A Baked Ham (5 page)

“I’ll take it,” he said with the
hint of a smile.
 
“You are as tough a
bargainer as your grandfather.”

“I’ll take that as a
compliment.
 
Is that why you wanted to
see Moose?
 
You should know that I’m the
one who handles things here these days.”
 
When my grandfather had first retired, my dad had run the café for a
limited amount of time before he’d realized that he hated it, and I’d gladly
taken over after that.
 
After all, it was
a family business.

“No, this is about something else
entirely.”

“Just as long as you don’t accuse
him of what happened to Benny, I’m sure that he’d be glad to talk to you about
anything.”
 
I saw Garret’s face grow a
little bit gray when I mentioned the dead actor, so I added, “Garret, here’s a
piece of friendly advice.
 
Unless you have
a death wish, I wouldn’t say a word to my grandfather about Benny Booth.
 
If he brings it up first, fine, but I’d leave
that up to him if I were you.”

“I wasn’t going to blame him for
the murder,” Garret said.
 
“I just wanted
to know what Benny said to him at the theater before he died.”

“You could always ask me.
 
After all, I was standing right there when
they had their confrontation.”

Garret’s eyes lit up.
 
“What did they talk about?”

“Mostly it was about my
grandmother’s bottom,” I said.

“I heard that rumor, but I
thought it was some kind of joke,” Garret said.

“Trust me, it was real
enough.
 
Evidently, Benny got a little
handsy with my grandmother, and understandably, Moose wasn’t too happy about
it.”

“That was just the way Benny
was,” Garret said.
 
“I told him
repeatedly that his overfamiliarity would get him in trouble some day.
 
Moose shouldn’t have been so upset with him,
though.
 
Benny was mostly harmless.
 
He certainly didn’t deserve to die that way.”

“Let’s get one thing
straight.
 
My grandfather was angry with
Benny, but he didn’t kill him.
 
Moose did
not murder your lead actor,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm.
 
“You can take my word on it.”

“I never said that he did,”
Garret answered quickly.
 

“Maybe not, but the implication
was there.
 
I’ll say it to you, and to
anyone else who needs to hear it; anybody who says that my grandfather killed
Benny Booth is a liar.”

“I’m truly sorry if I made it
sound as if I thought he killed the man,” Garret said quickly.
 
“Don’t worry.
 
I’m sure that Sheriff Croft will find whoever did it eventually.”

“Sure he will,” I said.
 
I wasn’t about to tell the director that
Moose and I were going to do our best to solve the murder case ourselves, but
while I had Garret there, I wasn’t about to let him leave before he answered a
few questions for me.
 
“Speaking of
Benny, how did the two of you get along?”

“Well, that’s complicated.
 
At times we were best friends,” Garret said.

“And at other times?” I asked.

“We fought like crazy,” Garret
admitted with a smile.
 
“You see, we had
artistic differences from time to time, and we each stood firm for what we
believed in.”

“How bad did the fighting get?”

“What do you mean?” he asked me.

“Were punches ever thrown?”

“Never,” he said, looking shocked
by the mere suggestion.
 
“Our
disagreements were part of our process.
 
There was
never
any personal
animosity involved.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t,” I said,
though I wasn’t, not yet anyway.
 
“Do you
know anyone who might have had a
real
beef with Benny?”

“I don’t want to spread gossip,”
the director said.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard it
around town, but Moose and I have had a little success in the past tracking
down a killer or two.”

“Oh, your reputation in the
community is the stuff legends are made of,” Garret said.

“Well, strictly between the two
of us, we’ve been thinking about looking into Benny’s murder ourselves, and you
could help us a great deal if you have information that we’re not privy to
yet.”
 

The director seemed to think
about it for a few seconds, and then Garret said, “I’m sure that you’ve already
heard about his relationship with Sandra Hall.”

“They had an actual
relationship?
 
I thought she was dating
someone else, a young brooding fellow who looks as though he just stepped out
of the pages of a fitness magazine.”

“That would be Marcus Jackson,
but sometimes emotions get confused when actors are performing, especially when
the scenes call for assumed familiarity.
 
Benny liked to throw himself into his roles, and from what I saw
onstage, at least once Sandra didn’t seem to mind his attention.”

“But I’m guessing that Marcus
did, didn’t he?”

Garret frowned.
 
“I ordered a closed set for our rehearsals,
but Marcus snuck in, anyway.
 
When he saw
Benny kissing Sandra, all perfectly normal and a legitimate part of the scene,
he exploded from the back and tried to storm the stage.”

“Did he do anything to Benny?” I
asked.

“I’m certain that he would have,
if I hadn’t blocked his way.
 
I used to
do a little boxing as a kid, and Marcus never got past me.”
 
Garret seemed inordinately proud of his
accomplishments as a bouncer at the theater.

“Did he happen to say anything as
you were ejecting him?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, he
threatened to make Benny pay for what he’d done,” Garret said.

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“It was the day before yesterday,
during our final dress rehearsal.”

“Have you told the sheriff about
it yet?” I asked.
 
I knew that Sheriff
Croft would be quite interested to hear what had gone on.

“No, why?
 
Do you think it’s important?”

I glanced at the clock, and saw
that it was nearing seven.
 
I knew that
the sheriff was an early riser, and that he liked to be behind his desk at
seven every morning if he had anything to say about it.
 
“I’d advise you to walk over there and tell
him what you know right now,” I said.
 

“He’s working this early in the
morning?” Garret asked.

“Unless I miss my guess he is,
and believe me, you don’t want him storming into your jewelry shop.”

Garret shuddered a little at the
thought of that.
 
“No, you’re right; it’s
best if I take care of it right now.”

“You probably have time for a
little breakfast first, if you’d like,” I said, thinking of the diner’s bottom
line instead of our investigation.

“Thanks, but there’s no time for
that now.
 
Later, maybe.”

“We’re open until seven tonight,”
I said.

After he left, Mom came out of
the kitchen.
 
“What was that all about?”

“Garret Wilkes wanted to speak to
Moose,” I explained as I put the poster up under my wooden moose’s position
near the register.

Mom laughed.
 
“I’m guessing that he doesn’t know that you
couldn’t blast your grandfather out of bed with dynamite at this time of
morning.”

“
We
know that, but Garret doesn’t.
 
Anyway, I handled it.”

“I’m sure that you did,” Mom
said, and then the front door opened again.
 
Instead of someone there about the murder, though, a group of six men
entered, all from a local construction company building a new wing onto our
local museum.
 
They made it a habit of
eating together at the diner every morning, and I’d grown accustomed to having
them there.
 
Ellen rushed over to wait on
them, and I told Mom, “Better get ready for a rush of orders.
 
I’m going to go lend her a hand.”

“Bring it on.
 
I love cooking for hungry men with big
appetites,” she said.

“Then, I’d say that you’ve got
the perfect job,” I answered.
 
As I
helped Ellen pour coffee for our customers, I couldn’t help wondering if Garret
had been soft-pedaling his own involvement in Benny’s murder.
 
After all, he’d even admitted that they’d
exchanged heated words recently.
 
Had it
all been as harmless as Garret had claimed, or was there a deeper animosity
than he was letting on about?
 
As far as
I was concerned, the director’s name absolutely belonged on our list of
suspects until we had a reason to take his name off, and I was glad that he’d
stopped in to have a little chat.

Chapter 4

“Victoria, are you ready to go?”
Moose asked as he walked into the diner a little before eight, just at the end
of my first shift for the day.

“What got
you
out of bed this early?” I asked.
 
We usually
never
saw Moose until the crack of eleven at the earliest.

“We’ve got people to see,” he
said.
 
“And the sooner we get started,
the quicker I can clear your grandmother’s name.”

“And yours, too, right?” I asked.

He just shrugged.
 
“Truth be told, I’m not all that worried
about my reputation.
 
Unfortunately, your
grandmother’s skin isn’t quite as thick as mine.
 
Martha has been getting some disturbing
telephone calls already this morning.”

“Who’s calling her?”

“You name it, and they’ve checked
in with her, from her sewing circle to her quilters club to her book
group.
 
This town is in dire need of
something else to talk about besides Benny Booth, if you ask me.”

“Murder is a pretty powerful
subject matter around here, Moose, but I can’t believe that anyone is blaming
it on Martha.”

“Oh, they aren’t doing anything
as overt as that, but the questions they’re asking her are making her feel like
a criminal, and I won’t have it.”

It was just like my grandfather
to care more about my grandmother’s reputation in town than it was to have
people coming right out and accusing him of murder.
 
He loved her deeply, and I just hoped that
when Greg and I were their age, we’d still be going that strong, not that I had
any reason to doubt that we would be on just as solid ground.
 
He asked, “Have you had any more ideas since
we spoke last night?”

“I’ve had something quite a bit
better than that, actually.
 
I’ve already
had one interesting visitor at the diner this morning.
 
As a matter of fact, he came in here originally
looking for you.”

“You’ve got my attention,” Moose
said.
 
“Who came by?”

“Garret Wilkes popped into the
diner not long after we opened.”

“What did he want?” my
grandfather asked.

“As a matter of fact, the
director wanted to talk to you about Benny.”

Moose’s face clouded up.
 
“The man has some nerve.
 
I suppose that while he was here, he got you
to put
that
up,” my grandfather said
as he gestured to the sign I’d installed.

“Actually, he
wanted
it in the window, but I told him
no.”

“Good for you,” Moose said.
 
“I’m surprised that you even allowed him to
put it up there after what happened.”

“I can always take it down, if
you’d like me to,” I said.
 
While it was
true that the diner was under my control these days, that didn’t mean that I
wasn’t respectful of Moose’s opinions.

“No, leave it right where it
is.
 
There are a lot of actors in that
play who didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Benny last
night.
 
There’s no use punishing them for
what happened.
 
Are you going to the play
tonight?”

“I thought I might, if I can get
in line soon enough,” I said.

“You really do love plays, don’t
you?”

“Moose, I’m not going for the
show,” I told him.
 
“I want to talk to
the actors about Benny, and what better way of catching them all together than
attending one of their performances?”