The Soprano Wore Falsettos (22 page)

“Pretty great, huh?” I answered. “It’s only a matter of time before I win it all. The big enchilada. The Bulwer-Lytton extravaganza. World-wide fame shall be mine.”

“Yes, well…I hate to tell you this, but there’s a counter down at the bottom of your page. I was visitor number eight. And I suspect you’ve already visited the page a couple of times yourself.”

“Two or three,” I admitted. “Traffic’ll pick up. It won’t be long before a major publisher will be wanting to have a look at my collected works.”

“With a pub called Buxtehooters selling beer called Schnitzenfahrts, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Speaking of Buxtehooters,” I said, “I need you to go out to lunch with Annette.”

“What has Annette got to do with Buxtehooters?” said Meg, accusation hanging heavily on every word.

“Nothing,” I said. “It was just that ‘stream of consciousness’ thing you were doing. Remember?”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“See?” I said. “Anyway, I need you to take Annette to lunch and find out if she’s left-handed.”

“Obviously, you think she’s the one who wrote the note. But didn’t your handwriting expert say that she thought it was a man?”

“Or a very strong-willed woman. Do you know any women that are more strong-willed than Annette?”

“No,” said Meg. “I can’t say that I do.”

“See if you can get her to write something.”

“You want me to get a handwriting sample?”

“Sure. That’d be great. But I really just want to know if she’s left-handed and if she uses a Montblanc ballpoint pen.”

“How will I know if it’s a Montblanc?” asked Meg.

“Just ask her,” I said. “Ooooo, Annette. I just
love
that pen. Wherever did you get it?”

“Harumph,” said Meg.

• • •

I pulled up my usual chair at our usual table on a bright and breezy Tuesday morning. Business at The Slab Café was beginning to pick up. It was that time of year. The temperature had climbed back into the sixties, the snow had melted and there wasn’t even any slush left behind. Just wet sidewalks, slightly wilted shrubs and trees that were still trying to decide if it was safe to send their leaves out to play. Dave and Nancy came in together. Collette had our coffee poured before we even sat down.

“How about biscuits and gravy?” asked Collette. “And some grits? I made them myself.”

“Then I’ll have some,” said Dave, with a little too much enthusiasm for Nancy’s taste.

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever,” she grumbled.

“Sounds good to me, too.” I said to Collette, before turning my attention to my fellow officers. “We have two very serious crimes to solve. Let’s get cracking. First on the list is the murder of Agnes Day.”

Nancy pulled her pad out of her breast pocket. “She was killed with a handbell on Palm Sunday shortly after the service had ended. We have three DNA samples from the bell — the victim’s, an unknown male and an unknown female. We currently have a number of suspects, all who had likely reasons to want to see Agnes Day dead,” Nancy said.

“Who’s first?” said Dave.

“Russ Stafford,” Nancy continued. “He’ll be broke before the end of the year. His real estate development is going belly up. He sure could have used some of St. Barnabas’ sixteen million to jump start sales over at The Clifftops. He was trying to finagle a deal for St. B.’s to buy a new rectory out there. It would have kept him floating for a while, anyway.”

“It was a slim hope,” I said. “Even though Agnes Day hated him, and she was Lucille Murdock’s nurse, there wasn’t any chance that any of that money was going to Russ. Add to that, I don’t think he was even in attendance at the Maundy Thursday service. At least I didn’t see him there.”

Dave looked puzzled.

“You know…the Nailing Service? The confession?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Dave. “Scratch him off the short list.” Nancy nodded.

“Then there’s Ruthie Haggarty,” said Nancy. “She’s going to get off for killing Little Bubba on a domestic abuse self-defense plea. At least, I think she will. I’m sure not going to testify against her. Quite frankly, Little Bubba needed killing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “But she is going to inherit Agnes Day’s estate. Still, I don’t see her murdering for money.”

“It’s a lot of money, though, isn’t it?” asked Dave.

“A quarter million bucks, give or take,” I said. “People have been killed for a whole lot less.”

“Was she there on Maundy Thursday?” asked Dave.

“Nope,” I said. “She was at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. I checked with the priest. They had a service that evening, and Ruthie was in attendance.”

“I’m glad,” said Nancy. “I like Ruthie.”

“Scratch her off,” Dave said, as our food arrived at the table. I’m sure Dave was looking forward to being served by Collette, but it was Pete who was acting as our garçon.

“Here’s your grub,” said Pete, setting down the food and pulling up a fourth chair. “Hope you don’t mind me joining you, but these biscuits looked too good to pass up.”

“Anytime, Pete,” I said. “You are, after all, picking up the tab. Pull up a chair for Meg, too. She’ll be along in a bit.”

“Of course I am,” grumbled Pete in mock irritation. “My pleasure. It’s the least I can do for our city’s finest.” Then his voice brightened. “You guys still working on the Handbell Murder?”

“We are,” I said, as we all filled our plates. That was the great thing about The Slab. They still served “family style” breakfasts, and no one ever went away hungry.

“How about Benny Dawkins?” Nancy asked. “He’s in bad shape financially as well. And I heard what he did to Russ on Sunday.”

“I’m not saying that Russ had it coming, but he was pretty rude to Benny right before church,” I said. “Still, I know that Benny was pretty upset with the violin thing.”

“What happened?” asked Pete. “I don’t know anything about the violin thing.”

Nancy flipped a few pages in her pad. “Benny took his great-grandfather’s violin to Agnes Day to get her opinion on it. He said he needed to sell it so he could make a couple of overdue farm payments.”

“Yeah?” said Pete, as he spooned some more grits onto his plate.

“She offered him eight hundred dollars for it, and he took it. She made him sign a bill of sale.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” said Pete. “Those old violins aren’t usually worth very much.”

“Then she sold it for two hundred fifty-five thousand,” said Nancy.

“Yikes!”

“It was a Guadagnini, whatever that is.”

“A very expensive fiddle,” I said. “Benny, shall we say, was not amused. He went and asked for the money, and she turned him down flat.”

“So, do we think he killed her?” asked Dave.

“Here’s what
I
think,” I said. “Killing Agnes Day wouldn’t get his money back. And it’s my opinion that if he wanted to get back at her, he would have done something that she’d have to live with for a while. Like maybe whack her on the head with the incense pot, or burn down her house or something. I don’t see him killing her.” I took a sip of coffee. “But that’s just me,” I added.

“Here’s a wrinkle,” said Nancy. “I saw Benny and Ruthie in Benny’s truck about an hour ago. And she wasn’t hugging the window, if you get my drift.”

“Well, that
is
something,” I said. “Benny might just have found a way to get his money back after all. We can’t scratch him off the list just yet. I still don’t think he did it, but let’s leave him on. Until we come up with someone better.”

“Maybe they were in it together,” said Pete, happily munching on a biscuit.

“We didn’t think of that,” said Nancy, looking over at me.

“No we didn’t,” I said. “Put them both back on.”

“How about Kenny Frazier?” asked Nancy.

“He didn’t do it,” I said, “and that brings us to our other case.”

“The mysterious case of
Who Killed Kenny
?” said Nancy. “Or who tried to, anyway.”

“Someone tried to kill him?” asked Pete.

“Last Friday. When he came into Noylene’s all bloody, we’d assumed he’d been shot, and he had. But that wasn’t why he stopped breathing. He was having an allergic reaction to a bee sting.”

“So, being shot was just a coincidence?” asked Pete.

“Not entirely, but yes,” I said. “He would have gotten shot eventually and maybe worse, although the gun was set up pretty badly. Someone set a spring gun in Kenny’s barn, trying to make it look as though he had forgotten about it and blundered into his own trap. Whoever set it up, though, didn’t know much about spring guns. You have to keep them close to the door so they’ll blow a hole right through it. This one was too far back. Most of the shot stuck in the door, and the pellets that made it through didn’t go very far into Kenny. Just enough to cause a lot of blood.”

“How do you know that Kenny didn’t set the trap himself?” asked Dave.

“He says he doesn’t own a gun, and I tend to believe him,” I said.

“Plus, the feds were all over the place a couple of weeks ago,” added Nancy. “They cleaned everything out. They sure wouldn’t have missed a spring gun. It was in plain sight, hanging up in the rafters. And there wasn’t any reason for Kenny to set it after they’d gone. He didn’t have anything left to guard.”

“Makes sense,” said Pete. “I’m getting some more biscuits. Anyone else want any?” All our hands went up. “Be right back.”

“By the way,” said Nancy. “The lab pulled a print off that shotgun. Nothing to match it to, though. It’s not Kenny’s. You think it’s all a big coincidence?”

“Nope,” I said. “Not this time.”

“So, whoever tried to kill Kenny is involved in Agnes Day’s murder as well.”

“I think so. We need to figure out what Kenny and the killer have in common. They’re tied together somehow.”

“How about Renee Tatton? Kenny’s dating her, and she’s another one of our suspects,” Nancy said.

“There you go,” I said.

“But why would she want to kill Kenny?” asked Dave.

“No idea,” I said. “Perhaps we should ask her.”

“Hi, guys,” said Meg, suddenly appearing at the table. “Did you save me any breakfast?”

“Pete’s on his way back,” said Dave.

“With seconds?” Meg asked.

“Seconds or thirds,” said Nancy. “Depends on how you count.”

“Hey!” said Dave, “Maybe Kenny and Renee Tatton are in it together. You know, like Benny and Ruthie.”

Nancy and I looked at each other. “Nah,” we said in unison.

• • •

“These are really good biscuits,” said Meg. “I can see why you’re having thirds. Now, back to business. I have news.”

We all turned our attention from the plate of biscuits and sawmill gravy to Meg.

“I met Annette for coffee, and guess what? She’s left-handed. I didn’t get a handwriting sample, but she did pull out a lovely pen to sign her credit card slip. ‘Ooooo, Annette,’ I said. ‘I just
love
that pen. Wherever did you get it?’”

“She fell for that?” asked Nancy.

“Of course she did,” I countered. “It’s a brilliant ploy. What did she say?”

“Francis gave it to her for Valentine’s Day. It’s a Montblanc. She let me look at it. It was gold. Three rings in the middle of the barrel and the inlaid white Montblanc star on the end.”

“Ball point?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s about it then,” said Nancy, closing her pad. “She was sitting in the exact row where the confession was written, and we have a DNA sample on the bell. If we can match it up to Annette, it’s pretty much a done deal.”

“We still don’t know why she would try to kill Kenny,” I said. “There’s no connection there at all.”

“I think we’ve got enough for a warrant,” said Nancy. “I’ll go talk to Judge Adams.”

“Hang on,” I said. “We may not want to lay out all our cards just yet.”

“You may not have to,” said Meg. We all looked at her as she opened her purse and pulled out a coffee cup wrapped in a napkin.

“Here’s the cup she was drinking from. It was sitting on the table when she left, so I picked it up. I didn’t touch it. Can you get some DNA from that?”

“I believe we can,” I said with a grin. “Thank you, Miss Farthing.”

“My pleasure, Detective.”

• • •

I sent Dave back to Durham with the coffee cup with instructions to personally deliver it to Gary Thorndike. I had called Gary, and he promised to let me know the results the next morning. Nancy was sitting in my office, and we were still puzzling.

“I still can’t figure out the connection between Kenny and Annette,” I said.

“Well,” Nancy answered, “they could be totally unrelated. Maybe Kenny has an enemy that we haven’t considered. Maybe one of his distributors got mad because Kenny wasn’t supplying anymore. Maybe the people he’s in business with don’t want him talking to the feds.”