The Ginseng Conspiracy (A Kay Driscoll Mystery) (13 page)

I shook my head. “Take a look at Bill Murphy over there snickering,” I said, nodding in Murphy's direction.

Deirdre's eyes narrowed. “What a despicable human being. How can he even show his face here?”

“Ironic, isn't it?” I said. “There's the police officer who was limping in the patisserie in the row behind him. Elizabeth, did you find out anything about him?”

“Haven't had time to talk to him yet. Maybe after church. Bill Murphy, I never noticed him before all of this happened. Now he's talking to our Ted Michaels. I’ll be glad when he gets his just desserts.”

“Look around. Perhaps the other killers are here also.” Deirdre's eyes darted around for a few moments.

“In most mystery books, they usually do show up at the funerals,” Elizabeth said.

* * * *

It was a touching service. The rain had eased off by the time the church service was over.

“Surprising Sherman is getting buried in Sudbury Falls after living here for only two years. I suppose his wife just wanted to have it all done with,” I said on the way home. “At the cemetery, I saw Margaret MacAlister crying. I tried to avoid eye contact with her.” My mind wandered to seeing Margaret in my dream last night. I wondered if I would ever feel the same toward her again.

“Did either of you see Al?” Deirdre asked. “I expected to see him there, too, with Bill Murphy and the other murderers, whoever they are.”

I drifted back to reality. “I looked for Al and didn't see him either,” I said.

I dropped Elizabeth off in front of her house, pulled into my driveway, and parked my car. Deirdre and I waited outside Elizabeth's home while she collected some breads she had baked for Mary Ann. Since it had stopped raining, we walked the few blocks to the funeral luncheon at her house. Ted saw us coming, and held the front door open for us.

“Such a sad day,” Ted said as we went in. The house was wall-to-wall people. Conversations echoed throughout the house. Mary Ann's mother and sisters were putting the food out on the dining room table. I looked at Mary Ann. Her eyes were bloodshot. From the way she moved about the house, it was clear she was just going through the motions.

Deirdre and I talked to Ted a while. He seemed a little out of sorts, not his usual jolly self. Elizabeth visited with some colleagues from the college, and afterward, we all helped ourselves to the food and sat down at a table.

“It looks like a lot of the people from church also came to the luncheon. Sherman and Mary Ann made a lot of friends in the couple of years they were here,” I said.

“You make lots of friends working at the college. Everyone becomes like family,” Elizabeth said. “And Mary Ann did go to college here.”

“Interesting. Do you know what she majored in?”

“Theatre.”

“This Tandoori chicken's delicious. Gupta's did the catering.” Deirdre said. “I saw Dinesh in the kitchen.”

“I'm going to go and say hello to him,” I said, getting up. “He's going with Phil and Mike to the jazz camp tomorrow.”

I walked into the kitchen and found only Mary Ann’s mother there, putting more food on a platter.

“Hello, Mrs. Castellano. I'm looking for my friend, Dinesh Gupta. I heard he was in the kitchen.”

“You just missed him. He finished delivering the food and had to be off.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Trying to stay the course for Mary Ann.”

“The eulogy Sherman’s brother gave was moving. You could tell he wasn’t just talking about his brother but his best friend.”

“Sherman was a likable person. It’s a shame you didn’t get to know him. It won’t be easy for Mary Ann to cope. They were so much in love after all these years of marriage.”

“Mary Ann was lucky to be with you when she heard the bad news about Sherman.”

“Excuse me?”

I paused for a few moments. “Mary Ann...she was at your home, wasn't she?”

“Oh, yes. I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. She came for the weekend.”

“On Friday.”

“Just in time for dinner Friday evening. She must have arrived around six o'clock.”

I thought back to Tuesday when Mary Ann mentioned she called Sherman early Friday afternoon to let him know she arrived at her parents. In fact, twice she mentioned the time of day to me. The numbers didn't match up. Either way, Mary Ann was in Milwaukee when I discovered Sherman and the cloaked conspirators on Saturday. But how could she account for the missing hours on Friday?

“Mom, do we have any more lamb?” Mary Ann’s youngest sister asked, coming into the kitchen.

I walked down the hall, looking for the bathroom, passing a family room on the right and Sherman's office on the left. Looking into his office, I saw a tall, lanky, middle aged man with thinning hair leaning on Sherman’s desk looking at a book. The back wall of Sherman’s office was all books. The man didn’t look up as I stopped in the doorway. I noticed that the bottom desk drawer was open a couple of inches. I continued down the hall. Who was this man and why was he in Sherman's office? How long had he been in there? Had he heard me coming down the hallway? Upon returning to the living room, I glanced again into the office. The room was empty, the bottom desk drawer now closed. The man had been going through Sherman's desk drawers.

When I returned to the living room, I saw the mystery man talking to Mary Ann. I would have her introduce us. I didn't make it far before Elizabeth and Deirdre caught up to me.

“Kay, did you talk to Dinesh?” Deirdre asked.

I didn't take my eyes off of the man talking to Mary Ann. “No, he'd left. I talked a short while to Mary Ann’s mother. Do either of you know who that man talking to Mary Ann is?

“Sure.” Elizabeth said after a quick glance. “Professor Richard Laska. He worked with Sherman in the Ag Department. Richard's a real sweet guy.”

“Who isn't a sweet guy, Elizabeth?” Deirdre said.

“Deirdre, I can't help it if I like people,” Elizabeth said.

I looked at Deirdre and then to Elizabeth. “Do you know if he had anything to do with what Sherman was working on?”

“I don't know.”

I shot another glance in Laska's direction. “I just saw him in Sherman's office looking around.”

“What do you mean, looking around?” Elizabeth asked.

I told Elizabeth and Deirdre what I saw. “I would think a closed drawer in a dead man's desk would be considered private by anyone.”

“I think you might be getting suspicious of everyone,” Elizabeth opined.

“That’s how it should be,” I said.

“Mary Ann could have given him permission. They were colleagues after all,” Elizabeth said.

People started to leave. Mary Ann stood by the door, saying her goodbyes. I walked over to her. “I was wondering if you would like to come over tomorrow for lunch?”

“Thank you, I'd be happy to. My parents and sisters are leaving tomorrow morning. I'll be glad to have somewhere to go.”

“I’m planning on asking Deirdre and Elizabeth to come also. We can all get to know each other a little more.”

While walking home, Elizabeth, Deirdre, and I talked about the funeral.

“I still think it was strange that Laska was in Sherman's office looking around. I’m going to ask Mary Ann about that. And Margaret crying at the cemetery, what was that about? She told me when I returned her costumes that she didn’t even know Sherman.”

“Some people just cry at funerals. But then, she did have the same hooded robe in her attic that they all wore,” Deirdre said. “She's connected to this whole sordid affair somehow.”

“That's something for us to think about,” Elizabeth added.

“I invited Mary Ann over for lunch tomorrow. I was planning to tell her what I saw Saturday night. I'm not sure I'm going to, now.”

“If we are going to bring her in, we need to do so as soon as possible so she'll look for information when she goes through Sherman’s offices at the college and at home,” Elizabeth said.

“Do you want us to be there when you tell her?”

“I'd like both of you to come tomorrow.”

“I can make it,” Elizabeth said.

There's about a four hour discrepancy in the time she told me on Tuesday that she arrived at her parents and when she did.”

“But she couldn't have been in the vacant store,” Elizabeth said.

“True,” I said, “but it's possible, more than just the cloaked six are involved in this? Why lie about when she arrived at her mother's house? I'm not going to tell her about Sherman until I get some answers. I want to find out where she was those four hours and check it out.”

“And you can't just ask her why she lied about the time,” Deirdre said. “She might say it's none of our business and clam up.”

“Aren't you going off on a tangent?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don't think so,” I replied. “I'm trying to be careful here.”

“Elizabeth, is your book club still on for tonight?” Deirdre asked.

“Yes. I didn’t know if I should cancel it or not because of the funeral. Maybe people will want to get their minds off it.”

* * * *

I met up with Deirdre in the street walking over to Elizabeth's. Elizabeth lived in a small two story Tudor. Twinkling orange lights that had days earlier beckoned children to her home still lit up the yew trees by her front door. We heard voices inside and walked right in.

The book club met at Elizabeth’s home on the first Thursday evening of each month. We were a group of twelve. It was more of a social gathering, to be honest, than a book discussion. I saw a few of the members only on these evenings. It was a great way to catch up with everyone.

I liked Elizabeth's home. The living room was long and narrow with lots of natural woodwork. One end of the room had two built-in bookcases on either side of a fireplace. On top of one bookcase, she displayed a beautiful prairie-style stained glass lamp I had made for her, a perfect match to her mission furniture. French doors opened into a study at the other end of the living room.

Elizabeth took her role as hostess seriously. Seeing her come into the living room from the kitchen, I did a double take. Elizabeth was wearing black silk trousers with a white backless top. She saw me and said, “Hello, Kay. You don’t have a drink yet. What can I get you?” She held up a glass of white wine.

“I’ll help myself to something when we get ready to sit down. Thank you.”

I saw Rebecca, who lived two doors down from me, and went over to talk to her. Everything about Rebecca was perfect. She always looked immaculately groomed, with her shiny blond hair, her skillfully applied makeup and manicured nails, and clothes you could be sure were expensive. She wore the type of shoes that just looking at them made my feet hurt.

“Rebecca, interesting book you picked. Strange it would be a catering mystery,” I said, teasing her.

“How could I resist?” Rebecca asked. “
Catering to Death
. What could be more perfect?” There was that word, perfect.

“I heard you helped cater the Halloween Ball,” I said. “The food was excellent, by the way. Angie came by our house on Halloween with two of her friends. She said they helped to bring supplies over to you that night.”

“She was a little upset. She and her friends were stopped by the police that evening asking what they were doing out so late.”

“Police as in how many?” I knew Bill Murphy was in the area. Were other police among the hooded six?

Rebecca gave me a strange look. “I'm not sure. By the way, Jeff said he bumped into you last Friday night at Jo's. He mentioned something about you going to watch their band this Sunday night.”

“We're going to try and make it.”

“Jeff's been wanting me to go see them for a while now. Give me a call if you end up going. I'll come along. He said the other wives come all the time.”

“Everyone's here who’s coming,” Elizabeth announced. “Small group tonight. Does everyone have something to drink? Help yourselves to the food and then we should get started.”

I went over and poured myself a glass of sparkling water. Elizabeth had set out different kinds of cheese, fruit, and desserts. I chose a cream cheese brownie and took a bite.

“These brownies are delicious,” I said to Deirdre, standing next to me at the buffet cabinet. “They were calling to me.”

“A plate of brownies once told me a haiku,” Deirdre said as we walked toward the group. “But they were off by a syllable so I ate them all.” I raised my eyebrows.

We all gathered around the large coffee table in the middle of the living room. Elizabeth and John Harrison, her co-worker, carried additional chairs from the dining room.

John worked with Elizabeth at the library in the reference area. He was personable and easy going, an all around nice guy. Not bad looking, either. It seemed to me like he wanted to be more than just her co-worker. Whenever Elizabeth came into the room or spoke, his face lit up. Of course, Elizabeth had that ability to light up a room with her presence, at least with the men. I could see in his eyes that he was infatuated with her. I wondered if Elizabeth knew. She didn't seem to notice John at all.

“Elizabeth, I'll pick you up on Saturday at noon for the team building overnight,” John said, positioning a chair by the table. “Do you want to be partners?”