Killer Crab Cakes (11 page)

“We’ve been calling around,” Leo said without preamble, “and there aren’t any vacancies to be had this side of Victoria one way and Corpus the other.”

“Every place around here is booked up because of the SeaFair,” Sheldon said. “And the weekends are always busy all up and down the coast.”

“Let me get this straight,” Phyllis said. “You’re telling me that you’re not leaving after all?”

“You haven’t already given away our rooms to someone else, have you?” Sheldon asked.

She might have, Phyllis thought, if anyone had called asking if they had any vacancies. But that hadn’t happened.

She was still just angry enough not to answer Sheldon’s question right away. Instead she asked, “Are you sure you really want to stay in a murder house?”

“Hey, we have every right to be upset,” Leo said. “A guy gets poisoned, and we don’t know how it happened except that the stuff was probably in the crab cakes he ate here. What are we supposed to think?”

“You’re right, of course,” Phyllis admitted. “And I haven’t given your rooms away to anyone else. You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you have reservations.”

And maybe for longer than that if they wanted to, as unlikely as that might be, she told herself. Once the news got around about Mr. McKenna’s murder, people who had reservations for later in the fall might decide to cancel them.

But they would cross that bridge when they came to it, she thought. Maybe things would work out.

“Please tell your wives that I’m glad you’ll be staying,” Phyllis went on, “I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

“We’ll see,” Leo said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Meanwhile, we won’t be here for supper tonight. We’re going down to the Big Fisherman.”

Phyllis had already heard about the Big Fisherman, although she and her friends hadn’t sampled the food there yet. It was one of the best-known restaurants in the area, located about halfway between Rockport and Aransas Pass. Famous for its chicken-fried steaks, it offered lunch specials that drew people from all over this part of the country.

“I understand,” she said.

“We’ll probably eat breakfast somewhere else in the morning, too,” Sheldon added.

“Whatever you think is best.” Phyllis squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “But we’ll be offering the best breakfast you’ll find anywhere around here, whether you choose to eat it or not.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Leo said with a shrug of his shoulders. He and Sheldon turned and started back up the stairs.

Phyllis watched them go, telling herself as she did so that she shouldn’t resent their attitude. Deep down, they were just scared, that was all. They didn’t want to risk their lives or the lives of Jessica and Raquel, and she couldn’t blame them for that.

But if everyone else felt that way, then the days were numbered for her cousin’s business. Dorothy and Ben probably didn’t actually need the money they made from the bed-and-breakfast to survive, but it had been their livelihood—their life—for a long time. If it failed and was disgraced and vilified in the process, that failure would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

So she would just have to do everything she could, Phyllis told herself, to make sure that didn’t happen.

That was the thought going through her head when she happened to glance out the front window and see the police car coming to a stop in front of the house.

T
his time it was Assistant Chief of Police Abby Clifton, rather than her father, Dale, who got out of the car and came along the walk toward the house. Phyllis opened the front door as Abby started up the steps to the porch. The young woman smiled and said, “You must have seen me coming, Mrs. Newsom.”

“I was in the parlor and saw the car through the front window,” Phyllis said. She pushed the screen back. “Please come in.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope you’ve come to tell us that you found out who murdered poor Mr. McKenna,” Phyllis said as Abby stepped into the foyer.

Abby’s smile disappeared. She shook her head and said, “I’m afraid not. But the autopsy is complete now and there’s no doubt that Mr. McKenna was poisoned. There’s still a faint possibility that he ingested the poison by accident, I suppose, but Chief Clifton and I don’t believe that’s what happened.”

“Neither do I, to be honest.”

Abby looked interested. “Oh? Why is that? Are you basing your opinion on your experience with those other murder cases you investigated?”

Her father must have told her what Sam had said earlier. Phyllis felt uncomfortable. It would be just fine with her if people would stop bringing up those other cases. She didn’t expect that to happen anytime soon, though . . . especially not if she managed to keep on getting herself involved with more murders.

“I just don’t see why there would be any poison around here for anyone to get into accidentally,” she said. “Although, come to think of it, there might be some rat poison or something like that out in the toolshed in the backyard.”

As soon as she said it, she wished she could recall the words. While Tom Anselmo wasn’t the only one with a key to the shed, of course, he was the person who went in there most often because the lawn mower and the other tools for yard work were kept there. Pointing out that he might have easy access to rat poison would just make the police even more likely to suspect him, especially once they found out about his criminal history. Phyllis didn’t know exactly what sort of poison had been used to kill Ed McKenna, but she didn’t want to throw any unjustified suspicion on Tom Anselmo.

“We’ll find out,” Abby Clifton said. “Since Mr. McKenna’s children insisted that we get warrants to search his room and his belongings, the chief decided to just get a single warrant and ask the judge to include everything on the premises. So we’ll be taking a look in the toolshed, as well as everywhere else.”

“Oh,” Phyllis said. “Well, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Is that all right with you, Mrs. Newsom?” Abby asked, and Phyllis thought the young woman was watching her a little more closely than was really necessary. Looking for any sign of guilt, perhaps?

“That’s fine with me,” Phyllis said with a firm nod to show Abby that she didn’t have anything to hide.

Abby smiled again. “Good. Now, can you tell me which of the guests are here right now?”

“All of them, as far as I know. I’m pretty sure they’re all upstairs.”

“I’d like to speak to them, please, as well as everyone else who’s staying here.”

“That would be the three people who came down here with me from Weatherford,” Phyllis said. “Why do you need to speak to them?”

Abby didn’t answer the question. Instead she said, “It would be easier if I just explained it to everyone at once.”

“All right,” Phyllis said with a shrug. “I’ll see if I can round them up.” She paused on her way out of the parlor. “What about Consuela?”

“You might as well ask her to step in here, too,” Abby said.

Phyllis found Carolyn in the kitchen with Consuela and asked them to step into the parlor. Consuela frowned and gestured toward the stove, where several pans sat on burners with tendrils of steam rising from them.

“I’ve got supper cooking,” she said. “I can’t just leave it.”

“Assistant Chief Clifton was pretty insistent on talking to everyone,” Phyllis explained. “I’m sure if you just take everything off the burners until she’s finished, everything will be all right.”

Consuela made a little noise, as if Phyllis should have known better, being a cook herself. And in truth, Phyllis
did
know better. Most things required a constant temperature for a certain amount of time. Most seafood required little cooking and too much would ruin it.

Carolyn didn’t like it, either. “That policewoman’s going to interrogate all of us,” she declared. “You just wait and see.”

“I don’t think that’s what she has in mind,” Phyllis said, but in truth, she didn’t really know what Abby wanted with them. Maybe she
was
going to give them the third degree, to use another old-fashioned term.

With a disapproving frown, Consuela turned off the burners on the stove, and she and Carolyn headed for the parlor while Phyllis went up the rear stairs.

She found Sam and Eve in their rooms and asked them to join the group gathering in the parlor. “Oh, dear, that sounds ominous,” Eve said. “A gathering of the suspects, just like in an Agatha Christie novel.”

“That’s not it at all,” Phyllis said, although, again, she didn’t know that for sure.

Sam didn’t object, just shrugged and headed for the stairs. Of all the people in the house, other than herself, Phyllis was certain that Sam was the one with the least amount of secrets to hide.

She knocked on the door of Nick and Kate Thompson’s room next, hoping that they were decent. They must have been, because Nick opened the door just a couple of seconds after Phyllis knocked on it.

“Assistant Chief Clifton wants to speak to everyone downstairs, in the parlor,” she told him. Over his shoulder she saw Kate standing in front of the mirror attached to the dresser, running a brush through her thick brown hair. Both of them were dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts.

“Sure,” Nick said. “We were just about to go out, but it can wait for a little while. I assume this is about what happened to Mr. McKenna?”

“That’s right. At least, I assume it is, too. She didn’t really say.” Phyllis paused, then resumed. “If you don’t mind my asking . . . have you decided to stay here?”

Kate put the brush down on the dresser and came toward the door. “Of course we’re staying,” she said. “There’s no reason to leave. What happened to Mr. McKenna was either a terrible accident, or someone was out to get him. Either way, it doesn’t have anything to do with Nick and me.”

“That’s the way I feel, too,” Nick added. “This is a charming place. Anyway,” he went on with a smile, “I heard Leo and Sheldon complaining about how there aren’t any other places around here with vacancies right now, so it wouldn’t do any good to try to leave, would it?”

Phyllis returned the smile, though hers was a bit rueful. “I suppose not. But thank you anyway.”

“You’re welcome. We’ll be right down.”

Phyllis nodded and moved on to the rooms where the Blaines and the Forrests were staying. She knew they hadn’t left yet to eat supper at the Big Fisherman, but they probably planned on going soon and she felt certain Leo would complain about being forced to stay here and listen to whatever Abby Clifton had to say.

If Abby tried to question them, Phyllis was even more certain that Leo would refuse to answer and would insist on a lawyer. That was his right, of course, but it would complicate things even more.

There was no way around it. She knocked on the door of the room where Leo and Jessica were staying.

To her surprise, Sheldon Forrest opened the door. He seemed a little surprised to see her, too, as he fastened the top button of his shirt. “What is it, Mrs. Newsom?” he asked.

“Assistant Chief of Police Clifton is here,” Phyllis said. “She wants everyone to come down to the parlor so she can speak to the whole group.”

“We were going to be leaving soon for supper . . .”

“I know. I hope this won’t take very long.”

“But you don’t know that, do you?”

“No,” Phyllis admitted, “I don’t.”

“Very well. There seems to be little choice in the matter.”

Phyllis looked past Sheldon in an attempt to see if Leo was in the room. She didn’t see him, though. All she saw was Jessica, who looked rather flushed and out of breath.

Oh, dear Lord,
Phyllis thought.

“I, uh, need to find Mr. Blaine and Mrs. Forrest—” she began.

“Don’t bother,” Sheldon said. “We’ll tell them. And if you’d be so kind as to inform the assistant chief that we’ll be downstairs in just a few minutes . . . ?”

“Of course. Thank you.” Phyllis was glad when Sheldon closed the door and she could turn toward the stairs. She didn’t want to think the thoughts that were going through her head and didn’t want to have to see anything else that might support them.

Good Lord,
she thought again.

By the time she reached the parlor, Sam, Carolyn, Eve, and Consuela were already gathered there, along with Nick and Kate Thompson. They were all sitting around while Abby Clifton stood near the front window. No one was talking, and the atmosphere in the room was rather strained and tense.

“The Blaines and the Forrests will be down in just a minute,” she told Abby, who nodded and smiled, although Phyllis noted that the expression didn’t dilute the alertness in the younger woman’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Abby said. “We’ll wait for them, if that’s all right.”

“It pretty much has to be, doesn’t it?” Carolyn said.

Her sharp tone didn’t shake Abby’s smile. “We appreciate the cooperation.”