Overdue for Murder (Pecan Bayou) (16 page)

"Find anything of use to you?" I jumped as I realized Rocky was now standing behind me.

"I was just looking at her appointments the week before she was murdered. Do you know anyone named Xavier?"

Rocky stroked his chin and thought for a moment. "Nah, when she was in here she was always on the phone to somebody or another. It could be any of those people. She just called them 'sweetie' all the time. What a phony that woman was."

More than you know, I thought. I searched further in her box to see if there was a phone book inside, but feeling around the bottom I couldn't find anything. I knew asking Peter for her cell phone would be a little on the nosy side. Besides, my father probably already had it.

I pulled out my own phone, intending to call him about it, when it rang in my hand. The caller ID read Buzz Aldrin Elementary School. It was only 10 a.m., so this couldn't be good.

"Mrs. Livingston? This is the nurse at Buzz Aldrin. I'm calling because your Zachary is here in the nurse's office. He has an upset tummy and needs you to come and pick him up." The nurse spoke to me as if I were four years old and was merging over into baby talk.

"I'll get my things and be right over."

"Thank you, Mrs. Livingston. Zachary threw up in his classroom trashcan while reading the part of the second Billy Goat Gruff. We just think he was excited about getting to stand up front with the others."

"I'm on the way."

I picked up Zach at school and hurried him home, just in case he needed to throw up again in the car. With the major dent in it from the tree, I guess a little throw-up wouldn't do much more harm.

"Is the stomach flu going around at school? Have other kids been sick?"

"No, not all. I must be the first one," Zach answered.

"Did anybody at the party yesterday complain about being sick?"

"No. Not until after we ate, anyway."

"After we ate?"

"Sure, after we ate those cheesy dogs. Those were really good, Mom. Can we eat those every week?"

I remembered Aunt Maggie had sent a few cheesy dogs home with us last night. They were a little heavy on my stomach, but she thought maybe Zach could eat them.

"Wait, Zach, how many cheesy dogs did you eat last night?"

"Just one."

"Oh, okay. I thought maybe you ate too many and they made you sick. That cheese inside can make them a little heavy."

"I know, I know. This morning I grabbed a couple to eat while you were in the shower."

"You ate two cheesy dogs before you went to school? I thought you had a bowl of oatmeal."

"We were out, so I decided to take care of myself. Did I do a good job?" He looked at me, seeking reassurance for his grown-up can-do attitude.

"You did a great job." I sighed. Self-reliance had its price, it seemed. "Just, no more cheesy dogs."

"Okay." He hugged me. "Now can I have a snack? I'm hungry after throwing up in the trash can."

"You bet." When we got to the house I prepared him some toast. That would be light on his stomach until he had the cheesy dogs out of his system. I wondered how Danny was faring. You are what you eat, they say. I wouldn't want to be a cheesy dog. I took Zach the toast and then answered my ringing phone in the kitchen.

"Is Zach okay?" asked Rocky Whitson, calling from the Gazette.

"Yes, you don't need to stop the presses. He just had an overdose of cheesy dogs."

Rocky laughed. "Those things are nasty, poor little fella. Listen, I'm sending my new sportswriter over for some danish from PattieCake's. I'll go ahead and send over those magazines?"

"Oh, that would be nice, if he doesn't mind."

"He doesn't mind."

"Sounds like you have your hands full."

"I'm starting all over again. I never realized how much Peter did around here covering all the Little League, school league, bowling league ... What is in Andersonville anyway?"

"Don't you mean who?"

"Oh. You think I would have sniffed that one out. Ah well, time to share my wisdom with the kid."

That kid was lucky.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

After speaking with Rocky I sat down at the kitchen table with a legal pad, writing down everything I had learned so far about Vanessa Markham. She was on the outs with her husband, was cheating her ghost writer, was having an affair with Damien Perez, had angered Oscar Larry, was Edith Martin's other woman and had sabotaged Pattie's cupcake exhibit. She had pretty well pissed off the entire town at the same time. In the corner I doodled the name Xavier. With her penchant for exotic lovers, could she possibly be involved with another man? It was too exhausting just to think about. I dialed my dad's number.

"Dad, is there anybody named Xavier in Vanessa Markham's cell phone records?"

"Uh, let me look. She was quite a talker, that one." I heard paper rattling as my dad rolled through the names, "Damien, Peter, um ... here's an Xavier in Houston. Xavier Frank? Is that who you're lookin' for?"

"Yes, did you call him? Do you know who he is?"

"Um, yes we did call that number. Xavier Frank is a nutritionist."

"Really?" That went along with all the cookbooks and magazine articles, but it seemed a little in the extreme. Was she that obsessed with nutrition? Maybe she was getting ready to write a book about food. It had to be every fashion model's job to be in perfect physical shape. Maybe she was going to write a book to help the skinnies stay that way. Was she trying to create a sugar-free version of Pattie's cupcakes?

"Would you mind if I called him and asked him a few questions?"

"Betsy, I don't know if you noticed, but this is a police investigation. I just can't go handing out numbers to you willy-nilly."

"I know, dad, I know, but somehow I get this feeling that all of this is tying back to what she was doing days before her death, and that had something to do with this Xavier guy. Please?"

"Alright, Xavier Frank works for All Health Nutrition Centers in Houston. That's all I'll tell you."

"That's all I need."

"I know I don't need to tell you to not get yourself in trouble again, right?"

"Right."

"One more thing, Betsy. Barry arrives at the police station at around four tomorrow. I wasn't sure if you wanted to see him or not."

I wasn't so sure either. My emotional state anticipating our reunion ranged from excitement to disgust to terror. What do you say to a guy who dumped you and dumped on you at the same time? "I guess I'll see him," I said. I tried to make my tone light, knowing I probably wasn't putting too much over on old Officer Judd.

"You sure?"

"Sure."

"Good idea. See you then."

I hung up, feeling the dread creeping in. Why couldn't he have stayed hidden and out of our lives. Glancing back at the legal pad, I walked to my computer to search All Health Nutrition Centers on my computer. Zach had left his blue backpack on my desk chair when he came in, so I lifted it to put it on the floor. He had not properly zipped it up, and I could see the little journal his teacher had him fill out every morning when they first got to school. His journal didn't have a lot of words in it as much as pictures about whatever it was that was going on in his life at the time. I expected today's picture to be of Danny's party and the singalong. I leafed through the notebook until I found today's date scrawled in Zach's third-grade handwriting.

He had drawn a picture of me holding a candelabra standing next to a woman who was laying on the floor. He had taken a red crayon and filled in where he thought the blood would be. It terrified me to look at it. Did he think he think I killed Vanessa? Had I been so busy that I missed the fact we had had a murder happen and I hadn't taken the time to help my son navigate through the scary parts of it all?

I decided to wait on the computer search and walked into the den, where Zach was being mesmerized by various talking animals on the television. "Zach, I need to ask you something." He didn't move his eyes from the screen.

"Uh, if this is about that book report, I'm almost halfway finished with the book."

"Zach." Still no change in the direction he was looking. I picked up the remote control and turned off the TV. "Zach, tell me about this drawing you made in your journal," I demanded.

He looked at the paper slowly as if he were just seeing his own artwork. "Oh, that. Some of the kids told me about you finding the lady in the library. I didn't know they found you holding a candlestick over her.

"Who told you that?" My father, Aunt Maggie and I had been careful to shield both him and Danny from the gruesome details of the crime. Here it all was in front of me in living crayon color.

"The kids at school knew all about it. It was in the paper. Mr. Rocky wrote about it."

Thanks, Mr. Rocky. "I need to ask you something really important," I said. "I'm holding the candlestick in the picture, and it looks like I'm the one who hurt Miss Markham. Do you think I would do a thing like that?"

"No!" He sat up straight on the couch. "You wouldn't hurt anybody, Mom. I know that," he reassured me. "You just found her. You didn't kill her." He did quite a job at making me feel dumb for asking.

"Good." I took his hand. "I want you to know that because I was standing there, some people thought I was the one who hurt the lady. They are wrong, and you are right."

"You bet your ... " he stuttered, realizing what he was just about to say in front of his mother. " Uh ... you bet."

"Zach! Where did you hear that?"

"Grandpa," Zach answered simply.

"Grandpa. I should have known. Well, he may say it but you're not allowed to."

"Even after I'm as old as him?"

"Even then, young man," I said as I exited the room. I was relieved to know my own son didn't think I was a murderer. I was not happy to know I was the subject of the gossip at Buzz Aldrin Elementary. I placed the journal back in Zach's backpack and zipped it up.

Sitting at the computer, I looked up All Health Nutrition in Houston and started dialing the first of three offices. I found Xavier Frank at the second office.

"Mr. Frank, this is Betsy Livingston in Pecan Bayou. I knew Vanessa Markham and was given the responsibility of cleaning out her desk at the Pecan Bayou Gazette. I noticed you were on her appointment calendar just a few days before she died. If it isn't too personal, may I ask why she was meeting with you?"

"Miss Livingston, it really was a personal matter between the two of us."

Had I been right about her being involved with yet another man? "I'm sorry if this is none of my business. I just assumed this had something to do with all of the research she had been doing on nutrition before she died. I didn't realize that it had to do with ... something else."

"Something else?" Mr. Frank stopped for a moment. "Oh, something else. No ma'am. I'm a happily married man, Miss Livingston. It was nothing of that sort. No, not at all. She simply brought me some food she wanted me to analyze for its nutritional content. She was very conscientious about what she put into her body. I wish more people were like her. Heart disease and diabetes in this country would become a thing of the past."

"Did she mention that she was maybe writing a cookbook or a book about nutrition?"

"If she was, she didn't mention it to me." I heard a phone buzz in the background.

"Forgive me, Miss Livingston, but if that's all you need I have another call."

"Thank you for your time, and if you should remember anything else ... "

"I have you on my caller ID," he said.

So Vanessa had been interested in nutrition but hadn't told Xavier Frank why. So who knew? Her husband? Her lover? Her ghost writer?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

After an uneventful evening working with Zach on his book report, I sent him off to school the next day healed from the perils of cheesy dogs. As I settled down to work at my computer, I heard the gravel in my driveway crunch and looked out to see a white sedan coming to a stop. When the driver's side door swung open, I recognized the face of Police Chief Arvin Wilson.

He wore a tan straw Stetson, a white shirt and a navy sport coat. He looked a little older than his 60 years, probably because of his hefty frame. A tiny cigar dangled from his mouth as he came up my steps. He stubbed it out on the porch and tapped on my door.

"Hello, Betsy," he said. "I wanted to ask you a few questions about what happened down at the library last week."

"Certainly, come on in." He stepped over my threshold and took off his Stetson, revealing thinning gray hair. I motioned for him to come into my kitchen.

"Am I still a suspect?" I asked as we sat down at the table.

"Let's just say you are a person of interest." Always the diplomat.

"Have you looked into all of the other people she had ticked off in the week before her death?"

The chief smiled. "There does seem to be quite an extensive list. Can you tell me about the exchange you had with her at the Pecan Bayou Mall where you were competing in a ... " He opened a little black notebook like my dad carried and then pulled out a pair of black reading glasses. "A cooking contest?"