Scam Chowder (6 page)

Chapter 6

Val held the phone in a white-knuckled grip. Until the chief called, she'd clung to the belief that Scott had died of a natural cause, a rogue virus or bacteria. “What kind of toxin?”

“No one knows for sure until the autopsy results are in. Meantime, I'd like to talk to your granddaddy about the guests at his chowder dinner.”

The guests and probably the food too. “How about talking to me first, Chief? There are some things you should know that Granddad might not tell you.”

“I'll be in my office at the station tomorrow morning. Stop by. It'll be like old times.”

Those times were only a month old. She'd bugged him repeatedly in June, trying to refocus his murder investigation on someone other than the obvious suspect. “Let's hope it's nothing like old times. See you tomorrow, Chief.” She hung up.

She phoned Bethany and asked her to work at the café in the morning. Bethany agreed to come in at ten and stay as long as necessary.

Val put the phone down and looked through the screen door. Her grandfather climbed out of his white Buick, carrying a plastic grocery bag. She rushed out and met him on the sidewalk in front of the house. “You've been gone awhile.”

“I didn't want to miss my interview on the evening news. Lillian and I watched it at her place. How did I look on TV?”

“I wasn't here to watch the news.” She saw her grandfather's face fall. “Sorry. I saw most of the interview live. Did they cut anything?”

“Only the cars honking.” He started up the path to the house. “Lillian said the camera didn't get me from my best angle. Next time, I'll stand on the other side of the interviewer.”

May that next time be a long way off. “Did you get a chance to talk to Thomasina?”

“There was a please-don't-disturb note on her door. I can understand that.”

Val eyed his plastic bag. “You went to the supermarket.”

He stopped walking and planted his feet like a warrior defending a stronghold. “Do you know how long it's been since I had a nice piece of rare beef?”

“Well, I haven't cooked any for you since February.” After moving in with Granddad, she'd followed her mother's directive to reduce his red-meat intake. “But you've gone to restaurants and eaten with friends since then. You must have tasted beef in the last six months.”

“Not as good as this.” He held up the bag. “Tenderloin tips. I'm sure you'll enjoy it too, as a change from white meat and fish. There's plenty for both of us.”

“I invited Gunnar to dinner. He's in the sitting room checking out your video collection.”

Granddad rolled his eyes. “I thought he was gone for good. Well, I'm not giving up my beef. Go out for dinner with him . . . after you cook the steak.” He climbed the three steps to the porch.

“I can stretch the meat you bought by making a stir-fry.” She had plenty of vegetables to add to it. “With rice and a salad, we'll have enough for three.”

“Hmph.” He turned around and looked up and down the street. “Where's his little red car, the mini-otter. Did he get rid of it?”

“The Miata is parked at River Edge B & B, where he's staying. We walked from there.” Val locked arms with her grandfather. “A stir-fry requires a lot of slicing and chopping. You and Gunnar can help me.”

Meanwhile, she'd figure out how to tell Granddad about the autopsy without upsetting him too much. Bad news goes down better over a good meal.

 

 

Granddad suggested they eat at the picnic table in the backyard. Val nixed the idea, using mosquitoes as an excuse, and set the table in the dining room. Though sitting there would remind her grandfather of the chowder dinner, the joy of eating beef might counterbalance the bitter taste left by last night's meal.

He took his usual place at the head of the large mahogany table, with Val on his right and Gunnar on his left. Val tried a piece of beef. Perfect. Granddad couldn't complain about chewy beef. She'd taken extra care not to overcook it, easy to do with a stir-fry.

Gunnar dug into his food. “This tastes really good, Val.”

Granddad nodded. “Almost as good as a grilled steak.”

“A question for you, Mr. Myer. With all the great movies in your collection”—Gunnar pointed with his thumb toward the video shelves in the sitting room—“why are you keeping the ones on your top shelf? Most of them are mediocre and some are terrible, like
The Shrimp on the Barbie.
”

Granddad nodded. “That one is so bad it's almost good. It's part of my Alan Smithee collection.”

Val didn't recognize the name of the movie or the man. When she cleaned the top shelves, she always used an extender on her dust mop. Without a ladder, she could barely see the titles up there and never bothered to read them. “Who's Alan Smithee?”

“The award winner for the most films directed by a person who doesn't exist,” Gunnar said.

Granddad laughed and glanced at Val. “You don't get it? Has to be the first time you don't know trivia that two other people know.”

Finally something that Granddad and Gunnar had in common—the movies. “Who's going to explain this private joke to me?” With her grandfather chewing, she looked toward Gunnar for an answer.

“Alan Smithee is the pseudonym directors use to disown films after someone takes over and messes them up. Suppose you started cooking a meal, and somebody else finished it. If it turned out good, you'd want the credit. If it turned out bad, you wouldn't want the blame.”

Val exchanged a look with Granddad. Neither of them wanted the blame for last night's fiasco. “So Alan Smithee appears on the credits instead of the real director's name?”

Gunnar picked up his wineglass. “Exactly. It's an anagram of
the alias men.
The Directors Guild allows an alias in the credits only if someone else's fingers got in the pie—a producer, an actor, or a second director.”

And whose fingers had gone near Scott's chowder bowl? Depending on the autopsy results, the police might ask that question, and Granddad needed a ready answer. She'd better tell him the news about the autopsy before he and Gunnar became wrapped up in cinema trivia.

She speared a piece of broccoli. “Chief Yardley phoned while you were out, Granddad. There's going to be an autopsy on Scott Freaze to determine the cause of his death. They think he might have been poisoned.”

Gunnar's blue-gray eyes widened.

Granddad laid down his fork, sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “By what he ate here?”

Val shrugged. “Maybe by poison that someone put into what he ate here.”

“Do we have to talk about this now?” Granddad tilted his head toward Gunnar.

“I told Gunnar about the dinner party. He knows about financial frauds and may be able to help you track what Scott was doing. But it would help to know what the man was like. Did he behave oddly the night of the dinner?”

Granddad reached for his water glass. “I only met him a few times, but on Saturday night, he wasn't as talky as usual. He just shoveled in the chowder and stared across the table.”

“Scott sat there.” Val pointed to the empty chair on Gunnar's left. “There were two chairs on that side of the table and three on this side. Scott's mother, Thomasina, sat where I am now. Junie May was in the middle seat, with Omar on the other side of her. That means Scott sat across from Omar and Junie May. Which of them was he staring at, Granddad?”

“I couldn't tell for sure. But I know where Irene was looking. She sat there.” Granddad pointed to Gunnar's chair. “She kept craning her neck to see into the kitchen.”

“She was hoping to catch me cooking.” Val told Gunnar about Irene's grudge against Granddad for winning the recipe column contest. “Irene would like nothing better than to discredit my grandfather.”

Granddad poked around the vegetables on his plate and speared a piece of beef. “She could have slipped something into the chowder pot during her sneak visit to the kitchen.”

“She went into the kitchen as Scott and Thomasina were arriving, Granddad. She had no way to know which chowder Scott would eat.”

“Maybe she passed it to him at the table and slipped something in it before that. If Scott scammed her out of some money, that battle-axe wouldn't hesitate to take him down.”

Gunnar put down his fork. “How do you know he swindled anyone?”

Granddad pushed a piece of meat around in the sauce. “Lillian told me.”

“Did he swindle her, Granddad?”

“No, she would have told me if he did.” Granddad pointed to his wineglass. “Omar brought wine and walked around the table filling up everyone's glass. He could have dropped something into Scott's chowder.”

“Lillian invited Omar to the dinner. Lillian told you about Scott swindling people. Maybe he swindled Omar.”

Gunnar made a time-out signal with his hands. “Anyone who lost money to a swindler doesn't get much out of killing him. Find out who profits from his death. To solve a crime, follow the money.”

Granddad rolled his eyes. “Just what I'd expect an accountant to say.”

Val had made the same remark in June when Gunnar suggested money as the root of another murder. This time, she wasn't as ready to dismiss the financial motive. “Ask not whom Scott swindled, ask who benefits from his death. Does Scott have a wife and kids, Granddad?”

“He's single, far as I know, and an only child. But if you think Thomasina killed her own son for his money, you're way off base. Parents love their children no matter how rotten the kids are. It's bred in us.”

Gunnar swirled the red wine in his glass. “Someone else can benefit from a scammer's death besides his heirs—his accomplice. Let's say the two split the money, but the accomplice knows where it's stashed and wants it all. Or the accomplice wants to go it alone, figuring Scott's getting sloppy, will get caught, and turn in his former partner as part of a plea deal.”

Val swallowed a piece of beef she should have chewed longer. “What makes you think Scott had an accomplice?”

“A lot of con artists do. The two work together, pretending to be strangers. The accomplice assures the victim that the fraudster is offering a fantastic deal that only an idiot would pass up.”

Granddad groaned. “I said that to Ned about Scott's investment deal. I hope he doesn't think I was Scott's accomplice.”

Chapter 7

Val tried to reassure her grandfather. “Ned knows you better than to think you'd swindle him. How much did he invest with Scott?”

Granddad reached for his water, took a long drink, and set the glass down. “Twenty thousand.”

Gunnar leaned back in his chair, his plate empty. “Not enough to interest the Feds. They don't investigate if the case involves less than a hundred thou.”

Val put her fork down, leaving food on her plate and space in her stomach for dessert. “If he swindles twenty thousand from five people, it amounts to the same thing.”

“But it's complicated, like prosecuting five cases. The more witnesses you need, the more likely some can't or won't testify.”

Val sipped the last of her wine. “So if you're rich enough to invest a hundred thousand, you get better service from the Justice Department.”

“Hmph. Nothing new there.” Granddad poked around his plate, pushing aside the vegetables in a vain effort to find meat hiding under them. “Maybe there's a way to make Scott's accomplice return the swindled money.”

“Don't count on it,” Gunnar said. “A smart financial crook would deposit investor checks in a business account and then wire the money to an offshore tax haven. Untraceable. Untouchable.”

Val saw a glimmer of hope. “The money's out of reach unless the accomplice murdered Scott, gets caught, and agrees to restitution as part of a plea deal.”

Granddad grunted. “Let's hope for that . . . and world peace while we're at it.”

She stood up. “Time for dessert. You can have today's chocolate chunk cookies or yesterday's Key lime pie.”

Gunnar opted for pie and her grandfather for a bit of both. Granddad's order reminded Val of Irene asking for some of each chowder. Did requesting a
bit of both
at the chowder dinner save others from poisoning, or did the poisoner wait until Scott's bowl was in front of him? The autopsy wouldn't answer that question, nor would any evidence from the kitchen, where the dishwasher had sanitized the bowls.

After dessert, Gunnar insisted on loading the dishwasher and scrubbing the pots, saying the cook shouldn't also have to clean up. No wonder his gorgeous former fiancée wanted him back.

Val dried the pans. “What are you doing tomorrow?” She hoped he wasn't planning to get together with a “friend” from Washington.

“Fishing in the morning. You want to play tennis in the afternoon?”

She nodded. “Late afternoon. I'll reserve a court for four-thirty.” That would give her plenty of time to get back from the pet-a-pet session at the Village.

With the kitchen cleanup done, they joined Granddad in the sitting room.

He was inserting a disc into the DVD player. “A day like this should end with
Casablanca.
It reminds you that your problems don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

 

 

The next morning, after Bethany arrived at the café to work, Val drove to the police station, a converted farmhouse at the edge of Bayport. She took the extra muffins she'd baked that morning into police headquarters.

On her previous visits here, the building had hummed with town police and sheriff's deputies working on solving a murder. Today the reception area was quiet.

The calm before the storm?

While waiting to see the chief, she paced in the reception area and rubbed her bare arms to stay warm. She'd forgotten how cold the building was. It didn't house a morgue, but if it did, the bodies would stay sufficiently fresh with no extra refrigeration needed.

Barrel-chested Chief Yardley greeted her with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Good to see you again, Val.”

“Same here, Chief.” She held out a sturdy paper plate piled with muffins. “I brought you some leftovers from the Cool Down Café.”

He took the plate. “If this is a bribe, I'm taking it.” He started down the hall leading to his office.

“Can we sit outside?” She remembered the bench under the trees behind the police station as more comfortable than the metal guest chair in his office. “I'd like to enjoy the last of the perfect weather. Hot and humid are coming back later today and staying awhile.”

He pivoted toward the door leading to a fenced yard. For a large man in his fifties, he walked with a light step. “I saw your granddaddy on the news last night. How is he holding up with all this business about the chowder dinner?”

“He's upset, but managing.”

The chief led the way to a shady bench. “What's he doing this morning?”

“Sitting at my computer at home, typing with two fingers. Monday's his deadline for submitting recipes for the Codger Cook column. It usually takes him most of the day.”

“He sure never cooked when your grandmother was alive. I'm amazed he goes into the kitchen with you there.” The chief put the muffin plate between them on the bench and loosened the plastic wrap. “Blueberry muffins. My favorite. I'd have offered you some coffee, but sludge is the only flavor we have here. Join me in a muffin?”

“I've already eaten more than I should have.” She pulled a small wad of napkins from her tote bag, gave one to him, and tucked the others under the plate of muffins. “How long before you get the autopsy results?”

“Hard to say. Even a rush request can take until the end of the week. We might get the results sooner if the lab in Baltimore doesn't have a heavy load.” He bit into a muffin.

She watched a robin tug a worm from the ground. She'd have to be just as persistent in tugging information from the chief. “The autopsy might show Scott Freaze wasn't poisoned.”

The chief said nothing until he finished chewing. “I expect the results to tell us what kind of poison he had in his system, not that he died from something else.”

“Could he have poisoned himself?” A long shot, but worth asking.

“You've heard of spies carrying cyanide pills. It's a rotten way to die, but you don't suffer long. Scott Freaze was in agony for nearly twenty hours. Most suicides don't pick such a painful way to go.” The chief's second bite reduced the muffin to half its original size.

“There were rumors at the Village that he swindled seniors who invested with him. If he was murdered and the rumors about him are true, you won't lack for suspects.” She told the chief what little she knew about Scott. “A swindler makes a lot of enemies. One of them could have poisoned Scott before Granddad's dinner party.”

“The medical examiner may not be able to say when the man was poisoned or what he ate that contained poison. He died almost a full day after his last meal. The investigation will focus on what he did the day before he died, with emphasis on his food intake.”

And special scrutiny of his final meal. “I'll give you a rundown on the guests at the dinner.” She described them based on her own brief observations and what Granddad had said about them.

The chief polished off his muffin while she was talking and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Doesn't sound like you know any of them except Irene Pritchard.”

“I know Lillian Hinker slightly. Granddad's been spending time with her for the last month and a half, usually at Ambleside Village or in town. I met her for the first time when she came to our house two weeks ago.” And not because Granddad had planned for them to meet. Lillian had stopped by the house briefly.

The chief pulled out a pipe and a tobacco pouch. “How come you didn't go to the dinner party Saturday?”

Much as Val wanted to hide her grandfather's ruse, she wouldn't lie to the police. “Granddad hoped to impress Lillian and take the credit for cooking the meal that I actually made. He wanted me to stay out of sight. But when I heard a commotion in the dining room, I crashed the party and acted like I'd just come home.”

“Your granddaddy had nothing to do with the cooking?”

“He didn't make anything the guests ate, not the appetizers, the salad, or the chowder.”

The chief filled his pipe with tobacco. “Did he serve the food?”

“He ladled the chowder up. Lillian brought the bowls to the table.” Val told the chief her concern about the dwindling funds in Granddad's checking account and her mother's worry about Lillian as a gold digger. “I didn't mention any of this to Granddad, of course.”

The chief drew on his pipe. “I'll try to get him talking about Lillian. If anything sounds fishy, I'll warn him and make some inquiries.” The chief tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. “Is that what you came here to tell me?”

“One more thing. I overheard a conversation between Lillian and Granddad. He doesn't know I eavesdropped. Please don't give me away.” She told the chief about Granddad's plan to confront Scott and get Ned's money back. “Scott got sick before anyone could accuse him of swindling. His death makes it less likely that Granddad can help his friend recover the money.”

The chief pointed the stem of his pipe at her. “Your granddaddy had no reason to want Scott dead. Is that your point?”

“Yes, but Lillian might have had a reason. She certainly had the opportunity to poison his chowder. When she took the bowls from the kitchen to the dining room, she walked through the butler's pantry. If she tampered with a chowder bowl there, no one would have seen her do it.”

The chief drew on his pipe. “Did she set a bowl in front of Scott?”

“She
claimed
she put the bowls on the table and asked people to pass them. I'd want confirmation of that from other people at the table before I accepted it. You might also want to check on the mystery man, Omar.”

“Whoever handles the investigation will check on everybody who was there.”

Val sat upright. “Whoever handles the investigation? Aren't you going to—?”

“I have to step back. I've known your granddaddy since I was a boy. He was like a father to me after my own daddy died. If the autopsy results suggest a crime may have occurred at his house, I gotta pass this to someone else.”

The Bayport Police Department dealt mostly with traffic and safety issues. No one besides the chief had experience as an investigator. “Who'll handle the case?” Val tensed, fearing bad news.

“I'll turn it over to the sheriff's office.”

“Oh no. Not Holtzman.” The image of the detective with the shaved head and the sneering face sprang into her mind. “Please tell me it won't be him.”

“He's the top investigator in the sheriff's department.”

And Val's nemesis. “He was so nasty to me during the last murder case that I complained to his boss about him. Do you think he knows about my complaint?”

The chief chewed on his pipe. “If he knows you're the complaining type, he may treat you better.”

Or worse. “He'll probably handcuff Granddad and me, and lock us both up.”

“If he does, I'll get your granddaddy out. You, I might leave there, so you don't try to solve a murder on your own like last time.”

“I wasn't trying to solve a murder on my own then, and I don't intend to do that now. If I find out anything, I'll report it.” Reporting what she found out didn't guarantee the obnoxious sheriff's deputy would listen to her. Holtzman had come to all the wrong conclusions about the other murder. He would do that again, unless he'd had a brain transplant in the last month.

She stood up, thanked the chief for his time, and hurried to her car. As she waited to make a left turn from the police station parking area onto the road, a man trained a huge camera on her. Junie May was with him and hailed her, waving a microphone. Val didn't want to answer questions about her visit to police headquarters at all, much less on camera. She smiled, waved at Junie May, and pulled out onto the road.

Val drove back to the café. Customers sat eating at four of the bistro tables. Not a bad crowd.

Bethany took off her apron. “I'll come back for you at closing time, but you have to be ready to leave at exactly two. The pet-a-pet session at the Village starts at two-thirty.”

“I'll be ready.”

Usually Val stayed around for an hour longer, preparing what she'd need for the following day's breakfasts, but with business slow, she should have enough time to do the breakfast prep before closing at two. Nothing would keep her from going to the Village today. While there, she would try to track down Lillian. With Granddad working on the recipes for the column, Val would have a rare chance to talk to his girlfriend without him around.

A middle-aged couple Val had never seen before came into the café and sat at a table. She took their drink order. While they dithered about what they would order for lunch, she made their iced teas and glanced at the television hanging on the café wall. Junie May appeared on the screen, microphone at the ready.

“This is Junie May Jussup outside Bayport Police headquarters. The county sheriff and the Bayport Police refuse to comment on the death of Scott Freaze or on reports that an autopsy will take place. Mr. Freaze died after suffering gastrointestinal distress. He was in Bayport at the onset of his illness. As I reported yesterday, Scott Freaze ate his last meal at a dinner party given by Don Myer, known to
Treadwell Gazette
readers as the Codger Cook. A short time ago, we filmed Mr. Myer's granddaughter, Val Deniston, who manages the café at the Bayport Racket and Fitness Club, as she left police headquarters.”

To Val's horror, she saw herself on television, smiling and waving from her car window. The clip, coming on the heels of the autopsy news, struck the wrong note, making her look heartless. Everyone in the café, except for a pair of teenagers in the corner, watched the television. As the clip ended, she felt the eyes of her customers on her.