Death Al Dente Read online

  “Tell her,” Cassie said.

  “I—we—I came to apologize. I’ll talk to the sheriff if you want.”

  My brow furrowed. “About what?”

  “Umm. Your window.” Finally, he ventured a glance at me. “At the shop.”

  I scooped up Sandburg. “Are you saying you threw the Playhouse paver through the Merc’s front window?” He nodded.

  Holy cow. “I think we all need to sit down. Iced tea? Fizzy water?” Cassie said yes and Ian said no. I took the cat inside and returned with three glasses and a bottle of Pellegrino. I took the red willow chair and gestured for them to sit. Cassie perched on the edge of the other chair, and Ian sank onto the top step. It’s an odd thing to realize that a whole generation sees you not only as an adult, but intimidating to boot.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  Ian let out a ragged breath and told the story, with a little prompting from his girlfriend. He and Jeff had gotten the news of Claudette’s death Friday evening, in Seattle. They’d driven partway back that night, and rolled into Jewel Bay around noon Saturday. Although Detective Caldwell had not identified a suspect, Ian heard the talk and zeroed in on my mother. Sleepless and furious, he’d left the house in the wee hours Sunday morning, eventually finding himself in the village. Both Ian and Cassie were Children’s Theater veterans—they’d started dating while in a play together—and Ian had sat on the park bench behind the Playhouse, staring at the lake, seething. The same bench I’d sat on during Sunday’s festivities.

  The longer he sat, the hotter he’d raged, until he grabbed a paver from the stack behind the theater and dashed down the street.

  “Honestly, I don’t know how I got there. I don’t remember any of it. The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of the Merc, my hand empty, the window smashed.” He stared into space, seeing it all again. “Scared me to death. I took off.”

  “That’s when I saw him,” Cassie said. “Running past the Inn.”

  He’d gotten angrier when he saw me in Claudette’s garden on Monday evening, and when Fresca dropped in for a sympathy call. But the more he’d seen of us that week, Ian realized how genuinely we grieved his mother’s death. He confessed to Cassie, who talked him into coming clean.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said.

  “Maybe we should have gone to your mother,” Cassie said. “But she’s kinda scary sometimes.”

  “That she is,” I said wryly. I refilled my glass—they’d barely touched theirs. “Now, my turn. Ian, sorry as you are about the window, you wouldn’t be here if you thought my mother killed Claudette, or poisoned you.”

  They exchanged nervous glances. Finally, Cassie spoke. “The whole mess is kind of our fault. Our parents wanted to break us up—”

  “‘You’re too young to be so serious,’” Ian added, mimicking adult concern.

  “And we figured if they got to know each other better, they’d stop bugging us. Turned out my dad and his mom hit it off a little too well.” Cassie’s gray eyes filled with regret. I remembered the newspaper photo of Dean and Claudette, cheek-to-cheek and starry-eyed, in the community theater musical.

  “The best-laid plans,” I said. “But that doesn’t make you responsible for their affair, or anything else. They’re adults.”

  “What if my dad killed her?” Cassie said, trembling. Worry lines creased her smooth face. Ian put his hand on her knee. He looked anxious, but wisely said nothing. “He’s just so gone off the last couple years. Pretending he’s Elvis, trashing his chiropractic practice. Acting like Jess and I don’t even exist. And then what he’s done to my mom.”

  “Is his interest in Elvis new?” He’d mentioned collecting the furniture over the years.

  “It was just for fun. He didn’t let it run his life.”

  Who wouldn’t want to be king for an evening? Classic midlife crisis, in not-so-classic fashion.

  “Does your dad have a temper?” I asked.

  She swallowed hard. “He throws things. But he never hit us, or Mom.”

  Still, when it came to evidence tying Dean to Claudette’s murder, they had none. Cassie had never seen her dad carry a knife. There had been no blood on his stretchy white jumpsuit—and Dean was fastidious about his costumes. All they had was strange behavior that had gotten stranger over the last few days.

  “Do you suppose,” I said, “that your dad is acting weird out of guilt? Not for killing Claudette, but for putting her in the situation that caused her death? Like you feel guilty, because you introduced them?” Like I did, because I’d invited her to the Festa.

  “You mean, if he’d been a better fake, she would never have come back to Jewel Bay and gotten killed?” Ian said.

  “Sounds kinda goofy, but remember he’s not thinking straight.” Criminy. Listen to me defending Dean Vincent. “Combine that with guilt over hurting your mother and you girls, and grief over Claudette’s death, and anybody’s bound to act a little crazy.”

  Not to mention having made himself look like a bit of an ass—running off to Vegas to steal the show and getting sent home instead.

  “It’s worse than that.” Cassie’s voice wobbled. “What if my mom poisoned Ian?”

  I gaped in astonishment. Linda’s candy tasted awful, but not deadly. If the killer used a toxic plant from Claudette’s garden, he—or she—was likely to be knowledgeable about herbs and plants. Someone without knowledge might pick marigolds, thinking if they stink, they must be poison—not only not true, but some varieties are actually tasty, especially in salads. Focus, Erin.

  By all accounts, Linda wasn’t a gardener or an herbalist, and certainly not much of a cook. I pictured her house and yard: the barest minimum of developer landscaping and nothing more. Certainly no perennials. “No love lost between me and your mother, but do you honestly think she could do that? To Ian?”

  “I don’t know anymore. It’s all so screwed up.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “I saw Fresca bring her basket. Ian and his dad don’t like red peppers, so I took the jar of roasted pepper sauce home. My mom saw it and decided to make a basket of her own.”

  My phone buzzed with a text and I stole a look. Rick Bergstrom saying, Check your e-mail for the scoop on Jay. Later.

  “Cassie, did your mother put a jar of artichoke pesto in her basket?”

  Her face darkened and scrunched like a constipated baby’s. “I think so. She has jars and jars of Fresca’s stuff. She loves it. And she knows Ian loves the artichoke blend—he’s always eating it at our house. What if—what if first my dad killed Claudette, then he poisoned the pesto to kill my mom, but she gave it away instead and it nearly killed Ian?”

  Ian reached up for her hand. “But it didn’t. I’m fine.”

  “It could have, if you’d eaten more. It could have been anybody—my mom, or my sister, or me. Your dad, your aunt.”

  But how could we prove that the poisoned jar had come from Linda’s basket, not my mother’s? No doubt Kim would send it for fingerprinting, which might help identify who’d touched the jar, though it wouldn’t eliminate Fresca, who still filled and labeled every jar by hand.

  My head reeled. Cassie’s fears put a whole new spin on things. I believed Dean to be a first-class conniving heel, but all this? Still, Dean did have a key to Linda’s house. “Let’s sort this out.” I handed Cassie her no-longer-fizzy water and made her take a sip. “You told your mom about my mom’s basket, and she decided to send one of her own. How did she act?”

  “Happy. She likes making things. She’s not that great at it, though. Her basket looked punk next to Fresca’s.”

  “Other than thinking you and Ian are too young, how does she feel about him?”

  Both kids colored. “She likes him. Or did. It all got weird after Dad and Claudette ran off. But she never blamed Ian.”

  I asked her to tell me more about
Linda’s reaction to the affair. Linda, it seemed, had been of several minds herself. Self-righteously angry, alternating her fury between her man and the woman who stole him. Mortified, for being played a fool—which made her angrier. And Cassie admitted, she even seemed relieved at times. “They fought a lot. It was more peaceful when he was gone.” She gave me a crooked grin. “But the new car’s hot.” Would they get back together now? Cassie couldn’t guess, but both she and her sister looked forward to leaving home. Which made them feel guilty.

  More than enough guilt to go around.

  “What now?” Ian said, his voice betraying his anxiety. This no doubt seemed like the worst week of his life. With any luck, it would be.

  “You’re worried, but you have to trust that everything will be okay. The truth will come out, and you’ll survive it.” They looked unconvinced, and I hardly blamed them. “I’m really glad you talked to me. Ian, promise you’ll call Deputy Caldwell in the morning. If I don’t hear from her by noon, I’ll call and report you myself.”

  They walked to Cassie’s car hand in hand. I wondered whether their relationship would survive this.

  I watched them drive off, then went inside. When I touched the antique door handle, I remembered the feeling that someone had been in the cabin earlier in the week. Had I been overtired, imagining things?

  No matter. I clicked the door firmly shut. All would be well.

  • Twenty-eight •

  “What do you think you’re doing, talking to Ned Redaway? What gives you any right to interfere in my decisions?”

  After the kids left, I’d checked my e-mail. Comparing the high school class photo with the shot of Jay aka James on his Facebook profile, and the man he spotted at the Grille, Rick was sure he’d correctly identified Jay Walker. And his parents and older sister had given him a little more info on the family, shedding some light on why Jay had wanted to remake himself, while staying close enough to help his mother when his father went on drinking binges, blowing what little money they had. I began to feel a little sympathy for the fellow.

  And then my mother barreled in.

  “Whoa, Mom. Easy. Calm down.”

  “Do not tell me to calm down. I am calm.” My mother stalked into the cabin and tossed her bag on the couch, barely missing the sleeping Sandburg. I closed the front door and followed her into the main living area. She paced the narrow aisle between couch and kitchen island, heels rapping angrily on the pine floor.

  I poured two glasses of wine and set hers on the island. As she walked, her hands flapped like a drunken hummingbird. I inched her glass back a bit.

  “How did you even know Ted made an offer on my building?”

  In her present mood, I didn’t dare admit listening to her phone messages. The dents her heels made in the floor would be the least of my worries. “Last Monday, Ted tried to convince me to move the Merc out to the highway. Touted all the pros, ignored all the cons. I realized he’d been talking to you, and put it together.” The partial truth.

  She glared, skeptical, but slowed her stomping long enough to take a sip. “And you had to mention it to Ned.”

  “I assumed he knew. And what do you mean, ‘my building’? You always said it was our building, that you owned it in trust for the family. You called it the Murphy legacy.” A faint tremble crept into my voice. I was unbelievably peeved, and unbelievably sad.

  “Don’t talk to me about decisions and legacies.” She wagged her finger at me.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me. Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

  She stabbed her chest. “I’ve had to decide everything. For fourteen years, ever since your father . . .”

  “You asked me to come home and work with you, to run the Merc, and I did. And you always say, Murphy girls don’t quit.”

  We were shouting. My mother and I had never shouted at each other in my thirty-two years. If this was a rite of passage into a new stage of adulthood, I did not like it one bit.

  “Oh, darling.” My mother looked at me, lifted her hand slightly, then let it fall back to her side. “I am so sorry. None of this is your fault. And you do have a right to know.” Glass in hand, she slipped off her black sandals and made for the living room. I scooped up Sandburg and deposited him safely in his cat bed, but Fresca ignored the couch and sat in the Morris chair in the corner by the stone fireplace. I curled up in the big leather chair.

  “What happened? I thought you were having dinner at Bob and Liz’s.”

  “Lovely evening. But on my way out, Ned called on my cell—I’m starting to hate those things. He’d discovered Ted’s plans from you, and gave Ted what for, then called me to apologize.”

  I should have known Old Ned would blow his top sooner rather than later. The old song “On Top of Spaghetti” started looping through my brain.

  “Hear me out, darling. This may be the perfect opportunity. Chiara and her family are cramped in the old homestead. They can take over the main house, and you can live in theirs. Nick will be fine on his own.”

  What was she saying? That she might sell? And leave Jewel Bay? Go where?

  And what about me? What would I do here if she closed the Merc? Go back to Seattle? Friends in other companies had tried to recruit me. But I did not want to be “in transit,” like poor, pink, rootless Candy Divine. Or indecisive Claudette. Or James Angelo, who’d walked away from his past but still felt it nipping at his heels. I’d been afraid that coming home was an admission of failure. But leaving now would be worse.

  “This town can be a little claustrophobic,” she said. “The talk, the merry-go-round.”

  “You can’t leave. You can’t make them right. Even if you aren’t charged with killing Claudette, they’ll still think you’re guilty—of all the things the rumor mill says. And they’d tar me with that brush, too.”

  My mother looked sadder than I’d seen her in years. “That’s what I’m most afraid of.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Darling, you are the only person besides the killer who knew Claudette was coming to the party.”

  “You mean you think she suspects me? Kim?” My onetime best friend and partner in crime. An unseen weight crushed me. I felt like an idiot. My mother was trying to protect me. Again. Even if it made her more of a target. But while challenging her over protecting me too much all those years ago had been high on my list of things to talk about, the need to identify the killer—and convince Kim Caldwell—had leapfrogged to the top.

  I fired up my iPad, flew to the cloud, and grabbed the Spreadsheet of Suspicion. “I have two theories. Suspect Number One: Dean Vincent.” I showed her the screen and recapped my reasons. No need to relay Cassie’s suspicions, though I did tell Fresca that Ian had confessed to the vandalism.

  “Oh, that poor boy. Don’t press charges, Erin.”

  I shrugged. “Not up to me, Mom. I did think Linda might have been involved, but now I suspect she’s reached the same conclusion we did: She’s afraid Dean’s the killer, and wants to divert attention from him to you, with rumors and indignant talk. And she may have left the poisoned pesto.” I summarized what I knew.

  “The protection racket,” Fresca said.

  “Exactly. Second theory, James Angelo. You said I’m the only person who knew Claudette was coming to the Festa. Of course, I had no idea what entrance she’d use. But I think Angelo knew, too. He may have overheard me, or she may have told him. They argued earlier in the day, then talked at the drugstore, after I invited her.”

  I opened a package of shortbread Scottie dogs—emergency treats—and refilled our glasses. “And then he spotted her. Polly saw him downtown, walking toward Back Street. So that’s opportunity. What we don’t have is motive.”

  “Any idea what they were arguing about?”

  “Maybe her restaurant plans, but I keep thinking it has something to do with his
past. He’s not who he says he is.”

  She snorted. “You mean, he’s not a real chef. I know all that.”

  “Worse than that.” I explained what I’d discovered about his real name and family background.

  “He’s reinventing himself. Nothing wrong with that—it’s the great Western tradition.”

  I showed her the picture I’d found, and the e-mail from Rick. “He’s made a new life on this side of the mountains, but he can still get home in a few hours if he needs to. For his mom, the Bergstroms think. He’s been spotted there a few times. Compared to the rest of the family, he was an angel.” The source of his pseudonym?

  “Odd that you couldn’t find anything about him under his new name, either. As if he’s determined not to be found.”

  “Not to be noticed,” I said. “As if he doesn’t know how to make his dreams into reality. Haunted by being Jay Walker, bullied child of the town drunk and butt of the family jokes.”

  “The victim has become the bully.” She seemed to be replaying a scene in her mind.

  I set the iPad aside and picked up my wine. “What were you two talking about on Tuesday? I know he called you.”

  “He called to gloat,” she said. “To tell me he’s cooking for Ray now, and that over the weekend, his Italian food had ’em lined up out the door. Ray is expanding their gourmet food section and I should watch out.”

  “Ray did say this morning that their Italian dishes were a hit. That’s good. He’s got what, two shelves of imported cookies and jams? If he expands that, great—he’s selling things we aren’t carrying. And if he starts offering Angelo’s stuff commercially, that increases interest in locally made products. No sweat.”

  “Right.” She bit the tail off a Scottie.

  But there had to be more to their conversation. She wouldn’t have gotten so angry over Angelo’s sixth-grade antics. I waited.

  “I never told you,” she said, “how he sabotaged me last winter. When he tried to get the other restaurants to drop my products and use his. He told Max I’d decided to quit the business—Max got so upset I could hardly understand a word. How could I quit without telling him, weren’t we friends, did I need a better price? I finally realized what had happened. He did the same thing with the Inn.