Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (13 page)

Carol placed a cup of tea in front of me. Frank folded the paper and set it aside.

“Sure. What else do you need to know?”

I looked over at Carol. I wasn’t sure I should bring any of this up in front of her, but I figured they were in it together whatever
it
was. “You told me when I talked with you the other day that…”

“You two talked?” Carol asked looking at her husband.”

Okay. So maybe these two didn’t tell each other everything.

“I stopped by your husband’s work the day after I spoke with you.” I turned back to Frank. “You told me you never met Maria Kravec. You said you emailed her but she never replied. I’ve been sifting through her emails and I found one she sent to you saying she could meet with you for a coffee before a radio interview.”

Frank Corliss sat there sipping his coffee slowly. He put it down and ran a hand through his red hair.

“Frank? Is this true? You talked to that woman?” Carol asked.

Frank sighed and then leaned back in his chair. “I told my boss I had a dentist appointment and I met her at a coffee shop. I wanted to see what she had to say for herself.”

“And? What did she say, Frank?” Carol pressed.

“Not much, actually. She showed up with her burlap sack purse and these funky shoes.” He shook his head. “She never said she was sorry. I told her the blog ruined our business and what was she going to do about it. She just said she was done with vegan restaurants. She had other blogs to write.”

That must have been when she started her series on the meat industry, I thought.

“I told her I was thinking about suing and she just laughed and said with what. She knew darned well we didn’t have any money for a lawyer. And then she left. I just sat there steaming for a few minutes and then I went back to my car. I listened to her radio interview on the way back to work and she never even mentioned the blog. Kind of like, okay, I ruined one business, on to the next. No remorse at all. And that was that. I went back to work.”

Even now, after all this time, Frank Corliss still looked angry. He may have gone back to work, but I’m not sure he let the conversation he had with Maria go. He may not have had the money for a lawyer, but there were other ways to deal with the woman and I wondered if Frank had followed through on another option, one involving some poison ivy.

I found the fact that Frank Corliss never told his wife about the meeting with Maria troublesome. He didn’t even tell her about his meeting with me. Maybe he was the strong silent type or maybe he had something to hide.

Maria Kravec never mentioned in her email which radio station she would be appearing on but as Indian Cove only had one, which also served several of the coastal towns, I headed over there now. I knew the station manager as they were clients of Always Prepared plus I had gone to high school with her. I wasn’t sure if she worked on Sundays but they were in their annual fund drive mode so I had a good feeling she would be working.

Renee Blakely was a nervous ball of energy. She always had been and watching her bounce around the station checking to see how the bank of volunteers was handling all the incoming calls was like watching a basketball player in the NBA in the final game with the scored tied. She finally looked my way and waved.

“Alex. Hey. What brings you to my neck of the woods? Dropping off a large donation, I hope.” She smiled and I followed her to her office watching her ever-present blond pony tail bobbing along as she walked.

“My sister will be sending our donation on to you sometime this week.” I made a mental note to tell Sam to send a nice check. “I’m actually here for some information.”

“What kind of info? Sheryl, get someone else on the phones! I don’t want to hear them ringing more than twice before they get picked up!” Renee yelled to her assistant out in the front office.

“You did an interview with Maria Kravec a few months back.”

“Right. The Vegan View. She came in and talked about her site and the new line of products they planned to sell online. Read she died.” Renee shook her head sending the pony tail into a horizontal line. “What about her?”

“Would you happen to have a copy of the interview?”

“Sheryl, get in here.”

Sheryl ran in, pen and pad in hand.

“Set Alex up with the interview we did with that vegan lady and then call in some more volunteers unless you want to answer ten lines by yourself.” Renee turned to me. “If that’s all I gotta get back on the floor. It was great seeing you again,” she added as she sprinted out of the office.

I looked at a frazzled Sheryl and gave her a sympathetic smile. “It was an interview with Maria Kravec from a couple of months ago.”

Sheryl brought up the interview on the computer and left. I turned up the volume and listened. It only lasted about twelve minutes but Maria had managed to mention that she was deathly allergic to several things, including poison ivy, and so she was very conscious about what ingredients they would be using in their product line. Frank Corliss admitted he had listened to the interview so he was well aware of her allergies. It would do me no good to ask him where he was the night Maria was killed. That was the problem with this case; who knew when the ivy had been planted under the leaves. Ellery said her mother had been out raking them up over the course of about a week, getting them into the huge pile they were. If I was the murderer, I would have come by under the cloak of darkness through the woods when everyone was sleeping. I needed to think about how to approach Frank again but for now I turned my attention to Maria’s brother George.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb
. I love reading about Winston Churchill and quoting him when the need arises or when I want to annoy my sister, but this quote bothered me because I hoped Winston was wrong. I needed to get to the end of this journey and find out who killed Maria even if it led me to Sergei or, God forbid, Ellery. I didn’t want to think of that young woman going to prison.

I pulled up in front of George Shruder’s house and walked up the path. I rang the bell and got no answer. I waited a bit and rang it again and then I heard sounds coming from the back yard. I walked around the side of the house and found a gate. It was unlocked and I opened it, calling out to George as I made my way into the back.

“Ms. Harris, right?” George asked. He stood up straight and pulled a gardener’s glove from his hand and pushed his thinning hair out of his eyes. He leaned on his shovel and admired his work. “It’s a lot of work but I do love being out in the garden.”

I took in the yard. I didn’t realize how big it was from the street. I could see houses behind his but there was a small wood that separated the homes; certainly not as deep as the one behind my house but enough to give him privacy from the neighbors. He had quite a few large trees, several mature hydrangeas and a lilac hedge.

“Yes, and now you’ll get to stay here and won’t have to leave.”

“Excuse me?” he asked, though his coloring had reddened a bit.

I mused over the wisdom of confronting this potential murderer, a man currently in possession of a weapon. Through the large stand of lilacs I could see a neighbor working in his yard and felt help was nearby if I suddenly took a blow to the head and so I forged on.

“With your sister dead, you now own this home outright. You failed to mention that the other day.” Of course, if he did indeed kill her, why would he implicate himself? I mentally slapped my head.

George pulled off the other glove and dropped the shovel. “I didn’t think it pertinent to our conversation.”

A conversation where I was trying to ascertain if there was anyone who would want his sister dead. Of course he would omit it. “From the email exchange I found, things seemed pretty heated between the two of you. You’d have to find another place to live. Give all of this up,” I said waving my hands around the yard.

George walked over to a table and took a sip of something that looked like orange juice. He did not offer me anything. “I was working on a way to buy her out. She got the house and I got some money from our parents. I have some friends of means and I planned to ask them for a loan.”

I thought back to a few things Ellery had told me. George made his living playing the violin but according to his niece he never achieved great success. He didn’t even have a regular job at the moment, instead filling in for various orchestras around New England when they needed someone last minute. Whatever money he inherited had to be helping him pay his bills it would seem. I couldn’t see him with a large mortgage or having to repay his friends.

“If you think I would kill my sister over the house, you’re wrong. I would have found a way to stay here, I assure you.” George pulled the gloves back on and walked over to a large pile of yard debris. “I could never leave here. Never.” He began tossing clippings into a large green waste receptacle.

And that’s when I saw it. Along with dead flowers and twigs and dried leaves, George Shruder had a hefty pile of poison ivy.

As I was driving down George Shruder’s street I looked in the rearview mirror and saw John’s car coming from the other end. Luckily there was another car between us and I felt confidant he hadn’t noticed me or else I’m pretty sure I would have heard sirens and seen a lot of flashing lights.

That was the good news. The bad news was that once he talked with George, he would know I had just been there. But as I explained to him last night during our tiff, so what. I was allowed to talk with whomever I wished. I wasn’t tampering with evidence, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. And, I might add, the police certainly took their sweet time getting around to talking with all the possible suspects.

I glanced at the clock on my dashboard. It was well past lunch and it certainly didn’t look like John was coming home anytime soon. I suddenly felt like some pasta and I knew exactly where I could get some. A few minutes later I pulled up in front of Meme’s house just as her Sunday afternoon card game was finishing up.

“Alex, this is Walter Hofstader. He’s new.” Meme winked at me from her front porch. “Walter, this is my granddaughter, the private eye I was telling you about.”

“How do you do, Mr. Hofstader,” I said, taking the man’s hand in mine. Walter Hofstader may have a good butt, according to Meme and her friends, but the man was stooped over and walked with a limp. He had tuffs of messy gray hair sticking out from underneath his Yankee’s ball cap and a scowl on his face.

“How do you do, young lady. Your grandmother cheats.” With that Walter passed me and I took a quick look at the object of so much affection. I turned and gave Meme a thumbs up. Walter Hofstader did have a nice butt. It had to be pushing eighty-five but it was still a nice butt.

I said good-bye to the rest of the gang and entered my grandmother’s small living room. Theresa Calendrella, Meme’s best friend, was still there, sitting on the sofa sipping a cup of coffee.

“Hey, Alex. Meme’s boiling up some spaghetti and I brought over a bunch of meatballs. Hope you’re hungry.”

“I am and I knew you two would have something good.” I went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea and then helped Meme drain the spaghetti and mix in the sauce I knew had been slowly simmering all day. It smelled heavenly and the meatballs were large and filled with chunks of garlic.

“Before we eat, I gotta show you something, honey,” Meme said.

I followed her into the living room. “Okay, what do you want to show me?”

My grandmother sat on her chair and pulled up her dress sticking her leg out. She turned her left foot a bit to give me a better view.

I bent down and there on the side of her leg was what looked like five tiny balls, each with a letter in the middle spelling out bingo in an orangy color and now a bit faded

“I was Sloth’s first customer. What do you think?”

“Is it permanent?” I asked, somewhat horrified to think my grandmother had a tattoo. What next? Would she be zipping around town on the back of his motorcycle?

“Nah. He did it with henna. That’s why it’s fading. Only lasts about five days at the most.

I told Meme and Theresa about my order with Sloth.

“When you put one on and show John, I want to be in the room,” Meme cackled.

A few minutes later we sat down to dinner. “So that’s Walter. He does have a nice butt.”

“And he knows it,” Theresa said with a huff. “Give me Fred any day.”

“How come you’re not home with John having dinner? You two got into it, didn’t you? I saw how he was looking at us at the party.”

Nothing got by my grandmother. “Yes, he’s mad all right but probably more with himself. The police dragged their feet on this one and now they have to scramble to catch up.” I told them how I saw John as I was leaving George Shruder’s place.

“You think he killed his sister ‘cuz she was going to kick him out of the house?” Theresa asked.

I shook my head and wiped a bit of sauce from my chin. “Well, he does love his home and from the emails, his sister didn’t seem to care what happened to him. And he does have access to poison ivy.”

Meme waved her hand. “The whole state has poison ivy. That’s nothing. Is there anything else in those emails? How about some actual threats?”

I reached for another meatball. “No, nothing like that. Just a lot of talk about the house.”

“So you think he did it, then, Alex?”

“Theresa, I just don’t know. It could be anybody. People don’t even have to have an alibi for the time of her death. It’s baffling. I’ve talked to some victims of her blog and one couple lost everything. They have to start all over again.” I thought about this for a moment. Had they lost everything? They still had their home, their kids were still in school, and they got their jobs back. Other than pride and the loss of a chunk of money, the Corliss’ were still okay. So was Julie Vang. She just changed her menu and kept on going.