Dearly Depotted (25 page)

“Sure is, why?”

“Because someone wearing a white jacket was seen carrying a black garbage bag near the back of the banquet center around the time of the murder, but it was too dark to make out a face.”

“Yep, that would be Gunther,” Sheila said. “Anthony always sends him out with the garbage around nine thirty.”

“Are you’re sure it was Gunther who took it out Monday night? Did you actually see him leave the kitchen with the bag?”

“Hell, no, but that doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been in that kitchen. You know how crazy it gets back there.”

“Does the banquet center have security cameras outside the building?”

Sheila and Deb looked at each other and laughed. “Are you kidding?” Sheila said with a snort. “They pay us minimum wage. You think they’re gonna spring for security cameras?”

“So do you really believe Gunther might be a killer?” Deb asked me, her chin propped in her hand, which still contained part of a scone. “I’ve always thought he looked like the type.”

“I wouldn’t make that leap,” I said. “That’s not fair to Gunther. But if he was outside at the time the murder happened, he could have
seen
the murderer. Of course, security cameras would have helped.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Gunther did it,” Sheila said, sipping her coffee. “You know what they say—once a jailbird, always a jailbird.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I didn’t know Gunther had been in prison.”

“I just found out myself, as a matter of fact,” Sheila said. “You know, ever since Monday, people in the kitchen have been talking about him. I guess Gunther’s only been out a few weeks.”

Jack had been out a month. It might have been a coincidence, but that little alarm in my head didn’t think so. I needed to interview Gunther, but I wanted to run it by Marco first.

“Well, this has been great, but I’ve got to get home,” Sheila said. “Thanks for the coffee and goodies. We should do this again—hey, maybe when I bring those muffins around.”

I darted a quick glance at Grace and caught her pained look. As soon as Sheila and Deb were gone I said, “Don’t worry. Sheila’s muffins could never compare to your scones.” I left her smiling for the first time in days and went to the workroom to call Marco.

Chris the bartender answered on the second ring. “Sorry, Abby. Marco’s on an important call. He asked not to be disturbed.”

Important call. Right. He was probably talking to that exotic, dark-haired beauty.

“Did you say something, Abby? Hello? I think we have a bad connection.”

It wasn’t a bad connection. It was my brain sizzling. Who needed Marco’s help anyway?

 

 

 

 

L
ottie and I finished the funeral orders at twelve thirty in the afternoon, with no breaks for anything but coffee and handfuls of microwave popcorn to quiet the growls in our stomachs. Once we had everything loaded in the van, I volunteered to make the deliveries so I could dash out to the Garden of Eden afterward for a little chat with Gunther.

“Whatever it takes to help our Gracie,” Lottie said, shutting the back gate. “I’ll hold down the fort here.”

At the banquet center, I passed the ballroom, where employees were inflating balloons, setting out plates and flatware, and hanging a banner that said, HAPPY 35TH ANNIVERSARY, CLAUDE AND JUDY. I continued past and was about to go into the kitchen when Kevin the waiter came out carrying a round tray filled with glass tumblers.

“Hi,” I said cheerily. “Remember me? Well . . . here I am again.”

“Sure, I remember you, Abby,” he said, giving me a coy once-over, which couldn’t have been easy to do with that huge tray in his hands. “Still working on that murder?”

“You bet. Is Gunther around?”

“He’s in the kitchen. Hold on and I’ll get him for you.”

Other waiters were scurrying between the kitchen and ballroom, so I walked up the hallway to get out of the traffic. In a moment Gunther pushed through one of the kitchen’s swinging doors and looked around.

“Hi there,” I called, holding up my hand.

He looked bewildered, but maybe that was normal for him. “You want to talk to me?”

“Yes, just for a few minutes.”

His bulk nearly blotted out the light as he lumbered toward me. “Who are you?”

“I’m Abby Knight, the florist who did the arrangements for the wedding this past Monday.”

His heavy eyebrows drew together. It wasn’t ringing any bells.

“Maybe if you picture me holding a stack of white boxes in front of my face?” I positioned my arms and pretended to be balancing a wobbling pile of cardboard. Then I peered around my imaginary tower and smiled, hoping a little humor would jog his memory.

“Yeah, I think I remember that. So, what do you want?”

“I’ve got a friend who’s in serious hot water and I was hoping I could get some information from you that would help clear his name.”

“From me?”

“Yes. You know, like did you see anyone hanging around the garden when you took out the garbage Monday night, the exact time you left work . . . that kind of thing.”

“I already told the cops everything I know.”

“Is there any reason why you can’t tell me, too?” I asked with a smile. “I have just a few questions. It won’t take much time.”

I could see his jaw muscles working, as if he were growing impatient with me. “Look, I can’t help you. I didn’t take out the garbage Monday night, so I couldn’t have seen anyone hanging around.”

“Then who did take it out?”

He gave me a
duh
look. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“So that means you left work before nine thirty?”

His jaw worked again and I could sense he was about at the end of his patience. “I don’t know. I didn’t look at the clock. That’s enough questions now. I’m gonna get in trouble if I don’t get back to work.”

“Wait, Gunther. Please. I’m almost finished. Why did you leave work early that night?”

“I got sick,” he answered just a little too defensively.

“Did you know the man who was killed—Jack Snyder?”

He hesitated, a wary look in his eyes. “No.”

“Weren’t you in prison with him?”

At once Gunther’s jaw tightened and his fists clenched. He took a threatening step toward me, and I backed up against the wall. Why was the hallway always empty when you didn’t want it to be? All I could think of was Marco’s admonition to make sure I never interviewed a suspect without witnesses around.

“You listen carefully, stubby,” he sneered, putting his big face inches from mine. “It’s no secret I did my time, but I don’t need you or the cops persecuting me for it. Yeah, I left work early. Yeah, I knew Snyder from prison, but I didn’t kill him; got it?”

I nodded, swallowing hard, trying not to shift my gaze away. It was never good to show fear. Besides, I was still trying to absorb the fact that he knew the word
persecuting.
It didn’t seem the kind of word a blockhead would use.

“Finished with your nosy questions now?”

“I’m finished,” I whispered, deciding not to press my luck.

Gunther’s hands relaxed and he straightened, allowing me to draw the first good breath I’d had in minutes. “Don’t bug me again,” he said.

“Okay,” I squeaked.

I glanced at him just before he turned away, and that’s when I caught a sly glint in his eye. Suddenly I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t such a blockhead after all.

Gunther walked away, and I hurried in the opposite direction. I knew two things for sure: Gunther was a brute, and my questions had upset him. Obviously he was touchy about his prison record. But was there anything to tie him to Jack’s murder? So what if Jack had come to the Garden of Eden. There must have been other parolees who’d been guests at an event there. And who was to say Gunther hadn’t been sick that night? Certainly not this stubby person.

I got into the van and drove back without even switching on the radio. I was frustrated. My investigation kept hitting blank walls, and I had a strong feeling I was missing something important. The only thing I could think to do was to turn my focus back to the most obvious suspect—Josiah.

 

At two thirty I whipped together the bouquet of roses I owed Morgan and was out the door in ten minutes, heading for his office at the courthouse to exchange flowers for facts. I took the wide center staircase—the ancient elevator’s groaning cables spooked me—and marched up to the Formica-topped desk of the prosecutors’ one and only secretary, a fashionably dressed woman in her mid-thirties whose habit of wearing narrow, blue-tinted glasses low on her long, thin nose gave her voice a distinct nasal tone.

I held the wrapped bouquet behind my back, since it was purportedly for her, and waited for her to stop typing and look up at me. But since she didn’t seem so inclined, I said, “Excuse me. I have a delivery for Greg Morgan.” And just so she wouldn’t ask, I added, “I’m the florist from across the street.”

She reached for the phone, informed Greg I was there, and continued typing, without once glancing at me. My grip tightened on the flowers. I was tempted to smack her on the head with them.

“Abby, come on in,” Morgan called from his doorway just in time, sparing the woman the embarrassment of having to wear her bouquet.

I walked into his cramped office and took a seat on an ancient wooden chair as he shut the door and went to sit behind an equally ancient oak desk. There were files everywhere—on filing cabinets, in boxes, even stacked on the floor. Prosecutors were notoriously overworked and underpaid, although you’d never know by the way Morgan dressed. Of course, it helped that he lived rent-free with his mother.

I handed him the wrapped bundle. “Here you are; one dozen of my finest.”

Morgan took a peek inside the green paper and gave me a smile. “Super. Kirby will be thrilled.”

The only Kirby I’d ever heard of was a brand of vacuum cleaner my aunt used—yet somehow it seemed fitting. Kirby looked like she’d had all the air sucked out of her head.

“So,” I said, “what did you find out about the murder investigation?”

Morgan sat back, resting his hands on the arms of his chair. “Let me state once again that I’m bound by ethics not to divulge case information.”

“And let me state once again that you promised we would trade favors.”

He held up his hand, palm out. “Answer the question, please. You do realize I’m bound by those ethics, don’t you?”

I faked a yawn. “Yes, Greg, I realize that.”

“Okay then.” He shuffled through papers, found the one he wanted, and put it on the edge of his desk. “How’s the flower business?” he asked, nudging the paper with his elbow. It slipped over the side and landed on the wooden floor under my chair. He wasn’t actually divulging anything. I was accidentally getting a peek at it.

I folded my hands together in my lap, resisting the urge to reach under the chair until he’d given a signal. “The flower business is fine.”

“Good. Would you excuse me for moment? I have to deliver this file next door. I’ll be right back.”

He left the room and shut the door while I grabbed the paper and flipped it over to read it. Across the top was the title:
Office of the County Coroner: Autopsy Report.

Bless Morgan’s ethical little heart.

Most of the report was technical information, but finally I found the details I needed. I pulled my notebook and pen from my purse and began to write. The time of death was estimated to be approximately nine thirty p.m. Cause of death was blunt trauma to the right temporal area. Toxicology showed no amphetamines or alcohol.

I heard footsteps approaching and, fearing it might be someone other than Morgan, I tossed the paper onto his desk and tucked away my notebook just as the door opened. Morgan walked in, shut the door, and glanced at me as he walked around his desk and sat down. “Are we square now?”

“Almost. There’s this business about a fourth suspect.”

He folded his hands on the desk and leaned toward me to say quietly, “I can tell you this much. The fourth suspect doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Take a guess.”

“The cops have picked one of the other suspects?”

Morgan shrugged as if he didn’t know, but his grin was saying yes.

“Is it Josiah Turner?”

This time he didn’t bat an eye or twitch a lip, making it impossible to know whether I’d hit it right, so I told him why I felt there was a strong possibility that Josiah was the killer, just in case the police had come to a different conclusion. But after I’d finished, Morgan didn’t look impressed, and that concerned me.

“Don’t tell me the police have cleared Josiah, because there’s no way they could have,” I said.

“They don’t need to clear him.”

My stomach tightened. Had the cops verified the murder charge on Richard’s rap sheet? I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking, because I couldn’t let Morgan know Marco had a source. It wouldn’t take a mental giant to figure out that source was a cop.