A Real Pickle

by Jessica Beck

  “I’m pretty happy about that, too,” I said as I joined him. “What do you make of all of this?”

  “The food, or our surroundings?” my grandfather asked me.

  “Enough conversation about the food, okay? I’m talking about Trane Manor.”

  “I like the name Pickle Palace myself,” Moose said with that wicked grin of his.

  “That doesn’t surprise me in the least, but we should stop calling it that before it gets to be a habit. This place really is ostentatious, isn’t it?”

  Moose finished his sandwich, and then he looked around. “You know, I’ve never been all that impressed by money,” he said. “If I were, I never would have opened a diner.”

  “I’m glad that you did,” I said. “But it’s all still really over the top.”

  “They’re just showing off,” Moose said, and then he drained his milk. “That hit the spot. It should hold me until dinner, anyway. Who eats at eight o’clock at night, anyway?”

  “People who don’t have to open a diner at six a.m. the next morning,” I said.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that for the next few days. You’re on Eastern Pickle Time now,” my grandfather said with a broad grin. I knew that it had been dangerous asking him not to constantly refer to the pickle empire that had paid for all that we were surrounded by. It had backfired, and Moose was intentionally working pickles into the conversation. I just hoped that he didn’t do it when we started talking to our suspects, but I knew that it was nothing that I could count on. Moose had a mind of his own, and usually I respected him for it, even if it did mean that he was tough to deal with at times. Then again, I’m sure that I had my faults as well. In the end, we were both stubborn, even cantankerous at times. Perhaps it was one of the reasons that we got along so well with each other.

  The same brunette returned and whisked our dirty dishes and plates away, and Moose stood. I joined him, and then I asked him, “Where is everyone?”

  “They’re probably in the secondary master ballroom annex on the third floor,” he said with a smile.

  “Is there such a place here?” I asked him.

  “Who knows? I doubt any of them do,” he replied.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get started with our interviews,” I said as I started back toward the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” Moose asked me.

  “I thought I might get some information about the mourners instead of stumbling around blindly from room to room hoping to run across somebody.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, but who are you going to ask?” Moose asked me as he looked around. “This place is so empty it echoes.”

  “Maybe we can get Humphries on the telephone,” I said as I picked one up sitting on a mahogany table tucked into an alcove.

  “What are you going to do, dial 0?”

  “Why not?” I hit 0, and sure enough, Humphries immediately came on the line.

  “May I help you?”

  “This is Victoria Nelson,” I said. “Where is everyone else?”

  “They are gathered in the library waiting for you,” he said. “Are you ready to meet them all?”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Excellent. I’ll be right with you.”

  After I hung up, Moose asked, “Did you have any luck?”

  “Humphries is on his way. We’re going to the library.”

  Moose shook his head. “Of course we are. Just watch out for Colonel Cody with the crossbow.”

  “This isn’t somebody’s twisted idea of a board game, Moose,” I said.

  “Funny, it surely feels like one,” my grandfather said. As we waited for Humphries to appear, my grandfather added, “Can you imagine growing up here? It doesn’t seem like a very good fit with the Curtis we knew, does it?”

  “Ahem,” Humphries said behind us.

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect by what I just said,” Moose explained.

  “None was taken,” Humphries said with a slight smile. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the library.”

  As we walked behind the butler, Moose looked at me seriously and said, “And so it begins.”

  Chapter 5

  “May I present Moose Nelson and his granddaughter, Victoria Nelson,” Humphries announced as he showed us into the book-lined room. I’d always been fascinated by libraries when I’d been a girl, and this place was the stuff that dreams were made of. For starters, it was larger than the home where I now lived. Thousands of leather-bound books lined the room, each carefully tucked into its proper place on the mahogany shelves. There was no room for art here, no tapestries. The volumes were the art. Large, comfortable chairs were everywhere, and there was even a broad wooden table near the fireplace, with seating for an even dozen.

  Just five places were taken at the moment, though.

  I was surprised to see that Jeffrey occupied one of them, and I smiled at him. He nodded in return, but he didn’t speak.

  “May I present Sarah Harper, Tristan Wellborne, Christopher Crane, and Charlotte Trane. You’ve met Jeffrey already,” Humphries said. As he spoke each name, the person in question offered us a nod, but no more. Sarah Harper looked to be somewhere in her mid-twenties. She was wearing a wispy dress that accentuated her slight figure, and she might be called pretty in the right light, but this clearly wasn’t it. Her front teeth were a little too prominent, and her forehead a bit too broad. Tristan was a few years older, wearing a casual shirt and slacks that both fit him snugly. What Sarah lacked in looks, Tristan made up for double. He was handsome, even devilishly so, and from his grin, I knew that he would be trouble to any woman who might catch his fancy. Christopher Crane, somewhere in his mid-sixties, was wearing a three-piece suit, and from the way he carried himself, I wondered if he slept in it as well. That left Charlotte Trane, Curtis’s sister. She must have been his younger sister, because I doubted that she was much past sixty herself. She wore a suit as well, and from her demeanor, I was guessing that she was always business, all of the time.

  Moose and I knew who we were dealing with now, but we still needed a program to tell us how each of them was connected to Curtis other than his sister, Charlotte. I was still trying to figure out how to learn what their relationships were when Moose spoke up beside me. “We were two of the last people on earth that Curtis befriended,” he said. “My granddaughter and I have come here to learn more about him, and I hope that you’ll indulge us.” Moose winked at me, and then he added, “Curtis encouraged us to write about him recently, since he knew that Victoria and I have had some success in the past.”

  This was news to me, and I wondered how long Moose had been holding onto that particular ploy. I had to admire the cover story. It would certainly allow us to ask some rather nosy questions as we tried to get to the bottom of Curtis’s murder. What credentials did we have, though? Maybe no one would ask.

  “Pardon me for asking, but what makes you qualified to do that?” Charlotte Trane asked pointedly.

  Moose hadn’t been expecting it, but I’d had a moment to consider our options. “We write under a pseudonym,” I said. “It’s all very hush-hush, so I’m afraid that we aren’t allowed to say more than that. The nondisclosure agreements publishers use these days are really pretty dreadful.”

  My grandfather nodded his approval of my addition to his story. “That explains why Curtis wanted us here, but what brings you all to the table?”

  A few of them looked shocked that he had the nerve to even ask that kind of question, but Moose was bold, and he knew that if he kept quiet, someone would start talking, if only to fill the silence. I knew better than to interrupt him myself. I’d studied at his knee, and I liked to think on my best day that I was his equal, though I was probably just kidding myself.

  Finally, Sarah broke the silence. “Of course. You know Jeffrey; he brought you here. For some reason, my uncle placed a great deal of trust in him, and he is acting as executor of the estate.”

  Je
ffrey waved and offered a slight smile, but again, he didn’t speak. Sarah went on. “This is my older brother, Tristan, or Tris, if you like.”

  “I prefer Tristan, actually,” the young man said, and as he did, he smiled broadly at me. Wow. I was a happily married woman, but I’d still have to fortify myself against this man’s charms.

  “Are you really brother and sister?” Moose asked. “I’m just curious because you have different last names.”

  “Alas, I had the misfortune to be wed to Nathaniel Harper once upon a time,” Sarah said. “The mistake was corrected quickly enough, but I found that I enjoyed being a Harper, so I kept it.”

  “You are both Tranes, no matter what else might be true about you,” Charlotte said. “You have Trane blood in you, proud and noble blood.”

  Christopher Crane raised a finger. “I don’t have any Trane blood in me, but don’t hold it against me. I was Curtis’s financial planner, closest advisor, and dearest friend.” He said it as though he were reading it off of an index card, and I didn’t believe that the last part was true under any circumstances.

  I could see one problem right away.

  Every last one of them was tall and thin.

  That meant that I had to strike one theory out on the face of it. I’d hoped to eliminate at least one of our suspects based on sheer size alone, but these folks all fit the basic parameters of the mysterious killer who’d struck so effectively at the diner.

  “Now that we’ve dispensed with the formalities, I suggest we get on with this,” Charlotte said. “I’m sure that my brother had his reasons for inviting you here, and we’ll extend every courtesy to you both as guests, but I ask that you stay in your rooms at night and not wander through the hallways unescorted.”

  Why was that? Was she warning us, or was it an outright threat? What did she have to hide? It just made me want to go exploring even more after everyone else was asleep, but I decided to keep that inclination to myself.

  Charlotte continued, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to our supper. We’ll speak later, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Moose said, echoing her sentiment.

  It was clear that Charlotte was used to getting the last word in every conversation, and just as certain to me that she’d met her match in my grandfather.

  After Charlotte was gone, Crane said, “I’d appreciate it if we could chat first. I have other obligations, after all.” As he said the last bit, he looked directly at Sarah and Tristan, and I wondered about the relationship between them. There was obviously some animosity there. The real question was if any of them would talk to us about it.

  “Would you three mind waiting outside?” I asked Sarah, Tristan, and Jeffrey. “This shouldn’t take long, but we’d like to do it on an individual basis.”

  “Why on earth could that possibly matter?” Sarah asked. She seemed quite put off by the suggestion that we had the nerve to ask her to leave, and I suspected that we might have a problem getting rid of her. Tristan stepped in, though. “Come along, dear sister. After all, this is our uncle’s last request. Who are we not to honor it?”

  She left, albeit reluctantly, and Jeffrey followed suit. I didn’t have a pad of paper with me, or even a pen. How were we supposed to take notes? I knew that we weren’t really writing a tribute to Curtis, but we had to at least make it look as though we were. Again, Moose stepped in. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small spiral notebook with a pen attached. It was the pad he used to take notes to remind him of things, not that he was getting old and feeble, but rather because his mind always seemed to take off in a dozen different directions at the same time, and if he didn’t write it all down, some of it would be lost forever.

  “How long did you know Curtis, Christopher?” Moose asked the man as we sat down across from him at the table.

  “Please, call me Crane. Everyone does.”

  “Fine then,” Moose said. “When did you two first meet?”

  “We went to prep school together,” Crane said. “Our friendship was based on two odd young men paired together by a dean who couldn’t be bothered with us. We clicked, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

  “And yet you worked for him?” I asked. I was friends with all of the employees at The Charming Moose. As a matter of fact, I was related to most of them, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t know who was boss when they were at the diner, and that included my grandfather. I couldn’t imagine having my own best friend, Rebecca Davis, working for me.

  “I took the position with some reluctance, but he needed my help, and I couldn’t say no. I’m sure that you understand.”

  I was sure that I didn’t, but I decided not to get into that at the moment. “How did you two get along towards end?” Moose asked him.

  “The same as always,” Crane said lightly. “Curtis and I had no problem mixing business with pleasure, and I’m pleased to be able to say that I was able to make his life easier, especially at the end.”

  “Why at the end in particular?” I asked him. There was more to this story than he was giving us. “You can be candid with us, Crane. You need to tell us everything out of respect to your friendship with Curtis. It’s what he wanted, remember?” I hoped that Curtis’s spirit would forgive me for taking the liberties that I was taking, but he’d asked us to solve his murder, so I hoped that he wouldn’t have minded me stretching the truth a little.

  “I’m surprised that he didn’t share that with you, if you were as close as you’ve claimed,” Crane said. “His entire family was unhappy with him. They didn’t accept Curtis’s plan to get rid of his money, and I’ve got a suspicion that one of them had something to do with what happened to him.”

  Chapter 6

  “What!” Moose said, doing a credible job of feigning ignorance. “You actually think that one of them might have killed him?”

  “The man certainly didn’t stab himself,” Crane said. “It’s not as outrageous as you might think. He was just about to sign the new will when someone killed him. I understand people commit murder for a great deal less than a hundred million dollars.”

  Wow, Curtis really did have money.

  Moose whistled. “That offers a great many incentives, doesn’t it?”

  “It used to be quite a bit more than that, but Curtis was dispensing it quietly for quite a while before anyone caught on to what he was doing. He set up a dummy account in order to give his money away, and it took them some time to see what he was doing.”

  “How long did it take you?” I asked him softly.

  “Not all that long, but since I didn’t have a stake in it, I kept the information to myself. I worked for Curtis—no one else.”

  That was odd. Jeffrey had said basically the same thing earlier. “Was he truly that good a boss?”

  “He was indeed, and a good friend, as well. I’ll miss him.”

  “What will happen to you now?” I asked.

  “I’ll see this through, and then I’ll most likely take the modest retirement I’ve been promising myself for years. I’ve managed to save up a nice little nest egg, and I’ve got an acre in the mountains near Asheville that I spend much too little time enjoying. I’m not afraid to admit that seeing what happened to Curtis has been a wake-up call for me. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life working for someone else.”

  “I can respect that,” Moose said. “Since I retired, I’ve never been so busy.”

  I decided to let that one slide, since one of the things Moose did these days was help me in my murder investigations, as well as pitching in at the diner’s grill whenever I needed him.

  “If you were to pick one of them out as a cold-blooded killer, which one would it be?” I asked him.

  Crane frowned. “That’s an odd topic for a tribute to him, isn’t it?”

  “Think about how dramatic it will be if we supply Curtis’s killer in the closing chapter,” I said, making it up as I went along.

  “Yes, I can see where he would
have appreciated that,” Crane said with a slight smile. He rubbed his chin for a few moments, and then the financial manager finally said, “If I had to guess, I’d say that it most likely was Charlotte. It could be because I’ve never liked her, or trusted her, either. Then again, Tristan isn’t a bad place to start, either.” Crane glanced at his watch, and then he stood abruptly. “I’m sorry, but that’s all the time I have right now. I’ll be back later tonight though, so if you want to continue our conversation, we can do so then.”

  “Do you live here on the grounds?” Moose asked him.

  “No, I’m just a guest here for the next few days, the same as you two are.”

  “How about the others?” I asked.

  “Charlotte has a home on the property next to this. It’s so grand that it makes this place look like the gardener’s quarters.”

  “Do Sarah and Tristan live with her?” Moose asked.

  “No, but they visit quite often. They’re staying here at the moment, though. Curtis insisted. I heard that even Charlotte might stay. How cozy that will be for all of us.” Crane paused at the door, but before he opened it, he asked me, “Shall I send in your next interviewee?”

  “That would be great,” I said.

  “Which one would you like?”

  “Like you said earlier, since Charlotte is busy, Tristan might not be a bad place to start.”

  Crane grinned at that. “I’ll tell him that it’s his turn. Good luck. I truly hope that you catch the killer. Curtis deserved better than he got.”

  “What can I possibly tell you about my uncle that isn’t already public knowledge?” Tristan asked as he walked into the library thirty seconds after the financial planner left. There was a smug arrogance to the man, an outright cockiness that gave weight to his words. He thought that he was important, and so help me, he managed to convey it to us without the slightest effort.

  “How did you two get along?” I asked him.

  He gave me that dazzling smile, but I wasn’t going to bite. “Famously,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we? After all, we were kindred spirits.”