small and filled with gardening tools, a tool bench, and the small rowboat. It was pushed up against a wall on the far side and covered with a blue tarp.

  “During warm weather, we leave it tied to the dock. There are a couple of neighbor kids that like to borrow it to go fishing,” she said.

  Cade pulled the tarp back and looked into the boat. “Was the boat missing at any time right after Rob left?” he asked. I walked closer and peered into the boat.

  “I honestly don’t know. I have no interest in fishing, and like I said, the boys borrow it whenever they want. In late September, they brought it back and put it into the barn for me. They usually use it as late into the fall as they can before it snows, but they got into some trouble with their father and he grounded them and told them they couldn’t fish the rest of the season.”

  Cade nodded and picked up a fishing rod that was lying on the bottom of the boat. “Does this belong to the boys or to Rob?”

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know one fishing pole from another.” She looked at me and shrugged. “I know nothing about fishing.”

  “I’m right there with you on that,” I said. “I’m completely clueless.”

  Cade examined the rod and reel. “It’s an expensive fishing rod. Orvis. This will set you back anywhere from several hundred bucks to a few thousand. I’d bet it was Rob’s and not the kid’s.”

  “That was Rob for you. He had to have the best,” she said and rolled her eyes. It seemed even with his death, she was angry about his spending habits.

  Cade looked into the boat again and picked up a tackle box. “What about this? Does this look familiar?”

  She looked at it, then shook her head. “Nope. I’m afraid not.”

  Cade opened it. “Lots of lures. Nice ones. Might be Rob’s if he liked to spend a lot of money on fishing equipment.”

  “So, Rob left on Labor Day,” I said, trying to piece things together, “and you didn’t hear from him again, right? Not even in the beginning?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Not a word. Like I said, I tried to call his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. Now we know why, of course.”

  “And the kids were using the boat. So, how did they get the boat if Rob took it out on the lake? Wouldn’t it have drifted off if he had had some kind of accident? Or if he was murdered out on the lake?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know if he even went onto the lake that day. I thought he did, but it’s been so long ago, I’m not sure if it was Labor Day or another day. I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could be more help.”

  It bothered me that now she was having trouble remembering which day her husband had been out on the lake where he had died. How hard would it have been for her to walk out here into the barn and take a look at the boat he would have been using before he disappeared?

  Cade turned back to the boat. “It’s not much of a boat, so I can see why he wouldn’t want to take it with him if he had actually done what he said he was going to do. We still don’t know if he was killed in the last few weeks or if it was months ago. How much money in total did he take from the account?”

  The big question now was whether he had been killed four months ago or if it was more recent. There were too many holes in Sarah’s story and I was sure I was looking at a guilty woman.

  “Including the ten thousand before he left? Seventeen thousand. That’s why I didn’t really worry. The money was withdrawn a few hundred at a time, and twice it was one thousand dollars. I feel like a fool for not being more worried,” she said. Her eyes welled up, and she blinked the tears back.

  The tears made me doubt my assumption that she was guilty. I was a sucker for the waterworks. I wanted to tell her not to blame herself, but if I were in the same position, I would hate myself. Of course, I couldn’t imagine not reporting a loved one if they had disappeared and not contacted me for four months.

  “We’re working on getting video from the banks where the ATM withdrawals were done, but that takes time. Without your name on the account as a joint owner with him, we have to go through the courts. If it wasn’t him making the withdrawals, and he was in the water as long as we think he was, then I want to know who was taking that money out of his account,” Cade said.

  “I’d like to know, too,” she said.

  “I’m going to take the phone, the fishing rod, and tackle box with me. I’ll send someone for the boat. Maybe there’s something in here that will help. I’ll also get fingerprints, but if the kids were using the equipment, their prints will be all over the place,” Cade said, closing the tackle box.

  “It’s a terrible thought, but do you think the boys might have had something to do with his death?” I asked her.

  “Oh, no. These are good kids. They’re twelve and thirteen and are very responsible boys,” she said.

  I nodded. I hoped she was right. It would be creepy if they had killed Rob and then used his boat and equipment while he lay at the bottom of the lake.

  “Is there anything else you can think of, Sarah?” Cade asked her as he picked up the equipment and we headed toward the barn door.

  “No. I’ve been racking my mind and I can’t think of anything else. I appreciate all you’re doing. The funeral is tomorrow. I just want it over and done with,” she said. “It makes me sick that I didn’t report him missing. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “If you think of anything else, you’ll let me know?” he said.

  “Of course,” she promised.

  We headed back to Cade’s car where he stowed the fishing equipment in the trunk, then we got into the car. I turned to him. “I can’t get over her not reporting his disappearance. What about you?”

  “I feel the same way,” he said and started the car. He turned to me. “I can’t imagine not being concerned about a missing loved one.”

  “Me too. And then there was what Barron Zumbro said about her being tight with money.” I had already filled him in on my conversation with all three of the Zumbros. I didn’t understand the lack of concern over a missing family member. They were all properly saddened that he had died, but why wouldn’t they have looked more closely into the reason he had disappeared?

  Chapter Eleven

  “I need caffeine,” Mom said, leaning on the front counter at Agatha’s. “I’ll waste away to nothing if I don’t get it soon.”

  “Caffeine doesn’t have any calories or any kind of sustenance,” I pointed out.

  She gave me a sideways glance, then turned to the barista. “I’d like a large caramel mocha with a double shot of espresso, please. Smarty pants here will have water.”

  “I’ll take a medium vanilla latte, please,” I said. “She’s being dramatic. I find it best to ignore her.”

  The barista grinned but didn’t comment. Smart girl.

  “If I’m being dramatic, that must be where you get it from,” Mom said.

  I snorted. “That must be it.”

  “Girls!” Agatha said, waltzing over to us. “I was just thinking how much I’d love to see the two of you today. It’s like I’m psychic. Let me get my tea and we’ll visit awhile.”

  “Hi Agatha,” I said. “It has been too long.”

  “At least a day or two,” Mom said.

  Agatha cackled with glee and went behind the counter. She had a cup of tea already made and when the barista finished with our coffee, we he
aded to a corner table.

  “Now, tell me. Where is that handsome man of yours, and how is the latest case coming along?” Agatha asked me after we had settled into our chairs.

  “Yeah, what’s going on with that?” Mom asked. “Seems like you’d keep your mother in the loop.”

  I took a sip of my coffee. “Cade is still working on it. I honestly don’t have much information.” I didn’t want to give away everything I knew. Cade wasn’t always generous with what he had learned about a case, and I didn’t want to disappoint him by telling something that should be kept private. It helped that this time around I had been with him when he gathered some of the information, but I was going to keep as much of it to myself as I could.