Murder by the Spoonful: An Antique Hunters Mystery (21 page)

Chapter Forty-Seven

Tony stood behind CC, holding his hands over hers as she struggled with the steering wheel of the Biagletti. The waves were slapping against the boat’s hull, and the wind was gusting, pushing them across Lake Michigan. She could feel his chest pressing up against her back and his heart beating.

They docked the boat at Saginaw, Michigan, and walked along the pier, which was adjacent to quaint shops that nestled along it. Settling on the Captain’s Table restaurant, they sat on the outdoor deck overlooking the lake. They watched the sailboats drift by, white sails billowing in the wind.

“I’ve always wanted to race in the Mackinac run. I worked on one of the race sailboats for the Chicago Yacht Club,” he said.

“How come you never have?”

“The crew is usually reserved for club members and the Yachting elite. I’m more the hired help.”

“The Biagletti is beautiful. You’re an artist.” She paused. “That reminds me. I know of a boat that you might be interested in. I saw it at an estate sale in Lake Geneva. It’s a 1932 Chris-Craft wooden powerboat. It’s in pretty bad shape, but it’s a great boat. I think you could get a good deal on it.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Anne thumbed through the racks of clothes in Nancy Packwall’s closet, hoping for another find like her flowered pants. Everything was pretty much picked over from the first sale. Betsy Buttersworth hadn’t even bothered to show up for this second sale. Anne held up a sleeveless beaded tank top and looked for a place to try it on. She closed the closet doors and slipped it on.
Not quite right
, she thought, as the top barely slid over her hips.

Where has Anne gone off to?
CC asked herself as she walked through the main floor of the house. She wasn’t so much interested in the sale, as she wanted to find Mr. Ripley to tell him about Banning. She didn’t see him anywhere. She stepped out into the backyard for a cigarette. She didn’t want Anne to see that she was smoking again. All the stress of the Banning adventure had her unnerved. She wandered through the garden. The royal raindrop crabapple tree spread its arms across the yard, wind chimes and birdhouses danced in the trees’ limbs. She sat down on the circular teak bench that surrounded the tree trunk. The yard had not been tended to since Nancy’s death. She could tell that Nancy had loved her garden. CC finished her cigarette and followed the stepping-stones through the meadow sage. She watched the monarch butterflies land and take off on the purple landing strip. She followed the dry riverbed that was lined with yellow tickseed. She bent down to pull some weeds, including a sticker bush which pricked her finger.

When she stood up, she noticed the greenhouse. She could probably find a pair of gloves in there. Last time, the door had been locked; now it opened with a slight tug. The aroma of peat moss, manure, mushroom compost and soil filled her nostrils. To her, it was a fragrant perfume. Then she smelled the orchids. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Following the scent, she took in the heady aroma of hyacinth. It was coming from the Zygopetalum orchid, a variety known for its particular scent. She wondered if the plants were for sale, but caring for orchids had never been her forte. On the garden cart next to the orchids was a metal water mister. It looked like the one Marlon Brando had used in
The Godfather
.

CC admired the craftsmanship and simplicity of it. It was just what she needed. Carrying it back to the house, she went to look for Anne. She found her in the kitchen admiring a Fireking Jadeite bowl. “Are you ready to go?” CC asked.

“CC, I think this is like the bowl that’s on our list,” Anne said.

They looked over the list, checked the bowl and agreed that the price was right. They went to the long table in the living room to pay for their purchases. CC put the sprayer in a large brown bag. After leaving the house, they went to the car and loaded up the trunk. Anne got into the passenger side.

As CC was about to get in the car, she noticed Mr. Ripley’s silver Bentley pulling into the driveway. She ran up to the car as he was getting out. “Mr. Ripley!” she called.

Mr. Ripley smiled his congenial smile.

“I wanted to let you know that the police arrested Banning. He’s safely behind bars,” CC said.

“I’m disappointed to learn that Banning is a thief, but I’m glad to hear he was brought to justice,” Mr. Ripley said. “Mr. Whitmore was a very nice man and had a wonderful collection.” With an Eastern European flair, Ripley nodded his head, bowed and kissed her hand. “What an unusual perfume!”

CC gave him an enigmatic smile.

When they got home, CC took the mister into the backyard, anxious to try it on her pepper plants. She thought about Vito Corleone chasing his grandson around the tomato plants with a slice of orange in his mouth. She pulled the plunger back and misted the peppers. The water smelled sweet like overripe bananas. She continued spraying, just to empty it out. The first honeybee struck her in the back of the neck. She turned and screamed. Two other bees stung her arms. She dropped the mister and ran up the back stairs into the kitchen swatting madly in the air.

“What’s wrong, CC?” Anne asked, sticking her head out from the refrigerator.

“Bees! I must have disturbed a hive. They’re swarming all over me!”

Anne looked out the back window. She could see what looked like an entire hive of bees around the mister, some crashing into it. “What were you spraying back there?”

“I thought it was just water. I don’t know. It was whatever Nancy Packwall used on her plants. I figured she had a beautiful garden so she must have known how to take care of the plants, but it smelled like ripe bananas.”

“Ripe bananas?” Anne asked with a furrowed brow.

The two watched out the kitchen window for some time after the bees had subsided. Anne took one of CC’s scarves and made a beekeeper’s babushka. She grabbed two oven mitts. She ran quickly outside and grabbed the mister and brought it back into the kitchen. She put it into the sink. “I can smell the bananas. It smells rotten,” Anne said, sniffing.

CC brought her a small mason jar. Anne unlatched the cap on the canister and poured some of the mixture into the jar. “I’m going to take this into work with me tomorrow and see what the deal is,” Anne said, putting the Mason jar into her large orange Prada bag.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Anne took the Mason jar out of her large orange Prada bag. With a syringe, she extracted a sample and put it into the VIS/NIR spectrometer. The results came back instantly, displaying a mixture of isopentyl acetate, butyl acetate, 1-hexanol, n-butanol, 1-octanol, hexyl acetate, octyl acetate, n-pentyl acetate and 2-nonanol. She put the results in her chemical database looking to match the components. “Honeybee alarm pheromone,” she read. “Alarm pheromones are released when a bee stings another animal and attract other bees to the location, causing them to attack and sting the source of the threat.”

“Ohmigod!” she said. She speed dialed CC. “The stuff from the mister mimics honeybee alarm pheromone.”

“No wonder the bees went crazy,” CC said. “Why would Nancy Packwall have honeybee alarm pheromone in a water mister?” CC flipped open her laptop and Googled
Nancy Packwall
. “There’s a story in
Variety
, Anne. She died at age 70 of anaphylactic shock. She was allergic to bees. She was stung by a bee and didn’t have an EpiPen on her at the time.”

“Ohmigod! Banning killed Nancy Packwall, too!” Anne said.

Anne hung up with CC, grabbed the test results and the Mason jar. She drove to the police station. The desk sergeant cradled a phone receiver in his ear and held up one finger, instructing Anne to be patient. He turned his back to her, sipped his coffee and nodded his head to the voice on the other end of the phone. Anne was losing patience. When the sergeant got off the phone, Anne was a bit curt. “I need to see Detective Towers right now!” she demanded.

“Excuse me, ma’am, who are you?” the sergeant asked.

“I’m Anne Hillstrom. I have information for him about a case he’s working on.”

The sergeant said, “I can see if Detective Towers is in.” He picked up the phone and turned his back to Anne again. She strummed her fingers on the top of the desk; this was getting very old. The sergeant hung up the phone. “Detective Towers will be down in a minute. Have a seat over there.” He pointed at the wooden bench that flanked the wall.

Anne sat down, watching the schoolhouse clock tick away and police officers come and go. Some had bad guys in tow; others were on their way out to catch bad guys. She started biting her nails, a habit she’d broken and then unbroken with all the stress of their recent adventures. She was just thankful that CC hadn’t started smoking again. She wouldn’t let her know about the nail biting or she’d get an earful.

“Anne.” Detective Towers walked up to her. His warm smile cooled Anne’s temper. She stopped biting her nails and hid her hand behind her back.

“Nigel.” She stood up.

“Is there someplace we can talk? Somewhere not quite so open?” Anne looked around, trying to make sure no one was listening.

“Certainly, come with me.” Nigel led her up the stairs to the second floor. “We can talk in here.” He walked into a small room with a wood table and a couple hard wood chairs. “Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Please, sit down,” he said, holding her chair out.

“I want to thank you again for your help with arresting Banning,” she said.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you,” he said, sitting across from her.

“That’s okay. That’s not why I’m here.” She took a deep breath. “Where do I start?” She reached into her large orange Prada bag, pulled out the Mason jar and the lab results. “CC and I were at another sale at Nancy Packwall’s house the other day and CC bought this lovely garden mister, an old-fashioned metal one with a pump handle. I thought she got a great deal.”

Nigel smiled patiently, waiting for the point to come around.

“CC brought it home, was misting her pepper plants when she was attacked by a swarm of honeybees. She ran into the kitchen and we both watched through the window as the bees attacked the mister. Of course, as you can imagine, I wanted to know what was in that mister that upset the bees. Here’s what I found.” She pushed the paper across the table toward him. “I ran a chemical analysis.”

Nigel read silently, moving his lips and then looked at Anne. “What is this?”

“It mimics honeybee alarm pheromone. A bee emits this when it’s in danger. It drives the other bees crazy. Nancy Packwall died of anaphylactic shock. She was allergic to bees. I think Banning killed Nancy Packwall, too.”

“Where’s the connection? If he killed Whitmore, which we’re not even sure of yet, it was probably because Whitmore discovered that Banning was stealing from him. As far as I know, Banning had no relationship with Nancy Packwall.”

“I saw him at the first estate sale at her house. He must have known her.”

The revelation struck Nigel. “Banning’s out on bail,” Nigel said, grabbing his gun. “I’ll find him.” His warm expression turned suddenly cold. He glanced at the clock. “I’ll call you.”

Chapter Fifty

CC and Tony met John Hayward, the groundskeeper at the Kirby estate. He led them to the boat. “Mr. Kirby loved this boat. He had it restored. Shame what happened. It was a terrible thing. He was a good man. Feel free to look at the boat. I’ll be up at the rose garden if you have any questions.”

“Thanks,” CC said as Hayward walked away.

Tony walked around the boat, touching the wood. “She’s a beauty all right,” he said. He crawled under the dry docked powerboat to look at the keel. “The structure’s in good shape.” He examined the two-foot hole. “You said that Mr. Kirby hit some rocks during a storm on the lake.”

“I believe that’s what I heard happened.”

“That doesn’t make sense because Lake Geneva’s one of the deepest lakes in the area. It’s hundreds of feet deep so there aren’t any rocks offshore. Also, this hole isn’t very jagged. It almost looks like someone knocked the planks out with a hammer. There’s no splinters; run your hand along the edge here.” Tony pointed to the hole in the boat’s hull.

CC obliged him. “It’s smooth.” She stood back and looked at the boat.

A short while later, CC sat in the passenger side of Tony’s car––a white F100 as Tony drove and fiddled with the radio. She gave out a big yawn and popped her eyes open quickly trying not to fall asleep.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony caught her. “It’s okay. You can close your eyes. It’s been a long day. We have a little drive ahead of us.”

“Are you sure? I feel bad. I wanted to keep you company,” she said, holding back another yawn.

“You get some rest.” He smiled at her. He turned the radio off and kept his eyes on the road. The whine of the engine and the monotonous scenery lulled CC to sleep. She dreamed she was swimming on Oak Street Beach. The waves kept pulling her further and further away from the shore; the harder she struggled, the more the beach disappeared from view until she was floating on her back looking up at the sky.

The truck suddenly squealed to a stop, waking CC up with a start. She’d fallen asleep on Tony’s shoulder. With a foggy head, she remembered something about swimming. She looked out the passenger window and noticed that they were in front of her house.

“Do you want to come in?” CC asked, reaching for the door handle.

“I’d love to, but I have an early morning and a long ride. Thank you for showing me the boat.”

CC couldn’t wait any longer. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Tony took her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips. CC smiled and flew out of the car like a teenage girl on prom night. She watched Tony drive off. As the tail lights faded, she said, “I know. Brian Kirby was an Olympic swimmer.”