Appraisal for Murder (8 page)
As luck would have it, a now-older Lieutenant Tortino came out when the front desk clerk called back, and he escorted Aunt Madge and me to his small office. He’d gone from light brown to a mix of brown and gray hair and put on about twenty pounds since I’d seen him. He still had the same firm walk I remembered when he was parading me down the boardwalk to his car.
We sat down facing him, and I thought I detected a look of amusement when he glanced at me. “I promise, I quit smoking that night.”
“Was that before or after you finished cussing me out?” He grinned.
Aunt Madge turned to me. “You didn’t.”
“Um, of course not.” I tried to glare at Tortino without her noticing.
“So, what on earth is this business of Ruth being murdered?” she asked him.
He was somber. “It’s definite. Someone applied pressure to her windpipe.” He paused. “There are some other indications, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to give a lot of details.”
“But, she looked so…peaceful,” I said. OK, her eyes were staring straight up, but that was sort of normal for a dead person, at least in all the mystery books I’d read. “I guess I didn’t look real close…”
Tortino looked at me now. “I read your statement after your aunt called. I can see why you’d think she looked peaceful.”
“But,” I persisted, “if you strangle someone, they would like, fight with you wouldn’t they? Her bed wasn’t messed up at all.”
“They would resist, probably. Unless someone had drugged them. We’re waiting for toxicology reports.” He paused. “I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mention that to anyone.”
“A reporter called me this morning. I told him to call you guys.”
Tortino was interested. “I’ll pass that on to Sgt. Morehouse in the Detective Division. Who was it?”
I glanced at Aunt Madge. “George Winters,” she said.
He sighed. “He’s young. Always trying to get a big story.”
“Sounds as if he’s got one,” I said, glumly.
“Where’s Michael?” Aunt Madge asked. “Does he know?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Tortino. He sounded like a kid trying to hide something. I could relate to that.
He stood. “Listen, Jolie, they’re going to ask you for your fingerprints.” The shock must have shown in my face. “Not because anyone suspects you, because we’ll have to compare the fingerprints we lifted to those of people who were supposed to be in the house.”
I nodded, and he continued, “If you think of anything else, call Sgt. Morehouse, okay?”
So, we were done. Aunt Madge continued to talk to him as we walked out. “I feel terrible for Michael. Ruth said they were so enjoying their time together the last two weeks.”
“Were they?” he asked. “That’s nice.”
When we got to the small waiting area Tortino left us. Aunt Madge seemed not to want to leave, as if she hadn’t gotten what she wanted. She gave her head a slow sideways shake. “Ruth would hate this.” I started to say Ruth didn’t have to worry about that or anything else, but stopped myself.
As we stood there for a few seconds, there was a loud slam of a door behind us, and we both jumped. Michael Riordan stormed into view. He was walking rapidly toward the back door that leads to the parking lot, and didn’t notice us. He tried to slam that door, too, but it was hydraulic, so he couldn’t.
Aunt Madge looked after him and then at me. “I was afraid of that,” she said.
“Of what?”
“They think he killed her.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, though I didn’t quite know why. He certainly knew how to demonstrate a temper.
“You know what the police shows say, he had motive, means, and opportunity.”
I had to stifle a laugh. “Aunt Madge, are you saying he knows how to drug people and then strangle them?”
“No, of course not, but it will look that way. You mark my words.” She led the way out, and I followed, not certain when my aunt had started watching police shows on TV. Last I knew she was into the reality shows that masquerade as talent contests.
I TRIED TO TALK AUNT MADGE into getting coffee at Newhart’s or Java Jolt, but she wanted to get home. “The dogs will need to go out.”
Aunt Madge’s hands were in her lap. Usually, when I drive she leans her head against the seat, but today she sat slightly forward and held her purse tightly to her. I’d rarely seen her look so tense. “They went out right before we left. It’s been a rough morning, you could use a break.”
She shook her head. “I’m better when I’m busy. Besides,” she glanced at her watch, “I still have one room to make up.”
“Will you let me help, for a change?”
I took a quick glance and saw the beginning of a smile play around her lips. “You can run the vac in the upstairs hall.”
So I don’t do hospital corners when I make a bed. I’ve never understood the big deal about making a bed a certain way. “The vac it is,” I said.
I STOPPED BY HARRY’S after lunch to see if he had any more work (preferably without dead bodies) or if he knew when we would finish the Riordan house. It occurred to me that if Michael was Ruth’s heir, he might not want to give it to the Arts Council and would put it on the market. If he did that, he probably would not want me to finish the appraisal now. He’d wait and let a prospective buyer pay for it.
But, Harry said that Michael had called that morning to say he would get in touch again after the funeral. His father and his father's wife were coming into town this afternoon, and he had invited them to stay at the house. He didn’t want a lot of other activity. I was surprised he’d had the presence of mind to call. Had to be before his scene at the station.
No other work, but Harry had had what he termed get-acquainted calls from three agents that morning. He tried not to look too pleased, since we both knew it was probably because of the mention of me and his firm in Mrs. Riordan’s article. “I’m not sure that everyone is as pleased with Stenner’s as they once were,” he said, trying to appear tactful.
“I bet they told you more than that,” I said, fishing for info.
He shrugged. “Jennifer’s very competent, but I hear she can be a little brusque.”
Gee, she and Michael could get together
. I left his office headed for the boardwalk, and walked a couple blocks looking for Scoobie. The boardwalk had a forlorn air about it, as if it missed having hordes of visitors and the smell of fries and cotton candy. The benches, which were usually not repainted until spring, showed the effects of a summer of wet bathing suits and many had the usual hearts with names of teen lovers. When there was black paint over a few inches of bench I knew that meant those carved words were less polite.
No Scoobie, so I headed for the Purple Cow. I was confident that I didn’t need to do a resume, at least in the short term, but I was thinking of getting a new business card case. Mine was gold-plated and had the seal of my old real estate firm on it.
As I drove to the Purple Cow, I tried to memorize every street name. It seemed an appraiser should know where each street is, at least in a town the size of Ocean Alley. The blocks of the very long alphabet streets are intersected many times with cross streets with names like ‘Seaside,’ ‘Fairweather’ and ‘Conch Shell.’ There are a number of large Victorian homes that probably had at least a half-acre of land around them when they were built. However, the wealthy city folks who built those homes are long gone, and before Ocean Alley instituted its current lot size requirements people built as many as two or three bungalows or summer cottages between them, more on the streets closest to the water. Some of them started as two-room cottages with no indoor plumbing and now have a small concrete addition in the back. Here and there are small tool sheds that were outhouses in a prior life. Although it’s a hodge podge, I find the lack of order appealing.
I drove through the center of Ocean Alley. While not a town square in the true sense, the block that houses the court house also has the post office, police station, library, and small in-town grocery, so it is as close to a downtown as a small beach town can get. I parallel parked in front of The Purple Cow and locked the car, wondering as I did so if I would ever live in a place where I didn’t think to lock my car.
Not if people murder elderly women in their beds.
Today, the store’s white board said, “All beginnings are somewhat strange; but we must have patience, and, little by little, we shall find things, which at first were obscure, becoming clear.” Vincent de Paul. It took up all the room on the board. Clearly, someone at the Purple Cow was into life changes. It was a little too kvetchy for me. I pushed open the door and waited a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to light that was dimmer than the brilliant sunshine.
Ramona, her long hair held back with a dark purple bow, greeted me with more than mild curiosity. “I saw you in the paper. That must have been terrible.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “It was a more than a little unnerving.”
She nodded. “George Winters was in here this morning. He said she was murdered.” Her always-wide eyes looked owlish. “Did it look like it?”
Death can bring out the tactless in some of us
. “Not to me. Looked like she just died in her sleep.” Before she could ask me another question, I mentioned why I was there, and she led me to the business card holders.
“Do you like working for Mr. Steele?” she asked, as she took several card holders from a case that held small leather goods and expensive pens.
“Harry seems real nice,” I said, for some reason wanting to make it clear that in the adult world we call people by first names.
Stop thinking like a bitch, Jolie.
“Jennifer was really mad that someone else got into that business in town.”
“That’s not very realistic,” I said. “You’d think she’d even like it, with interest rates so low.” I realized she did not get this, so I added, “There’s almost too much work for appraisers. Everyone’s trying to refinance their houses.”
This did not interest her. “The paper said Michael wasn’t home.”
“Yes, I saw that.” She must think I hadn’t read it, or maybe she wasn’t connecting on the fact that I had actually been there.
“He could have been, you know. It’s a big house.” Ramona looked away as she spoke.
“Ramona!” I stared at her, half amused, half irritated. “You’re starting a rumor.”
She shrugged. “I never liked him. He always called me ‘Monaramona.’ He knew I didn’t like it.”
“That doesn’t mean he murdered his mother.” I paused. “Maybe he was teasing you because he liked you.” Given his comment about her, I doubted it, but that’s what my mother always said when boys teased me.
“People think he wanted her money.” She gazed at me directly. “I heard his business is bad.”
“But you don’t know any of this, Ramona.” I was irritated with her, but didn’t want to show it too much. I might want to know what else she heard later. At least as it pertained to me.
I paid for my business card case – burgundy leather, very cool – and left the store. Yesterday I had been so purposeful, but today I felt very much at loose ends. I decided to go back to Aunt Madge’s and take Jazz outside. I wanted her to get to know the area a little, in case she accidentally got out.
My plans were waylaid by the sight of a silver Mercedes in Aunt Madge’s small parking lot.
What does he want with me
? Then I remembered that he was more likely to be here to see Aunt Madge. She greeted me at the door, with a sort of odd expression. Michael was right behind her.
“They act like they think I killed her.” He was very upset. I hoped Aunt Madge’s guests were out. “How can they think that?” He paced to the window and back to the foyer and faced me.
“They’re probably just fishing around,” I said, trying to sound reassuring.
“Do you think I did it?”
“No. I can’t prove you didn’t, of course, but I don’t think you did.” It was true, for some reason I didn’t believe he killed her. Not that I would have said I thought the police were right, even if I did, in his state of mind.
“Good,” was all he said.
“Let’s go back to the kitchen,” Aunt Madge said, quietly. My guess was that he was a lot calmer now than he had been when he first arrived.
Aunt Madge turned up the warmer on her tea kettle and offered us both a cup. He shook his head, but she fixed him one anyway, with honey. Aunt Madge is convinced that tea calms anyone.
“They can’t have any real reason to suspect you,” I said, trying to ask a question without framing it that way.
“The police don’t tell you what they think,” he said bitterly. He took a sip of the tea. “You know I left, right?”
“I saw you leave. Where did you go?”
“You mean do I have an alibi?” He gave a harsh laugh. “I was mostly at the beach, just walking. I sent a fax from the Purple Cow before I parked my car by the beach.”
“Someone must have seen you. Or at least your car.”
He smiled grimly at that. “Not after I left the Purple Cow. I parked the car in the municipal lot, but it’s too chilly for most people to be on the beach. I don’t recall seeing anyone, anyway. I was…thinking.” He looked away from me, then back. “I suppose I could have walked by people and not noticed.”
“As Jolie said,” Aunt Madge put in, “people will remember the car.”
“Yes,” he was fuming again, “but this is a small town. Our house may be at the edge of it, but it’s only a fifteen-minute walk.” He took another sip of the unwanted tea. “Someone will say I could have parked the car, gone home, killed her, and walked back.” He paused, teacup in midair. “Or they’ll say I killed her just before you got there.”