Let There Be Suspects (17 page)

“No, to make sure it was true.” Carol Ann put down her cup and shook her head. “That’s not fair. I came because sometimes a funeral’s the only way to write the end to a chapter in your life.”

“Carol Ann, would you mind telling me how you knew her?”

“I was Ginger’s assistant at WKLM. And later I helped her with the cookbook.”

The planets were perfectly aligned. That had to be the answer. Only this morning I’d learned of Carol Ann’s existence, and now here she was sitting right across from me.

I told her about my conversation with Rand. “I was going to find you and ask you to tell me anything you could. I gather Ginger wasn’t very popular at the station?”

“About as popular as a drop in the ratings.”

“Assistants work awfully close to their bosses. Seems to me you probably got a good look at all the reasons she wasn’t liked.”

“Pick an adjective, any adjective, as long as it’s negative.”

“What did she do to you personally then?”

Carol Ann sipped. I thought she was sorting her thoughts, or else she was numbering Ginger’s offenses in order of importance.

“She used me,” Carol Ann said at last. “You can say whatever you like about Ginger, but she wasn’t stupid. She could spot weakness at thirty paces, and she had a deadly aim. She figured me out right away. I had every quality she needed in an assistant and no self-esteem. I was eager to hover in her shadow. Here was this bright, pretty woman on her way to the top who needed my skills. And she knew just how to keep me working for her. Large dollops of criticism and crumbs of praise.”

I suspected Carol Ann had indulged in a year or two of therapy since leaving her job with Ginger. This knowledge sounded hard won.

“How did she use you?” I asked. “And I’m not surprised, sad to say.”

That seemed to give her confidence. “As a cook Ginger was a no-talent hack. There, I’ve said it and I’m not sorry. She couldn’t plan a menu. She was too disorganized to assemble ingredients or tools. And her ideas were terrible.”

I thought of the new cookbook title. “So how did she get her own show?”

“She got the show because she looked great on camera. She was flunking out of culinary school and grabbed the job at that first TV station. She was too short to be a fashion model, but she did fine standing in front of the cameras reading somebody else’s script and demonstrating basics. Later when she needed more expertise, she hired me. I put the shows together, came up with the concept, and organized everything. I even taught her some of the elementary skills she needed. Of course how much I did was hush-hush. Ginger didn’t want anybody to know she wasn’t in complete control.”

“And that explains why nobody questioned her abilities when she proposed doing a cookbook?”

“Most of the recipes in that cookbook? The entire concept? Mine! She promised me she was going to share the royalties and give me proper credit, but of course, I never saw a dime except the small salary she paid me.”

I gave a low whistle. This made Sid’s reasons for disliking Ginger sound anemic. “Is that when you quit? When the book was finished and you realized she wasn’t going to share the royalties?”

“I started to get the picture earlier than that. So I did some checking. I looked at the contracts, talked to some people at her publisher, and finally figured out that I wasn’t getting a thing. Ginger had hidden my contributions on the show, and I realized she was going to do it again. One afternoon she blew up at me when we were working on a recipe, and it all just came flooding in. So I quit. Left her high and dry. She had to finish the book by herself. And she didn’t have the skills.”

I tried not to imagine all the people at the church who were wondering where I had disappeared to. “So she finished without your help.”

“Yes, but the work she did was bad. Really terrible. Her editor found me and begged me to go back and help Ginger finish the book. She actually had the nerve to appeal to my loyalty. And the only reason she wanted me was because she knew the house would have to pay somebody else a lot more.”

“I bet that made you angry.”

She smiled without any warmth. “I hear that’s what they did, too. Hired staff to test and fix every single one of the recipes Ginger submitted on her own. It cost them money and time. But they had to do it. It was so late in the game that the book had been advertised and the orders were already in.”

I sat back. “I guess they weren’t too unhappy though, were they? I mean the book did well, didn’t it?”

Carol Ann took another sip. “Not as well as you seem to think.”

“No?”

“Do you know how many cookbooks are published every year? It was a flash in the pan. If she’d had the savvy to stay on top of things, Ginger could have made something out of it. But she couldn’t focus, and the publisher was fed up with her. They probably took every cent they’d had to spend to get the book in shape out of her future earnings. I don’t know that for sure, but I do know that the new ideas she gave them didn’t go anywhere.”

“Are you saying she probably didn’t make a lot of money off the book?”

“That’s what I’m saying. She was paid all right up front, but knowing Ginger the money was probably gone almost immediately. And I doubt there was much left in royalties. And no prospects of more for a second book.”

This was all new information. I swirled what was left of my mocha. “You had lots of reasons to dislike her,” I said at last.

“I was sitting in my mother’s church in Frankfort on Christmas Eve. Four hundred people saw me. You can check it out.” She finished her drink and set the cup on the table.

“Who else then?” I leaned forward and touched her arm. “Carol Ann, it sounds to me like you knew Ginger better than almost anybody else. Was there anybody else she worked with who hated her enough to kill her?”

She rocked the cup back and forth. “She made life miserable for a lot of people. But hate enough to kill?”

I realized I had overstated things. “Then how about this? Whose life did she make the most miserable?”

“Besides me? A long list. But at the top? There was one woman in marketing. She was new at the station. She did this really cute campaign for Ginger’s WKLM show,
Spice It with Ginger
. Cute title, huh? My idea. Anyway, when Ginger saw the concept she threw a tantrum. A real full-blown, no-holds-barred tantrum. She hated everything about it. The station owner kind of had a thing for Ginger, and the woman in marketing was on probation since she was new. So he fired her.”

My ears perked up. “The station manager had a thing for Ginger?”

“Not that way. He was pushing seventy, and the whole thing was completely professional, not an affair. He just thought Ginger’s show was going to be so big it would immediately go into syndication, and he wanted her to be happy. That was one of the first tantrums she threw, before everyone realized tantrums were going to be the norm. By the end, he was as glad to see her go as anybody else.”

For a moment I’d been excited about the station manager connection. A jealous, thwarted lover. A Christmas Eve tryst gone bad. At least it would have been something to chase down.

Carol Ann stood, and I stood, too, knowing that I was already so late for the reception, eyebrows would be hanging from hairlines. “Will you give me your phone number, in case I have more questions?”

Carol Ann fished out a business card and handed it to me. “I’m at school during the day. I went back to teaching. Family and consumer science. That’s what we call home economics these days. I teach life skills and cooking. Teenagers are a lot kinder than Ginger ever was.” She smiled, and this time it reached her eyes. “I’m working on a cookbook for young people striking out on their own.”

“Good luck. I mean it.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got my life in order.”

We walked out of the shop and started back toward the Oval. I tried to figure out how to explain my absence to the Women’s Society.

“I wonder if Mabyn ever got hers in order,” Carol Ann said. “It was such a blow to her to be fired like that.”

I had been mentally honing the story of my disappearance. A moment passed before Carol Ann’s words sank in. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“That poor young woman in marketing. Mabyn somebody or other.”

Mabyn is
not
the most common name in a baby names book. I tried to sound nonchalant. “You don’t remember her last name, do you?”

“Like I said, she wasn’t at the station very long. I only remember the first name because it’s unusual.”

“It certainly is.” And hadn’t Mabyn Booth told me that advertising had once been her career? B.S. Before Shirley? Hadn’t she also said that she and Howard had moved here from Cincinnati?

I tried to picture the faces in the small crowd at the memorial service. Had Mabyn been among them? I didn’t think so.

“Funny thing,” Carol Ann said as we were parting company. “For a long time I wished I were Ginger. I thought she had everything. How wrong could I be?”

I had to agree. I was beginning to think that the only thing Ginger had possessed in abundance was bad judgment.

11

The explanation for my absence—that I had left the church to comfort an acquaintance of Ginger’s—seemed to satisfy nearly everyone, and after I’d made my apologies, I chatted with the kind souls who had turned out and thanked them for coming. In the kitchen I helped the Women’s Society committee wash coffeepots and the trays that had housed bakery sandwiches and cookies. Mabyn hadn’t attended the service, nor had any of the Booths, but this seemed for the best. I couldn’t very well accuse her of murder just because once upon a time Ginger had been responsible for firing somebody with the same first name. At least, not yet.

I needed more information, and Rand was the man to get it for me. I knew he would be thrilled to learn his first tip had already paid off.

By the time the clean up was finished, I realized my family was gone or going. I caught Vel just as she was walking out the back door.

“Lucy took Junie for a drive,” Vel said.

I’d asked Lucy to watch over Junie at the open house, and apparently she was still doing it. I bet she had taken my mother somewhere to get her mind off her troubles. Maybe a stop at the Victorian to see our new project. Or the button museum in an old house in Weezeltown, one of the not so desirable sections of Emerald Springs.

Vel was perfectly dressed for the service wearing her dark suit, an icy pink blouse, attractive but sensible shoes. No Jimmy Choos for Vel. Like the prudent CPA she is, she doesn’t want management to think the vast sums they’ve entrusted to her have plummeted straight to her tootsies.

“Tomorrow I have to get to Cincinnati by three,” Vel said. “I couldn’t get a flight out of Columbus on such short notice. And Cleveland is booked up, too.”

“I’ll take you down.” I looked around and lowered my voice. “What about Sid?”

“She cancelled her flight. She hasn’t rescheduled.”

“How will that play at work?” Since the country club had one event after another over the holidays, she’d had to talk fast to get time off. Now with New Year’s Eve looming, they must be frantic.

“It’s not playing well,” Vel confirmed. “And they weren’t impressed that she’s been asked to stay in town while the cops investigate a murder.”

“Poor kid.” Sid is so good at what she does, I hoped her boss would remember that and cut her some slack.

“I’m afraid you’ll have your hands full for a while. Junie’s planning to stay until Sid’s cleared. I hear Cliff isn’t in any hurry to leave town, not until he knows something about Ginger’s murder. And Sid? She’s going to be a basket case unless you can keep her busy.”

“I would ask her to plan another party, but we’re still reeling from the last one.”

“You’ll need to think of something.”

“Maybe she can help me at the Victorian. She can steam wallpaper. Anybody can steam wallpaper.”

“I visited Signor DiBenedetto this morning and stocked your cabinets. I’m planning to cook enough this afternoon to help you over the hump.”

Translation. There will be enough food in your refrigerator, Aggie, to feed the hungry for the next century. I gave her a spontaneous, acceptably brief hug. “I’ll help you.”

“Don’t. It’s my way of coping with . . . everything.”

She took off for the parsonage. I went to look for Ed, whose sensitive, carefully edited rendition of Ginger’s life had touched my heart. At moments like this I am particularly happy to have chosen a life with this man.

I found him in the parish house foyer, glassy-eyed and mesmerized by his new secretary. Norma Beet was not Ed’s first or second choice for this job. Unfortunately Ed’s real preferences were incidental. Norma is the daughter of Alfred Beet, an octogenarian in our congregation who consistently refused to let anyone step into his barn of a house to cook and clean. When Norma volunteered to move from South Dakota to take care of him, Alfred relented. Unfortunately Norma also needed a job to make ends meet. She has all the required skills except one. She does not understand the meaning of silence.

“I’ve told Esther the organ is too loud, but she insists that’s the only thing that will keep people from talking during her prelude. I heard two complaints after the service today. I have to bring ear plugs and stuff them in when she starts to play. I won’t have any hearing left if I don’t.”

Ed looked pale. I wondered how long Norma had been talking. Ed is working to dam the torrent, but after a long, emotional service, he runs out of sandbags. Since the woman doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, he has to be kind while he’s at it. I foresee months of chatter before Norma learns the limits.

“What do you think, Aggie?” Norma turned to me. She’s a short woman, round in the middle, graying brown hair blackened to ebony except for an inch at the roots, cat’s-eye glasses that sit on a pert little nose. She tends to buy clothing two sizes too small, positive that she’ll lose weight. Buttons pop and zippers abandon tracks, but Norma struggles into a size twelve anyway.