Pickled (An Alex Harris Mystery) (19 page)

“I still do.” I needed a break. I bundled up and headed outside. Murder could wait.

Large flakes blew every which way. We looked like three Michelin men, all bundled up in several layers. Henry immediately pushed his sister down and started to bury her in snow. She didn’t seem to mind so I let them be while I thought about Phyllis Holt and her daughter Suzanne.

Was there a connection with Humphrey’s death and if so, what? Mr. Hildebrand had told me he had no idea who Humphrey was, so presumably neither did Suzanne. I thought back to my conversation with the gallery owner. My gut told me he had told the truth, that he did refuse to work with Humphrey and he didn’t know anything about him. And I figured the same held true for Suzanne. And even if she watched the news and saw his picture and realized the murdered man from Pirates Cove was the same person who came into the gallery, so what? It was after the fact and he was killed at a pickleball dinner.

I came out of my thoughts and turned to check on the kids. They were starting to build a snowman.

“Auntie, can you help us put his belly on the legs?” Henry asked.

I lifted the beach-ball sized mound of snow they had rolled up onto the larger base portion while Kendall worked on a head. Once the head was in place Henry pulled off his scarf and wrapped it around the snowman’s neck. Kendall stuck two thin twigs into the body for arms and Henry added eyes made from bark he pulled off a log in my father’s wood pile.

“I need something for the nose,” Henry said and took off for the kitchen. A minute later he came out and shoved a pickle from the bag of food I picked up at the German Deli the night before into the face of the snowman.

I took a step back and looked at our handy work. Short, bald, bulky, and a big pickle on the face. Somehow we had created the Humphrey Bryson version of a snowman.

“Okay, time for lunch. Let’s go in.”

Henry gave the snowman a quick karate kick, dislodging a chunk of snow from the area where I would imagine the kidneys to be. Little boys just seemed to like breaking things.

The smell of the simmering soup hit me the minute I walked back into the house. I was starving, despite all the strudel, for something healthy. We all settled into a lunch of the deli stuff, a ham my mother made, and big bowls of homemade vegetable soup Francis had brought over. Once we were done, my sister settled the kids down with a movie and Francis put the laptop back on the table.

“Where were we?” she asked, eager to get started again.

“Okay, let’s talk about the family. Add Sophie Bryson to the list first. Under motive you can type in wife. I would imagine just being married to the man all those years would be cause to commit murder, but we now know she was having an affair with Peter Gaffney and she wanted a divorce and had no intention of going quietly.”

“Peter and Humphrey were always in competition over business deals and they’d get into it at some of the games,” Meme said. “Plus, Humphrey had a BBQ at his house over the summer and those two got into an argument, from what I heard.”

“I could see the two of them doing it together, Sophie and Peter,” Sam said. “They kill him and don’t have to worry about the money anymore or competition on real estate deals. And again, you only have this Gaffney guy’s word that he was doing well and didn’t need the money. Maybe that’s why he’s with Sophie to begin with, just trying to get at her money and knows there will be a lot more with Humphrey out of the picture.”

“Who’s next, Alex?” Francis asked.

“The granddaughter, Janet. She wasn’t close to her grandfather and, from what I overheard at the hospital on Thursday, she wants to buy a house and needs money.”

My mother shook her head. “Would she kill her own grandfather for a down payment? I don’t see it.”

I thought about this and tended to agree. “I haven’t talked with Humphrey’s son yet, but there was no love there. Maybe the son and granddaughter had more issues then we know about.”

“And the back door at the Veterans Hall was open, so even though they weren’t at the supper, they could have snuck in,” Theresa said, with Meme nodding in agreement.

“Next, we have Terry Roder, the first PI Sophie hired. He’s an opportunist and was getting paid by both Mr. and Mrs. Bryson and then started to blackmail Marie. I don’t see Roder killing Humphrey because he was getting paid by the man to find dirt on others, but Humphrey may have found out Roder in turn was blackmailing Marie and they could have gotten into it.”

“Was he at the supper?” my mother asked.

“No, but again, that darned side door was open,” I said. “Okay, we need to put Astrid and Carl Kaufman on the list. They both disliked Humphrey and they brought the pickles and had opportunity. We need to add Tony Moretti. He was being blackmailed by Humphrey and he was at the dinner so he had motive and opportunity. I think that’s it for suspects.”

“Why all of a sudden would someone kill Humphrey and at such a public place where they might have been caught? No one liked him from the get-go, so why now?” Sam asked.

“Because it was a public place,” my mother said. “By doing it there, there would be lots of suspects, as you can well see from what we’ve talked about all day.”

“Alex, didn’t you say a few people told you Humphrey was up to something? Maybe it was the something that was the final straw.” Sam picked up her cup and took a gulp of tea.

Just then I heard the sound of the garage door going up. A few minutes later my dad came into the kitchen, followed by Michael and John.

“We came for nourishment,” my dad said, while he picked at the ham on the counter.

John came over to me and gave me a quick kiss. “Alex, do you have any way of getting hold of Sophie Bryson? I tried calling her son and granddaughter, but haven’t heard back from them yet.”

I looked at my husband. “John, she’s out of town. Can’t it wait until she gets back?”

“I don’t need to interrogate her. I need to let her know her house has been robbed.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, as everyone leaned in closer around the table to hear the latest.

“Her neighbor went over to clear the walkway of snow so it didn’t build up and he noticed the door was ajar. He went to have a closer look and when he walked in, some stuff was turned over, like someone was looking for something. We have no idea if anything is missing or not, so we need to have her come back, or at least we need to speak with her son.”

“Wasn’t there an alarm?” Sam asked.

“Yes, but she didn’t set it. The neighbor said most people around there never use their systems.” John shook his head. “The neighbor said they all felt like it was such a good area, hardly any crime, but that’s exactly why they should be using their alarms. Plus, these are very pricey homes, so one would assume robbers would be interested in what’s inside. I’ll never understand people.”

I rubbed John’s arm and gave him a small smile. “I always remember to set ours.”

“No you don’t, but luckily I do.”

“So you think it might be an inside job?” Meme asked. “Do you think it’s the same person who killed Humphrey?”

“Mother, what does one have to do with the other?” my mom said.

“Actually, Mable, none of the typical stuff was taken, like TVs, and there was a tablet sitting on an end table right there in the living room. The only thing the responding officers thought might be missing was a small picture on the wall because there’s a hook, but nothing hanging from it. I need to speak with Mrs. Bryson.”

I got up and retrieved my purse from the counter. I took out a slip of paper with Sophie’s cell phone number and handed it to John. He went into the living room to make his call and I sat back down.

“What do you think, Alex? Humphrey goes to an art gallery and now a painting is missing.” My grandmother looked positively giddy. “This is getting good.”

“We’re not sure what’s missing yet. Let’s wait to hear what John finds out.”

“You’re definitely thinking there’s a connection. I can see the wheels turning,” my sister said.

I leaned on the table. “Okay, maybe I do think there’s a connection. I mean, come on, one of the owners of the gallery lives right there in Pirates Cove and I’m pretty sure I mentioned to Mr. Hildebrand that Sophie was out of town.”

“So what do you think they’re up to?” Francis asked.

“What I think is that Humphrey died before he could give them whatever it was he wanted them to sell, but Mr. Hildebrand has a past and he can probably smell a good scam from a mile away.”

“So he goes and gets whatever Humphrey was going to give him and now he’s free to sell it and pocket all the money himself.” My sister nodded her head. “I like it.”

“So do I. Except, I don’t know, I believed him when he told me he didn’t want any trouble and that he was trying to rebuild his reputation.”

“You’re such a softie, Alex,” Theresa said.

“Yeah, you can’t think like that, honey,” Meme patted my hand. “Besides, maybe the gal did it without that Mr. Hildebrand knowing. Maybe she knew her boss didn’t want any part of it but maybe she’s learned more from him than just art and wants to start doing her own scams.”

I heard John walking back down the hall to the kitchen.

“Okay, here he comes. Keep all this to ourselves.”

Everyone leaned back in their chairs and Meme starting dealing cards.

“Mrs. Bryson is going to try and get a flight home tomorrow or Monday. I finally got hold of her son and he’s going to meet me at the house.”

“Now?” I turned and looked outside. It was still snowing.

“The plows have been out all day. The roads are pretty clear.” John kissed me good-bye and said he’d be back in a couple of hours.

My mother made a picnic supper for my dad and Michael and filled a large thermos with hot coffee and they went back over to Sam’s to finish the basement walls.

Once the guys had gone, I looked around the table. “I’d say this puts a different spin on things. It may indeed turn out to be the gallery owners who broke into the house, but let’s take another look at all of our suspects and try to see if there’s any connection that might lead one of them to rob Humphrey’s house.”

I got up just as Henry and Kendall came into the kitchen looking bored. I took a large sauce pan from the cupboard and grabbed the large container of Half & Half from the refrigerator. “Ladies and gent—I gave Henry a big smile—it’s time for Sophie Bryson’s hot chocolate.”

Chocolate is a wonderful thing. Chocolate mixed with cream is even better. But now, several hours after I drank my last cup of the heavenly concoction, I wasn’t so sure how wonderful any of it was. I knew chocolate had caffeine in it, though I didn’t know how much. And to be fair, I had a lot on my mind,
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, actually, so it may have been a head full of unsorted information keeping me up and not the chocolate. I didn’t want to give chocolate a bad rap unnecessarily.

I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could. John had returned to my parents’ house and then headed once again over to help Michael and my dad. He didn’t come back to get me until after midnight, which was fine considering the chocolate, cards, and an unsolved murder had kept us wide awake well past our usual bedtimes.

I grabbed my robe and a pair of fluffy socks and headed downstairs. I filled the tea pot and then grabbed a box of herbal tea. Once the tea was ready I took it into my study, formerly the murder room, and set it next to my computer. A woman had been killed in this very room and I didn’t think I would ever be able to come in here again, but in the last couple of months, John and my dad and Michael had transformed it into a lovely office. The built-in book cases had been painted white and the walls had a new coat of soft beige. The carpet was torn out and replaced with hard wood and a large area rug in bright colors, and Millie’s mother Judith made drapes for the windows in a bright floral pattern. It looked lovely and was cozy and no longer had any trace of what had previously transpired. After a couple of weeks of testing it out, I felt comfortable being in here alone and it was fast becoming my favorite room.

Before I left my parents’ Francis had sent a copy of the spreadsheet to my email account. I opened up my inbox, found the email and downloaded the file onto my desktop. Francis does good work, and I keep telling her if she ever gets bored, I could find her a great temp job, but Meme keeps her busy enough with all their antics.

Once we found out about the robbery, it put a whole different spin on things and I wanted to find out what we knew about each suspect’s background. As it turned out, not a heck of a lot.

Sophie and Marie had both grown up in Pirates Cove. Humphrey came from somewhere in the Chicago area. Lester and Phyllis Holt had lived up in Vermont and moved to Connecticut a year ago to be closer to their daughter. Astrid and Carl Kaufman moved to the area from Long Island also about a year ago. Astrid grew up in Germany, but I wasn’t so sure about Carl. Astrid’s brother Norbert presumably also grew up in Europe. Shirley Reynolds had obviously lived in the area a long time, and as far as the other suspects, including the calendar boys, I just assumed they all came from Connecticut or at least New England. But I didn’t really know and I also didn’t know if any of it mattered. I was grasping at straws trying to find a connection between Humphrey and any of these people. Maybe the best place to start would be to find out more about Humphrey Bryson. It was still dark outside, but as soon as it was a more reasonable hour I wanted to talk with both Janet and Robert, Humphrey’s granddaughter and son.

I picked up my cup and held it in one hand while I used the other to scroll down the spreadsheet, looking at the names of all the suspects. All of them disliked Humphrey for one reason or another so why all of a sudden did one of them decide to kill him? And what was the significance of killing him at the supper? Had he just gone too far with his flirting with Marie and it pushed her husband, Norbert, or Tony Moretti, over the edge with jealousy?