By Cook or by Crook (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) (20 page)

Chapter 21

Val scrambled to her feet as the man who’d been her number one murder suspect for the last few days approached her. She didn’t want him standing over her or, worse yet, sitting next to her on the army blanket. “Hello, Bigby.”

He fingered the gold chain around his neck. “I have to talk to you. I—uh—want to explain.”

“Explain what?”

“Why I was rude to you the other day. I thought you were out to smear Nadia, but Bethany tells me you’re helping the police find her murderer.”

Val groaned. No wonder she’d become a target with Bethany spreading that rumor. “Bethany’s wrong about that.”

He hooked his thumbs on his belt loops. “She said you’d deny it.”

Darn. Any direct questions to Bigby, such as where he was the night of the murder, would only confirm what Bethany had said. Indirect probing might work though. “This morning’s service for Nadia was very moving, everyone talking about her charity work and how much they’d miss her. You looked like you were missing her too. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Bigby inhaled loudly and focused on the fountain. “I didn’t realize how much she meant to me until she was gone.”

Val forced herself to look sympathetic. “People often don’t realize things until it’s too late. Whoever sent Monique an anonymous note about Maverick’s affair with Nadia would be shocked by what happened as a result.”

His bloodshot eyes bugged out. “What do you mean?”

“Monique was upset about the note and told everyone what Nadia had done. After that, people shunned Nadia. Someone burned a racket at her place. Then she was murdered. One person made an accusation, and everybody jumped on the bandwagon. Like the Salem witch hunt.” Okay, she’d left logic in the dust, but Bigby didn’t seem to notice.

“I . . . I wrote that note.”

“You did?” Val’s surprise was genuine. She hadn’t expected him to admit it. “Why?”

He gulped as if swallowing a big bitter pill. “To break them up. I didn’t have a chance with Nadia as long as Maverick was around. But once his wife reined him in, I figured Nadia would be lonely.”

And Bigby would be there to catch her on the rebound. But faced with rejection, he might have decided that if he couldn’t have her, no one could. Val finally had a theory that made sense of Bigby’s behavior. Obsession, not resentment, explained why he sent the anonymous note and possibly killed her.

“Hey, Bigby! I’m over here.” A woman waved her arm in a wide arc at Bigby. She wore a spangled hot pink halter top and short shorts with a roll of belly flesh overhanging them.

Bigby’s date for the evening? Easy to see why he’d find the physically fit Nadia more attractive. She also had better taste in clothes than the woman in pink.

“Coming.” He gave his date a halfhearted wave and then turned back to Val. “Nadia wasn’t an empty-headed chick. She had a lot character. I hope her murderer rots in hell.”

He shuffled away, no longer working the crowd, his head and shoulders bowed. Val almost felt sorry for him. If he was the murderer, remorse was eating at him. If he wasn’t, she’d just given him the mother of all guilt trips by blaming him for a chain reaction that ended in Nadia’s death. Even if he hadn’t killed her, his anonymous note had kicked off a vendetta that made Monique a suspect. He deserved to feel miserable.

Val scanned the audience as the musicians tuned up. She recognized some neighbors and a few club members she’d served at the café, but otherwise everyone was a stranger—locals she hadn’t yet met and tourists visiting for the weekend. A few loners stood out in the crowd of couples and families. A man with glasses and a gray mustache hovering at the edge of the park caught her attention. He wore jeans and a navy turtleneck with long sleeves. Most of the crowd had bare arms and legs. Maybe he’d covered up to avoid being mosquito bait.

By the time Luke joined Val, the concert was half over, and the musicians had gone on break.

“Sorry I’m late.” He parked himself next to her on the blanket. “I got bogged down at the diner.”

“Business must be good.”

“We’re short on staff. The kids who usually help us are away at beach week.” He stretched out, crooked his elbow, and rested his head on his hand. “What’s with your article on Nadia? Got any leads on her murder?”

Great. Yet another person assuming she was on the trail of the murderer. “I’m focusing on Nadia’s life, not her death.” Tonight, though, she wanted a break from both. One surefire way to change the subject, ask a man about himself. “Your mother said you used to live in Baltimore. What did you do there?”

“I worked for a restaurant supplier. I had to move here after my father died. The diner leaked money for years. He dipped into savings to cover the expenses. Nobody knew ’til he died that their retirement fund was empty. And he let his life insurance lapse.”

“Ouch.” She leaned back, resting her head on her hand and faced him, a mirror image of his position. “What about selling the place? Wouldn’t that give your mother enough money to retire?”

“She doesn’t want to retire. She likes to cook and talk to people. The diner’s her life. I’m going to make sure she enjoys it as long as she can.”

She heard a fierceness in his voice that contrasted with his usual breezy tone. So much for Granddad’s notion that Luke was treating his mother badly and forcing her to work. “You’re a good son.”

“I wish my father could hear you say that. He had me down as a good-for-nothing. My sister was the perfect child. But what has she done for Mom? Squat. She came to my father’s funeral and went right back to Seattle.”

“Mom” and “my father”—Luke’s word choices showed where his affections lay. Val sat up and wrapped her arms around her bent knees. “It’s a long way to the West Coast. My brother lives in California. We don’t see much of him or his family.”

“Did you ever get hold of Jeremy?”

“Not yet. You must treat him well. According to his father, Nadia tried to talk Jeremy into giving up his job for a better one, but she couldn’t convince him to leave the diner.”

Luke’s mouth turned down with skepticism. “First I’ve heard of it. I don’t want to hold anybody back, but a better job just isn’t in the cards for that kid.”

Nadia had either seen more potential in Jeremy or concealed her real reason for urging him to change jobs. “Maybe she thought you were going to fire him, and she wanted to spare him the humiliation.”

Luke gave her a you-must-be-kidding look. “No way I would fire him. People who sweep the floor with that much enthusiasm are hard to find.”

Val had trouble reading Luke. She couldn’t tell whether he appreciated Jeremy’s hard work or was mocking him for enjoying a menial task.

As the music started, she spotted Chatty conversing with two older women whose jewelry and makeup would have suited a concert at Carnegie Hall better than one at the town park. Clearly they could afford Chatty’s high-end beauty products. Why had Nadia gone to the trouble of sending one of those products for testing unless she intended to act on the test results? She might have confronted Chatty about it Monday morning, when she’d also shown Chatty the burned racket.

On Monday night Nadia had welcomed someone arriving at her door. She would have let Chatty in, though not Bigby because he’d stalked her . . . or so Chatty had claimed. Val cringed. How easily Chatty had convinced her of Bigby’s guilt and thrown up smoke screens after the murder. While in front of a TV camera, she’d diverted suspicion from the tennis team toward Nadia’s real estate colleagues. After that, she’d told a newspaper reporter that the police would soon arrest the racket burner for murder.

Val watched Chatty hand business cards to the two well-heeled women. Did she have an alibi for the night of the murder? Probably not. As a single mother, she spent most nights at home with her fourteen-year-old son. But she could have left him alone for as long as it took to murder Nadia. Motive, means, opportunity—Chatty had them all.

Val’s eyes stung with tears. The downside to sleuthing—finding a friend guilty. Though she’d run to the chief with her suspicions about Maverick and Bigby, she would hold off on telling him about Chatty. For a change, she would think through a theory before sharing it.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and forced herself to forget about Nadia and Chatty for the rest of the concert.

Twice before the music ended, she caught Luke looking at her. Then, during the encore, she felt his hand on her neck. When she turned, he kissed her, holding the back of her head with one hand. She smelled his aftershave, an overlay on the cooking oil that clung to him. Twenty years ago, his kiss had surprised and excited her. She hadn’t known what to do with her arms, leaving them to flail at her sides. Now, though, she knew how to use them.

She pushed him away, the heels of her hands against his shoulders. “When you asked me to meet you, I didn’t think—”

“You can’t blame me for kissing you. I couldn’t help myself.”

She almost laughed. He’d used those exact words the last time. Amazing how puppy love imprints every detail on your memory. Tonight he’d kissed her in front of an audience at twilight. She hoped anyone who saw that also noticed her rebuff him.

When the encore ended, Tiffany scampered toward them. “Val, you gonna walk back with us? You promised.”

Val hadn’t promised, but Tiffany’s parents might have seen her push Luke away and sent the girl to give Val an excuse to ditch her date. Val saw no reason to string Luke along when she preferred Gunnar’s company.

She stood up. “Thanks for suggesting the concert, Luke. I’ll head back home with my neighbors.”

Luke’s face turned stony. “Sure. Enjoy the rest of your night.” He stood up and disappeared into the crowd.

 

 

“Race you to your house,” Tiffany said as they turned the corner onto Val’s street. She darted away.

Val trotted at an easy pace behind her. The girl’s parents and younger brother brought up the rear.

Tiffany bounded up Granddad’s porch steps, stopped short, and suddenly ran back to the sidewalk, her face contorted in fear.

Val felt a jolt of adrenaline and dashed toward her. “What’s wrong?”

Tiffany grabbed her hand. “I didn’t know you had dogs. They sound mean. Do they bite? Is that why you never let them out?”

“They’re in the house?” When the girl nodded, Val imagined Granddad fending off canine attacks. She ran to the porch as her grandfather opened the front door. He looked calm despite the furious barks coming from inside the house. “Are you dog-sitting, Granddad?”

He grinned. “In a way. When Ned moved to the senior village, he forced his dang-fool motion detector on me. RoboFido. It makes a racket when anyone comes near the house. I’ll turn it off.”

Val explained the barking to Tiffany and her family. The girl insisted on meeting RoboFido.

The device sat on the floor near the front door’s sidelight. Tiffany frowned at it. “It’s just a box. It doesn’t even have fur.”

Granddad patted the girl on the head. “This dog is less trouble than the furry kind. Never needs walking. Want to see how it works?” He pointed to a dial on top of the box. “This is the on-off switch and the volume control. The other dial lets you pick different sounds.”

Tiffany took to the role of DJ and strung together a medley of doggie tunes—a woofing solo, a baritone-and-bass barking duet, and a snarling chorus by hounds of the Baskervilles. Tiffany’s little brother howled along with the hounds. Her parents had to drag her away from the gizmo.

Granddad closed the door behind the family and gestured with his palm up toward RoboFido. “How do you like our pet?”

“We need a dozen in a house this size.” Val unplugged the device. “One’s better than none. I’ll put it in a back window facing the darkest part of the yard.”

She also made sure the lights near the front and side doors were on. She’d heard nothing unusual outside the house last night, either because she’d slept soundly or because the driving rain had discouraged anyone from creeping around. No rain tonight.

After getting ready for bed, she decided against sleeping in her own room. It faced the backyard. She’d surely hear the sentry barking, but she wouldn’t hear any noise from the driveway or the front. She took her pillow and a light blanket to the sofa in the sitting room, read until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, and fell asleep.

She dreamt of driving through a fierce windstorm that denuded the trees. Her tires crunched over piles of dry leaves. She woke up and still heard the crunching sounds from her dream. They came from under the side window. She parted the curtain and could barely make out the yellow hatchback in the driveway. No light came from the fixture near the side door. A loose bulb for the third time this week? No way. She decided against turning on the lights in the house. They wouldn’t help her see into the darkness outside, just make her visible to anyone out there.

The crunching noises stopped. Then a crescendo of barks reverberated through the house. Fido had detected motion in the backyard.

“Val?” Granddad said from his bedroom door. “What’s happening?”

“Someone’s out back. Call 911. Tell them to send the police. Then lock yourself in your room.”

The barking stopped. Val grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen and peered out the dining room window. She saw a dark figure run from behind the house toward the front. A second figure pursued and tackled the first one.

Val ran to the side door and cracked it open. Her flashlight illuminated two men on the ground between the car parked in the driveway and the backyard. They thrashed and slugged each other. One wore a dark turtleneck like the man she’d noticed at the park tonight. The other guy, also in dark clothing, wore a tight-fitting cap.

The man in the turtleneck rolled on top of the other guy and punched him.

If Val didn’t act, the police might find a man beaten to a pulp in her driveway.