Death Al Dente (19 page)

The only thing that didn't fit was the spaghetti sauce on my car. The note made that personal.

Who harbored so much hatred or resentment of my mother? Even if my theory was wrong, there was a killer in town, who might not be finished with us.

“Y
ou still on duty?” I asked Kim after Fresca and Bill left. “Burger and a beer, my treat?”

She eyed me warily. “Promise no fishing for info?”

I nodded, fingers crossed behind my back.

A row of Harleys parked outside Red's drew lusty whistles from passersby. “Nearly collided with a crazy-man biker on the Eastshore today. Surprised you weren't called to the scene of a major wipeout.”

“Road pizza,” Kim said. I made a face. “Cop humor. Keeps us from going nuts.”

As usual in summer, music spilled out Red's open front door, the air heavy with grease, beer, and Friday night sweat. The satellite radio mix tipped heavily toward the 1970s and 1980s, as Bob Seger wrapped up “Fire Lake” and Pat What-was-her-name sang “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” Seemed a little early for that tune, but what I know about the bar business wouldn't fill a shot glass.

We ordered burgers and fries at the kitchen window, then elbowed our way to the courtyard bar. Ted reddened when we approached. I love odd couples, but could not picture the polished detective hooking up with the big lug bartender.

He snapped his bar towel. “Ladies, what'll it be?”

We carried our beers to a table near the stage, quiet tonight. My glass was a touch full, so I sipped as I walked. At that odd angle, I couldn't help noticing all eyes on Kim. She noticed, too, and called out, “Carry on—I'm off duty.”

The stage reminded me of Sam's comments. I told her Sam had seen Dean and Linda arrive separately, and presumed Dean came in the back gate.

“The musicians all said they hadn't seen anything unusual. I need to interview them again, and get more specific.”

“But it makes sense, doesn't it? If Dean was the last person to come in the back gate, then either he didn't see her—so he wouldn't have had any reason to lie about where he parked—or he killed her. They had words, he pulled a knife out of his boot. She was stabbed, wasn't she?”

“You said you wouldn't fish.”

I shrugged.

Kim sighed, resigned. “Yeah, she was. But we haven't found a weapon.”

“He'd have ditched it by now, for sure.”

Our food came. Kim squirted her fries with mayonnaise, a disgusting habit she'd picked up in high school to keep other kids from stealing them.

How easily we'd slipped back into our old roles: stubborn Erin; calm, cool Kim. We'd stayed friends despite being competitors because each of us cared more about different things. Like barrel racing. In a fluke, I won the last race senior year with enough points to snare the title. “How nice after the tragedy,” everyone said, like being crowned Miss Teen Rodeo made up for my dad dying. It was like we had switched roles; Kim had lost interest despite being far the better rider, and I had gone for broke.

“Kim, you have no evidence against Fresca. First”—I gestured with a fry—“Claudette didn't know about the dinner Friday night until I invited her. She hadn't been back in town long enough to catch up. She was genuinely surprised. Second, she insisted she didn't spread any rumors. You should have seen how furious she was. And no matter what else people say about Claudette, no one calls her a gossip or a liar.”

Kim raised one eyebrow. “So what's your point?”

“The point is, that disproves any theory that she was coming to the Merc to confront Fresca.” I whetted my whistle with a long swig of Scapegoat Pale Ale. “Yeah, she called Mom, and me, so she had something on her mind. Who knows what? Maybe she wanted to apologize. Or get her job back. Or ask for help in her quest for a restaurant—Fresca always knows what's going on in town.” Even if I couldn't convince Kim of Mom's innocence, I hoped she'd at least start questioning her own theories.

“Third, you say Fresca disappeared for a few minutes right before I found Claudette. Not being able to pinpoint exactly where she was exactly when isn't exactly disappearing. But nobody puts her in the alley, right? No one says they saw Fresca leave and go around back.”

“Hey, Erin. Hi, Kim.” Polly Paulson danced up to our table. “Girls' night out?”

“Hey, Polly, the other day you said you saw me talking to Claudette outside the drugstore, right?” She nodded and I looked at Kim, as if to say,
See, I was there—I didn't make it up
.

“Something I thought of later, after you interviewed me,” Polly said. “I closed up at five thirty, and on my way home, I drove through the village to drop off my daughter's library books. And I saw that fellow who was talking with Claudette at the drugstore—what's his name?”

“James Angelo,” I said. “Yeah, he said he went kayaking Friday evening.”

“Not likely, not in those stupid chili pepper pants and a white cook's jacket. Stomping up Front Street like he meant to kill somebody.” Polly's husband called her name. “Ooh, nachos. Gotta go—I'm starving. You girls ever want to go dancing, call me.”

“Tell me you haven't been going around town interviewing everyone,” Kim said.

“Not everyone. Not yet.” I recapped what I'd learned from Polly and Wendy, and what I'd uncovered about James Angelo, aka Jay Walker. Though Dean seemed like the guy, I told her my alternate theory about Angelo, arguing with Claudette at her house and again in the alley. Wendy witnessed the first argument; the second was speculation, but it fit.

“You keep telling me somebody else could get hurt, but if you keep sticking your nose into this investigation, it could be you.”

“I'll take that chance.”

The old song “Sad Eyes” came on. Perfect reminder of the Dean-Claudette-Linda love triangle. “Both Angelo and Dean lied to you, about where they were and their relationship to the victim.”

“Lying doesn't make them guilty of murder.”

“Agreed. But I wish I knew what Angelo is hiding.”

“Everybody has secrets, Erin.”

I'd promised not to dig, but her refusal to share any info irritated the heck out of me. “So what's yours?”

She pushed back her chair and threw a tip on the table. “Thanks for the burger and beer.” She wasn't wearing her usual bracelet. The handmade silver and onyx bracelet I gave her for Christmas senior year. When we were still friends. The one she'd been wearing earlier in the week.

“Why did you come to the Merc today? You didn't come to arrest Fresca. You wanted information.” Digging.

“Look, Erin, I don't want the killer to be your mother any more than you do, but I have to find the truth. And she and Bill aren't helping. Ask yourself why, and see if you like the answer.”

I sat alone, finishing my beer. Ted cleared our table and offered me another, but one was enough. “Kim leave?” he asked.

“Yeah. She's hot on the trail of a killer.”

His eyes widened. “Not Fresca?” I nodded. “No. No.” His worried tone touched me. “You're smart, Erin. You show her, it was Dean Vincent. Or his wife—they could have been in it together. Or Jeff.”

“He and Ian were in Seattle, just back from China.”

Ted's face fell. Someone called his name. He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it and left me alone.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
Not Shakespeare, as my high school English teacher insisted, but Sir Walter Scott. She hadn't liked my proving her wrong. Nobody did. Including Kim.

What had she said as she left? To ask myself why Fresca and Bill weren't helping her. On the one hand, Bill believed he needed to preserve his clients' trust. On the other, shouldn't he voluntarily speak up, to help find a poisoner—who might also be a killer?

That's the kind of philosophical dilemma best left to lawyers. Meanwhile, what did Bill know? It had something to do with the poison. Had someone consulted him about it? Obviously, they wouldn't have told him what they intended to do with it. But if someone asked him about medicinal uses and potential side effects, they could have used that info any way they wanted. Or misused it.

Claudette had been knowledgeable about medicinal plants. My mother knew very little—her approach to all but the severest childhood illnesses had been chicken soup and rest. Linda didn't seem the type, either. A woman willing to sprinkle iodized salt on chocolate-covered almonds from SavClub and call them handmade wasn't likely to delve deeply into herbal remedies.

Was Kim suggesting that Bill's secret might implicate Fresca? There might be more between them than simple friendship, but I didn't believe for one minute that they shared evidence of crime. No matter what Kim thought.

The crowd had gotten beerier. Polly Paulson belted out “Born in the USA” along with Springsteen. I waved good night as the Rod Stewart song “Do You Think I'm Sexy?” came on. I crossed the alley, turning to face the row of businesses. Some, like Red's and the Merc, had courtyards with fences. Others, like Le Panier and Chez Max, and the liquor store, had back doors that opened directly onto the alley. I searched for cameras. No doubt Kim and her deputies had checked any security video. But if no cameras captured the altercation between Claudette and her killer, or showed the killer arriving, then the killer must have come from a direction outside the cameras' scope.

Polly put Angelo coming from the south. Where had Dean parked? Like he'd tell me. He'd already caught me scoping out Linda's house—no reason to confront him until I had more evidence.

“Ned,” I called to my neighbor as he zigzagged between cars. “What are you doing here?”

“Weekend nights, I come in to check on things. I'm Red, after all.” He grinned and rubbed the remains of his faded hair.

“Ted seems to have the place under control.” Except maybe for Polly's singing.

Ned peered over the top of his glasses. “Not all chips fall far from the block.”

I squinted until his meaning came into focus: Ted lacked his touch. Fair enough. But his comment raised questions. “Ned, are you saying Ted isn't taking over the bar? So why do you want to buy our building?”

“What the bleep you talking about, girlie?”

I explained that Ted had made an offer to buy the Mercantile building, and I assumed Old Ned approved. Intended to bankroll it. Naturally, I did not tell him how I knew.

“That is plum crazy, by jingo. Even if we had any notion of putting you out of business—and don't you think that for a moment—why would we want more space? Red's is purt' near perfect the way it is.”

Yup. Sticky floors, sticky plumbing, and all.

“I'm going in there and give that boy a piece of my mind.”

I grabbed his arm. “Ned, wait. Don't. Don't collar him when you're upset, and not in front of customers. It'll become gossip, and we've all seen this week how damaging that can be.”

He heaved a sigh. “Right you are, girlie. 'Sides, with what you got going on in that old Merc, you'd be better off taking over our space than t'other way around.”

“Thanks.” I kissed his cheek. “But no thanks. I've got my hands full enough.”

And that, by jingo, was the truth, and nothing but the truth. But I still hadn't discovered the whole truth.

W
hen nothing is as it seems, then what? Take another look from another angle. Stand on your head if you have to.

Or go home.

An older maroon Subaru had parked in my driveway. I pulled in next to it. Ian Randall leaned against a front porch post, while Cassie Vincent sat on the steps, petting my little cat.

“Hey. What brings you guys out here?”

Ian straightened and Cassie stood, giving Sandburg a last quick ear tug.

“I—uh. Umm,” Ian said, blinking hard, then staring off into the trees above my head.

“Tell her,” Cassie said.

“I—we—I came to apologize. I'll talk to the sheriff if you want.”

My brow furrowed. “About what?”

“Umm. Your window.” Finally, he ventured a glance at me. “At the shop.”

I scooped up Sandburg. “Are you saying you threw the Playhouse paver through the Merc's front window?” He nodded.

Holy cow. “I think we all need to sit down. Iced tea? Fizzy water?” Cassie said yes and Ian said no. I took the cat inside and returned with three glasses and a bottle of Pellegrino. I took the red willow chair and gestured for them to sit. Cassie perched on the edge of the other chair, and Ian sank onto the top step. It's an odd thing to realize that a whole generation sees you not only as an adult, but intimidating to boot.

“Why don't you start at the beginning?”

Ian let out a ragged breath and told the story, with a little prompting from his girlfriend. He and Jeff had gotten the news of Claudette's death Friday evening, in Seattle. They'd driven partway back that night, and rolled into Jewel Bay around noon Saturday. Although Detective Caldwell had not identified a suspect, Ian heard the talk and zeroed in on my mother. Sleepless and furious, he'd left the house in the wee hours Sunday morning, eventually finding himself in the village. Both Ian and Cassie were Children's Theater veterans—they'd started dating while in a play together—and Ian had sat on the park bench behind the Playhouse, staring at the lake, seething. The same bench I'd sat on during Sunday's festivities.

The longer he sat, the hotter he'd raged, until he grabbed a paver from the stack behind the theater and dashed down the street.

“Honestly, I don't know how I got there. I don't remember any of it. The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of the Merc, my hand empty, the window smashed.” He stared into space, seeing it all again. “Scared me to death. I took off.”

“That's when I saw him,” Cassie said. “Running past the Inn.”

He'd gotten angrier when he saw me in Claudette's garden on Monday evening, and when Fresca dropped in for a sympathy call. But the more he'd seen of us that week, Ian realized how genuinely we grieved his mother's death. He confessed to Cassie, who talked him into coming clean.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said.

“Maybe we should have gone to your mother,” Cassie said. “But she's kinda scary sometimes.”

“That she is,” I said wryly. I refilled my glass—they'd barely touched theirs. “Now, my turn. Ian, sorry as you are about the window, you wouldn't be here if you thought my mother killed Claudette, or poisoned you.”

They exchanged nervous glances. Finally, Cassie spoke. “The whole mess is kind of our fault. Our parents wanted to break us up—”

“‘You're too young to be so serious,'” Ian added, mimicking adult concern.

“And we figured if they got to know each other better, they'd stop bugging us. Turned out my dad and his mom hit it off a little too well.” Cassie's gray eyes filled with regret. I remembered the newspaper photo of Dean and Claudette, cheek-to-cheek and starry-eyed, in the community theater musical.

“The best-laid plans,” I said. “But that doesn't make you responsible for their affair, or anything else. They're adults.”

“What if my dad killed her?” Cassie said, trembling. Worry lines creased her smooth face. Ian put his hand on her knee. He looked anxious, but wisely said nothing. “He's just so gone off the last couple years. Pretending he's Elvis, trashing his chiropractic practice. Acting like Jess and I don't even exist. And then what he's done to my mom.”

“Is his interest in Elvis new?” He'd mentioned collecting the furniture over the years.

“It was just for fun. He didn't let it run his life.”

Who wouldn't want to be king for an evening? Classic midlife crisis, in not-so-classic fashion.

“Does your dad have a temper?” I asked.

She swallowed hard. “He throws things. But he never hit us, or Mom.”

Still, when it came to evidence tying Dean to Claudette's murder, they had none. Cassie had never seen her dad carry a knife. There had been no blood on his stretchy white jumpsuit—and Dean was fastidious about his costumes. All they had was strange behavior that had gotten stranger over the last few days.

“Do you suppose,” I said, “that your dad is acting weird out of guilt? Not for killing Claudette, but for putting her in the situation that caused her death? Like you feel guilty, because you introduced them?” Like I did, because I'd invited her to the Festa.

“You mean, if he'd been a better fake, she would never have come back to Jewel Bay and gotten killed?” Ian said.

“Sounds kinda goofy, but remember he's not thinking straight.” Criminy. Listen to me defending Dean Vincent. “Combine that with guilt over hurting your mother and you girls, and grief over Claudette's death, and anybody's bound to act a little crazy.”

Not to mention having made himself look like a bit of an ass—running off to Vegas to steal the show and getting sent home instead.

“It's worse than that.” Cassie's voice wobbled. “What if my mom poisoned Ian?”

I gaped in astonishment. Linda's candy tasted awful, but not deadly. If the killer used a toxic plant from Claudette's garden, he—or she—was likely to be knowledgeable about herbs and plants. Someone without knowledge might pick marigolds, thinking if they stink, they must be poison—not only not true, but some varieties are actually tasty, especially in salads.
Focus, Erin.

By all accounts, Linda wasn't a gardener or an herbalist, and certainly not much of a cook. I pictured her house and yard: the barest minimum of developer landscaping and nothing more. Certainly no perennials. “No love lost between me and your mother, but do you honestly think she could do that? To Ian?”

“I don't know anymore. It's all so screwed up.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “I saw Fresca bring her basket. Ian and his dad don't like red peppers, so I took the jar of roasted pepper sauce home. My mom saw it and decided to make a basket of her own.”

My phone buzzed with a text and I stole a look. Rick Bergstrom saying,
Check your e-mail for the scoop on Jay.
Later.

“Cassie, did your mother put a jar of artichoke pesto in her basket?”

Her face darkened and scrunched like a constipated baby's. “I think so. She has jars and jars of Fresca's stuff. She loves it. And she knows Ian loves the artichoke blend—he's always eating it at our house. What if—what if first my dad killed Claudette, then he poisoned the pesto to kill my mom, but she gave it away instead and it nearly killed Ian?”

Ian reached up for her hand. “But it didn't. I'm fine.”

“It could have, if you'd eaten more. It could have been anybody—my mom, or my sister, or me. Your dad, your aunt.”

But how could we prove that the poisoned jar had come from Linda's basket, not my mother's? No doubt Kim would send it for fingerprinting, which might help identify who'd touched the jar, though it wouldn't eliminate Fresca, who still filled and labeled every jar by hand.

My head reeled. Cassie's fears put a whole new spin on things. I believed Dean to be a first-class conniving heel, but all this? Still, Dean did have a key to Linda's house. “Let's sort this out.” I handed Cassie her no-longer-fizzy water and made her take a sip. “You told your mom about my mom's basket, and she decided to send one of her own. How did she act?”

“Happy. She likes making things. She's not that great at it, though. Her basket looked punk next to Fresca's.”

“Other than thinking you and Ian are too young, how does she feel about him?”

Both kids colored. “She likes him. Or did. It all got weird after Dad and Claudette ran off. But she never blamed Ian.”

I asked her to tell me more about Linda's reaction to the affair. Linda, it seemed, had been of several minds herself. Self-righteously angry, alternating her fury between her man and the woman who stole him. Mortified, for being played a fool—which made her angrier. And Cassie admitted, she even seemed relieved at times. “They fought a lot. It was more peaceful when he was gone.” She gave me a crooked grin. “But the new car's hot.” Would they get back together now? Cassie couldn't guess, but both she and her sister looked forward to leaving home. Which made them feel guilty.

More than enough guilt to go around.

“What now?” Ian said, his voice betraying his anxiety. This no doubt seemed like the worst week of his life. With any luck, it would be.

“You're worried, but you have to trust that everything will be okay. The truth will come out, and you'll survive it.” They looked unconvinced, and I hardly blamed them. “I'm really glad you talked to me. Ian, promise you'll call Deputy Caldwell in the morning. If I don't hear from her by noon, I'll call and report you myself.”

They walked to Cassie's car hand in hand. I wondered whether their relationship would survive this.

I watched them drive off, then went inside. When I touched the antique door handle, I remembered the feeling that someone had been in the cabin earlier in the week. Had I been overtired, imagining things?

No matter. I clicked the door firmly shut. All would be well.