By Cook or by Crook (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) (6 page)

“Chatty told me. I bet whoever set that fire murdered Nadia.”

“It’s a foolish risk to take the day before committing a murder.” Unless something happened in the interim to turn a vandal into a killer.

Bethany studied a beet chip. “We have to figure out who did it.”

“The police are on it.”

“The police here direct traffic and keep the tourists happy. What do they know about murder? Nobody ever gets murdered here. You lived in New York. They have murders there all the time.”

Val reached for a knife to cut the oatmeal energy bars. “I never ran across a single dead body in New York.” She couldn’t say the same for Bayport.

“We’re way ahead of the police because we knew Nadia. I wonder if Joe Westrin snapped and killed her.” Bethany snapped a beet chip in two. “She treated him like dirt. Got rid of him like she got rid of me.”

Val suppressed a laugh. Anyone who could equate switching tennis partners with divorcing a husband took the game way too seriously. No doubt the police would question Nadia’s ex. A current or former spouse always made a good suspect in a murder . . . once the police ruled out the person who found the body. “I barely know Joe. He stopped by the café a couple of times. Seemed like a nice guy.”

“Too nice for Nadia.” Bethany gulped her cranberry drink. “She was ruthless in her real estate dealings too.”

“Who told you that?”

“Common knowledge, according to Bigby.”

Bethany spoke the last three words the way other people might say “according to Webster” or “according to Hoyle.” Who dared to doubt her brother Bigby’s real estate expertise? He could turn farmland into tract housing overnight. He also brought the personality of a bulldozer to the tennis court. Each time the ball came over the net in doubles, he bellowed “Mine!” Either his partners stayed out of his way or he mowed them down. Maybe the big man had mowed down little Nadia, his former doubles partner, and that explained the frostiness Val had noticed between them.

Val ran her knife around the edge of the baking pan. “I heard that Bigby and Nadia used to play mixed doubles together. How come they stopped?”

“You’re the one who said people get new tennis partners all the time.” Bethany scowled. “I hope you’re not suggesting Bigby had anything to do with Nadia’s death. He would never hurt her.”

“I didn’t suggest anything.”

Easy to understand Bethany’s defensive reaction. She could see Joe Westrin as a murderer, but not her brother Bigby, and Val could imagine Bigby a killer, but her cousin Monique? Never. Yet here at the club, where the mud flew as fast as the tennis balls, Monique would be the obvious suspect. Her tirade against Nadia last week guaranteed that. Val would do her best to keep that mud off her cousin.

Her knife crunched through the oatmeal pastry. Even a small blade like this would have pierced Nadia’s flesh with ease. Yet someone had gone to the trouble of shaving down a racket handle instead of reaching for a kitchen knife. Why?

Bethany climbed off the stool. “It’s after four. I have to go home and make baked red beans for the teacher potluck. Can I start working tomorrow morning? I’ve worked a few weekends so I know the routine.”

“Sure.” Val could think of nothing she wanted more than to sleep in tomorrow. Today felt like the longest day she’d ever lived through, and it still had hours to go. “Call me if you have a question. The breakfast casseroles bake for forty-five minutes at 325 degrees.”

“Okeydoke. Thanks, Val.”

Val lifted the breakfast bars from the pan with a spatula and stored them away. She had the uneasy feeling she was supposed to be somewhere else. Her watch read four-thirty. Could she have forgotten an appointment?

No, Nadia had made an appointment. She’d written
Tues430
in the notes Val had seen near the phone while waiting for the police this morning. The notes included an address on Maple Street and a long name starting with Z and ending with K. Val couldn’t remember the syllables that came between those letters or the exact address. Maple Street was only a few blocks long, though, and she could probably find the house from the description in Nadia’s notes—a brick ranch with a fenced yard. Someone might be waiting there for Nadia now.

If Val had a meeting scheduled with a person who would never show up, she’d want to know sooner rather than later. She grabbed her bag and rushed out of the club. She would keep Nadia’s appointment.

Chapter 6

Val drove along Maple Street, where most of the mailboxes had names painted on them. She braked when she saw a long name beginning with Z. She parked in front of a modest one-story house, a perfect size for Granddad if she could ever talk him into giving up the big Victorian. She studied the name on the mailbox for a few seconds, silently pronouncing each syllable. The name didn’t end with a K as she’d remembered from Nadia’s notes, but the mailbox probably couldn’t fit the full name. A window air conditioner hummed as she approached the front door.

She rapped on the door and, when a woman with permed gray curls opened it, she said, “Hi. Are you Mrs. Zach-ar-na-rov—”

“I told you to call me Mrs. Z, Nadia. Come on in.”

“I’m not—” A deliciously sweet aroma wafted toward Val and drew her inside. She followed Mrs. Z into a small, tidy living room.

The elderly woman bent herself into a straight-backed chair and gestured toward a sofa slip-covered in a worn floral fabric. “Sit down. Help yourself to some cookies and iced tea.”

The coffee table held a glass pitcher of amber liquid with lemon slices and mint sprigs floating amid ice cubes. The table’s centerpiece was a plate piled with golden mounds studded with brown-edged coconut flakes. They looked like macaroons but with a more intense color than usual. Val hesitated. Should she eat cookies under false pretenses? Maybe just one.

She perched on the sofa edge, took a cookie from the plate, and bit into the moist, sweet confection. “Umm. Whole eggs, not just the whites. That’s why they’re golden.” And sinfully rich.

Mrs. Z leaned forward, the skin around her eyes crinkling. “Very good, Nadia, picking out my secret ingredient. You enjoy baking?”

Val’s mouth felt suddenly dry, and the cookie stuck in her throat. “I apologize if I misled you. I’m not Nadia. She’s a . . . a friend of mine. I came here to tell you she can’t meet with you. She died very suddenly.”

The older woman clutched the arms of her chair. “Oh, I’m sorry. Sudden death is a terrible thing, but not as bad as a prolonged, painful death.” She sighed.

Val waited while Mrs. Z took off her gold-rimmed glasses and wiped away a tear. Nadia’s death had apparently reminded her of someone else’s passing, someone close to her. “I assume you didn’t know Nadia, or you wouldn’t have mistaken me for her.”

“I talked to her for the first time last night. I finally decided to sell my house and called her right away. I was afraid if I waited until morning, I’d change my mind again.”

Mrs. Z might have been the last person Nadia spoke with, aside from the murderer. To find out more about that call, Val would have to improvise. On the phone with Maverick’s mother, she’d avoided a blatant lie. Now she saw no alternative. “I was trying to reach Nadia last night myself, but couldn’t get through. She may have been on the phone with you. What time did you talk to her?”

“Around nine-thirty, but I don’t understand why you didn’t get through. Her phone has call waiting. She put me on hold to take another call.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me. I called her later than that.” One lie always leads to another.

“She may have had company by the time you phoned. After she took that other call, she sounded rushed. She said she was expecting someone at her house any minute.”

Val’s pulse quickened. Perhaps the call interrupting Mrs. Z’s conversation had come from the murderer making sure Nadia was alone. Once Val told the police what she’d just heard from Mrs. Z, they could trace that call and possibly solve the case.

Val poured herself a glass of iced tea. “I’d really like to have your recipe for the macaroons if you’re willing to share it.”

“Of course. Recipes are meant to be shared, and I know this one by heart.”

Val pulled out the paper Gunnar had given her with his cell phone number and jotted the recipe on the back. It was simple enough she could have remembered it. It even met Granddad’s criteria, only five ingredients.

She stood up and thanked Mrs. Z for the tea, the cookies, and the recipe, leaving out what she was most grateful for, the information about Nadia’s phone calls.

Mrs. Z walked her to the door. “Nadia came highly recommended. Are you also a real estate agent? I sure could use one.”

“Sorry, I don’t work in real estate, but I’ll ask my friends if they can recommend anyone.”

Val climbed into her Saturn. She would, of course, tell Chief Yardley about Maverick’s lie and Nadia’s visitor, but why rush it? She was on a roll and might dig up even more leads. Time to focus on the murder weapon. Where would someone get an antique racket? Bayport had plenty of antique shops, most too upscale to deal in old sports equipment. Val bypassed the historic district and drove to a cluster of secondhand stores off the main drag at the edge of town.

The salesclerks at Cobweb Corner and Must Haves didn’t know the stock. She spent half an hour poking through the junk in each place before concluding that both shops had plenty of cobwebs and must, but no wood rackets.

When she asked about antique rackets at Old ’N Things, the bearded owner tucked his thumbs into his red suspenders. “We don’t got any. They ain’t rare enough to be valuable or new enough to be useful. Folks keep ’em in garages and attics in case their grandkids wanna use ’em.”

A teenaged clerk shifting crockery on a shelf turned around. “I saw a bunch of those rackets at Darwin’s Sports. Hanging up near the ceiling. Decorations, I guess. You want directions to the place?”

“Thanks. I know where it is.” But she’d never noticed the décor in Darwin’s store.

She knew him as the club’s part-time tennis pro and the only person she’d ever met who went by a single name like a rock star. Calling himself Darwin beat using the name his parents had foisted on him, Darwin Darwin.

Val parked her car two blocks off Main Street in front of Darwin’s Sports. Its business logo, an X formed by a racket and a barbell, reflected the shop’s wares and its owner. Darwin had a reputation as a certified tennis pro and a certifiable dumbbell.

He was helping a customer trying on shoes when Val entered the shop. A teenage clerk at the checkout counter chatted on her cell phone while ogling Darwin. A tennis has-been in his late twenties, he’d never graduated from the satellite circuit to a major tournament, but he could still compete in the local Adonis stakes. Transport him to Southern California, and he’d have looked like the archetypal surfer, skin tanned and hair bleached.

Val studied the vintage equipment decorating the walls above the merchandise displays. Badminton rackets with small round heads, squash rackets with heads shaped like teardrops, and tennis rackets with oval heads, several made of wood. No obvious empty spots on the wall to suggest rackets removed for nefarious purposes.

“Hey, Val.” Chatty Ridenour beckoned from the clothing racks beyond the shoe display.

Val joined her tennis teammate. Chatty’s intricately tied scarf matched her indigo blue eye shadow and lent panache to her simple outfit, a white shirt and cropped pants. Without her flawless complexion and flair for clothes, she would go unnoticed, a woman in her late thirties with straight brown hair, average in height and weight.

She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed under her nose. “I’ve been miserable ever since I heard Nadia was killed. The police cornered me at the club. I couldn’t bear to play tennis after that. I had to shop to calm down.”

“And I had to cook.” To each her own medicine. “What happened with the police?”

“They asked lots of questions about Nadia, how well I knew her, things like that. I asked how she was killed, but they wouldn’t tell me.”

“Did you say anything about the trouble between her and Monique?”

Chatty answered Val’s question by flipping through the clothes rack, caressing the fabrics. Emotions never disturbed her lineless face, emerging instead in her hands. Her agitated fingers telegraphed that she’d blabbed to the police.

Val tamped down her annoyance. “It doesn’t matter. If you didn’t tell them, someone else would have.”

“I didn’t want to, but the deputy with the shaved head wouldn’t let up on me. He also kept talking about a hit-and-run a few weeks ago. What’s that about?”

“Who knows? He asked me about it too. He’s obsessed with that hit-and-run though I can’t see what—” Val broke off as Darwin approached them.

He flashed a smile worthy of a toothpaste ad. “Can I help you, ladies?”

Val couldn’t risk talking about wood rackets in front of the inquisitive Chatty. “Um, she’s looking for tennis clothes.”

Chatty waved to a broad-shouldered teenager entering the shop. “Hey, Kyle. You play tennis too?”

The young man sauntered toward them. “How you doing, Mrs. Ridenour? Yeah, I’m taking up the game.” He clapped Darwin on the shoulder. “You got my special order, man?”

Darwin tilted his head toward the rear of the shop. “In the backroom. ’Scuse us, ladies.”

Val watched two sets of massive shoulders and bulging biceps go through a door at the back. “In Granddad’s video store, guys used to ask for the films stored in the backroom. He didn’t carry adult videos, but everybody knows backrooms are for things you can’t do in public.”

Chatty touched an index finger to her lips and pointed her other index finger toward the clothes rack behind Val. The salesclerk stood at the rack, near enough to eavesdrop. If she’d heard Val’s comment about backrooms, she might repeat it to Darwin.

Val searched for something bland to say. “Darwin and Kyle look like they spend a lot of time lifting weights.”

“Darwin believes in survival of the fittest.” Chatty winked. “He volunteers as the fitness coach for the high school football team. Kyle’s the linebacker and my son’s idol. I’m surprised he’s picking up a special order. I thought only racket retentives like my ex-husband did that.”

Val had never heard of racket retentives though she recognized the behavior. “Adventurous eaters try new dishes. Other people only eat familiar foods. Same with rackets, I guess.”

“But what if you can’t buy your familiar food anymore? Do you refuse to eat? When my—” A rapper ringtone from the clerk’s cell phone interrupted Chatty and sent the clerk back to the checkout counter she used as a phone booth. “When my ex broke his racket, he wouldn’t even look at new ones. He wanted that obsolete model and nothing else. Darwin managed to find some used ones, restrung them, and sold them as a special order at a megaprice.”

Ironic of Chatty to talk about megaprices. “He charged what the market would bear. I’m sure you do the same with the cosmetics you sell.”

Chatty stood up tall, growing two inches in her indignation. “I charge less than high-end department stores.”

Oops. “Sorry. I was talking basic economics, nothing personal. I don’t know anything about cosmetic prices.”

“Obviously.” Chatty gave Val a forehead-to-chin appraisal and turned back to the clothes rack. She held up a pink dress trimmed in lace. “This is too small for me, but you’d look cute in it.”

“I don’t do cute. As a kid I threw tantrums whenever people called me ‘cute,’ just to prove them wrong. Besides, I have all the tennis clothes I need.” Two pairs of shorts and a bunch of T-shirts.

Val glanced at the door to the backroom. Still closed. She wandered toward a display where dozens of shiny rackets hung at different heights and angles, some with brightly colored strings. They looked like giant lollipops. She took down a lime green one and went through the motions of serving.

Chatty reached for the racket. “Let’s see that thing. Hmm. Head heavy. You gotta be careful buying a new racket. It might ruin your game.”

“You’re just trying to turn me into a racket retentive.” Val took the racket back from Chatty and hung it up. “Anyway, I’m not rushing into buying new gear. I’m here to pick Darwin’s brain.”

“That won’t take long. Be sure to use words of one syllable, and talk about sports and cars. That’s all he knows. But with a bod like that, who needs a mind?”

Val laughed. “He must have something going for him if he’s running a shop at his age.”

“Absolutely. A rich daddy who sold the family estate to a developer and moved south. He gave his tennis bum the money to open this shop.”

Val looked behind Chatty and saw Darwin maneuver through the weight equipment aisles. The football star followed, carrying his special order in a vinyl racket cover. Now why couldn’t Darwin have just fetched the racket and brought it to the sales floor?

“Earth to Val.” Chatty waved her hand in front of Val’s face. “Listen, I have a theory that I want to share with you. About the arson.”

“Arson?” The two men glanced at Val. She lowered her voice. “What arson?”

“The racket at Nadia’s.” Chatty matched Val’s quiet tones. “I think I know who did it and why, but it’s a long story, and I can’t talk now.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“I’m taking my son to Ocean City for a beach day. Can we get together Thursday, after you close the café? I’ll drop by and give you a facial.”

A package deal. No facial, no gossip. Val remembered Monique’s warning about Chatty: “Don’t let her near your door with her creams and oils. She spikes them with truth serum. She’ll coax you into telling her things you’ve never told anyone else.” Val had laughed, but heeded the advice and resisted Chatty’s offers of a facial . . . until now.

“Okay. Meet me at the café at two.”

Chatty took her clothing purchase to the checkout counter as the high school football star left the shop.

Darwin joined Val at the racket display. He selected a wide-bodied orange racket. “You can try these rackets, you know. Take ’em out for a test drive.”

Val hefted the racket he held out. “It looks like it could—” Val almost said kill somebody. “It looks heavy, but it feels lighter than most rackets. What’s it made of?”

“Fiberglass and graphite.” He took down a banana yellow racket and held it up for Val’s inspection. “This one’s made of Kevlar and hypercarbon. Space-age materials.”