Conundrum (18 page)

“Yeah, that drives me nuts too.”

“Very funny.
Maybe you’ll get to try some if you’re good. Are you cooking tomorrow night? Want to come to this dinner at Ellie’s?”

“I’d love to but I’m on duty through Friday night. We’re working on new menu ideas.
How about dinner Saturday night?”

“You’re on. And if you’re lucky, I might just save you a piece of cake.”

“Great. And I’m going to pay particular attention to the icing. No pressure though.”

Chapter 33

R
aven’s black hair and huge brown eyes echoed her mother’s coloring. But she was tall where her mother was short. As a baby, her long thin neck, tiny round mouth and thatch of fluffy hair made her resemble a baby bird peeking out of its nest.

Now, as Iris entered Ellie’s kitchen and saw mother and daughter preparing dinner, Raven looked more like a rare, exotic bird. Dressed in brightly colo
red layers of thrift-shop finds—
henley
, gypsy blouse, long, flowered dress, shrug, and blac
k motorcycle boots—
she had the natural chic of a runway model decked out in couture.

“You made the cake!” Raven enthused as Iris set it quickly on the counter so it wouldn’t get crushed in their hug.

“Of course I did. It’s our version of the fatted calf for the prodigal daughter. So, how’s the college kid?
Any new tats or piercings?”

“Nope.
I’m being rebellious. I even took out my nose ring. It’s too cliché.”

“Just don’t rebel too much and become a skinhead.”

“Like that would happen. I wouldn’t be allowed back to the People’s
Republik
of Cambridge.”

“Damn straight. When did you get home?”

“This afternoon.
Mom picked me up with my stuff. We had to tie some of the bigger canvases to the roof of the car.”

“I can’t wait to see what you’re painting these days.”

“Mom says you’re dating some hunky young stud and getting letter bombs. That’s so cool!”

“A hunky young stud?
Who’s talking about me?” Mack sailed in cradling a big paper bag. He went over to hug Raven. “Ah, bliss. I have all my women together again,” he said, stretching his arms wide to include Iris. Then he kissed Ellie and said “University Wines had a nice, not-too-sweet Riesling on special, so I got a few bottles to try. Will that do with your trout, my sweet?”

Okay, so maybe not all relationships sucked, Iris thought.

Over dinner, they dissected the murders.

Raven posed some questions: “What if Adam flew up to Boston early on Friday and Alyssa drove the car up? Did the police actually say that it was his signature on the gas receipt? Or maybe she forged his signature? And have they found Norman’s cell phone? Had the murderer set up a meeting with Norman, or did the murderer follow him to the house?”

They were all caught up in private eye mode. Raven continued, “We need to ask these suspects more questions. We should be able to figure this out. As Sherlock Holmes always said,
‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.”

Mack held up his hands, palms out. “It’s fine for us to speculate around the dining table about this thing. But Iris’s letter bomb yesterday was no joke. She could have been badly burned. There’s some maniac out there, and he or she has killed two, possibly three, people already. So, all of you, please promise me that you are not going to do any more snooping. The police are going to find this person. There must be fingerprints or DNA somewhere around Norman’s house, even if Will’s site was clean. It takes at least 48 hours to get DNA results back from the lab, so they should be closing in on the killer soon.”

Ellie, Raven and Iris eyed each other around the table. Three minds mulled over how they could find clues while staying off a murderer’s radar.

“We’ll keep our heads down,
Pop
. And don’t
worry,
my next karate test is for my brown belt.”

“Oh, you kept up with that?” Iris had taken Raven along during her high-school years to the dojo where she herself had practiced.

“I found a good sensei in Providence this spring and started up again. We should practice sparring, Aunt Iris.”

“I haven’t sparred since you went off to college. I wonder how much I remember.” Iris had immersed herself in Karate after her divorce as a psychological exercise to make herself feel stronger. After hitting 40 and earning her brown belt, she tapered off her training rather than staying on track for her black belt.

“Time for the cake,” Mack announced as he got up to clear plates.

“I’ve had cravings for this all through exam week.”

A Lady Baltimore cake is more than the sum of its parts. The alchemy of home-made white cake with boiled white icing into which pecans, dried figs and raisins have been mixed is anything but bland. The icing hardens, balancing the chewiness of the raisins and figs with the nuts. Conversation went on hold for the next five minutes. And three of the four minds thought about murder.

Chapter 34

T
he next morning, Wednesday, Iris floated between consciousness and sleep as she heard the familiar drone: “Street cleaning! No parking on the even side of the street. Your car will be tagged and towed.” The message looped continuously from the speaker of the Public Works truck as it navigated through the neighborhood, warning residents April through November of this Cambridge monthly ritual. Iris dragged herself to the window. Her Jeep was nestled in its spot in the driveway, as she knew it would be, but the warning always compelled her to check.

This city is such a quirky place, she thought as she stumbled downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee. Did other cities have street cleaning announcements?

Coming back here from New York had not been an easy decision. Choosing to live in her parent’s house had been an even tougher one. Their absence from the grand Victorian had felt like a dull ache. But, bit by bit, she had made the house her own. Starting in the garden with its unforgiving clay soil, she had coaxed hardy rose bushes and shade-tolerant
hostas
to bloom. The Goodwill truck had carted away the fussy living room furniture, leaving emptiness behind as Iris saved up for two black leather Corbusier chairs and a simple, sleek sofa to take their place. She started taking
on small architecture projects—
master bath and kitchen renovations, working from the sunniest room on the first floor in the turret. Puttering around on her own house continued until, one day, she realized that her parents no longer inhabited the shadows.

By mid-morning Iris was in her office sketching design ideas on yellow tracing paper superimposed over her “as built” drawings. Her first schematic design meeting with Lillian Butterworth was scheduled for the next day. She liked to present several possible solutions and discuss their merits before zeroing in on one to develop. If she had time, she’d freehand some perspective sketches to help Lillian visualize the options.

Bent over her drafting table, she started at the sound of the
the
phone.
“Reid Associates.”

“Oh, Iris, it’s
C.C..
Do you have a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?” she tried to sound calm, remembering that C.C. was a possible suspect for Norman’s murder.

“I just read Norman’s obituary in the
Times
yesterday. God, I’m so freaked. What is it about this GSD class? Are we cursed?”

“It
is
pretty incredible.”

“Have you heard anything from the police? Do they have an idea who’s been doing this?”

“Not that I know about.”

“I’m calling because I’d like your advice. There’s something I remembered and I don’t know if it could be important. It’s something Will said to me last month. I thought I’d run this by you since you seem to be playing Nancy Drew.”

Why was everything C.C. said to her mildly insulting? “Okay. What was it?”

“He asked if I thought Norman might want to be an investor in a school he wanted to turn into condos in San Francisco. He wanted to ask him about it at the reunion.”

“That sounds pretty innocent to me. Norman could always say no.”

“Well, he went on to say he had thought of some way to convince Norman to back him.”

“What do you mean ‘some way to convince him?
’”
Iris was trying to control her impatience.

“That’s just it. I wasn’t really paying much attention.”

“Well how did he say it? Did he sound devious or earnest?”

“Um, self-satisfied.”

“What leverage could he possibly have had on Norman?”

“That’s the exact word he used—
leverage.”

“But
Will
never made it to the reunion, so how could he have discussed anything with Norman? And now they’re both dead, so the killer must be a third person”

Iris saw Sheba lumbering over with a ball. She avoided eye contact. “Could someone have wanted to prevent Norman from investing with Will?”

“They were both killed, so do you mean someone who wanted to buy the school himself?” C.C. asked. “Maybe it looked like a lucrative deal and someone was trying to eliminate the competition.”

“By murdering them—
even someone who was merely a potential investor?
That sounds far-fetched,” Iris said.

“ I
don’t think Will was that savvy about making money. I doubt that he could have stumbled on some project that would inspire that level of greed.”

“Still, this is a connection between two murder victims that the police won’t know about unless Rachel’s mentioned it. And she may not even know about it. You need to call Detective Malone. He’ll need you to give a signed statement about it. I can give you his number. He’s the one who’s putting the pieces together.” She retrieved his card from under the answering machine and read off the information.

“Can’t you tell him, Iris? You’re already involved.”

“It would be hearsay coming from me.
Will spoke to you.
Besides, I’m staying out of this now. Are you coming up on Saturday for Norman’s funeral? You can make an appointment to talk with Malone then.
Two birds, one stone.”

“Funny. I hadn’t been planning on flying back up there. I’ll think about it. Bye.”

Iris cracked her knuckles as she mulled over the phone call. What leverage could
Will
have thought he had on Norman?

Chapter 35

A
few hours later Iris finished her final sketch. She decided to go through the pile of receipts that Claire had asked her to verify. She had worked her way to the middle of the pile when she came upon a manila envelope that said
Linc
on the front
.
Claire had thought that these were receipts from the tile subcontractor, Iris remembered. She unwound the twist string and out fell a cassette. Huh? Why would a sub be submitting this? Seeing nothing else inside, she looked for a label on the tape. No label. What the hell was this and why was it on a cassette? She didn’t even own a cassette player anymore. They’d all either broken or been tossed out with the advent of CDs. Damn. Should she just return it to Claire and let her figure out its relevance to the Lincoln renovation? Now she was starting to get curious.

A rapping sound coming from the direction of the kitchen interrupted her thoughts. Through her office’s framed opening she could see Ellie and Raven at the kitchen door.

“We just finished a yoga class and want to drag you to the Paradise for a coffee break. It’s gorgeous out! Oh, here’s my favorite doggy. How’re you
doin
’, little girl?” Raven squatted on the floor and rubbed Sheba under the chin. The dog was on her back in a second.

Twenty minutes later, in the Paradise, Iris and Ellie ate
sfogliatelle
with their iced decaf lattes. The shell-shaped Italian pastry was a house specialty. Raven stuck to chai and a muffin. She asked Iris, “Did you ever have the yoga teacher who tells you to imagine a marble getting sucked into your belly
button? What was her name, Mom—
Summer
?
Autumn?”

“The marble’s supposed to go through the belly-button, I think. Why does that image bother you so much?” Ellie asked. “She’s just trying to give us visual types a way to use the correct muscles.”

“It doesn’t make any sense as an image,” Iris said. “Why doesn’t she just say ‘suck in your gut’? But forget
Spring
, or whatever her name is. I want to tell you about the phone call I just had from C.C.”

“Is she going to put Norman’s house in the magazine?”

“Yeah, I think so, but that’s not why she called.” Iris told them the leverage story.

“That is so weird—
Will
thought that he had something to hold over Norman’s head? It’s got to have been something from 20 years ago. Why would he wait until now to use it?”