Murder at the Moonshine Inn

by Maggie King

  “I’ll try Andy. He might know something.” But when I e-mailed him he said he was clueless.

  “If I hear from them I’ll let you know,” he said. “But it’s unlikely.”

  I resolved to drop the whole thing. If Patty and Paul wanted to contact me, they had my number.

  TWENTY-NINE

  IT SEEMED STRANGE to see a dead person on Facebook, but Roxanne Howard looked very much alive as she smiled big for her Facebook friends from the helm of a boat. Rox posted up until the day she died, mostly about various goings-on at the Hamlin Group, but she shared postings from her colleagues in the non-profit world as well. She appeared in photos with local notables. I looked through her friends, thinking I might spot someone and nab the killer right then and there. And we had a mutual friend—Phyllis Ross.

  I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Rox and Phyllis were in the same line of work: development. I checked the pages that Phyllis liked. Since she worked as development director at the Infinity Center, I expected that she would like her organization’s page; the page I didn’t expect to find was Synanon. I clicked the link and found an abbreviated description from Wikipedia. I clicked further for the complete entry.

  I had a sketchy memory of hearing about some questionable doings of the drug rehabilitation program based in Santa Monica, California—something about a snake. According to Wikipedia, in 1978 two Synanon members left a “derattled” rattlesnake in the mailbox of attorney Paul Morantz of Pacific Palisades, California after Morantz successfully sued Synanon on behalf of a woman who had been abducted by that organization. The snake bit—and almost killed—the attorney.

  The online encyclopedia described a Synanon practice called “The Game,” where members endured violent and humiliating criticism from their peers under the guise of group therapy. Wikipedia provided additional information that did nothing to dispel my belief that the organization had done more harm than good during its reign of more than thirty years: men forced to have vasectomies, women forced to have abortions, women shaving their heads—the list of indignities went on. Yikes!

  Phyllis had lived in Southern California for a time. In San Francisco as well. The book group women nicknamed Phyllis, Sarah, and me “the California Trio.” Sarah had gone to Berkeley and I’d lived in Los Angeles for twenty years. Had Phyllis been in Synanon? If not, why like the Facebook page? I wondered if Phyllis had honed her sharp tongue and hot-headedness during sessions of “The Game.” All this was interesting, but I doubted that Synanon had anything to do with Rox.

  Still, the fact that Rox and Phyllis were Facebook friends might mean something. And at this point, something beat nothing.

  I checked my computer clock. Noon. If I waited until two, Phyllis should be back from lunch. While I waited, I went back to Rox’s page and checked her likes. She had few—the inevitable Hamlin Group, other local non-profits, and a nail salon. Did the Moonshine Inn have a page? Nothing by that name came up when I searched, at least not in Virginia.

  I told Vince of my plans. I thought I’d be okay on my own but, just as when I’d met Mary Anne at Ellwood Thompson, I vowed to text him on my arrival and departure from the center.

  “You know, Vince, shouldn’t the police have found this Facebook connection between Rox and Phyllis?”

  “I didn’t hear anything about that. Maybe they did check it out and it didn’t amount to anything.”

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t convinced.

  •••

  The Infinity Center was an adult daycare program, highly regarded in the community, offering an impressive array of services for the elderly and their families. Good place, but I hoped I never needed it. On the drive over, I tried to think of what I’d say once I saw Phyllis. How would she receive me? I stopped at the reception desk. A harried-looking young woman with masses of auburn hair fielded calls. While I waited, I texted Vince the news of my arrival.

  “Is Phyllis Ross available? I’m Hazel Rose.”

  “Phyllis?” The woman spoke into the phone. “There’s a Hazel Rose waiting to see you.”

  Phyllis appeared wearing a beige pantsuit that revealed more of her figure than I’d ever seen. I never realized she was so slim as she usually favored loose-fitting, flowing garments. “Hazel. How . . . nice to see you.”

  “Do you have a minute? We can wait until you’re off work.”

  “No, no. Come on down to my office.”

  Phyllis led me down a wide, sterile-looking hall, all teal and peach, those Southwest colors that prevailed in the late ‘80s. But the building that housed the Infinity Center was much more recent than that. We went through a door marked “Administrative Staff” into a hall lined with offices. Phyllis’s lighting choice of a desk lamp, rather than the standard overhead fluorescents, made her office inviting.

  I took the guest chair and Phyllis sat behind her desk.

  I had to keep in mind that Phyllis was a suspect, so I needed to walk on eggshells. Still, I got right to the point with my opening line: “Phyllis, on that day at Panera, Nina told me about her sister Roxanne and how she was murdered.”

  “Yes?” Phyllis’ dark eyes regarded me through black-framed glasses. “But you knew about that anyway. We discussed it at book group. What’s your point?”

  “How well did you know Rox?”

  “Not well at all.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did Nina ask you to investigate Rox’s murder? I know you looked into Carlene’s murder years ago. That probably means you’re looking into Nina’s as well. Probably the same person killed both of them, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, no, she didn’t ask me anything like that,” I lied. “But Vince is researching Rox’s murder and I’m helping him by asking people who knew her. Like you.” I figured it didn’t hurt to bring Vince’s name into the conversation.

  Phyllis gave a short laugh. “Like I said, I barely knew Rox.”

  “I saw that you and she were Facebook friends.”

  “Ah yes, good old Facebook.”

  “But when you and I talked that day, after Panera, you sounded, um, negative about Rox.”

  Phyllis gave me a long look, perhaps weighing whether she wanted to reveal something or if it was best to string me along. I noticed that she didn’t question why I was looking at her Facebook page. Hopefully the thought wouldn’t occur to her.

  The spill-all urge won out. She sighed and began. “Rox and I went to the same high school, but I was several years older so we didn’t know each other from there. But we met at VAFRE.” So Sarah was right when she suggested that the Virginia Association of Fund Raising Executives was how Phyllis and Rox knew each other.

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Oh, last fall sometime. I’d just moved into this position and was new at VAFRE. Remember, I was in marketing and promotion before. Anyway, Rox friended me on Facebook and asked me to have lunch with her. I accepted. She seemed so friendly.”

  “Did you know that she and Nina were sisters?”

  “Not then. Later, at the lunch, she mentioned her sister Nina, and it turned out that it was the same Nina. But I figured that I shouldn’t hold her responsible for her sister’s actions. And like I said, she seemed so nice. At lunch she drank quite a few glasses of wine and was very interested in my life—what I did, had done. I told her I planned to run for public office someday.”

  “Really?” I broke in to Phyllis’s account. “I didn’t realize that.”

  “Just an idea I toy with,” she said, waving a hand. “Anyway, Rox said, ‘I see you like the Synanon page on Facebook. Were you there?’

  “I told her about a drug problem I had back in the ‘70s. I told the woman everything.” Phyllis stopped. “How much do you know about Synanon?”

  “Very little,” I allowed. “Wasn’t there something about a snake in someone’s mailbox?”

  Phyllis told a tale of Synanon, much of what I’d read about earlier. The Game, the snake, women forced to shave their heads, etcetera. I thought, Phyllis with a shaved head? How
long did it take her to grow back her voluminous mane? I didn’t ask Phyllis if she’d personally undergone any of those mandated indignities. Don’t ask, don’t tell—the policy had its merits.

  Phyllis continued, “But back to Rox. She said to me, ‘You probably don’t want people to know about your past in Synanon. Or your drug problem. It wouldn’t go over well with your voters.’ That was when I saw the gleam in her eye. Then she said, ‘But your secret is safe with me—for a fee.’”

  “So she tried to blackmail you?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t want to play the “blame the victim” game, but I had to ask: “Phyllis, why did you like the Synanon page?”

  “Oh, I don’t know! I just did. You see, I hardly ever use Facebook. I check it about once a month. I’d forgotten all about the Synanon page.”

  “But what would be the problem anyway?” I asked. “Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both admitted to using drugs. Remember Clinton’s famous ‘I didn’t inhale’ line?”

  “But they weren’t addicted. And they weren’t in Synanon.”

  “Yes, but how well known is Synanon, really? Nowadays, if people ever knew anything about it, they’ve forgotten the details.” Like me, they might have a vague memory of the snake story.

  “The point is that she tried to blackmail me. I said, ‘Go ahead, do your worst.’ Then I got up and upended a plate of Caesar salad in her lap. And walked out.” Much as she’d done with Nina’s coffee. Phyllis could benefit from an anger management course. Had she gone through a deprogramming process to release herself from the Synanon-style brainwashing?

  “They’re not going to care here,” Phyllis waved a hand to encompass the whole of Infinity Center. “But in a political campaign? Hard to tell these days what will get voters up in arms. But thanks for the heads-up about that Synanon page. I’m going to unlike it right now.” As she did so, I asked myself why someone would like a page if her association with the organization was so unpleasant. She’d claimed it was a nightmare.

  Once Phyllis completed that task and pronounced it “Done!” she took a deep breath. “So that makes me a suspect. I know I’m already one in Nina’s murder, thanks to your wonderful book group.” Phyllis gave me a dark look.

  I ignored the look. “Well, do you have an alibi for Rox’s murder?”

  “Not really. But I do have one for Miss Nina’s murder.” I didn’t comment on that dubious alibi. As I recalled, Phyllis had left the museum fundraiser at ten o’clock and Brad made his call to the police at eleven. Phyllis had plenty of time to kill Nina. All we needed was the ever-absent proof that she did.

  “Those two women—I didn’t kill them but I haven’t shed any tears over their deaths. Not . . . one . . . tear. That Nina character ruined my brother. Ruined him.” I didn’t roll my eyes, but I wanted to.

  We parted on a sour note. As I walked down the long wide hall I found my phone in my purse.

  “Leaving,” I texted Vince. “Mission accomplished. Sort of.” I only misspelled two of the five words.

  At home I found Vince at his computer. He removed the headphones that circled his head and listened to my tale.

  “What was Rox doing?” I asked, once I unwound. “Mining her professional network for extortion prospects?”

  “Apparently not successfully, at least judging from her bank accounts,” Vince said. “Remember when I checked with Dennis—”

  “Right,” I broke in. “Just the money from Marcie’s estate.”

  “And her own salary. Nothing unaccounted for.”

  “Perhaps she stashed her blackmail gains under her mattress. If she did, I’m sure Brad confiscated it.”

  Had Rox blackmailed others? How would we find out? Was there a support group devoted to her victims? Rounding up that group sounded like a fun venture. I pictured the ad I could place on Richmond.com and Style Weekly.

  And laughed.

  •••

  I found e-mails in my inbox from the book group wanting a report on the meeting with Brad. I wasn’t up to composing a lengthy e-mail, especially since it was Wednesday and we were meeting that night by Skype. I did offer a few tidbits on my visit to the Infinity Center, promising a complete account when we met. And I sent them a link to the Wikipedia entry about Synanon.

  Once our Skype session was launched, I ran through my conversations with Brad and Phyllis.

  “My word!” Eileen exclaimed. “Blackmail? Synanon? Where do we even start? I sure don’t blame Brad’s patients and staff for bailing on him. Who wants to be sitting in a chair with a murder suspect probing your mouth with sharp instruments?”

  “I love the part about Brad and the purple-haired receptionist,” Sarah laughed.

  “Serves him right,” Trudy said with asperity.

  “What about Patty and Paul? What’s the deal with them?” Lucy asked.

  “Yes, if those two are so hard up, why doesn’t she go back to teaching?” Sarah asked, sounding annoyed. “And did you ever find out what Paul did for a living?”

  “According to Andy he taught Speech,” I said. “Maybe Philosophy as well.”

  “And she taught English?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she could tutor. As for him, I don’t know if they offer tutoring for Speech and Drama. Or Philosophy for that matter. They both could get involved in something that could bring them at least some income. Instead of mooching off their relatives.”

  “Sarah, you mentioned Speech and Drama,” I said. “Paul taught Speech. Why did you add Drama?”

  “Did I? Habit, I guess. When I was teaching, the Speech teachers often taught Drama as well.”

  “This Synanon stuff is really bizarre.” Trudy read from the Wikipedia entry. We tried, and failed, to visualize Phyllis bald.

  Lucy said, “With all Rox’s money she had to resort to blackmail?”

  “Do you think it’s even true?” Eileen challenged.

  “Who knows what’s true and what isn’t? And we don’t even know that Rox didn’t succeed in blackmailing.” I felt a mounting frustration with this whole business.

  “Just suppose Rox was bleeding Phyllis dry,” Trudy said, “And Phyllis kills her. It’s plausible.”

  “Sure it’s plausible,” I agreed. “Now let’s come up with some proof.”

  “What about Patty and Paul?” Lucy asked. “Are you going to try to find out where they are?”

  “No. I figure they either don’t want to see me or they’re too embarrassed to see me. At any rate, they know where I am.”

  I considered my newfound relatives: a murder suspect, an alcoholic deadbeat, and a possibly homeless former academic. I wished I’d met Marcie. She sounded like the best of this bunch.

  Looking on the bright side, I suspected they’d supplied me with story ideas for years to come.

  •••

  I thought back to Sarah’s assuming that Paul had taught Drama. I looked him up online. And in no time, Paul Ratzenberger appeared on a WordPress site. As he’d looked two or three decades before. How long had he had this site? And did Patty know about it? I had taken her at her word that she and her husband hadn’t yet ventured into cyberspace.

  I clicked through the site, learning that my cousin’s husband produced, directed, wrote, and acted in plays. His experience included set design, makeup, costume, and lighting. You name it, Paul did it. Halfway down the list of plays to his credit, I noticed Greater Tuna.

  Why hadn’t I ever heard about Paul’s stellar theatre career? Had his gambling problem derailed it?

  But, most important: as a playwright, was he Nina’s critique partner?

  I clicked on the photos link and found several pictures of theatre productions. Two showed Paul and Patty posing by a blue car that looked to be parked by a scenic overlook. I guessed the car to be a Camry dating from the ‘80s, judging by the boxy style that Toyota used in the original models. I only knew that because my brother purchased a Camry in 1985 and drove it for years. I recognized Paul’s blue
van in other pictures.

  When I told Vince of my findings, he said, “Interesting. Now all you have to do is find them and then you can ask Paul about his stage career.”

  “And about whether he critiqued Nina’s play. You know, I remember Patty saying Paul had run into Nina one day at Walgreen’s. Maybe that’s when she asked him to take a look at her play.”

  Vince smiled as he repeated, “Now all you have to do—”

  “Is find them,” I groaned.

  THIRTY

  WEEKS PASSED, ALLOWING us all to get back to living our lives. Rox and Nina’s deaths appeared destined for the cold case files. I had no trouble filling my time: I completed my rewrites and sent them back to my editor. I felt the additional scene she suggested between the two lovers who decided to go their separate ways worked well. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the second round of edits appeared in my inbox. I read it carefully, revised as necessary, added my own suggestions, and sent it back.

  Mary Anne Branch e-mailed me the first three chapters of the draft of her romance. On that day at Ellwood Thompson when she’d ask me to critique it, I hadn’t expected her to come through so soon. The story was quite good and I sent back some encouraging words as well as suggestions for improvement.

  Along with writing one manuscript, editing a second, and critiquing a third, I filled my schedule with walking, book group, gym, laundry, cleaning litter boxes—you name it.

  Brad called at least once a week, wanting to know if I’d learned anything new. Each week I said “No” and urged him to hire a PI. He whined about his dwindling patient base and having to pay his staff top dollar. I could tell that the man desperately wanted to scream and swear at me. The stress of holding his emotions in check was no doubt taking a toll on his health.

  “All the more reason to hire a PI,” I said to him each time.

  “Why’s he bugging me, anyway?” I complained to Vince. “With all his money he could hire a posse of PIs. He could retire his practice.”