Cold reading murder, p.12
Cold Reading Murder, page 12
“In the latter case, we really have nothing to go on.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Ross said, as husband and wife seemed to be switching places in their discussion. “We have a dead body, no matter what.”
“I wasn’t denying that part, of course. Somehow, we’ve gotten off track.”
Her remark caused Ross to crack a smile. “Okay, then. Milton may have taken that vision seriously—or too seriously, I might add—but apparently, Rex Boudreaux is not. My impression from Milton is that Rex is going about his business and not paying attention to Miz Aurelia’s vision at all. Maybe that’s the most reasonable approach for all of us to take anyway, because the evidence we do have is not really helping us in this case.”
But Wendy was shaking her head emphatically. “If you have any regard for my sleuthing skills—and I know you do—you can’t just shrug this off and accept Tommy Cantwell’s verdict as gospel at this point. Yes, I’m well aware you have to follow the evidence, but I don’t care what anyone says. I know without a doubt that Aurelia Spangler did not commit suicide.”
CHAPTER 9
It had been over a year since either Bax or Ross had availed themselves of Earl Jay Doxey’s services. A former dealer of a smorgasbord of drugs in his wild, younger days, he had finally gone straight by buying and running a successful tow yard; but he was still privy to what was going down on the streets of Rosalie and was happy to share such valuable information with the police department. He had even cleaned up his act enough to take a wife and buy a house out in Whiteapple Village, which was a most respectable address. Himself the product of a mixed marriage with his rich café au lait complexion, welcoming smile, and trademark gold rings in his ears, he was considered a friend to both black and white Rosalieans; and his relationship with Bax, particularly, went all the way back to the police chief’s rookie days when Earl Jay had frequent run-ins with law enforcement.
“So, what can I help you with today, Chief?” Earl Jay was saying, as he nursed his beer at the Simply Soul Café on the north side of town. As was usually the case, a B.B. King tune played in the background as early lunch customers began to drift into one of Rosalie’s most popular neighborhood haunts.
But Bax wanted to shoot the breeze just a bit with his old friend before getting down to business. “First, how’s that married life treatin’ you? I never thought I’d see you so settled, Doxey.”
“My Mary Liz is the best thing that ever happened to this ol’ rascal, I tell ya. She won’t let me get away with a thing, ya know. I used to be able to stay out as late as I want, but Mary Liz has all kinda rules I never thought I’d pay attention to. But I do, and I tell ya somethin’ else—I like it. It suits me. I needed tamin’.”
Bax stared down at his coffee cup and smiled. “Marriage’ll do that to any man if he honors it. My Valerie had me wrapped around her little finger, and I loved every second of it. I miss her like all get-out.”
“I heard that, Chief.”
Both men went silent for a while, and then Bax switched to the reason for their meeting. “You remember we sent Poley Johnson and Larry Ventner and their pals up to Parchman for at least thirty years a while back, right?”
“Sure do. They got a lotta young kids hooked on coke in their day, and those hustlers got what’z comin’ to ’em. They even had a few ODs on their hands.”
Bax took a healthy swig of his coffee and caught Earl Jay’s gaze intently. “Do you happen to know of any new player in town, Doxey? We have reason to believe there might be—and a very clever, ruthless one at that.”
Earl Jay frowned, looking past Bax in contemplation. “Lemme see, now. I cain’t say I have, though. Nothin’ new goin’ down on the north side a’ town that I know about. Somebody woudda said somethin’ by now. Why do you think it might be a new player out there?”
“Well, we had a cocaine overdose suicide the other day—or at least we think it was—and it kinda caught us by surprise. I mean, we’re not naïve enough to think that Rosalie is clean and sober as a whistle even now and that nothin’ at all goes on, but it was plenty messy, what happened, and I told my son-in-law that it couldn’t hurt to get in touch with you. Our suicide wasn’t somebody off the street who might be using, black or white. She was a well-off white woman, and there are some aspects that seem suspicious to us. We’ve got a full investigation ongoing.”
Earl Jay hitched his mouth to one side. “And you want me to keep an ear and an eye out for ya, right?”
“You got it.”
“Done. If it’s anything goin’ on at all, I should be able to sniff it out sooner or later. I have my ways. By the way, you wanna hang around a little longer for some lunch with me? It’ll be my treat.”
Bax shot his friend a look of genuine regret and then threw up his hands. “You know, I wish I could, Doxey, but I got lots on the agenda today, including a lunch meeting with the mayor about makin’ room in the budget for buying a coupla new police cars. Gotta get that request in early or some other department will, and then the money’ll be gone like that. But if I could hang out a little longer, it’d be my treat, not yours.”
“Just like the old days, huh?”
“Just like.”
Earl Jay finished up his beer before it got too warm and said, “Well, I think I’ll stay and order me some greens and pinto beans and another cold beer. Does that make you wanna stick around a little longer?”
Bax glanced at his watch and winced. “Don’t get my stomach growlin’ now. You know I’m hooked on the food here, but I really gotta run.”
The two men rose and firmly patted each other on the back the way men will do. “I’ll get back to ya, if I hear anything, Chief. It may take me a while, but you know I’ll cover all the bases.”
“I know you will, Doxey.”
* * *
It was Merleece Maxique’s day to clean for Wendy and Ross in the morning and Bax out on Lower Kingston Road in the afternoon, but Wendy was looking forward more to sharing with Merleece her latest bridge-related catastrophe—namely, that one of her earnest newbies had met with a shocking and untimely end. Merleece had never failed to give her down-to-earth advice and counsel over the past couple of years, and Wendy was hoping for more of the same on this particular sweltering Tuesday morning in June. Over coffee and blueberry muffins at the kitchen table, Wendy gave her friend and confidante the details of what had taken place at Overview and then what disturbing news had followed a couple of days later.
“That is some sorry bid’ness, Strawberry,” Merleece said, shutting her eyes and shaking her head as her ordinarily pleasant smile disappeared. Then she patted the top of her close-cropped hair a couple of times absent-mindedly. “I don’t cotton to suicide much. Seem to me they’s always some way outta any kinda depression that deep. Now, I don’t wanna be judgin’ somebody and all like that, but I don’t think you can just give up on life thataway.”
Wendy picked off part of the top of her muffin—she felt that it looked messy to eat below the paper, and crumbs got beneath your fingernails besides—and popped it in her mouth, washing it down with a sip of coffee. “That’s the thing, though. I’ve told Ross and Daddy from the beginning that I don’t think Aurelia Spangler committed suicide. I think she was murdered. I think someone forced her to overdose on cocaine—by whatever means. I’m sure of it, even though I don’t know why someone would have done that to her yet.”
Merleece made a gentle, sympathetic sound. “But you gotta prove it was murder first, right?”
“Doesn’t matter who gets there first—whether it’s Daddy, Ross, someone else on the force, or me. It’s my strong belief that if the coroner’s report of suicide is allowed to stand, that someone will be getting away with murder. Of course, we still haven’t gotten the results of the autopsy from the medical examiner down in Jackson. We do have to wait on that.”
Merleece made a face and shivered at the same time. “That autopsy stuff—cuttin’ up someone with a knife that way—I don’t see how folks can do that to another body for a livin’. Kinda creepy, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Well, someone has to do it, although I’ll grant you, it’s not the most pleasant thing to think about,” Wendy said. “But look at it this way. There’s a lot of justice done because of it. The autopsy is a way for the dead to speak to the living without any doubt.”
Merleece swallowed a big bite of her muffin and said, “I guess so. Anyway, you told me you didn’t know why somebody’d wanna kill that Miz . . . Spangler, was that her name?”
“Yes, Aurelia Spangler.”
“Well, when you start lookin’ for answers, don’t forget to look up, down, all around you, and straight ahead.”
All the lines in Wendy’s forehead revealed themselves at once at that one. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
Merleece produced the sliest of her smiles and took a deep breath. “Just somethin’ that did actually happen the other day with Miz Crystal.”
The very mention of the woman instantly relaxed Wendy’s facial muscles and she said, “I can’t wait to hear this.”
“It was nothin’ much—just somethin’ simple,” Merleece began, puffing herself up a bit more with every word. “You know how she always get to dressin’ up like she’s the Queen a’ England no matter what party or where it is?”
Wendy laughed out loud. If there was one thing she particularly looked forward to on Merleece’s visits, it was the skinny on the latest escapades of Rosalie’s perpetual social climber, the very wealthy and widowed Crystal Forrest of Old Concord Manor. Not that there wasn’t plenty to observe when the woman played with the Bridge Bunch out at the Rosalie Country Club, but it had been Wendy’s experience that Merleece was never guilty of what could pass for meanspirited gossip. The hardworking, loyal cook and housekeeper was always about the unvarnished truth, warts and all, even if she was inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt first.
“I’m familiar with most of her wardrobe excesses, yes,” Wendy said, still conjuring up images of the woman gallivanting about town at times in what amounted to outfits just shy of period costume.
“Well, she was really out to impress somebody the other evenin’,” Merleece continued.
“I think it was some prissy lady comin’ into town who was with some group about white people’s ancestors or somethin’. They’s plenty that get all worked up ’bout that here in Rosalie. Anyway, Miz Crystal was wearin’ her opera gloves and one a’ her sparkly gowns that near ’bout blinded me when the overhead lights hit it; but then she got herself all worked up. ‘Merleece,’ she say to me, all outta breath and talkin’ British through her nose the way she always doin’, ‘where is my tee-ahhh-ruh? I simply must have it on my head tonight, but I cahn’t seem to find it anywhere. Do you possibly know where it could’ve got to?’ ”
Merleece paused to roll her eyes and cackle. “Now, who do you know anywhere that talk that way—where it got to?”
Wendy stopped laughing long enough to say, “You always do a fabulous imitation of her, you know.”
“I ought to. I heard her talk that way long enough. Anyway, then I look her straight in the eye, I mean, I’m starin’ her down, chile, and I say, ‘Miz Crystal, you already wearin’ the tiara. It’s right up there in that hairdo.”
“No, not really,” Wendy said, continuing to laugh.
“Yes, really, Strawberry. You shoudda seen her reachin’ up to feel for it, and then her face got all pink, and I have to press my lips together so hard, they hurt just to keep from laughin’ in her face, but I manage not to do it.”
When their present laughter had died down, Wendy said, “That was funny, but I forget—why were you telling me that story?”
Merleece put her coffee cup down and leaned in. “Now, pay attention. What I mean is that sometime what you lookin’ for is right in front a’ you, more or less in plain sight.”
Over the years, Wendy had found that particular phrase a bit confounding—hiding in plain sight. Did people really get away with things by not hiding them from others? Did they really just count on people overlooking the obvious—or if not the obvious, then the cleverly disguised? But not so cleverly that an inquisitive mind could probe deep enough to figure it all out. That would be Wendy’s mission in such a case, and she felt that this one certainly qualified.
“Thank you for reminding me about that,” Wendy said. “What I think I need to do is to apply it to everyone who was at Overview, either on the evening of my first bridge lesson or later in the week on their own. What might I be overlooking about any of them or their stories? Are any of them too clever for their own good?”
Merleece resumed sipping her coffee thoughtfully and then said, “I can see the wheels turnin’ already, Strawberry. Seem like they always do start when we get together and catch up with each other.”
“That’s a fact. You are very good for my sleuthing skills. You coax them out of hiding.”
“And I don’t even charge you.”
“Is that a hint for a raise?”
Merleece enjoyed the kidding between the two of them and pointed her finger playfully. “Now, you know it’s not. You pay me plenty. Between you and Miz Crystal, I’m stout at the bank.”
“Stout?”
Merleece added a wink for good measure. “I’m mighty comfortable is what I mean. Stout—well, that’s just my word for it. At this stage a’ my life, I’m truly thankful for that.”
* * *
Wendy had been putting it off long enough. Did the remaining newbies want to continue bridge lessons at the Rosalie Country Club or not? She and Lyndell had already decided that the article about them being taught had been dealt a fatal blow—literally—by Aurelia Spangler’s death. It would just be in bad taste. But that didn’t really preclude more lessons from the others if there was continued interest, and she had to be the one to determine that.
When Merleece had finished her cleaning after the two of them had resolved all the troubles of the world over their coffee and muffins, Wendy drove to work and settled into her cubicle with phone calls to the rest of the newbies as her top priority. For some reason that she did not bother to question, she chose the following order: Sarah Ann, Charlotte, and finally, Milton.
Vance had already made it clear to her and the police department on another occasion that he intended to stay in Rosalie to help solve his sister’s death in any way he could, but that playing bridge would seem disrespectful to her in the extreme. Wendy had agreed with him at the time by nodding in silence, but in the back of her mind, she had filed away the observation that Vance had been overly emphatic about everything, flashing his temper when it was unnecessary to do so. They were all on his side, thoroughly sympathetic to his loss. So why did he think he needed to convince them of anything? And then there was the fact that he had made sure they all knew about his sister’s life insurance policy. Was that overkill?
As it happened, Wendy reached Sarah Ann at home right off, rather than at the college, and put the bridge question to her immediately.
“Yes, I’d like to continue,” she said with girlish enthusiasm. “That is, if you’re still willing to teach us. I’m an adventurous person, as you well know, just in case you were at all worried that I was afraid that someone was going to pick the rest of us off one-by-one. Do you think I’m paranoid?”
Wendy was taken aback by the comment. It showed an odd, even morbid sense of humor, and she allowed herself a few moments to consider her reply. “That’s an idea that hadn’t occurred to me, I can assure you. I’m going on the assumption that Aurelia’s death was a single, isolated incident that will hopefully not be repeated in any way, shape, or form.”
Sarah Ann laughed off the comment, then continued her curious narrative. “You know, I was just thinking that it’s too bad Vance Quimby really isn’t a novelist, because what happened at Overview absolutely has the makings of a good book. Don’t you think so? I know I’d want to read it.”
Wendy again had to think on her feet. “Well . . . perhaps in the true crime category, once it gets solved.”
“Do the police have any real leads?”
Suddenly, Wendy realized that it was she who was being interviewed and not the other way around. Sarah Ann was being awfully nosey. Or was it just natural curiosity because she and Aurelia had become friends in the short time they had known each other? The phone call was supposed to be about continuing bridge lessons, but it was turning out to be anything but.
“I’m not privy to that sort of information,” Wendy said, with an edge to her voice. “But I can assure you that Ross and my father and the entire department are hard at work as usual.”
Sarah Ann pressed on. “Do they ever tell you anything?”
“No,” Wendy said, nipping that line of questioning in the bud. “Anyway, can I put you down for more bridge lessons at the RCC?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I have to check with Charlotte and Milton, but if we have at least three, we’ll continue because I can always sit in at the table as the fourth. It might even work out better that way. In any case, I’ll let you know.”
Wendy thought their conversation had ended at that point, but Sarah Ann kept it going. “Guess what crazy, compulsive thing I’ve done? I decided to go ahead and send Professor Isaacson an anonymous singing telegram just like my classmates did. It’s being delivered tonight. I talked to my friends Mandy and Patricia about it, and we agreed it would be fun to keep the pressure on him.”
“What do you mean? Surely the three of you aren’t foolish enough to think you can date him. I’m sure that’s against the rules.”
“No, we weren’t going that far. It’s more like keeping him wondering which of his students were sending them and seeing what he eventually does about it.”
Wendy was rapidly becoming annoyed. “I would think he’s not likely to do anything but ignore every one of them. College professors don’t have time for that kind of foolishness.”
“It prob’ly is silly. But you’re only in college once. Didn’t you pull some crazy stunts?”
