Dying for Dinner Rolls (9 page)

“How did you do that?” Annie Mae asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.

“Remember, I have two hot teenage boys, which means I have a lot of girls hanging around my house.”

Annie Mae smiled.

“Like wallpaper, I hang around. I listen and learn. Some teen girls love drama, like secrets. She seemed the type.”

“Bingo.”

“Once we know which lipstick Susie uses, we’ll get it matched with the sample on Lucy’s letter and my car.”

Turning on my directional, I merged into the right lane on Drayton. “We’re one step closer to an answer.”

“I pulled some tricks out of my sleeve, too. Did you like my acting?” Annie Mae pointed to her chest.

“Your fall?”

“In a method acting class, I learned how do one without hurting myself.”

“The Oscar goes to Annie Mae.”

“I would’ve settled for a loaf of bread.”

“What next?” I turned a corner at the light.

Annie Mae held a finger up. “We’ve talked to Bert.” She raised another finger. “Susie and Scarlett.” She held four fingers up. “Who does that leave to investigate?”

“Ina, Lucy’s back-door neighbor.”

“Ah, yes, the tree person. And the threatening note.”

“Let’s hope she can give information that leads to the killer.”

“Or she could be the killer.”

“Let’s find out.”

***

I rang the doorbell. Annie Mae and I stood on the front porch of Ina Nesmith’s peach-colored stucco two-story home, which backed up to Lucy’s house. There was a huge tree visible beyond the rooftop.

The door opened. A shriveled lady, who looked a hundred years old, answered the door. She wore a pink crocheted sweater over a blue cotton dress. A pair of glasses hung on a multicolored, beaded chain. Her thin, gray hair was piled on top of her head in a tiny bun. A hearing aid was visible. “Yes?”

“We’re friends of Lucy, your back-door neighbor.” I pointed in the direction of her backyard.

“Lucy died. And she didn’t live here. You have the wrong house.” Ina shook her head. A bobby pin fell from her bun.

“We know that. We need to talk about the tree issue,” Annie Mae said.

“The what?” Ina said loudly.

“Tree issue.” I spoke clearly and slowly.

“You need a tissue?” Ina’s eyebrows creased as she pulled tissues from her sweater sleeve. She handed one to me and one to Annie Mae.

“No, thank you.” Looking at me, Annie Mae rolled her eyes. Then she turned back to Ina. “You wrote a note to Lucy about a problem with a tree.”

“Remember? Over the roots?”

“Results? Rooster?” Ina leaned in. “I’m sorry, ladies, I have a difficult time hearing. By the way, something smells like fire.”

“It’s us.” Annie Mae straightened her shirt.

“Were you at camp?” Ina asked.

“I wish. I love s’mores,” Annie Mae said.

“Ina, that’s not important.” I had to think of a different strategy to get answers from her. I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote “Tree problem with your neighbors, Bert and Lucy Valentine.” I handed it to Ina.

She slipped her eyeglasses on. She read the note and nodded. “Yes. We have a tree that borders both our properties, they claim it is more on their side, but I don’t think so. Anyway, they had a plumber who said the roots were breaking their pipes, and he needed to cut them. I told Bert and Lucy that I wouldn’t let them do it because my Gardner said that it’ll kill the tree and make it fall over on my house. But their plumber went and did it anyway.”

“I’ve heard that once the roots are damaged, it weakens the tree. It could cause it to die and then fall,” Annie Mae added.

Ina nodded. “It was trouble, that’s all I knew. They could not just go and do something that may affect me. It just wasn’t right. And I told them so.”

“Did you threaten them?” I asked. Even though, looking at frail Ina, I found it hard to believe anyone would be afraid of her.

Ina leaned toward us, hand behind her left ear. “Say what?”

“Threaten,” Annie Mae spoke loudly and articulated every letter.

Ina adjusted her hearing aide. “Oh, that’s better now. Say what you said again.”

I repeated the question.

“Yes. I was going to call the zoning department on them. You know they used Hardie Board on their house? That is not allowed in the historic district. They should’ve never gotten away with that.” Ina shook a bony finger in the air.

“So, you weren’t going to harm her?” Annie Mae asked Ina.

“Armor?” Ina’s face scrunched up.

“Harm her,” Annie Mae said.

“Say what?” Ina said.

“Never mind. Thank you for your time.” I began to walk away.

Ina called after us. “Oh, and I liked Lucy. I really did. She was a nice lady, but that snake of a husband used to have a lady friend over when she was not home. That is just not right. My hearing may be gone, but my eyesight is pretty good.”

Annie Mae and I stopped in our tracks.

We turned around to face Ina.

“Were you home last week, the day Lucy died?” I asked.

Ina nodded. “Yes. And I think she had forgotten her key.”

“Why do you think that?” Annie Mae said.

“My kitchen window looks into her backyard. Her kitchen is in the rear of her house like mine is.” Ina trailed off. “A lot of houses around here are built that way. Nice and solid, too. Not like the new houses these days that look like they’ll fall apart if the wind blows.”

“And you saw Lucy the same night she died?” I offered, hoping to get Ina back on track.

“Oh, yes. She must have forgotten her key. I saw her climb in her kitchen window.” Ina narrowed her eyes. “At least I think it was Lucy.”

“You don’t know for sure?” Annie Mae enunciated loud and clear.

“It was almost dusk, not too dark but still, for me, it was a little hard to see.”

“You saw a female climbing in the window?” I asked. “Although, you’re not sure who?”

“It looked like Lucy, but then again, it could have been someone else. I never thought about that.” Ina pulled her sweater tighter around her.

It could be one hundred degrees, like today, and old ladies still wore sweaters. Like they had broken internal thermostats always set on cold. “Is there anything else you remember?” I asked.

“No. But a while later, there were police cars all around her house. Lots of commotion.” Ina’s glasses slipped down her nose.

The sound of a phone ringing came from inside the house.

“Your phone is ringing,” I told her.

“I better get that,” Ina said.

We said good-bye and left.

Annie Mae turned to me as we left Ina’s house. “I think we can safely cross Ina off the suspect list.”

“Agreed.” I fobbed to unlock my SUV and climbed in the driver’s seat.

“That lady is too fragile to smash a spider.” Annie Mae sat down.

“What about Ina seeing someone climbing in Lucy’s house the night she died?”

“Who was it?” Annie Mae buckled up.

“Bert?”

“No. He has a key.”

“Right. And it couldn’t have been Lucy. When she left to get the dinner rolls, I remember she had keys in her hand.” I bit my bottom lip. “Then again, she could’ve gone in her backyard for some reason and accidentally locked herself out. So she had to climb through the window to get back in.”

“Yes. But what if it wasn’t her?” Annie Mae adjusted her shirt.

“Then?”

“That leaves the killer.”

I locked eyes with Annie Mae. “Susie.”

“So Susie climbed through the window, to do what? Kill Lucy?” Annie Mae tapped her fingers on the door. “She’d have to know that Lucy was there. Remember, Lucy was not supposed to be home. She had planned to be with us all night. Until she decided to go back for the rolls.”

I twisted the ring around my thumb. “I know. I’m trying to understand why Susie was there. Maybe Susie lost her lipstick during an earlier clandestine visit with Bert. And she wanted to go back and get it before Lucy found it. And that night, Lucy surprised Susie, and Susie panicked and killed her.”

Annie Mae looked deep in thought as her brows furrowed. “Hmm, possible.”

“Maybe Lucy had already found it.” I ran through some scenarios as I clenched and unclenched my hands around the steering wheel.

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m just thinking out loud.” I turned on the air, folded my arms on the steering wheel, and put my head down.

“Are you okay?” Annie Mae’s hand touched my back.

“One minute, I feel like we’re close, then the next, we seem a million miles away.” I sat up. “I’m trying to figure out what would’ve happened if Lucy found Susie’s lipstick.”

“So, you think Lucy chose her husband’s mistress’s lipstick to write the fake suicide note with?”

“Oh, right. Not likely.”

“Here’s another thought. Susie killed Lucy then wrote the note with her own pink lipstick, and—” Annie Mae stopped midsentence. “Now that I just heard that out loud, it sure doesn’t sound like a smart move at all.”

I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t.”

“Susie seemed pretty smart. After all, even with my great acting, she figured out that I didn’t really trip.” Annie Mae turned her hands over.

I rubbed my temples. “We can’t rule out Susie just yet. Let’s think about this. She could’ve panicked after she killed Lucy and wrote the note with her own lipstick by mistake.”

“Yeah. Maybe Lucy had it in her purse after finding it. Maybe later, Lucy wanted to confront Bert about it. But she was killed before she had a chance to. And Susie just grabbed the lipstick from Lucy’s purse, not realizing it was her very own.”

“Maybe.” I said. “How does Bert fit into this?”

My head spun. I felt like we were going in circles.

Annie Mae held a finger up. “On the other hand, maybe he was there. And helped Susie kill her.”

“Or he did it himself.”

“I wouldn’t put it past that jerk. Like I’ve said before, if a wife dies unexpectedly, it’s usually the husband who did it.” Annie Mae clicked her seat belt on. “Where to?”

Suddenly I felt that I had to call Andrew and ask if he’d ever kill me. It’s like a medical student who studies symptoms and diseases, and then he thinks he has each one. All this detective work started to make me think that I could get murdered next.

“Give me a second. I’m calling Andrew,” I said to Annie Mae as I dialed one on my phone.

Annie Mae nodded.

Andrew picked up. “Hey, hon, are you okay?”

“Do you think Bert could’ve killed Lucy? Or for that matter, that any husband could kill his wife?” I blurted out.

“Hello to you, too.” Andrew laughed.

“So?”

A long sigh. “You’re killing me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I love you with all my heart. There’s your answer. I would never harm you. I can’t speak for other husbands and how they feel about their wives.”

“Love you, too.” I ended the call.

“So?” Annie Mae asked.

I shook my hand. “This whole sleuth thing is making me paranoid. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Then let’s stop.”

“Maybe we should. Where has this gotten us so far? Almost burnt like marshmallows. Chased out of a grocery store. Oh, and Bert threatened to put a restraining order on us.”

“Stellar day, huh?”

“Stellar?”

“We did get a lot of attention from the dumpster thing.” Annie Mae looked in the passenger visor’s mirror. She patted her hair. “I kind of liked the celebrity status.”

“I could do without it.”

“You know, I think we’re really a great team. Too bad Bezu is missing out.”

“Maybe she’s better off.”

My phone sounded with a text. “Looks like Cynthia came through.”

“What does it say?”

I read it out loud to Annie Mae. “Revlon. Super Lustrous. Fuchsia Shock.”

We went to the local Walgreen’s, bought the lipstick, and then we called José. He told us to meet him in the parking lot near the Forsyth Park tennis courts.

Annie Mae and I got there just after six in the evening. José pulled up in a white Explorer with the words Savannah Police Department on the side.

Annie Mae and I got out of my SUV and greeted José.

I handed him the lipstick.

José twisted the stick up. “Not my color.”

“Funny, José.” Annie Mae eyed him. “Although, with your olive skin tone, I can see you in more of a maroon or red.”

José cleared his throat. “Cat, you had asked me to look into recent deaths of anyone who lived near Jones Street.”

“And?” I asked, my heart accelerating in anticipation.

José looked down at his phone. “There was a hit-and-run that killed a gentleman who lived on Jones. The accident happened the same day as the date on the newspaper Lucy found.”

I wondered if that was the person that second crossword puzzle was meant for.

“Holy smokes.” Annie Mae’s mouth hung open.

“Who was he?” My voice rose.

José glanced at me then at Annie Mae. He looked down at his cell. “Michael Esker, age sixty-three, owned Quickie Loan & Pawn. He was a Grand Knight at the Knights of Columbus. He suffered a fatality after a hit-and-run on the corner of Clary’s while he headed to his Wednesday morning Bible study. One eyewitness saw a green, older-model sedan, a Lincoln or Buick, driving away from the scene. But that’s our only lead.”

“Poor guy.” Annie Mae sighed.

“That name sounds familiar.” I ran through people my dad’s age in my mind. “Esker. Esker. I think I remember him, but I can’t remember from where.”

José held up the lipstick. “I’ll get this analyzed against the lipstick on Lucy’s note and the message from your windshield.”

“I really appreciate it.” I gave José a hug, but because of his height, I hugged his waist with my head on his chest. “I don’t want you to get fired over it.”

José patted my back. He smelled sweet and spicy. “No problem. I have a buddy in the forensics laboratory who owes me a favor. Trust me; he’ll do it without anyone finding out.”

With a wave, José climbed in his Explorer and drove out of the parking lot.

Rounding the corner by the tennis courts, Mr. Phong had headphones on and sang out loud as he strode on the path. “All da move like da Jagger. I got the mooove like a Jagger.” He nearly bumped into Annie Mae and me.

I stepped out of the way and made eye contact with Mr. Phong. I smiled and waved. He grinned ear to ear and waved back. I noticed a ruby-stoned ring on his finger as he flapped his hand and nodded. He continued walking and singing.

“That is one strange cat,” Annie Mae said. “But he sure seems like a happy guy.”

Annie Mae and I got in my SUV. It was after six in the evening. “I wonder if my mom knew Michael Esker.”

“The Grand Poobah?” Annie Mae asked.

“He was a Grand Knight, not a Flintstone.” I grinned.

“I’m going across the street to the Sentient Bean and grab a scone. You want anything?” Annie Mae said before she got out.

“No, thanks.” I hoped I wouldn’t lose my dear friend to a heart attack the way she’d lost her husband who’d had the same junk food addiction. We’d had this conversation, and she always said that she knew how to eat right, and that one day she would.

I started the engine, put the air on. My phone rang. The caller ID said “Mom.” I picked up.

Yunni said, “What you doing? All my friends call me to tell me about you and the fire. You okay?”

The Sunshine Market closed at six. I knew her routine. She was cooking dinner and watching the news. “I’m fine. I was just thinking of calling you. You’re at home, right?”

“Yes. Andrew at business meeting. Why you ask?”

“I’m at Forsyth Park.”

“You are close. Come to my house. I fix dinner for you. Making your favorite, Bulgogi. Is Annie Mae with you?”

“Yes.”

“She come too. Lots of food.”

“No thanks, not tonight.”

“Okay, fine, you miss out. Tadcu come here for dinner. Your boys, too. Maybe none left after. So no problem.”

“Another time, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Listen, do you remember a Michael Esker?”

“I read in newspaper. He died.”

“Yes, I just found out.”

“I talked to some friends. Found out he hit by car. Very sad,” Yunni said.

“I know. But did you know him?” I asked.

“Yes. Your father business partner,” Yunni said.

“Business partner?” I repeated, my voice rising. “For Sunshine Market?”

“Different business before store. Didn’t work out.”

I felt blindsided. I had no idea there’d been another enterprise before Sunshine Market. My parents never failed to surprise me. There was a good chance my kids would find out things about me they never knew before, even though I felt like an open book. “What kind of business?”

“Cars. Rebuilding, trading. Buying, selling. Complicated. Lots of time at junkyards and auctions. Dirty.”

“So Dad and Michael worked together?”

“And three more men.”

“Who were they?”

“Let me think.” Yunni took a deep breath. “Davy O’Brien, Micky Zwick, and Peter Matthews.”

“What happened to the business?”

“Your dad not talk too much about what happened. But he got out. They all did. No matter. After all that, your dad made money from some investment, and we started our store. Oh, honey, my food going to burn.”

I tried to wrap my head around why both my dad and another former business associate were now dead within two months of each other. Was there a connection or just coincidence? Was the crossword puzzle somehow related to both deaths? I needed to talk to O’Brien, Zwick, and Matthews. “Okay, Mom, thanks. Love you.”

“You, too. Plenty of food if you change mind.” She clicked off.

My phone buzzed. Low battery. I plugged it in the car charger.

Annie Mae opened the passenger door. She had a scone in one hand and a drink in the other. She handed me her drink. “Can you grab this?”

I put the drink in the holder as Annie Mae sat down. “My mom just called.”

“How is she?”

“Good. She invited us to dinner.”

Annie Mae held up the scone. “Too late.”

“I told her next time.” I stared out the window, my eyes transfixed on a spot on my windshield. “My phone is almost dead. Can you look up a Davy O’Brien, Micky Zwick, and Peter Matthews for me, please?”

“Who are they?” Annie Mae tapped her phone.

I went over my conversation with my mom while turning my dad’s wedding band on my thumb.

A few minutes later, Annie Mae looked over at me. “Cat. Davy O’Brien is dead.”

My stomach took a free fall. “Can you find out what happened?”

A few minutes later, Annie Mae said, “He died last month. It looks like an accident. He fell from a building on Bay Street. Freaky, huh?”

A chill ran over my entire body. Even my hair felt like it stood on end. I could barely speak. Was someone killing off all of the partners in my dad’s car business? “What about Zwick and Matthews?”

Annie Mae tapped her iPhone. She turned toward me. “Can’t find anything on Peter Matthews. But it looks like Micky Zwick is still in Savannah and, as far as I can ascertain, still alive.”

“How do you know he’s still alive?”

“No obituary on him.” Annie Mae continued to tap her phone. “Still can’t find anything on Matthews, just Zwick.”

I felt a wave of calm wash over me. “Can you find an address for Zwick?”

A moment later, Annie Mae looked up. “Forty-nine Barnard Street. We can walk from here.”

I shut off the car. “Let’s go.”