Let There Be Suspects (16 page)

I hadn’t had the house to myself in such a long time that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I love my mother and sisters, but a mother probably coined the phrase “Silence is golden.” For a few minutes I felt rich.

One English muffin and a cup of hot chocolate later, I knew how I wanted to spend my temporary wealth.

For the most part the Emerald Springs police department is good at what it does. We citizens are safe from speed demons who enter intersections a second after the light turns yellow. Our teenagers are routinely treated to high school assemblies on the dangers of drinking and driving, and Officer Jim does a puppet show for elementary school students on stranger danger.

But finding a murderer? In a town where homicides are rarer than a sunny day in February, practice never has time to make perfect. I thought that Detective Kirkor Roussos and his cohorts were fair-minded, intelligent, and tenacious. But did they have the training or experience to find Ginger’s killer? Or were they going to settle for arresting my sister, who in their opinion had motive and opportunity to commit the crime? For all I knew they suspected Sid of having the means, as well. No new details had emerged on the way Ginger died. But I was afraid that once they had determined Sid could have committed the crime, an arrest was imminent.

My efforts to provide Sid with an alibi hadn’t panned out, but I saw no harm in trying to provide another suspect or two for Roussos to investigate. None of us knew much about Ginger’s life, just the sanitized and glorified version she’d recounted at dinner the night before she died. I’d seen Cliff once since our visit to the hotel, and I had tried as subtly as possible to get him to tell me more about Ginger, citing my desire to help him notify her friends. But Cliff is still in a fog and seems unable to put thoughts together coherently. So at the moment I had little to go on.

I may live in a town with no escalators, no airport, and no Asian restaurants, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with our telephone service. I could make a few calls before Sid got up or Ed discovered I was meddling again. Call the man old-fashioned, but he would prefer I take up Pilates or hooking rugs. He’s not that fond of people shooting at me.

I remembered the name of Ginger’s publisher from my short stint at Book Gems in the fall. It was easy enough to get the number in New York, so I made a list of questions. I hoped to track down someone chatty enough to share details that shouldn’t be shared. When were they expecting Ginger’s next book? Who was working with her on it? What kind of plans did they have for this one? On the list of people who had come in contact with Ginger during the publication process, which ones were most likely to have wanted her dead? In order from one to a hundred.

I dialed before I could talk myself out of it. In a supremely bored voice the receptionist explained that nobody in publishing works between Christmas and New Years and I should call back after the first of the year.

Strike one.

Since I couldn’t canvass Ginger’s Indianapolis neighbors, I went back in history and decided to discover what I could about her television show on the Cincinnati PBS station. Then if necessary I planned to work my way back to the news station where she’d gotten her first taste of the limelight. From there, the Culinary Institute. Surely someone would remember her.

Publishing might shut down over the holidays, but television doesn’t have that luxury. The viewing public expects programming, even if it’s reruns. I got the number for the most likely station and told the receptionist who I was. Clearly it was a slow morning because right from the start, he seemed thrilled to commiserate over Ginger’s demise.

“Oh yes, I heard about it!” The man sounded youngish, and his voice was breathy and dramatic. I immediately imagined us as lifelong friends, sitting in a tapas bar over sangria and calamari dishing the dirt on everybody we knew. Not in Emerald Springs, though. A tapas bar is another one of those things we don’t have.

“Ginger was my foster sister,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “You can imagine how we all feel.” I wasn’t sure he could, but it seemed like the smallest of white lies.

“I came here just as she was leaving. Gawd, she was gorgeous, wasn’t she? That hair, that skin.”

“She was always beautiful. From the time she was a little girl.”

“She photographed like a dream, you know. The camera loved her. It’s too bad she—”

He chopped off that last word. Too bad she what? Died? Left the station? Was heartless and manipulative?

I felt my way. “I hadn’t seen Ginger for a long time. And there’s a gap in her life that I don’t know anything about. I’d like to fill it. You say you knew her at least a little? Was she well liked there at the station?”

“Oh, I, well, I . . . Wait, I have another call.”

I lost him to Muzak. Great. Clearly my new buddy had gone away to figure out how to answer without compromising every flutter of his integrity. Apparently he’d been at the station long enough to discover the real Ginger. Now he was trying to figure out how to let me down easily and get off the line.

A loud click cut short a particularly heinous instrumental of “Country Roads,” and I launched in before he could recount whatever lie he’d concocted.

“Okay, look, I’m going to be honest with you. I
am
Ginger’s foster sister, and I
am
trying to fill in the gaps in her life. But mostly because I don’t think the police are doing a good enough job of figuring out who killed her. And they suspect somebody I love.”

“Oh my gosh.” He sounded thrilled. “You mean, you’re looking for . . . for . . .”

“A murderer. You bet I am. And I’ll find him. Or her. I always do.” Okay, always is an exaggeration since I’ve only gone this route once before. But it sure sounded good.

“Wow! What can I do to help?”

We were going somewhere now. His voice was breathier. I was encouraged.

“Here’s the thing,” I said, lowering my voice, as if I were recounting a secret. “I know Ginger was hard to get along with. I know she could be difficult. I know she probably made enemies. I need to know who they were.”

“Honey, she didn’t have one friend here by the time she was fired. She—”

“Fired?”

“What? You didn’t know?”

“No. She told us she quit because she was in an accident and couldn’t do the show any more.”

“Well . . . she was in an accident. That part was true. But it was more of an excuse than a reason for firing her.”

I loved the way he had warmed to this. I imagined us sharing a plate of grilled chorizos. “I’m not sure I understand. Can you tell me more?”

“Well, just what I heard through the grapevine. But people here say that she was impossible, just impossible to work with! She didn’t come in on time. Half the time she wasn’t prepared. She made this demand, that demand. She’d throw a fit if something went wrong, and they’d have to start from the beginning. You know how bad it was? These days the production crew calls a tantrum ‘Doing a Ginger.’”

“You’re kidding!”

“I kid you not! And that’s a no-no. Time is money. The show did okay. I don’t think that was an issue. But it just wasn’t worth the trouble.”

“Was there anybody in particular she didn’t get along with?”

He gave a throaty laugh. “Was there anybody she did?”

“Ouch.”

“You got it.”

I pictured an entire television station filled with people ready to murder Ginger. She had been a genius at alienating people. How very sad.

“So the list of suspects is a mile long,” I said.

“You know, the person to ask would be her assistant.”

I perked up. “Assistant?”

“Yeah. I think she left sometime after Ginger did. She went to help with Ginger’s cookbook, so I never got to know her. But I bet she’d give you an earful.”

“She sounds perfect. You have her name?”

“Hmmm . . .” He was silent a moment, and I pictured him going through a directory or a Rolodex. “Nope, don’t have it. Like I said, I was coming in when they were going out. I don’t remember the name.”

“Will somebody else remember?”

“Not anybody who’s here right this minute. We’ve got a skeleton crew on account of the holidays. You could call me this afternoon, though. One guy who might know comes in later. I’ll see if I can find out something.”

I could tell he liked being involved. I thanked him. “You’ve been a big help already.”

“I’m Randall. Just ask for Rand. I’m the only one.”

I thanked him again, hung up, and mentally paid our bill at the bar. The sangria had been heady.

“What are you doing?”

I turned to find Sid in the doorway, one brow lifted in question, her dark hair down and flowing over one shoulder. Sid looks good before her eyes are fully open. It really doesn’t seem fair.

“I thought I’d do a little checking on Ginger, that’s all,” I assured her.

“You ought to stay out of this. I’ve brought you enough trouble already.”

“I’m just asking a few questions. I don’t want to disappoint Roussos. He knows I’ll be snooping around. He depends on me.”

She gave a pale imitation of a smile. “Junie expects me to go to the memorial service. Is that going to complicate your life? Do people in your church know I’m the prime suspect?”

“I don’t care what they know. And you should come if that’s where you want to be.”

She gave a short nod. “I need to say good-bye. But it’s so sad, Aggie. I’m not sure Ginger and I ever even said hello.”

We did say good-bye. All the family except my girls, and dozens of members of our congregation who came to support us. Cliff sat with Junie, and they shed their tears together. My sisters and I sat at the end of the row and listened as Ed read several poignant poems about death, then talked about Ginger’s life. Junie had told Ed stories of Ginger’s childhood, and now he recounted some of the memories that hadn’t involved lashing out at everyone in her path. He talked about her television career and the success of her cookbook, then a little about her marriage to Cliff. Junie had provided a few childhood photos for a table in the front, and Ginger looked luminous and dewy-eyed.

During the final prayer, I opened my eyes before the “amen,” looking for a tissue in my purse. As I turned my head I saw a woman, a stranger in a red coat, sliding out of a pew at the back of the church and heading for the door.

The service concluded. Since we were “family” our row was the first to leave the church. We were supposed to stay in the narthex and greet visitors and accept condolences, but once we’d gotten there, I told Sid I’d be back and left by a side door.

At first I thought the woman had vanished. But just as I was about to give up, I saw her crossing the Oval. The coat was a definite. She’d been hidden by the bandstand, but now she was in plain sight. I didn’t think twice. I crossed the street and started after her.

She sped up, but so did I. On the other side of the Oval I caught her just as she was unlocking the door of a green Pontiac Grand Prix with a front bumper that looked as if it had tangled with a tree trunk.

“Excuse me.”

Startled, she whirled around, her hand to her chest. “Oh, I didn’t know anybody was there!”

I examined her a moment. She was somewhere in her forties, hair already mostly gray, eyes a washed-out blue. She looked tired, but I was afraid that was as permanent as the droop of her lips. She looked as if life had taken more than a few swats in her direction, and she no longer bothered to duck.

“I saw you at the service,” I said, holding out my hand in a show of friendship. “I’m Aggie Sloan-Wilcox. Ginger lived with our family sometimes while she was growing up.”

She shook quickly. “Your husband’s the minister.” It wasn’t a question. She spoke softly, and the accent matched the license plate on her car. Both from Kentucky.

“I’m sorry, but I saw you leave. And I thought . . . well, I wondered if you were an old friend of Ginger’s? I wanted to invite you to the reception.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s a long drive home. I’ll be doing too much of it in the dark as it is.”

“Do you mind if I ask if you knew Ginger?”

Something crossed her face. If I’d had to guess I would have said it was
Boy, did I ever
.

I could relate.

“I see you did,” I said, taking a chance. “And you weren’t always glad about it. Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who felt that way.”

She seemed to relax a little. “I’m sorry. She wasn’t . . . easy.”

“Easy she wasn’t.”

I knew I wasn’t going to get this woman back to the church. But I didn’t want her to leave without talking to her. “Look, it’s cold out here and you’ve got a long drive back to Kentucky.”

She nodded.

“Let me treat you to a cup of coffee before you go. There’s a nice little place just a block away.”

“Why?”

The question was blunt but called for. Again, as in my conversation with Rand, I figured the truth was the only way to go. “Because I’m trying to fill in some of the gaps in Ginger’s past to figure out who might have killed her.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Well, that saves us some time.” I smiled, and after a moment she smiled a little, too. “It’s just a cup of coffee.”

She hunched her shoulders in defeat. “Okay.”

We didn’t say much on the way to Give Me a Break. She did tell me her name was Carol Ann Riley, and she had known Ginger in Cincinnati.

I bought two mocha lattes, and she cupped hers gratefully in her hands, inhaling the entwined scents. We found a corner table.

“That should help you stay awake,” I said. “At least the roads are clear.”

She nodded and took a sip. “I saw a notice about the service on a trade e-mail loop. I already knew she was dead. I saw that in the newspaper.”

“So you came up from Kentucky to pay your respects?”