Murder at the Moonshine Inn

by Maggie King

  “Not tonight,” I smiled sweetly. Once we gave our orders I handed Vince my copy of the play to peruse and we bandied ideas about on the possible meanings.

  “Sounds cathartic,” Vince said.

  “According to Mary Anne, Nina read it with great emotion,” I said. “I’d love to know what the others in the class thought of it.”

  “Vince, where was the class? At the Richmond arts place?”

  “River City Writing Center.”

  “Didn’t you say Mary Anne mentioned someone who wrote a romance?” Trudy asked.

  “Yes. But she just said she was sweet and blonde. It’s kind of hard to identify someone from that generic description. When I talk to Mary Anne I’ll try to get names out of her.”

  “Everyone in the class was interviewed,” Vince said. “Including the teacher. They all had alibis.”

  “Still, they might offer information to one of us that they wouldn’t to the police.”

  Vince gave me a look but said nothing further.

  We enjoyed our salads and pizza, undisturbed by drama. Later, I sat at my computer reading through the replies the book group sent after reading Nina’s play.

  Lucy wrote, “It sounds so much like her sister’s killing. She just changed the setting to something more upscale.” The other responses pretty much echoed those of my cousin.

  •••

  The next day Mary Anne called at nine o’clock on the dot.

  “Hazel, I’m sorry I was such a ninny yesterday. I promise I won’t be a ninny anymore.”

  I silently applauded her determination to break her ninny habit. “Well, it can’t be easy having a classmate get killed.”

  “Anyway, I know your book group was investigating Nina’s sister’s murder. I really didn’t see how I could help with that. And I’m not sure how I can help with Nina’s mystery, either. But if you have any questions, just ask me.”

  “Can we get together, maybe at Ellwood Thompson? Don’t you work near there?”

  “Oh, yes, I’d love that. Oh, and Hazel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe you could give me tips about writing? I’m thinking of writing a romance, paranormal maybe. I don’t think playwriting is for me after all.”

  “Sure, I’m happy to help.”

  We agreed to meet at twelve-thirty in the eating area of the locally owned natural food store.

  I remembered my promise not to be alone with anyone. This cheerful woman could be a psychopathic killer. But a public spot like Ellwood Thompson should be safe enough. When I told Vince of my plans he looked uncertain, then said, “Well, she’s not a suspect. But text me when you get there and when you leave.”

  I arrived at Ellwood Thompson and sent Vince the promised text. The aroma of fresh produce greeted me when I walked into the store—and vitamins. All health and natural food stores were redolent of the odor of vitamins and other supplements, strange since they were sealed in their bottles. For some inexplicable reason, I found the medicinal scent pleasing.

  Lots of wood created a rustic, farmhouse atmosphere, appropriate to the store’s mission of providing healthy and natural food. The only thing I didn’t like was the din created by the high-powered blenders that produced the smoothies—tantamount to being in the middle of a construction site.

  Mary Anne Branch’s sleek cap of dark hair matched shining eyes that hinted at mischief. Cheer was written all over her. The woman fairly burst with vibrant health. Even her golden tan looked healthy and smooth. Still, any tan held potential dangers. I held back the words of caution that came to me.

  To contribute to the noise level, we both decided on smoothies. If Mary Anne indulged in these smoothies on a regular basis, that could account for her glow. With that in mind I duplicated her order, something involving kale, spinach, and—to quote Mary Anne—”lots of good stuff.” I ignored her protestations and paid for both smoothies. We took our concoctions to a wooden booth, as far from the smoothie production as possible.

  “So, Mary Anne,” I started. “Tell me about your class.”

  “It was a wonderful class. Even though I’m now thinking of writing a romance, I thought the class was great. And I’m so glad it was over before poor Nina’s tragedy. I mean, it would have been awful to have it happen halfway through and have to go back and find her—well, not there.” Mary Anne’s teeth dazzled with whiteness. “Honestly, I don’t think I could have gone on.”

  “So, how many were in the class?”

  “There were five of us.” Mary Anne looked stricken. “You don’t think one of us, do you—”

  “No, no, no.” I waved my hand. “We’re just looking for something Nina herself might have said or done. We’re at a loss, you know . . .” I trailed off deliberately.

  “I understand.”

  “So, tell me more about Nina’s play.”

  Mary Anne offered the same synopsis as I’d read, repeating her earlier claim that it was heartfelt and emotional. “The teacher found it fascinating. Said it was compelling, a great start. Wonderful dialog as well. In fact, we all thought the dialog was very natural.”

  It didn’t sound like anyone in the class had authored the notes on Nina’s printed copy. “Who was the teacher?”

  “Sylvia—” She snapped the fingers of her right hand, tastefully tipped with pale pink polish. “Sylvia Davies.”

  “Did anyone in the class have playwriting experience?”

  “No, we were all true novices.” Without waiting for my prompt Mary Anne said, “I’m trying to picture the rest of the class. I think I mentioned the sweet blonde woman who wrote an amazing play. And there was a young Indian—or was she Pakistani?—woman. She was so beautiful. But she never completed her assignments. Said she’d been too busy.”

  “Oh, and Beth. Actually, she works there, answers the phone.” Mary Anne leaned forward and lowered her voice, making it hard to hear her over the whirring of the smoothies. “Beth is kind of snooty,” she said. At least, that’s what I think she said.

  “Do you remember any names? Besides Beth’s?”

  “Oh, no. I shouldn’t have even said Beth’s name. I know I said I wasn’t going to be a ninny anymore, but I have to protect everyone’s identity.”

  “I understand.” I knew that everyone in her class had been questioned. If it turned out that I needed names, maybe I could get Vince to give them to me. But that was unlikely.

  “Did Sylvia collect written copies of your plays and write comments in the margins?”

  If Mary Anne found my question odd, she showed no sign of it. “Oh, no. We didn’t hand in any papers. Sylvia only listened as we read from our copies or from our laptops.”

  “Did you ever see Nina talking a lot to anyone in particular?”

  Mary Anne thought for a moment as she sipped her drink. “I’m not sure. We all talked to each other.”

  While I tried to come up with another question Mary Anne leaned forward again, eyes dancing. “I think I mentioned that I want to start writing romance fiction. I want to write like you.”

  “Well, thanks, that’s very kind of you to say. But you’ll develop your own voice.”

  “Do you have any advice for me?”

  “Yes, and I can sum it up in one word: write.” I expanded on my terse advice, suggesting Virginia Romance Writers and James River Writers as good resources. “And take classes. The River City Writing Center should have some good ones.”

  “Can I send you my first draft for critique?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I couldn’t think of another Nina-related question. I finished my drink, fully expecting to see plants sprouting from my body. As we left the store, Mary Anne grabbed a shopping cart and went back inside to shop. “Hazel, let’s friend on Facebook.”

  “Oh, you’re on Facebook now?”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “Latecomer. I’ve found some great writing groups.”

  “Okay, I’ll send you a friend request.” I continued on to my car, texting Vince
as I walked. I narrowly missed colliding with a stray shopping cart.

  “Don’t text and walk” needed to be added to the “Don’t text and drive” campaign.

  TWENTY-SIX

  AT HOME, I friended Mary Anne Branch on Facebook and she accepted almost instantly. Her profile picture showed her flashing a Colgate smile at the camera as she, appropriately enough, leaned on a tree branch. I reviewed my conversation with the peppy aspiring writer and decided that Nina must have had a critiquing partner. Maybe she’d belonged to a writing group. But who was her partner? And what group could it be? There were countless such groups, many of them private. Since some of the criticism pertained specifically to plays, I assumed that the person who wrote the comments knew something about that particular format.

  When I e-mailed the book group a summary of my conversation with Mary Anne, Eileen replied, “I know Sylvia Davies. Her father lives at the same facility as my mom. I see her a lot. I’ll try to track her down over the next couple of days and see if I can find out anything about who might have written those notes.”

  We all thanked Eileen, and probably shared the hope that she would follow through without her unpredictable and volatile mother derailing her plans.

  “So, do you think your chat with Mary Anne gave you anything useful?” Vince asked as we fixed dinner.

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Only time will tell.”

  •••

  “According to Sylvia, Nina did show her play to someone, a man apparently, who was very disparaging. Sylvia couldn’t believe it, because she thought so highly of Nina’s writing. In fact, Sylvia encouraged Nina to keep developing her craft and to take advanced courses in playwriting.”

  “Did Sylvia have a name for the man?” I asked when Eileen paused.

  “No, I asked but she didn’t think Nina mentioned his name.”

  Another Wednesday had rolled around, finding us tethered to our computers or devices for a Skype session.

  Trudy piped up. “It’s a good thing that Nina didn’t take the man’s comments to heart and get discouraged.”

  “I remember this one instructor who deemed my writing crap. Thankfully I’d written enough by that point that I didn’t believe him. But if I was just starting out . . .” I trailed off, thinking of the damage often inflicted on the fragile egos of writers.

  I heard the sound of pages flipping. Sarah said, “These notes from the critiquer are interesting. Like this one—‘Why did she get out of her car if she saw someone suspicious?’ Now that’s a good question, one I myself would have asked. Why did she get out of the car?”

  “I think Nina was already out of the car before she saw the guy,” I said. “In the actual situation, anyway.”

  “I would have gotten back in the car, and pronto.”

  “Anyway, the whole thing is creepy.” I pictured Eileen tossing her long curls. “To think that she’d write this and recite it to her class.”

  “It’s interesting that Nina set this at a country club,” Lucy said. “I wonder what Hazel’s undercover outfit would have been at a country club.”

  “What is country club garb on a Friday night?” I asked. “Certainly not low-cut tank tops and jeans slashed to ribbons.”

  “And no blue eye shadow, either,” Eileen put in. “Probably business casual.”

  “Too bad. Not nearly as much fun,” Trudy chuckled.

  “Let’s see, what else do we need to discuss?” I asked.

  “Mary Anne,” Trudy prompted. “Tell us more about your discussion with her.”

  When I expanded on my brief e-mail account of the meeting with Mary Anne at Ellwood Thompson, Lucy said, “Maybe Nina had reason to think the killer was someone in the class.”

  “So what was she doing—flushing them out?” Eileen sounded incredulous. “Who have we got? There’s Mary Anne and a sweet blonde woman, a busy Pakistani woman, and Beth the snooty receptionist?”

  “Sounds like a board game,” Sarah quipped.

  “Mary Anne?” Trudy sounded doubtful. “I can’t see her killing anyone.”

  “Hey, perky, healthy folks can kill,” Eileen said. “Anyone with a motive could have done it.”

  “What would be Mary Anne’s motive?”

  “Why, I don’t know.”

  “Let’s not forget Phyllis.”

  “For Nina’s murder, perhaps. But what about Rox? Why would Phyllis have killed her?”

  I broke into Trudy and Eileen’s back-and-forth. “Phyllis and Rox were in the same line of work—development. Phyllis works for Infinity Center, and Rox worked for the Hamlin Group.”

  Sarah groaned. “We’re doing it again, adding suspects before we eliminate other ones. Brad, for instance. I saw him yesterday at the ARS.”

  “How did he seem?” I asked.

  “Subdued.”

  “I still think it was Brad,” Eileen asserted. “We’re just spinning our wheels. The killer is usually someone obvious. And Brad’s obvious.”

  “Still, we need to find proof,” Sarah pointed out.

  “We’d need to find proof no matter who did it.”

  “True.”

  We heaved a collective sigh.

  Sarah said, “I ran into Maria Muller the other day at the market and told her about all of this.”

  Maria Muller had attended our group for a while until deciding that she didn’t like reading mysteries. Maria liked to pose questions like “why did God allow killing and war?” She didn’t like the usual answer that was our consensus: God gave us free will.

  “So how is Maria?” I asked.

  “Oh, she’s fine. The same. She asked the usual ‘why does God allow such things?’ I didn’t go into the free will bit, just said ‘beats me’. I wasn’t up for a long discussion. Besides, my ice cream was melting.”

  At one time, Sarah got involved with long discussions with Maria on the free will question as well as other weighty issues. Sometimes the two women lingered outside by their cars after the group meeting, but most often they huddled together in someone’s living room. Sometimes others joined in, but we soon tired of the intensity.

  “There are no free wills,” Eileen quipped. “I just paid five hundred dollars for mine.” Lucy and Trudy contributed their will stories complete with fees.

  I thought of Rox, and presumably Marcie, attending to their wills. How much had they paid? Money should have been no object to either of them.

  Except that from all accounts, it was an object.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  MY BEST THOUGHTS always came to me when I wasn’t thinking. That night, as I brushed my teeth, a memory came to me seemingly out of nowhere.

  Nice to see you again. Wasn’t that what Todd, the manager at Panera, said to me and Nina when we left Panera the day Phyllis christened Nina in coffee? It was such an innocuous expression that I was surprised I even remembered it. Did Todd say that to all his customers, with no real meaning?

  Or had he meant it literally, meaning that he’d seen us before and was happy to see us again? If so, he was mistaken about me, as I’d never been in the Stony Point Panera before that dramatic day. But perhaps Nina had frequented the location.

  That particular realization didn’t amount to much—until I coupled it with another thought. Critiquing. I considered the people I’d critiqued with over the years, either in groups or on a one-on-one basis. My guess was that Nina met someone at Panera who critiqued her play. Maybe the same person helped her with editing as well. The person who wrote those notes.

  Okay, great thought—perhaps. But only if I could verify it. The only person who might be able to help me with that one was Todd. And that required another morning visit to Panera.

  The next day was July fourth. Would Panera even be open?

  No! I told myself as I completed my dental hygiene. Take a work holiday like everyone else did. Panera would still be there on Friday.

  And Rox and Nina would still be dead.

  •••

  The next day I was true to
my word. I put aside anything to do with the investigation. As I did every year I watched the Twilight Zone marathon until late afternoon when we went over to Lucy and Dave’s. Lucy’s daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter drove down from Northern Virginia to celebrate Independence Day. Dave’s family lived in the area so didn’t have as far to travel to join us. We grilled steak and chicken with all the fixings, and never once mentioned the name Rox or Nina. Until it came time to say goodbye.

  When I had told Vince my idea about Nina meeting a critiquing partner at Panera, he’d suggested that I ask Lucy to accompany me. I hardly thought a bodyguard necessary for a field trip to a bakery café, but I agreed and approached Lucy.

  “Sure. I’m game. When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow. About eight.”

  “Okay. I need to be in the office by ten, but this shouldn’t take that long.”

  “I really don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “But I want to go with you. And I like their croissants.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll meet you at eight. The Stony Point Panera.”

  Lucy and I showed up at Panera bright and early the next morning and found Todd with no trouble.

  “Hi, Todd. My name is Hazel Rose and this is my cousin, Lucy Hooper. I was here a few weeks ago.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I remember you.”

  “Do you remember the woman I was with? The one who got into a scuffle with another woman?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I told him of Nina’s death, breezing past his awkward condolences. “When we left that day, you said ‘Nice to see you again.’ Did she often come in here?”

  “Yes, I saw her a couple of times before that time I saw her with you. She was with this guy, an older guy.” If Todd wondered why I asked these questions, he didn’t show it. Panera likely offered their management full-day seminars on how to respond to inexplicable inquiries from the public.

  “What did the guy look like?”

  Todd shrugged. “White hair, glasses, nothing unusual. They had papers. A lot of writers come in here, so they might have been writers. And people meet to discuss business over coffee. Or whatever. To be truthful, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. I only noticed them because they had a heated discussion and she got up and left. She yelled, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’”