GUNNED (13 page)

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t even talk to my dad without screaming at him. I even told him I was glad he wasn’t my real father. I told my mother I wasn’t coming to visit until he stopped with all this cockamamie stuff. I didn’t even want to call her anymore because it always ended in arguments. My husband convinced me to just let my father rant and rave and then he would calm down. But my mother didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why he wanted to know. Wasn’t he happy with me as his daughter, she asked. But my dad is…was an engineer, and he liked to have answers. I told my mom to go on her annual trip and by time she got back, he’d have gotten it out of his system.”

“But he didn’t?”

Andrea sat down, her eyes were wet and tears were making their way down her cheeks. “And now he’s dead. Why? Why would someone kill him over this? This is what I was afraid of, that we would find out my real parents were horrible people. My dad must have found them and made them mad. He could be a real
putz
when he wanted to be. I loved him dearly, but he was stubborn and he didn’t have a lot of tact. If he found out the identity of my real parents I could see him threatening them in some way. He could make people mad when he wanted to. He must have said the wrong thing to the wrong person and that person killed him. My mother said you were looking into his death. She said you’re nosy, a real
yenta
, like those old lady sleuths on TV, and you would figure it all out. ”

Andrea buried her face in her hands and wept while Annie and I sat there quietly waiting for her to get it all out. I wasn’t too crazy about the idea that Jackie told her daughter I was nosy, and what the hell did she mean by old lady sleuth? But I guess it was true. I was nosy. But I wasn’t old. She had some nerve.

A few minutes later Andrea wiped her eyes and apologized.

“There’s no need to be sorry,” I said. “You just lost your father. Andrea, someone told us that they overhead your father say,
There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten
. Do you have any idea what he may have meant by that?

Andrea wiped her eyes again and blew her nose. I looked at her closely trying to decide if she resembled any of the other parents we had spoken to already. She had dark hair, which matched Jackie’s, but her manner was less domineering than that of Mrs. Spiegel. The truth was she could be anyone’s daughter. She didn’t have any dominant trait which stood out screaming a definitive match with the other parents we spoke to. Plus, with Christine Jamison being adopted, there was another couple out there for whom I had no information.

“I have no idea why my father would say something like that. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. None of this makes any sense. I was so angry at him. I refused to talk to him and now he’s dead. How do I live with that?” Andrea got up and walked over to the window again. She looked out for a minute and then turned back to me. “I’ve already talked to the police and I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. If you find out who my real parents are, I don’t want to know. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care if I have brothers and sisters. I don’t want any part of any of this nonsense. My father is gone and it’s just me and my mom now. We have enough to deal with. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

Whether she wanted it or not, the police would not be letting sleeping dogs lie, and neither would Annie and I. And I had to wonder, did Andrea want this to all go away because it was too painful, or did her anger at her father get the best of her and turn her into a killer?

We waited a bit longer in the inn’s dining room sipping hot chocolate hoping that Jackie Spiegel would return, but after forty-five minutes Annie and I left and walked around Indian Cove’s town center. At a small boutique on Main Street Annie tried on several sweaters and finally settled on a deep purple cardigan and a scarf to match. It really did look lovely on her and I was tempted to try it on as well, but I just wasn’t in the mood to try on clothes, or more precisely, to take off the ones I already had on. Next, we hit the drug store, one of those old timey places that sold a little bit of everything. I could spend hours in here and have on more than one occasion over the years. Annie picked up some post cards, lip gloss, and a couple of magazines.

“What do you make of everything so far?” Annie asked me back in the car.

I headed my little Honda toward home. Gerard was cooking dinner tonight. Something called
stoemp
, along with grilled sausages.

“Well, I’m not thrilled being compared to an old, nosy sleuth.”

Annie laughed. “I think the Spiegel women have a bit of drama in their blood, no? Not that I am suggesting they do not have a right to be heartbroken and upset at this time, but I suppose we are being nosy. As for old, I am sure that was probably more to describe me and not you.”

“Annie, you’re not old. But you are right about us being nosy. We have to be. I want to find out what was going on with this man.”

“Alex, I think it is time we let John and Gerard know what we are doing. We have found out some things that might be construed as withholding evidence, I think they say on the police shows.”

I sighed heavily. “I guess. John will tell me to keep out of it, and of course we won’t, but we have learned some things that may or may not have some bearing on the case. I just hope there won’t be a lot of yelling.”

“Gerard likes to huff and puff, but I will remind him that we are guests in your home and to act like an oaf would not be polite.”

I pulled my car into the garage and we went into the kitchen to find Gerard at the stove and John in the yard taking the sausages off the grill.

“
Eh bien
! Perfect timing,” Gerard said and then placed a kiss on Annie’s cheek.

John came in and gave me a quick hug and then put a platter piled high with grilled meat on the table.

“Something smells wonderful,” I said.

“It is
stoemp
, the national dish of Belgium. I hope you will like it.” Gerard placed a large bowl on the table with what looked like mashed potatoes.

I leaned over the back of a chair. “So what’s in it? I see potatoes and carrots.”

Gerard clapped his huge hands together. “Bon! We have those things, yes, and some leeks and spinach, and a good amount of bay leaves.”

We took our seats and John passed the sausages around the table. We chatted for a few minutes, saying how nice it was that we were all together and that we must make this an annual event, and then my husband turned the subject to murder, or more to the point, my involvement in murder.

“Funny thing,” John said as he placed a large scoop of
stoemp
on my plate. “Jerome Perry called me this afternoon and said someone claiming to be my wife was asking him questions.”

I heard Annie take a huge intake of breath next to me.

I picked up my utensils and started cutting a piece of sausage. “I took Annie to see Port Chester. The town’s becoming the next food destination with a lively restaurant scene, and I thought she’d like to see that not all of America was hamburgers and hotdogs,” I said with the enthusiasm of someone who might work for the Port Chester Department of Tourism.

“And you just happened to bump into one of my suspects while touring restaurants.” John took a sizable bite off a sausage and stared at me while he chewed.

I put my fork down and wiped a bit of grease from my mouth. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what happened. Hand to heart. We stopped at this trendy new coffee place called the Village Brew for lunch, and just as we were leaving, in he walked.”

“This is true. It happened exactly as Alex says.” Annie gave John an engaging smile.

“And you recognized him how exactly?” John asked.

I looked across the table at Gerard, who was doing his best not to laugh. Okay. This was good. At least he wasn’t mad at me, and if John got really angry I could always take up refuge behind Gerard.

“Okay, you know what, John Van der Burg? If you didn’t want me talking with Mr. Perry, then you shouldn’t have let his name slip out at dinner last night. As a matter of fact, you probably did it on purpose to get my take on the man.”

“This is true,” Annie said again to John. “I believe it is entirely your fault, no?”

John looked at Annie and then at me, and then he and Gerard burst out laughing.

“I told you, Gerard, that they weren’t out seeing the sights.”

I turned to my husband. “Oh please. What sights? This is Indian Cove. I’ve already showed her the gazebo in the town green and we’ve driven by the beach. What else is there?” I wasn’t making fun of our little town. I loved Indian Cove, but we didn’t have a lot of big ticket items as far as tourists went. Unless you counted the water tower outside of town that a bunch of high school seniors had painted in a rainbow of colors depicting a beachy scene. Maybe I could take Annie to see that. “Of course we’re looking into Sheldon Spiegel’s murder. And if you’re really nice and do the clean up after dinner, Annie and I just might share what we’ve found out.”

We finished our dinner, Annie and I got into our comfy pajamas, and while we sat in the living room having herbal tea and some cannoli we had picked up on the way home, I told John everything we learned so far, or most everything we learned. My husband wasn’t as forthcoming with information as I would have liked so I saw no reason to totally do his job for him. Information about Christine Jamison being adopted and Mrs. Shalt’s sister Kathy working at the hospital the day the babies were born, I kept to myself. I certainly didn’t want John getting to Nurse Kathy before I had the chance, and the statement Mandy Aiello made about her mother killing anyone who would dare to upset her campaign, I also held that back. Annie took my cue and let me do most of the talking. We were becoming quite adept at reading each other’s signals.

“I think it is safe to say that we may cross Mr. Jerome Perry off the list of suspects,” Gerard announced as he reached for a second cannoli. “The man may be a pompous ass, but a killer I do not see.”

“Really? What about the tweets he sent out after he got fired?” I said. “It sounded like he definitely blamed Sheldon Spiegel for his current situation.”

“You got us on that one. I never looked at his Twitter account,” my husband said, “but the man was just fired. Of course he was going to be upset, and that’s what people seem to do these days, they put their every waking thought on the Internet.”

“I think this is true. From what we saw today, he did not look like a man worried about being thrown in prison,” Annie said. “He is too much connected to his phone to give murder a thought.
Oui
, Gerard, on this I believe we have total agreement. Alex?”

“I guess. An arrogant little twit he may be, but he didn’t strike me as a killer.”

And that seemed to be pretty much all we were going to get out of the guys. My husband was not letting anything else slip, which made me think he was on to something, but I wasn’t about to get it out of him tonight and we were all very tired.

I put the remaining cannoli in the refrigerator and tided things up in the kitchen, and then turned out the living room light as we all made our way upstairs.

I was thrilled to have Annie and Gerard visiting, but I was a creature of habit, and since they arrived my daily routine had been interrupted. Of course, with a murder to solve, things would have been disrupted anyway, but it was nice to be able to get back to my norm, if only for a day.

Our guests had taken off very early to meet with some friends in Rhode Island. They were another Belgian couple who had moved to the States a couple of years ago when the man took a teaching job at Brown University. Annie and Gerard would be gone all day, and I needed to talk with a few more people, but I had to wait for Shirley to get me their contact info. I also wanted to get my grandmother’s take on some things before I headed into the office for a bit of catch up.

“Where’s your sidekick?” Meme asked, while she ushered me into her small living room.

My grandmother lived in a community of small senior homes. She had a ton of friends, and most days she and Theresa and Frances headed out to one of the bingo halls in the surrounding area. When they weren’t doing that, they liked to play cards and gossip about the comings and goings of some of the residents.

“She and Gerard went to visit friends in Rhode Island for the day. What are you up to?”

My grandmother brought me a cup of tea and refilled her coffee mug. She returned to the kitchen and came back with a plate of salami and cheese and a loaf of crusty bread.

“I got this bread you like at a new bakery in Bridgeport. I figured you and Annie would stop by one of these mornings.”

“What were you doing in Bridgeport?” I asked around a mouth full of salami. My grandmother and her friends didn’t let age keep them down. They were out and about almost every day.

“Tap dancing class.”

I started to choke on the piece of bread I had just pushed into my mouth. “Did you say tap dancing class?”

“Theresa and Frances said we do too much sitting at bingo and playing cards. We need to get some exercise in our lives.”

My grandmother was a short, round ball of a woman. She had a ton of energy, but I just didn’t see her taking dance lessons.

“And how are you doing?” I asked with a wide smile and a bit of skepticism.

“I mostly sit and tap my feet in time to the music, but that Frances is a real bojangles. Theresa’s pretty good too, and Fred’s got some moves,” Meme said, referring to her other friend from the community, generic Viagra Fred, so named because he couldn’t afford the real stuff. “But I’ve lost three pounds, so every bit helps.”

I shoved another piece of meat into my mouth wondering if maybe I should sign up for some dance lessons as well, or maybe I should just stop shoving meat into my mouth. Not that I was anywhere near being overweight, but salami and cheese and crusty bread, not to mention
stoemp
and cannoli, had a way of creeping up on a person. And since Annie arrived, I hadn’t been doing much in the way of physical exercise except driving around in my car all day. I didn’t think that could be construed as a high calorie burner.