A Baked Ham (13 page)

“Not on your life,” Greg
said.
 
“Lead the way.”

Martha smiled, and then she
turned to Moose and me.
 
“There’s a pie
that’s due out of the oven in eleven minutes, so if you can wrap up your
discussion by then, you’re welcome to join us in the kitchen.”

“If we take fifteen minutes, will
you still wait for us?” Moose asked his wife with a grin.

“Not even if it’s just thirteen,”
Martha said as she and Greg retreated into the kitchen.
 
I knew that neither of them was a big fan of
our investigations, though they admitted the necessity of them.
 
Still, they were both in our corner, and my
grandfather and I knew that we could count on our spouses whenever we needed
them.

“Talk to me,” Moose said.

I gave him a recap of what I’d
seen and heard, emphasizing Sandra Hall’s claim that she had never even been in
Benny’s dressing room, let alone kill him.
 
“If we can trip her up there, we’ve got her,” Moose said.

“How are we going to do that?”

“All we need to do is find one
person who saw Sandra Hall in Benny’s dressing room, whether it was the night
of the murder or not, and we’ve caught her in a lie.
 
Wouldn’t you say that would indicate that
she’s our killer?”

I hated that phrase, ‘our
killer,’ but I didn’t say anything to Moose.
 
“Not necessarily.
 
What if she was
lying about being there to cover something else up?”

“Victoria, what’s worse than
being accused of murder?” Moose asked.

“In Sandra’s mind, admitting to
having an affair with the man might just be worse.”

My grandfather’s eyebrow
raised.
 
“Are you holding out any new
information from me, Victoria?”

“No, I’m just repeating some of
the rumors that I’ve heard.
 
Benny could
be charming when it suited his purpose, even you have to admit that.”

“I’ll admit nothing of the sort,”
Moose said curtly.
 
“The man was never
charming to me in all the years I knew him.”

“That’s either because he
couldn’t fool you, or he never wanted anything from you,” I replied.
 

“Did you have any luck with any
of the rest of the cast?”

“I never really got a chance to
question anyone else,” I admitted.
 
“Besides,
I’ve now spoken with our entire list of suspects.”

“So far, then, we have Sandra
Hall, Fred Hitchings, Marcus Jackson, Vern Jeffries, Garret Wilkes, and Amanda
Lark.
 
That’s pretty impressive, isn’t
it?”

“I don’t mind adding any more
names to the roster if we have a reason for it, but as things stand, I believe
that we very well could have the killer listed among those names.”

Moose nodded.
 
“I agree.
 
The real question is what do we do about it?”

I glanced at the clock on the
wall.
 
“Well, it’s too late to do any
more interviews tonight.
 
I think we
should wait until morning and get a fresh start.
 
Do you think Martha would mind coming into
the diner and covering for me after my eight a.m. shift?”

“I’m sure that she’d be
delighted.
 
Would you like me to ask her
for you?”

“No, I don’t mind doing it
myself.”

We were still talking about the
possibilities when Martha poked her head into the living room.
 
“This is your first and last warning.
 
Pie is now being served in the kitchen, and
if you’re nice, there might just be a scoop of ice cream to go along with it.”

Moose stood quickly, and I
followed suit.
 
“You don’t have to tell
us twice,” Moose said with a grin.

“I wasn’t about to,” she said,
smiling brightly.

More than an hour later, we were
saying our good nights.
 
Despite my early
shift the next morning, I’d been the one to prolong our visit.
 
While it was true that we saw plenty of my
grandparents at the diner, the opportunity to spend time with them both when we
were away from the place was a little too rare for my taste.

As we pulled into our driveway
back at home, I said, “That was great, Greg.
 
I’m so lucky that I still have my grandparents so close by.”

“I couldn’t imagine a world
without them in it,” Greg agreed.
 
As we
got out of the car, I pulled my jacket close.
 
The day had been quite nice, but it had turned chilly with the setting
sun, and a cold breeze was blowing.

I glanced at the darkened front
door, and I was glad that Greg had installed a motion detector on the light
over it a few months earlier.
 
When we
got within twenty feet of it in the dark, it would spring to life.
 
I looked forward to it turning itself on when
I saw something moving!
 

“Greg, hold on a second,” I said
as I grabbed his arm.

“What is it, Victoria?” he
asked.
 
“I’m not in the mood to
dawdle.
 
I should have worn a heavier
jacket.”

“Something’s near the front
door,” I said.
 
“See?”

As I said it, there was movement
again.
 
It wasn’t a person, or even an
animal; I could see that now.
 
It looked
like something flapping in the breeze.
 
But what could it be?
 

“There’s no sense standing around
trying to figure out what it is.
 
Let’s
go see for ourselves,” Greg said as he took another step forward, and the light
sprang into its full intensity.

“It’s just a note,” I said as relief
flooded through me.
 
Sure enough, someone
had left a message for us, but they’d chosen a rather unconventional way of
delivering it.

A sheet ripped from a small
notebook was pinned to the wood of the door jamb with an ice pick, its shaft
dripping in blood.

At least that was what it had
looked like at first.
 

“It’s not blood after all,” I
said after I gave it a closer look, feeling relieved and clearly showing it in
my voice.
 
“It’s just paint.”

“Maybe so, but it’s still a
pretty nasty way to deliver a message,” Greg said as he reached to pull the ice
pick out of the door frame.
 

“Hang on.
 
The sheriff needs to see this,” I said as I
grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Why should he possibly care
about somebody’s idea of a bad joke?
 
What
does it mean, BACK OFF?
 
You think this
is related to the murder, don’t you?”

“How could it not be?” I
asked.
 
“It’s pretty clear that
somebody’s trying to warn us that we’re getting too close.”

“Victoria, if that’s true, how
can you sound so pleased when you say that?” Greg asked as he pulled out his
cell phone.

“At least it means that we’re
onto something,” I said.
 
“Let me call
Sheriff Croft.”

“Fine.
 
If you need me, I’ll be inside warming
up.”
 
Greg put away his phone, stared off
into the gloom outside the light’s reach, and then he asked, “You don’t suppose
whoever did this is still out there, do you?”

“Don’t worry, they are bound to
be long gone.
 
After all, why deliver a
warning and then stick around to see that we get it?
 
If they’d wanted to hurt me, they wouldn’t
have alerted me first, now would they?”

“Maybe so, but I’m staying right
here with you until the police show up,” Greg said.

“I thought you were cold.”

“What do you know?
 
I suddenly warmed up,” he said, and I knew
that I couldn’t dissuade him from staying with me.

“Sheriff, it’s Victoria.
 
Do you have a second?”

“I’ve got a quite a few.
 
One of my deputies is off tonight, and I’m
filling in for her.
 
What can I do for
you?”

“I just thought you might like to
see this.
 
Somebody used what looks like
a bloody ice pick to pin a warning onto my door.”

“Where are you, at the
café?”
 
The casual nature of our
conversation was gone in an instant.

“No, Greg and I are at home.
 
Should I take it down, or would you like to
see it for yourself first?”

“Don’t touch a thing, I’ll be
there in a few minutes.”

After he hung up, I turned to
Greg.
 
“He’s on his way over.”

“I’ve got an idea.
 
Why don’t we wait for him inside?” Greg
asked.

“Okay, but I need to do something
first.”

“You’re not taking that note down
after warning me not to, are you?”

“No, but I’m going to get a few
pictures of it while I still can,” I said.
 
“Who knows?
 
It might come in
handy later.”

“Should I get your camera?” Greg
asked as he started for the door.

“Yes, but I’ll go ahead and get
started with the camera on my phone.”
 
My
husband hesitated at the door, and I added, “It’s on the kitchen counter.
 
You won’t be gone thirty seconds.”

“Don’t do anything crazy while
I’m gone.”

“Even I can’t get in trouble that
fast,” I said.

Greg was back in twenty seconds
though, just in case.

I’d managed to get four good
shots with my phone in the meantime, so I switched over to my real camera when
he came back out.
 
“How’d you manage to
grab a jacket, too?
 
You didn’t have
enough time.”

“It was on the couch.
 
I meant to wear it today, but I changed my
mind at the last second.”
 
He shuddered a
little.
 
“That really is a nasty little
note, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t really surprise
me.
 
Whoever did it clearly has a
fondness for the dramatic, wouldn’t you say?
 
After all, it’s not something just anyone would think to do.”

“So, do you think that it’s
somebody from the play?”

“Either that,” I said, “or
someone is trying to make it look that way.”

“Then, it doesn’t really do you
much good, does it?”

I finished taking one more shot
as I saw headlights heading toward us.
 
Unless I missed my guess, that would be the sheriff.
 
I took one last photograph, and then I tucked
my camera into my pocket.
 
There was no
use advertising the fact that I’d fully documented the threat before the
sheriff showed up to do his own investigation.

He got out of the cruiser and
walked toward us with real purpose.
 
“I
don’t suppose you saw who did this, did you?”

“We were at Moose and Martha’s
place,” I said, deciding not to mention that we’d been at the theater before
that.

The sheriff nodded, and then he
took a few photographs of his own, though not nearly as many as I had.
 
He talked softly as he worked, whether to us
or to himself, I wasn’t sure.
 
“Just
paint,” he said, and then he added, “Block letters, and the paper’s common
enough, too.”
 

After Sheriff Croft was satisfied
with the record, he donned a pair of gloves and carefully removed the ice pick,
working it free and catching the note as soon as it was clear.
 
The pick went into one evidence bag, while
the note went into another.

When he had everything stowed
carefully away, the sheriff turned to me.
 
“Now, just who have you been antagonizing in the twenty-four hours since
Benny got himself killed?”

“It’s been twenty-eight,
actually,” I said as I glanced at my watch, “and the list is too long to go
over out here.
 
Why don’t you come inside
and I’ll make us all a pot of coffee?”

“Better yet, I’ll make it while
the two of you have yourselves a little chat,” Greg said.

The sheriff nodded.
 
“That sounds good.
 
You wouldn’t happen to have any pie around,
would you?”

My husband smiled.
 
“Sheriff, if there’s not pie in my house,
then I’m not living here.
 
How does Dutch
apple sound to you?”

“Like a real treat on a chilly
evening,” he said, the pleasure coming through clear in his voice.
 
“What say we go on in and get started,
Victoria?”