Diners, Drive-Ins, and Death: A Comfort Food Mystery (15 page)

“She’s the emcee. She can’t enter.” I thanked Sal for the information and promised to watch out for ACB.

I was thrilled. I got a lot of information from Sal. I knew I’d have to tell Ty and incur his wrath, but I’d postpone that for later. I was a pro at procrastination.

Climbing the stairs, I found the pageant contestants and ACB in a state of panic. How hard was it to pack up all their stuff for a dress rehearsal? They just had to hang their evening dresses in garment bags and pack the rest of their things—shoes, a bathing suit, and a salmon costume—into a tote bag.

I hadn’t seen the salmon costumes yet. The other members of the committee had sewed the costumes from yards and yards of shiny gray material donated by Notions and Potions, a sewing and New Age store downtown.

I wasn’t a part of the sewing. Knowing my lack of skills, the committee decided that I was doing enough just by being a judge, opening my house, and feeding the contestants at the Silver Bullet.

ACB was supposed to be in charge of breakfast and lunch, but because of her unfortunate stint in her comfy cell at the Sandy Harbor Hilton, the committee had to help out more.

I knocked on her open door and walked in. “Antoinette Chloe, you can drive with me. I’m not going to be at the entire dress rehearsal, just the reception. You’ll have to get a ride back.”

“I can do that.”

I sat down on the Queen Anne chair, since her bed was once again loaded with clothes. Sighing, I remembered how that bed was once cleared off after the slasher incident. ACB and I worked like rented mules putting everything back together and throwing wounded muumuus and fascinators away. But ACB had a system, and she knew just where everything was.

Pam, one of the Miss Salmon committee members, stomped into the room.

“Are you two coming to the high school with us? The reception is starting soon and the van is leaving!” Pam said impatiently.

“Pam, thanks anyway, but Antoinette Chloe and I are driving to the reception together. Go ahead without us. But would you stop at the Silver Bullet first and pick up my trays of cookies, please?” I said, shutting the door before she had a chance to answer.

Then I filled in ACB on my conversation with
Sal and why I had pretended to be her when I called Auburn.

She listened as she stuffed a couple of pairs of flip-flops into a tote bag. “I never knew about the money laundering, and I guess it’s good that Sal didn’t tell Ty, so I wouldn’t be audited. And I never knew the truth about the big argument that drove a wedge between Chad and Nick. Nick would never tell me.”

I shook my head. “I think that Ty needs to move Chad Dodson up the suspect list to the number one position. Chad couldn’t start another poker club until Nick was out of the way, or Nick might squeal. Sal was already out of the way. With you in jail for murdering Nick, Chad would hit the beneficiary bonanza. Plus he’s broke and has to act fast. Right?”

I felt that I’d gone over this information before, but the laundering of gambling money was a new twist.

As I left ACB’s room, I gave her ten more minutes to stuff everything she could into her tote bags and into her cleavage.

Then I decided to check the contestants’ rooms. Like Ty, I thought that the trashing and slashing was an inside job. It was probably illegal for me to paw around their rooms, and Ty was in the process of getting warrants, but this was my house, I reasoned, so I could do whatever I wanted.

And I was going to start with Aileen Shubert’s room. It was right next door to ACB’s, and Aileen could probably hear everything that ACB was doing and saying.

Antoinette Chloe wasn’t exactly demure and talked in a booming voice, mostly to herself.

So I twisted the knob and let myself in. Talk about perfume! The place smelled like the cosmetics corner at Spend A Buck.

Aileen’s bed was made, her room was spotless, and nothing was on the dresser except makeup, perfume, and a huge jewelry box.

I was a bit of a jewelry snoop. I never really wore it, but I had a couple of nice pieces for weddings, funerals, and the like. Nothing expensive, just semiprecious stones and some colored glass.

Opening Aileen’s jewelry box, I was dazzled. It looked like the real thing, but I didn’t know a real diamond from cubic zirconia.

I pulled open every drawer of the box, being careful not to touch anything. In the bottom drawer I found an envelope. Of course I looked inside and found a newspaper clipping from the bridal section of the
Boston Globe.
I read:

SOCIALITE LESLIE M
C
DERMOTT
TO WED
RESTAURATEUR DOMENICK BROWNELLI

Leslie McDermott of Greenwich, Connecticut, will marry Domenick Brownelli of Sandy Harbor, New York, at a moonlight ceremony Saturday evening at the home of the bride’s family.

The bride is the daughter of Irene (O’Connor) McDermott and Bart Francis McDermott. The bride’s mother is a corporate efficiency consultant.
The bride’s father owns sixteen car dealerships across New England.

The bride works for her father’s company. The groom formerly owned Chef Nick’s Restaurant on Beacon Hill and enjoys designing and making custom motorcycles.

After a honeymoon cruise to Hawaii, the couple will reside in Sandy Harbor, New York.

Poor Leslie. She was ready to get married, but it never happened. I stared numbly at the picture of Leslie McDermott, with her perfectly straight blond hair and her beautiful gown and flowers. . . .

And that’s when it hit me. The woman in the picture was Aileen Shubert!

S
o, Leslie McDermott was really Aileen Shubert. No. It was the other way around. Aileen Shubert was really Leslie McDermott.

No wonder Toxic Waste and Aileen were hotter than dinner rolls from my oven. They were picking up where they had left off before Nick drove a wedge between them.

But why would she enter the Miss Salmon pageant under another name?

When we finally walked down the stairs, I was carrying several tote bags for ACB. She had even more.

Ty jumped to his feet. “Need help?”

“We got it. We just need to keep walking to keep our momentum going,” I said, trying to avoid him. I still felt guilty about going behind his back and calling Sal, and prayed that Sal wouldn’t tell him. “I’m driving us to the high school in my car.”

“I’ll follow you both,” he said.

I felt my face heat, and I knew I was getting the red Crawling Crud of Guilt. It starts on my neck and stops at my cheeks. I also had to spill that I had searched Aileen/Leslie’s room.

Why would Leslie want to enter the Miss Salmon pageant? To hang around Sandy Harbor so she could be near Nick and maybe get back with him? Or simply to kill him?

Finding out that Aileen was Leslie was big news! I wanted to tell ACB, but my gut told me to tell Ty first, because I knew ACB would go off the deep end.

I’d have to wait to get Ty alone.

Hiding my face with tote bags because Ty knew my guilt tell, I put everything in the trunk of my car. ACB’s items, too. Everything barely fit.

As ACB went back into the house to get more of her things with Ty, I called Juanita. “Did Connie pick up the cookie trays?”

“
Sí
. Not too long ago.”

“Good. Is everything okay?”

“Lots of business. I’ve been busy,” she said.

“Do you need me to help you?” I could skip the reception, if I had to, although now I wanted to keep an eye on both Antoinette Chloe and Leslie.

“Everything is good. Mr.
Billy came in to eat and he helped me for a while. He said that he cooked with you on the graveyard shift, so I said okay. He said that he’s bored waiting around. I like Mr. Billy.”

“He definitely knows his way around a kitchen.”

“
Sí.
And he likes Raymond. The two of them were throwing a football back and forth on Ray’s break.”

Ray was the best dishwasher and all-around kid that I’ve ever hired, and when he quit hacking
into his school’s computer to raise everyone’s grades, I paid him extra to be my computer geek.

“Okay, I’m going up to the reception with Antoinette Chloe, who’s basically a wreck because the slasher took all of her notes. I think she’s more worried about being a terrible emcee than the murder charge. Talk to you later.”

“Have a good time.”

Followed by Ty, Antoinette Chloe finally emerged. They were both carrying garment bags, probably more muumuus that weren’t maimed. They laid them across the backseat.

Finally, we were off and headed to the auditorium. ACB looked particularly festive today. She wore a muumuu with palm trees and colorful surfboards all over it, sparkly purple flip-flops, and a straw hat with a toucan and a palm tree on top.

What—no surfboard?

Her jewelry consisted of various shells—shells hanging from her ears, wrists, neck, and ankles, and several places in between.

A South Pacific ensemble for a Great Lake in New York State?
Knowing ACB’s luggage and tote bags, she had a variety of wardrobe changes in store for us.

Maybe I’d stay for a while and see the contestants’ swimsuits or stay longer and see their evening gowns. I wasn’t sure how ethical it was for a judge to get a sneak peek, but it wasn’t like this was the Miss America pageant.

I turned right onto School Road and noticed that another vehicle was following Ty, a
motorcycle. It was Billy, Mr. Toxic Waste. Must be that Juanita didn’t need him to help her cook after all, and he decided to go to the pageant.

Was the pageant really his thing?

Probably not, but Aileen—or, rather, Leslie—certainly was. Obviously they had renewed their relationship with the romantic backdrop of spawning salmon.

We found parking spaces right near the door. Good. ACB had a lot to unload. Even Billy helped. It took all four of us to get ACB’s stuff inside the high school and in the back where makeshift dressing rooms were set up through a creative use of curtains. School desks were set up with mirrors of all different sizes.

Evening gowns hung on racks made of pipes.

ACB was walking around in a state of horror. “No wire hangers!” she kept saying, and directing the contestants to find wooden hangers for their gowns.

Calm down, Joan Crawford!

Finally, ACB and I went to where the food was set up in front of the stage. The contestants were too focused to eat the baked ziti, the salads, the rotisserie chicken, the mixed veggies, the meat platter, and the steak fries.

More for me.

The contestants munched on my cookies instead and walked around with bottles of water.

“Antoinette Chloe, Chef Fingers did a fabulous job,” I said, bypassing the salads for the pan of steak fries.

“I know. I think I’ll give him another raise.”

Was that two raises in two weeks? I think I’ll go work for her.

ACB and I mingled with the other contestants. Luckily, one of the committee members thought to make stick-on name tags, so that broke the ice.

Finally one of the committee members grabbed ACB’s attention, and I walked around, trying to find Ty.

I found him and was ready to catch him up with the investigation when Aileen came over to talk to us.

“This is a wonderful event. I’m just so excited!” She turned to Ty. “What do you think my chances are of winning Miss Salmon?”

I could see Ty taking in her shiny hair, her perfect makeup and jewelry, and her short, short sundress with brown leather sandals. Her blue eyes were twinkling with excitement.

Oh, brother!

“I’d say you have a great shot,” he said, and flashed a big grin. He had a little dimple on his left cheek that liked to appear on occasion, and it chose to do so now.

Not that I noticed.

I took Ty’s arm. I needed a private place for us to talk, so I led him to the girl’s locker room. No one was in there, but just in case, I tugged him into the shower and pulled the white vinyl curtain shut.

“This is interesting, Trixie. You must have something important to tell me.”

“What I want to tell you will rocket your cowboy hat off your head.”

“You have the red crud creeping up your neck. You’re feeling guilty about something. You’d better spill it.”

I sat down on the bench in the shower. “You’d better sit down for this, too.” I moved over, but it still didn’t give Ty much room for his butt.

The two of us sat glued together on a seat in a shower stall in the girl’s locker room at the Sandy Harbor High School, in the middle of a reception for Miss Salmon. If Ty thought it was strange, he didn’t say anything.

“C’mon, Trixie. Spit it out. I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”

I decided to get the Impersonating an Ex-Wife Confessions over with first. “I called Sal.”

“You have to be kidding! I should lock you up for interfering in my investigation.”

He tried to stand, but my hips had a lock on his. “Just listen to me.”

“Go on,” he said between gritted teeth.

“Sal wanted to talk to you and confess to Nick’s murder.”

“I know he didn’t do it,” Ty said firmly. “He couldn’t have killed Nick.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

He looked at me with an arched eyebrow and didn’t say a word, so I continued.

“Anyway, I asked him if there was anything—
anything
at all—that he might have forgotten to tell us that would help Antoinette Chloe, the love of his life.”

“And?”

“And get this: He said that he and Chad Dodson
had been running an illegal gambling club in the basement of Nick’s old restaurant on Monday nights. Chad and Sal were laundering money through the restaurant and through Brown’s Four Corners. Nick found out and was so livid that he skipped out on Chad.”

“I know,” Ty said. “I went back up to Auburn to see Sal early this morning.”

“Ty, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’m the investigator here, not you. Seems like I keep reminding you of that fact.”

“But ACB is my friend.”

“But you’re not a cop.”

I wiggled on the bench seat, just to make him uncomfortable.
Take that! And forget your discount for meals at the Silver Bullet.

“Anything else, Trixie?”

“Shouldn’t that make Chad your lead suspect? Chad was probably worried that Nick would spill the beans about the gambling and the fact that they were making tons of money. Sal told Chad that Nick would never tell and never bring down the cops on their restaurants, but Chad didn’t believe him. Then Sal went to jail for murder and couldn’t keep track of Nick to keep him in line. So Chad killed Nick and set up Antoinette Chloe with those dumb clues. And jackpot!”

“Makes sense.”

“Aren’t I right? Chad did it, didn’t he?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“That Chad is a prime contender for Suspect of the Year.”

“But you had ACB arrested anyway.”

“You know that I arrested her partially to protect her. I could have safely held her for five days before that Section 180.80 would kick in, but, no, you had to swoop in and get her out!”

“All right, all right. What’s done is done. I probably shouldn’t have bailed her out. But she’s fine, so it doesn’t matter. But I do have more news to tell you about.”

“Tell me.”

“Aileen Shubert is really Leslie McDermott, Toxic Waste’s former lover and the woman that Nick Brownelli left at the altar.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“I searched her room. I found her wedding announcement in the paper, along with a picture. The picture was of Leslie McDermott—we know her as Aileen Shubert. What do you think of that?”

“Trixie, you searched the room of a tenant?”

“Not really. I just searched her jewelry box and found the clipping. And anyway, she’s not really my tenant; she’s a guest in my house.”

He sighed. “I’m concerned that Aileen is really Leslie McDermott. Go figure. I wonder if this is an identical-twin type of thing.” He seemed to be talking to himself, then turned to me and said loud and clear, “I’ll handle the investigation from now on, and I mean it, Trixie. If I have to, I’ll arrest you, and you can enjoy ACB’s decorating.”

“Oh, you’re so infuriating! You should be thanking me for all the information I gave you. You don’t tell me anything at all.” I sighed. “Let’s get unstuck and get out of here.”

That was easier said than done. After unsuccessful wiggling on both our parts, Ty swiveled to the marble wall and pulled himself up on the grab bar. Then he offered me his hand. I shunned it and got up myself using both grab bars.

“You’re mad at me?” he asked. “Just because I won’t feed you information about an official investigation? Why don’t you ask Vern or Lou? They blab a lot.”

“Maybe I will.” I wasn’t going to throw Vern or Lou under the bus, but obviously Ty knew that they had loose lips.

He mumbled something under his breath, and we both went back to the reception.

The parade of contestants in bathing suits was going on. ACB must have already given her speech, because she wasn’t at the podium.

June Burke went up to Connie, who was in charge of this portion of the program, and asked for her to have the contestants march again, but much slower this time. June changed the music to a waltz instead of Beyoncé, which ACB had picked.

They all looked wonderful, but the five Wheelchair Grannies were definitely going to steal the show. They wore beach cover-ups with colorful beach hats and sandals instead of bathing suits. Everyone loved them, and the Grannies were content with rolling over the feet of the other contestants or wheeling into their legs.

Aileen was the picture of poise and confidence. She wore a one-piece cherry-red suit with gold looping designs that shimmered under the lights. She had on shiny red five-inch heels that had
intricate gold piping designs along the sides. Everything was perfectly matched.

I had to admit that it was the perfect choice for her coloring.

Aileen, the woman scorned.

Aileen, left at the altar by charming, sexy, bad-boy Nick.

Aileen the liar. She doesn’t get seasick. She isn’t a grad student at SU.

And then I remembered that Aileen was the one who had been nagging ACB about a place to stay. What if she had been in Sandy Harbor the whole time? Since no one in Sandy Harbor ever locked their doors, Aileen could have helped herself to things from ACB’s house and from the Big House.

But so could have Chad. And Chad had lots and lots of money to gain from it all.

Chad could have easily buried Nick on ACB’s land. Aileen was a skinny beauty queen with perfect hair and nails, who’d probably squeal at the sight of dirt, but revenge was a powerful motivator.

We sat through the whole rehearsal again, and—merciful heavens—the Wheelchair Grannies sang and played the bells. They chose a song that they all had written together called “I’m a Sexual Camel Because I Haven’t Had Sex in Fifty Years.”

That sent Ty and me under the seats with laughter. They had to do it several times because they kept forgetting the lines or forgetting to ring their bells.

“I called Vern McCoy to check out Leslie. Now
that we know her real name, maybe something will turn up,” Ty whispered to me.

Then it was time for Margie Grace and ACB’s unique choreography of salmon swimming upstream. According to the program, it was called
Salmon Swimming Upstream
.

When the New Age-ish music started, they fluttered onto the stage wearing their grayish-silver fish outfits. I thought they looked more like the stars of Shark Week instead of salmon. The salmon did a tango with the fishermen holding rods, and another dance that looked like an exercise routine or an exorcism—it was unclear. Finally the salmon were caught and the salmon cried as the fishermen marched around them in hip waders, twirling their fishing poles like batons.