Pickled (An Alex Harris Mystery) (18 page)

My grandmother, Theresa and Francis sat at the kitchen table, a deck of cards firmly placed in the center. My mother had added the extra table leaf making it big enough for Sam and me to join in.

“It’s a good thing we came last night. We couldn’t all fit in John’s car and Theresa doesn’t like driving in a storm. And besides, I’m not sure I could get out my front door with all this snow,” Meme said. “Gin.”

Theresa and Francis groaned and they each placed a quarter in front of Meme.

“Okay. Kids are settled,” my sister said. “They’re working on a puzzle at the dining room table. I’m ready for some strudel and tea.”

“Didn’t you just eat breakfast?” I asked my sister.

“Just some bacon, an English muffin, and a banana.”

I shook my head and then pulled plates from the cupboard and forks from the drawer. I placed everything on the table and then picked up the tea kettle and filled all the mugs. It just seemed to be a tea kind of day. I had also brought along the ingredients to make Sophie Bryson’s wonderful hot chocolate, but that was for much later.

I took a seat next to Francis and she handed me the deck of cards.

“Your deal,” she said.

“I hope you brought along a bunch of quarters, Alex. Meme’s on a roll.” Theresa picked up her cards and tossed my grandmother a disgusted look.

“When isn’t she?” my mother said, clearly annoyed at my grandmother’s winning streak.

My mother was very competitive and things could get heated sometimes between the two of them.

It only took two times around the table before my grandmother won and we all coughed up our quarters to add to her growing pile. We played for another forty-five minutes while the wind picked up and the snow blew into drifts in the backyard. I stared pensively out the kitchen window, thoughts swirling through my head like the snow outside.

“Okay, everyone, time for a break. Francis, did you bring your laptop?”

“Right here, Alex.” Francis reached into a tote bag by her feet and pulled out a new, super slim model.

My grandmother pushed her winnings into a plastic container and then secured the lid. She leaned her elbows on the table and looked across at me with a Cheshire cat smile.

“Let’s find ourselves a killer.”

Francis Haddock typed in column headings onto an Excel spreadsheet and then looked at me expectantly, fingers poised over the very slim keyboard. She reminded me of a court reporter waiting for one of the lawyers to ask a question.

I glanced around the table. Everyone was looking at me. I felt like Robin Hood and these women, most of whom had white hair, were my loyal followers. I felt like they were waiting for me to expound on the case and pull a murderer out of thin air. The problem I had with that, and it was a big problem, was that I had a lot of suspects. Some, like the Dupres, were more viable than others, but I needed to do my due diligence on all of them and so I began by giving Francis the names of everyone on my list.

“Once you have them all typed in, we’ll go through them one by one and fill in as much information for each person as we can.”

My grandmother started tapping her finger on the table.

“Yes?” I said, sounding like an impatient teacher calling on a pupil.

“Are you really going to keep Fred and Walter and Howard on your list?”

“She has to, Mother,” my mom said. “We can’t just start eliminating people because we like them or because they have great bodies.”

My sister and I turned to look at my mother, who had walked over to the stove to heat more water.

“What?” my mother asked us indignantly. “I may be your mother, but I’m not dead. That Howard Wronkovich is a very good looking man.”

“I’ll tell him that, Mable. He’ll be glad to know you have the hots for him.” My grandmother rolled her eyes and then looked back in my direction.

“Do I think they’re guilty? No. But we’ll put them on the spreadsheet, add as much information to the list as possible, and hopefully be able to rule them out,” I said. “Does that make you happy?”

“Just so you know, if it turns out to be one of them, someone’s going to have to drive me to the prison for those conjugal visits.”

“Good grief,” my mother said. “Can we get back on track, please? Alex, continue.”

I smiled at my grandmother, wondering if she was serious. Thankfully I had more pressing matters to keep my mind from thinking too much about my grandmother and conjugal visits with the calendar boys.

“Okay. We might as well start with the calendar boys seeing they seem to be on everybody’s mind.” I cut my eyes to my mom. “Walter. What about Walter?”

“He always wears his Yankee ball cap,” Theresa volunteered.

“He has a great butt,” my mother said with a dreamy, or was that
idiotic
, look on her face.

“Ladies, something that’s going to help us find a killer. Focus.” I was sounding like that impatient school teacher again.

“Well, he’s dating Martha Mederios,” Francis said, “and I saw Humphrey chatting her up a few times.”

“That’s true,” Meme added. “And Walter wasn’t too happy about it. Got into a few tussles with Humphrey.”

I thought back to my talk with Walter. Humphrey had told Martha about Walter’s need for adult diapers, albeit, temporarily, but I didn’t want to mention that in front of everyone now.

“Okay, this is good. We know Walter had issues with Humphrey, and jealousy can be a very strong emotion.” I saw the look on my grandmother’s face. “Not that it means he killed Humphrey,” I added quickly, “but it has to be noted and we’ll take it into consideration with everything else. What about Fred?”

“He accused Humphrey of cheating, which he did,” Meme said. “They got into it, but then so did everyone else. Humphrey always cheated and someone always got mad. Not a match was played where there wasn’t drama. Why do you think me and Theresa and Francis went to all the games?”

Theresa and Francis nodded their heads in agreement.

“Way more exciting than daytime TV,” Francis said.

“And Howard?” I asked. I wasn’t about to mention his being stood up at the altar if no one else said anything. I would keep that information tucked in the back of my mind for use if needed.

“Same thing. Howard didn’t care for the man at all and I did see them arguing one day, but I don’t know what it was all about.” Theresa shrugged. “That’s all I got on Howard.”

“Nothing here,” Meme said.

“Okay, so they all had some kind of motive, they all had opportunity and they could have all dragged Humphrey into the rest room together. Meme, did you notice anything the night of the supper?”

“Just the fight that you broke up. Then everyone started gathering their things and I never saw the guys again.”

“Let’s move on to Norbert. He’s one of the calendar boys, too, and he’s got more of a motive.”

“Really? How so?” Francis asked.

“He and Marie were having an affair,” I said. “On the night of the supper, Humphrey made a couple of snide remarks about the affair. Norbert told Marie there was a possibility Humphrey might tell Sid the whole sordid story.”

Francis typed fast, shaking her head a few times as the story unfolded.

“Norbert’s a nice man, but the affair is more of a motive for Marie to kill Humphrey. Norbert’s got nobody waiting at home for him,” Meme said. “He doesn’t have a motive and I can’t see him killing Humphrey over Marie. She’s just a piece of fluff.”

I was just about to explain to my grandmother once again that we had to be open and look at everyone, including the calendar boys, fairly when I heard a noise.

I really do hate cell phones. I have one, yes, and I had it turned on because of the storm and the fact John was out in it, but most of the time it lives in a little pocket in my purse and I don’t pay much attention to it. So when it rang, it took me a few seconds to realize what it was.

I dug it out and flipped it open. Yes, I have an old flip phone, not one of those five or six G things, or whatever number they’re currently up to.

“Oh, hi, John. What’s up?” I asked into the phone. “Of course we’re playing games. What else did you think we were doing?” I winked at Meme. “Really? That’s interesting. His wife never mentioned anything to me, but then I never asked either. Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

“What was all that about?” my sister wanted to know.

I reached for my tea cup and took a sip. “He thinks he’s so smart. He said as long as we were working on the murder today, he had some new information.”

“What makes him think we’re working on the murder?” Meme asked.

I gave my grandmother the look Sam uses on the kids. “Because we are.”

“So what’s the news?” My sister cut another slice of strudel, broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth.

“The toxicology report came back and Humphrey had some kind of muscle relaxer in him.”

“So what does that mean?” my mom asked.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but think about it. Wouldn’t it be difficult to hold a man down and shove a pickle in his mouth?”

“But maybe not so much if he was relaxed,” my sister offered.

“Right. So the question is did Humphrey take medication regularly or did someone drug him? And if someone had the foresight to bring along something to give him, then whoever killed him planned to do it all along. It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing.”

“Which means anything that happened that night, like the fight with Sid, didn’t matter. Humphrey’s fate was already sealed.” Francis typed everything out as she talked.

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“Unless he took the stuff all the time,” Meme said, deflating my bubble. “Then it was just a lucky break for the killer. Probably made Humphrey nice and accommodating when they shoved the pickle in. Were there any bite marks on it? Maybe he just thought someone was feeding it to him.”

I had to think about that for a moment. So far no one mentioned bite marks. It never occurred to me that Humphrey may have simply choked on the pickle in the course of eating it. And I guess it didn’t occur to the coroner either.

“What are you thinking about?” Sam asked.

“Just that Humphrey may have simply choked on the pickle, but now I remember that John said he had a lot of bruising, like he put up a good fight.”

“Okay, but back to the muscle relaxers. The killer may have known Humphrey took muscle relaxers and used it to his or her advantage.”

I looked at my sister. “True. So now we have a bit more information and we can keep it in mind, but let’s get back to the list. We covered all the calendar boys who attended the supper, and as they all knew Humphrey and played pickleball with him, they may have been aware of any medication he took. Let’s move on to Sid and Marie.”

“She’s always been real friendly, but she had a lot to lose. I like her for this.” Theresa sat back and folded her arms.

“Marie first. She’s known Sophie for a long time, so if Humphrey took a lot of medication, she may have known just from idle chit-chat with Sophie. She was being blackmailed by Humphrey because he knew she was having other affairs, he was making her meet him down at the beach—” This got a cringe from my sister and a shiver from my mom. “She found out on the night of the party that Humphrey planned to tell Sid everything, and she was also upset with him for the crap he was pulling on Sid’s business. Marie had a lot of motives,” I said.

“But could she have held Humph down and shoved a pickle in his mouth all by herself?” my sister asked.

“That’s where Sid comes in. Let’s say Humphrey did tell him about Norbert and Marie, maybe even told Sid about his rendezvous’ with Marie at the beach, plus Sid was already furious with the guy for the snow plow debacle, that would sure make Sid Dupre angry. And that Cyril Mayfair guy told me he saw Humphrey and Sid arguing even after I broke them up. He didn’t hear what they were saying, but they were at it again.”

“Plus Humphrey taunted him by dancing with Marie and touching her butt,” Meme added.

“Right. Sid was all riled up. Maybe it was his idea and he convinced his wife the only way to be rid of the man would be to kill him.”

My mother shook her head. “I don’t see it. Wouldn’t Sid want to kill Norbert? If Humphrey said, hey, your wife is having an affair with Norbert, wouldn’t Sid run over and have it out with Norbert? Why kill Humphrey?”

I thought this over and glanced at Francis. She was getting it all down. “Good point. We’ll keep that in mind. But Sid had his own reasons for hating Humphrey. We know Sid and Marie had plenty of motive and opportunity. Let’s move on to Lester and Phyllis Holt. Lester wanted to run against Humphrey, but I don’t see that as much of a motive.”

“Unless he knew Humphrey knew about his wife’s former drinking problem and planned to bring it up in the campaign,” Sam said.

“Maybe. Phyllis was being blackmailed, but as far as I know, she wasn’t paying him any money, just meeting him at the beach for fun and games.”

“That’s enough right there to kill the man.” My sister cringed again.

“Then there’s a new development I haven’t told you about yet.”

“What’s that, Alex?” Theresa got up and walked over to the stove and returned with the tea pot. She filled up our cups and grabbed more tea bags from the jar on the counter.

“Alastair Hildebrand, the gallery owner in New York. He has an assistant. Guess who?”

“Phyllis Holt?” my mother answered.

“No, her daughter, the lovely Suzanne.”

“So how does all that fit in?”

“I don’t know, Meme, but it’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Mom, can we go out and play in the snow?”

No one had heard Henry come into the room.

I grabbed him as he walked by me and pulled him up onto my lap. I wouldn’t be able to do that much longer, but for now he didn’t resist.

My sister got their snow suits and I helped her dress the kids. She opened the back door and practically kicked them out and shut the door firmly.

“Kids. Remember when we liked being out in this stuff?”