A Chili Death: A Classic Diner Mystery (10 page)

“We don’t know that she wasn’t about to spill it all, Victoria, and you know it.”

“Do you honestly think that she was going to tell us anything?”

Moose just shrugged.  “You never know.”

“Maybe not, but I have a pretty good idea.”

The sheriff stepped between us.  “I told you that you could dig into this as long as you both stayed out of my way.  What happened to that promise you made?”

“Hang on,” I said, shifting gears immediately.  “How were we supposed to know what you were up to?  Send us your schedule, and we’ll do our best to avoid you in the future.”

Moose liked that, and he grinned at me and added a wink.  I didn’t return it, mainly because I was still intent on pinning the sheriff down on his last comment.  We weren’t mind-readers, so how could we have known what he was going to do next?

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” he said.  “Come on, confess.  Where have you been so far?”

I wasn’t about to answer him right away, but Moose surprised me by telling him the total and unvarnished truth.  “We’ve been to see Francie Humphries, Bob Chastain, Cynthia here, and Hank Brewer.”

The last name certainly got his attention.  “Are you saying that you’ve talked to Hank today?”

“No,” Moose admitted grudgingly.  “He took off before we had a chance to corner him.  I take it that Hank’s on your list, too.”

“He was in the middle of the pack early this morning, but I have to admit, him leaving town at the spur of the moment like that shot him quite a bit closer to the top.”

“But he’s still behind my family, is that it?” I asked.

“I’m not ready to release the order of my suspects.  Everyone’s a candidate in my book.”

“Then you figured out the link between Howard Lance and the rest of us?” I asked.

“Extortion,” he said simply.

“He didn’t have a case, you know,” Moose said.  “It was all done fair and legal back when we all bought land from Joshua.  Howard Lance was just trying to rattle our cages a little and get someone to pay up fast before we found out that he was just scamming us.”

“And did he?” the sheriff asked.  “I heard about the missing deed book, and how several folks don’t have receipts for buying their land.  It could easily be a motive for murder.”

I had to give Sheriff Croft props for figuring that all out so quickly, doing it without our inside information.  “All we can say for sure is that our family didn’t pay him,” I said.

“What did the other folks say when you asked them about it?  Were you able to get anyone’s alibi?” the sheriff asked, clearly interested in our answers.

I went down my list.  “Francie said that she was working on cupcakes in the back by herself, while Bob claimed that he drove to Hickory and back alone without stopping to talk to anyone on the way.  We couldn’t find Hank, and Cynthia won’t tell us anything.  Maybe you can sweat it out of her, but we weren’t having any luck at all when you showed up.”

“You’ve done some pretty good work,” the sheriff said as he nodded.  “You only missed one other potential suspect, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I still refuse to believe that a member of my family had anything to do with this mess,” I said.

“That wasn’t who I was talking about,” he said.

“So, we’re not suspects?” I asked.

“I’m not saying that, either.”

“Then who’s your mystery suspect?” Moose asked.

It was pretty clear that the sheriff was reluctant to name names, so I asked, “How can we keep from stepping on your toes if we don’t know what you’re doing?  All we need is a name.”

He thought about that, and then shrugged.  “Okay, but it goes no farther.  Margie Collins is the last name on my list.”

I could barely believe that I’d just heard that.  Margie was a gray-haired widow, a Sunday School teacher, and though she loved to gossip, I couldn’t imagine her as a murderer.

Moose beat me to the protest, though.  “Margie?  You’ve got to be kidding.”

Sheriff Croft looked miserable as he admitted, “I wish I were, but somebody claims they saw Margie with the victim not two hours before he was murdered.  I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“What would she be doing with him?”

“I’d love to ask her that myself, but she’s missing as well.”

“She took off like Hank did?” I asked.  “Is there any chance that they’re together?”

Moose looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but the sheriff killed that expression when he nodded.  “As hard as it is to believe, it turns out that it’s possible.”

I tried to imagine Margie and Hank together, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the prospect.  “I didn’t even know that they were dating.”

“Nobody else in town did, either,” Moose said.

“How could you possibly know that?” the sheriff asked him.

“Do you think they’d be able to keep that kind of secret from all of us?  I’d have to see a photo of them together before I’d ever consider it a possibility.”

I slapped my grandfather’s shoulder.  “Eww.”

“I just meant in the same frame of the picture.  Get your mind out of the gutter, granddaughter.”  He then turned to the sheriff.  “What makes you think they were together?”

“I can’t reveal my sources,” he said, “but I believe the information is credible.”

“Funny,” Moose said, “but if it were anybody else, I’d go to Margie to find out what she’d heard.  So, who’s the number two gossip in Jasper Fork?”

“Do you mean besides you?” the sheriff asked with a hint of a grin.

I could see that Moose was about to explode, so I knew that I had to defuse the situation, and fast.  “Moose isn’t a gossip; he’s a collector of town information.  Isn’t that right?” I asked him with a wink that I hoped the sheriff hadn’t seen.

He took the hint.  “It’s true that I like to stay abreast of what’s going on in my town,” Moose said.  “I make a fair point of it, though.  If I didn’t know about it, I doubt that it ever happened.”

The sheriff wasn’t going to accept that at face value, but it was clear that he wasn’t looking to pick a fight, either.

“I’m going to go have a chat with Cynthia.  Where are the two of you going next?”

“Back to the diner,” I said before Moose could say a word.

The sheriff clearly had a hard time believing that we were giving up, even if it was only temporary.  “What’s wrong, are there no more clues for you to chase down?”

“We’re set at the moment,” Moose said.  “And besides, our family needs us back at the diner to get things back in shape.”  There was very little truth to that, but I wasn’t about to dispute it.  I was sure that the crew we had in place was getting along swimmingly.

“Don’t forget,” the sheriff said as he headed back inside the salon,  “let me know if you hear from Hank or Margie, or if anything else comes up that might be important.”

I saluted him with a smile.  “We will.”

After he was gone, I turned to Moose.  “Are we really going back to the diner right now?”

“We are,” he said.  “I’m hungry, two of our suspects are missing, and the ones we already talked to didn’t give us much of anything.”

“That’s how it goes sometimes,” I said.

“Is that your official opinion?” he asked me with a grin as we got back into his truck.

“You can quote me on it.  I have to admit, I miss not running the front of the diner,” I said when I saw that it was nearing eleven, the start of one of my shifts.

“You need a life, young lady,” Moose said.

“I’ve got one, and it’s a pretty good one, if you ask me.  Come on, I’ll make sure you eat the first thing when we get there.”

“We’ll both eat,” Moose said.  “We can chat while we’re doing it and see what our next step should be.”

I was hungry, and also completely out of any new ideas about what we should do next.  It was one of our family’s mottos that when all else failed, grab a quick bite, and things might just get better on their own.  I doubted that it would work this time, but at the very least, I’d get a meal out of it before I got back to work trying to solve Howard Lance’s murder.

After a bowl of Greg’s chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, I told Moose, “I might as well take over the register until we can come up with something else to investigate.”

“As a team, I’m sorry to say that we’re turning out to be a real bust.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I countered.  “We managed to learn more than Sheriff Croft was able to in such a short amount of time.”

“Yeah, but we’re already tapped out of ideas,” he said.  “What would one of those books you love be like if it all ended in chapter three?”

“Not very good,” I admitted.

“Then think about where else we can look,” Moose said.  “Don’t treat this as a real murder.  Think of it as a puzzle to solve.”

I did as my grandfather asked, and started playing around with what we’d learned so far, and what else we might be able to find out.  “Well, I suppose we should be willing to entertain the notion that whoever killed Howard Lance wasn’t from around Jasper Fork.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it, Moose.  Whoever killed him may have followed him here and done it in town.  It makes perfect sense, when you look at it that way.  If he was murdered around these parts, especially after the way he’d been acting, nobody would give it much credence that the most viable suspects weren’t from Jasper Fork.”

“Where was the man from?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve got an idea.”  I went into the kitchen and retrieved the document Howard Lance had served us with such a short time before. 

“What’s going on?” Greg asked as he flipped a burger on the grill with skill and a little panache.

“I’m not ready to say just yet,” I answered as I walked back past him.

“Be sure to let me know when you are,” he said with a smile, and then turned his attention to the next order in line.

“What have you got that for?” Moose asked with distaste when he saw the legal document in my hands.

“It’s our next lead.”

“I don’t see how,” my grandfather said.

“Think about it, Moose.  A lawyer wrote this up.  Let’s find him and see what he has to say about Howard Lance’s behavior.  We might just be able to uncover a whole new list of suspects.”

“Victoria, I’ve been around a whole lot longer than you have.  Getting a lawyer to admit anything, especially about a client, is as easy as turning chili into borscht.”

“Even if the client’s dead?”

“The first answer they learn to give is always no,” Moose said.

“Well, it’s at least worth trying.”  I looked at the document and saw that it had been drawn up by someone named M.T. Ingram in Laurel Landing.”

“That’s less than half an hour from here,” Moose said.  “I guess it’s worth a try.”

“That’s the spirit.  Let’s go,” I said. 

“Okay by me,” he answered.  Instead of heading for the front door, though, I popped my head back into the kitchen before we left. 

“We’re following up on another lead,” I told Greg, and then looked around.  “Hey, I thought you and Mom were working together today.”

“She had an errand to run,” Greg admitted.  “It’s okay.  I don’t mind.”

I had a hunch that two cooks in one kitchen was one cook too many, but I didn’t say anything about it.  “I’ll see you later.”

“Tracking down a new lead?” he asked.

“Hopefully,” I replied and hesitated long enough to give him a quick kiss.

I stopped at the table on the way back and looked for the paper we’d been served with, but it was gone.  What had happened to it?

I was about to panic when I looked at Moose. He was dangling the document in the air.

“You might not want to just leave this sitting around,” he said when I rejoined him.

“I figured you’d have it,” I answered.  “Let’s go to Laurel Landing and see what Mr. Ingram has to say.”

We made the drive in good time, and I used my cell phone to find Ingram’s address.  The law office was easy enough to spot, since it was right across the street from the courthouse.

“Let me do the talking this time,” Moose said.  “I speak attorney.  This is probably some crusty old man with cigar burns on his tie, and we can relate to each other.”

“You can try, but don’t think for one second that I’m going to let you go in there without me, Moose.”

“Just watch and learn, youngster,” Moose said as he knocked on the front door.

There was no reply, so he tried the front door, which was unlocked.

In the front office, we found a nice looking brunette woman younger than me, dressed in gray slacks and a black blouse.

“We’re here to see Ingram,” Moose said to the woman, clearly expecting to be ushered straight back into the inner sanctum.

She glanced at the open appointment book on the desk.  “Funny, but I don’t see anyone listed on the schedule today.”