Getting Rich (A Chef Landry Mystery) (25 page)

I shushed her with my hand. “Please tell me he hasn’t confessed,” I said into my cell.

“Who?” Toni asked.

I covered the speaker with my hand and whispered, “Charles just got arrested.”

Her eyes widened.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“They took him to the station on College. I’m going there now. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

I had no sooner hung up that it rang again. This time it as the real estate agent calling to let us know he had a counter offer. “He wants to know if he can come over right now,” I told Toni.

She nodded grimly. Suddenly the new restaurant didn’t seem so important anymore.

i just hope it’s not a true-crime drama

Barry Peters walked in smiling jovially. He got right to the point—good thing, because I was not in the mood for small talk. “The landlord made a few minor changes to your offer, but all in all, I think you’ll be happy with it.” He pulled out copies of the contract with a flourish and handed one to Toni and one to me.

I stared at the first page. My eyes swept down and zeroed in on the price. The owner had initialed the amount we had offered. I could hardly believe it. He’d accepted our offer. But on the next line he’d changed the term back to triple net. Judging from the frown on Toni’s face, she’d seen it too.

“He still expects us to pay for all the services?” I looked across the coffee table at him. “That’s a bit too rich for our blood.”

He shrugged. “He did accept the lower price you offered. That makes the rent very reasonable. You know, on Avenue Road, the cost per square foot is—”

“I also know that in this economy, a five-year lease is no small deal.” I turned to Toni. “What do you think? You’re the one fronting the money.”

“I agree. It’s too much.”

“Unless...” I pretended to ponder this for a moment. “Do you think the landlord would meet us halfway with the terms? Let’s say we paid the water and electric bills, and he paid the property taxes, insurance, maintenance and repairs.”

Toni answered as if I’d directed the question to her. “Yes, I think I’d go for that. But that’s the most I’d go.”

I turned back to the agent. I sensed that he knew our earlier mood had soured. “What do you think?”

He shrugged, looking nervous. “There’s nothing like trying.” He made the all changes on the document, making sure all the initials were in place.

I handed the pen and copies back to Barry Peters. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

He slid the modified offers into his folder and smiled. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have a sign back.” The door closed behind him.

Toni ran a hand through her hair. “At this point I’m so depressed I don’t even know if I want to reopen or not.”

“About Charles?” I asked, already guessing what she would say.

She nodded. “The worst part is that I’m almost hoping it is him, because it would mean...” She shook her head morosely.

“I think you’re allowed some mixed emotions.”

She gave me a weak smile. “How much do you want to bet we’ll get the deal?”

“If we do, it’ll be destiny,” I said, citing the one thing she couldn’t argue. She gave a slow nod. “You know, I really do love that space. You were right. It is perfect.”

“If the agent calls us back in a few hours, it will be right in the middle of dinner. I’ll have to tell Steven about our reopening.” She hesitated, and then, “I can’t wait to see his face. If he’s been listening in on our conversations, he won’t be able to pretend surprise. I can read him like a novel. I just hope it’s not a true-crime novel.” Her cell phone rang. “It’s Judy,” she mouthed.

At that moment, my own phone rang. I fished through my purse for it. “Hello?” I answered, hoping it was Mitchell. I so needed to hear from him right now. But to my surprise, it was Inspector Crawford.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?” I asked. I listened for a moment, and then said, “You mean right now?” I glanced at my watch. “Okay, I’ll be right over.”

Toni, who had just hung up, sighed. “And where, exactly, are we going?”

“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, but that was Crawford. The police have just picked up someone they think might be our crazy woman. He wants me to come down and see if I can identify her.”

She hopped to her feet. “Let’s go.”

to the hospital for a psych evaluation

Toni parked a few doors down from the station. I’d been playing ping-pong with scenarios in my mind during the entire drive. I’d been convinced the crazy woman had been the blonde in disguise, but now...

Toni helped me out, holding my crutches for me. “What if she turns out to be the blonde woman? Do you think she could be involved with Charles somehow?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I said. “Do you really think he could have orchestrated the crazy woman’s threats, the hit-and-run and the fire, just to disguise Jennifer’s murder as a mistaken identity?”

“I’m like you,” she replied. “Totally confused.”

I nodded. “First, let’s see if she is the same woman. Then we figure out who she’s working with.”

*

Inside the police station, we were greeted by Crawford, who was being surprisingly polite for a change. Standing next to him was a female officer.

“This is Detective Menard,” he said pleasantly.

I found myself shaking hands with an attractive woman somewhere in her late thirties or early forties. She had dark brown hair, intelligent eyes, and a quick smile—completely opposite what I’d come to expect from a cop. And from the way Crawford was looking at her, he very much wanted her to like him.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that we’ve arrested someone for the arson on your business and your employee’s murder,” she said sympathetically.

“We have,” I replied. “How certain are you that he did it?”

“Sure enough to mount a solid case. If we weren’t sure, we wouldn’t have arrested him.” She cleared her voice. “I know it’s not easy, but at least you can rest assured that nobody is after you. I’m sure everything that happened must have felt like a harassment campaign.”

“That’s one way to describe it,” I said.

She nodded. “Well, if this woman turns out to be the one who made those threats, that’ll be one less thing for you to worry about.”

“Where was she picked up?” Toni asked.

“She was going through trash cans on Tecumseh,” she said, naming a street a few blocks from Skinny’s. She looked from Toni to me. “Are you both going to identify her? I thought—”

“No,” Toni said. “I’m only here as Nicky’s ride.”

I shook my head. “Toni wasn’t there when she barged in.”

“I see. In that case, you can have a seat,” she said to Toni. “It shouldn’t take long.” She smiled at me and explained how the line-up procedure would work. “Ready? Let’s go.”

She and Crawford led the way down the hall and ushered me into an empty room with a one-way mirror looking into another starkly bare room. There was nobody but one bored-looking officer standing by the door.

She moved toward the wall, turned off the light in the room. “Don’t worry. They won’t be able to see us from the other room.” She spoke into a microphone to the officer. “You can let them in now.”

He nodded and disappeared through the doorway, reappearing, followed by half a dozen ill-attired women. He directed them to stand in a row facing a mirror, and then handed them each a numbered card.

My eyes immediately fell on the second from the left. “That’s her,” I said. “Number two.”

“Look at each one carefully before you decide,”

“I don’t have to. That’s her.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“Absolutely.”

She spoke into the microphone again. “Thank you, that’ll be all.” The women trailed back out. The entire procedure had taken no more than two minutes, leaving me with an anticlimactic feeling.
Now what?

The officers and I went back out and rejoined Toni.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Good. It was her, all right.” I sat beside her, shocked. We fell silent as we each contemplated what this would mean to the case.

“Thank you for coming over so quickly,” Officer Menard said.

“It was no problem. By the way, was she wearing a disguise?” I asked.

She frowned, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought she might have been wearing a disguise when she stormed into our store—that maybe she was only pretending to be...” I tapped my temple as explanation.

“Oh no, she’s not pretending anything. She’s been in and out of a mental hospital for years.”

“Do you think she was the one driving the car that hit me?”

“Not a chance.” She hesitated. “We’ve questioned her and she’s admitted to threatening you.” She made a dismissive hand gesture. “According to her, you were conspiring to keep her from what’s rightfully hers.”

“Our restaurant,” Toni said, rolling her eyes.

Crawford, who had kept quiet until now, nodded. “That’s right. But, as it turns out there’s an explanation for her delusion. Her family used to own the restaurant that was on those premises before you took over the lease. It went out of business three years ago.”

“Oh,” I said. “So there is some logic to her madness.”

Officer Menard nodded. “It seems that way.”

“Does that mean there’s no link between her and anything else that’s happened?” Toni asked, looking dumbfounded.

“None that we could find,” she replied. “I’m convinced she had nothing to do with the fire or with the death of your friend.”

“So, regarding the hit-and-run, where do we go from here?” I asked.

“We’ve contacted body shops all over the city and the surrounding areas. We’ll be notified the minute any dark imports come in for collision repairs. In the meantime we now think your accident had nothing to do with the murder of your employee.”

At that point I almost told them about the equipment in Mitchell’s house, but I kept my mouth shut.

Standing next to me, Toni opened her mouth, and I just knew she was about to tell them. I elbowed her.

“Ouch,” she cried. But luckily she got my message and kept her mouth shut.

“I still can’t believe Charles did it. What about Jennifer’s ex? Did you check on him? I understand he was stalking her.”

She shook her head. “He was at the fire station all night, with twelve witnesses to confirm his alibi.”

“What about her brother?” I asked. “He probably expected to inherit her estate.”

“Her brother was in Kingston that night,” she said. “That was confirmed by four witnesses who were at a bar with him that night.”

“What about a hired killer?” I said. Without telling them about the blonde we’d seen going in and out of Mitchell’s house and the surveillance equipment, I knew it sounded as if I was grasping at straws, but I didn’t want them to stop investigating.

“The bullets were from a small-caliber gun. Whoever killed her was not a professional.”

“Could we see Charles while we’re here?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, he’s been moved to the main branch.” She gestured toward the hallway. “I’ll walk you out.” She escorted us back to the entrance and we left the building.

Toni and I got back in her car and headed to her condo in stunned silence. I didn’t say a word until we were at Queen’s Park. A new idea was brewing in my mind.

“You and I both know it wasn’t Charles,” I said.

“Well,” Toni said. “If it wasn’t him, her ex or her brother, then that leaves the blonde or Steven,” Toni said, sounding like doom. “And something tells me it’s Steven.”

“There’s somebody else we never considered,” I said.

“Who?” She tried to chuckle, but it came out strangled. “You?”

“I’m serious, Toni.”

I tried to think how I should couch my suspicion so it wouldn’t come as too much of a shock. “Think. Who else would gain from your death?”

“Until I change my will, you.”

“What if somebody else believed you had already changed your will?”

There was a long silence. And then she gave a brittle laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She knew exactly who I was talking about. “Tell me something, did you tell Judy you’re planning to change your will and make her your primary beneficiary?”

Her smile wavered. “Not directly. I may have mentioned that I was meeting with my estate lawyer.”

“You may have? Tell me the truth, Toni, did you, or didn’t you?”

She took her eyes off the road, glancing at me, exasperated. “Oh, for God’s sake, will you leave it alone? It’s not her, and that’s final.”

That was when it hit me. “You already suspect her. Admit it. When did it occur to you that it might be Judy?”

She turned to me abruptly, almost swerving into the oncoming traffic.

“Watch out!” I yelled, grabbing onto the dashboard. She corrected, and my pulse went back to normal.

“I don’t
suspect
her,” she said at last. “But I’d be stupid to not have at least considered the possibility.”

I didn’t point out that was just another way of saying the same thing. “You never even hinted as much to me.”

“There was no point. It’s too farfetched.”

“No more farfetched than Steven wanting to kill you.” I let her digest this before continuing. “She could have planned the whole thing. She could have organized the hit-and-run to throw the focus off the real motive—your will.”

“You’re forgetting about the blonde woman,” Toni said soberly. “If somebody is working with a sexy blonde co-conspirator, I think it’s more likely Steven than my sister.”

A moment later we descended into the underground garage at Hazleton Lanes, once again in tense silence. She pulled into her parking space, threw her stick shift into park and turned to face me.

She looked so miserable that I realized this was her worst nightmare—the two people she loved most in the world conspiring to kill her for her money. And until she’d actually denied the possibility, I hadn’t even considered it. Now, I was stunned to find that it made sense.

Toni stepped out of the car, slammed the door shut and marched away, leaving me to struggle with the door and my crutches. I caught up with her seconds before the elevator doors slid shut.

I cleared my throat, but before I could utter a word, Toni cut me off. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

I was treading on sensitive ground. “Mitchell told me that a location scout just showed up at his door, asking to rent his house to a production company. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now, I have to say it’s quite a coincidence. Don’t you think?” I looked at her. She was staring blindly at the stainless-steel door.

“Coincidences do happen you know.”

“It’s interesting that nobody came to my door to ask about renting my house. Don’t you think it was a bit convenient that the scout happened to show up at his door, just before he left town?” She gave me a dirty look. I ignored it and forged on. “Judy knew that Mitchell was planning to go out of town. I mentioned it the day we met, and you told her that Mitchell and I live in a semi-detached. She had all the information she needed to plant that audio equipment.”

She snorted. “And what would be the point of spying on you?”

“You said it yourself. Whether it was Judy or Steven, they had to make sure you’d changed your will.” I didn’t add that if Judy and Steven were working together, it didn’t matter which one she left her money to. They would just split the inheritance.

She was quiet, studying her nails morosely. I continued. “And what better way to find out than to bug your best friend’s house? You and I talk all the time. They knew you’d tell me about it, and that way she would know exactly when to plan the hit.”

Her eyes widened. “The
hit?
Do you hear yourself? My sister is a
housewife
, not some hit man.” The elevator doors opened and she stomped down the hall to her apartment.

I chased after her as fast as my crutches permitted. “Toni, I’m not saying I’m one hundred percent convinced she did it. All I’m saying is, we have to consider the possibility, just as we considered it could be Steven.”

She unlocked the door and we walked in to a cacophony of yip yapping. “I’ll take the dogs out,” she said, her face tight with pent-up emotion. “I’ll be back in a minute, and then we’ll have to hurry if we want to get to the restaurant on time.”

The door closed behind her.

I settled into one of the down-filled armchairs. A few minutes later, when Toni returned, Jackie ran straight to me. She jumped onto my lap, covering me with wet kisses.

Toni stood in the entrance, hand on hip. “That dog of yours refused to walk. She kept trying to drag me back.” Her tone was a tad less bitchy. I hoped she’d get out of this mood before we got to the restaurant.

She took off her coat and joined me in the living room, grabbing the cashmere afghan artfully displayed on the sofa and spreading it over the seat.

“Come, dogs,” she called. Both puppies came running.

She sat on the floor, petting them. “All right,” she said, sounding calmer. “I admit I did mention to her that I was renewing my will, and I did hint that I was planning to leave her some money.”

“How much of a hint?”

She shrugged. “We were just chatting, and she happened to mention how expensive it was to raise a child, and how she was she and Richard might never be able to retire. That’s when I told her I was planning to redo my will, and I added, jokingly, that if I happened to die first she would be a very rich woman.”