Murder by the Spoonful: An Antique Hunters Mystery (22 page)

Chapter Fifty-One

“We haven’t found Banning yet,” Detective Towers said as he poured Anne a fresh glass of wine. He’d invited her to dinner at the Italian Village restaurant in downtown Chicago.

“Should I be worried? Is he going to come after me?” Anne replied.

“Anne, I don’t believe he killed anyone. He’s a thief but not a murderer,” Nigel said. “Both Whitmore and Packwall are not homicide cases.”

“What about the honeybee alarm pheromone and the arsenic on the spoon?”

“Anne, if it puts your mind at ease, I’ll have both of them analyzed by our lab, but I have to give everything to homicide.”

“Thank you so much.” She reached across the table, took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

The waiter came over and placed a garden salad in front of Anne. Her latest diet was the paleo, which meant sticking to plants and animals that cavemen would have eaten, and avoiding dairy, grains, and processed oil and sugar. She’d been on it for a few weeks and was already sick of salads. She’d eat a caveman if she could spread butter on him.

The waiter then placed a large appetizer plate filled with fried calamari, chicken fingers and potato skins in front of Nigel. Anne’s mouth started to drool as she eyed the potato skins. Nigel put a potato skin on his plate and smothered it in butter and sour cream. “I’m sorry, Anne, would you like some?” Nigel pushed the appetizer plate to her.

“I wouldn’t mind one potato skin,” Anne said. After Anne and Nigel finished off the appetizers, the waiter brought over two cedar plank grilled salmon entrees.

“Anne, how’s your friend, CC?”

“She’s fine. She’s actually with her new––I don’t know if you could call him her boyfriend––her friend Tony,” Anne said. “He’s an interesting guy. He’s a shipwright. He restores vintage wooden yachts, lived in Italy or something. He’s a nice enough guy.”

“That sounds interesting,” Nigel said, his mouth full of calamari.

“In fact, they were in Lake Geneva looking at an old powerboat or something. She and I had gone up there earlier for a preferred customer presale.”

Nigel finished swallowing his large bite of salmon. “Excuse me. A what?”

“Mr. Ripley, who held the Whitmore estate sale, occasionally has a presale for preferred customers. Select customers. A friend of ours, Betsy, told us about the sale. We went up to take a look around,” Anne said.

“Are you on the list?”

“No, it’s more Chicago’s hoity-toity, North Shore. Tim Whitmore was on it and Nancy Packwall was on it.” She put her fork down. “And Brian Kirby was on it.”

“Brian Kirby?”

“He owned the mansion we went to in Lake Geneva.” Anne believed Nigel knew his job and knew it well. If he believed Banning didn’t kill Tim Whitmore, then he didn’t. She dismissed the thoughts that were creeping into her head. They split a slice of peanut butter chocolate cake. Anne didn’t even bother checking her
Fitness Pal
app to see how many carbs it was. She knew she was probably already in triple digits. Nigel paid the check and walked Anne to her car. He hunched over her with his polite question mark stance. She just loved his accent and he was wearing that tie that matched her pants. It had to be intentional.

“Nigel, I had a nice time,” she said, opening her car door.

“Anne, it was lovely. I hope we can go out again sometime.”

Anne blushed a bit. “I think that would be really nice.”

He leaned down a bit further, kissed her on the cheek. Anne grabbed Nigel by his bony face and kissed him hard on the lips. He smiled and then held the car door open as she got in. He watched her drive off, arching his back and stretching.

Chapter Fifty-Two

When she pulled up in front of her house, CC was sitting in her car, smoking. She caught a glimpse of Anne in her rearview mirror. She put the cigarette out in the ashtray but it was too late. She waved the smoke away with her hand but she was caught.

Anne stuck her head in the window. “Don’t bother CC, I saw you. When did this start again?”

“You know it’s been pretty stressful. It’s the first one I’ve had in a year.”

Anne gave her a disapproving look. “How was your date?” CC asked.

“It wasn’t really a date. Nigel just wanted to update me on the Banning investigation.”

“What did he say?” CC followed Anne into the house.

“He hasn’t found Banning yet. But the police are still convinced that Packwall and Whitmore died of natural causes”

“I can’t believe it.” CC sat at the kitchen table as Anne pulled the Sherlock Holmes teapot out and filled it with water.

“He said the cases are closed. There’s nothing that would cause them to reopen them.”

“I don’t know, Anne, things just aren’t adding up. Tony looked over the Kirby boat and he believes that the ship never hit rocks. The hole was manmade. Someone tampered with it.”

“Why would someone do that?” Anne poured the steaming tea into two cups and set one in front of CC.

“They said they never found Kirby’s body. They just assumed he drowned when they found the boat washed up on shore.” CC stirred some sugar in her tea.

“That’s strange because Mr. Ripley said Kirby loved the water. His Lake Geneva house was his favorite,” CC said.

“There was a picture in his study of him on the 1963 Yale swim team,” Anne said.

CC reached for her iPhone. As she typed, she said, “You bought the 1964 Olympic stamps there, right?”

“Yes, I showed them to you.”

She flipped the phone around to show Anne. It was a picture of the 1964 US Olympic swim team, one of the names in the caption was Brian Kirby. Anne and CC looked at each other. “Even in a bad storm, I believe he’d be able to swim to shore,” CC said.

“When I was talking to Nigel,” Anne said. “I realized that Whitmore, Packwall and Kirby all were clients of Banning’s.”

“That’s it!” CC said. “That’s the connection.”

“Betsy’s on that list, too. Banning could be after her!” Anne said. She pulled her cell phone out and dialed Betsy Buttersworth. The phone went straight to voicemail. She tried a couple more times with the same result. She looked worried. “That’s not like Buttersworth. That phone is always glued to her ear.”

“Let’s take a ride,” CC said, getting up.

When they pulled up to Betsy’s house, it was late.
It was too important not to wake Betsy,
Anne thought. Anne looked at CC. “Hurry!’ she said, trying to call Betsy again.

Anne rang the doorbell. They could hear movement inside the house. “She probably looked out the window, saw it was you and is hiding,” CC whispered behind her.

“Be quiet,” Anne whispered back, knocking on the door. There was no answer. “Betsy’s probably still upset with me about the vase.” Anne tried the door again and it opened. The house was dark except for a glimmer coming from down the hallway.

“What are you doing?” CC hissed.

“She’s obviously home.” Anne and CC walked into the foyer. Anne’s phone vibrated and she showed CC the text message from Nigel, “We arrested Banning, and he was carrying the authentic spoon.”

“Great! Betsy’s safe. We can go now before we wake her.” CC grabbed Anne’s arm and pulled her toward the door.

From down the hallway, they heard a chair scraping along the floor. Anne turned around. “We don’t want to scare her. Let’s tell her it’s us. Betsy!” Anne called out, “It’s Anne!”

Anne tiptoed down the hallway, followed by CC. Entering the kitchen, Betsy was sitting motionless, her face illuminated by the full moon shining through the skylight. Her eyes were wide. “Betsy, what’s wrong?” Anne asked.

Betsy didn’t answer, her hands remained folded in her lap. From behind the shadows, Mr. Ripley stepped out, holding a hypodermic needle. He grabbed Betsy by the hair and put the needle to her throat. Anne screamed. CC grabbed her arm.

Anne stifled her scream. Mr. Ripley said, “One word and I stick her. This needle is filled with ricin.”

“I remember seeing castor bean plants in Nancy Packwall’s garden. I didn’t think anything of it,” CC said. She turned to Anne. “Anne, ricin is a deadly poison which is made from the castor bean seed.”

“Not now,” Anne squeaked.

“Very good,” Mr. Ripley said. “You know your poisons.”

“And you know yours,” CC replied. “It’s not a Russian accent, is it? It’s Bulgarian.”

Mr. Ripley relaxed his grip a bit.

“You had me fooled with the whole Russian drinking tea through the sugar cube routine.”

“That’s right; I’m Bulgarian.”

“Ricin is the weapon of choice for the Bulgarian secret police. It’s undetectable in autopsies,” CC said.

“Not now,” Anne said with barely enough wind to get the words out.

“Very good again,” Mr. Ripley said.

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“It’s not hard to understand. It’s just about the money. I sell all these rich people overpriced antiques and then they all go on the list. When I need more money, I kill them and sell their stuff again. More rich people buy it.” He waved the needle at the other two chairs. “Now you two sit down.”

Anne and CC pulled out the kitchen chairs and sat in front of Betsy who was too terrified to speak. She closed her eyes and waited for the needle to plunge into her throat. “You know,” Mr. Ripley said. “I should have killed you that day when you bought the pants. They’re hideous. You should die just for wearing them. And you!” He looked at CC. “That perfume I smelled was hyacinth. You were in the greenhouse, weren’t you that day?”             

CC nodded her head.

Mr. Ripley laughed, continuing. “You’ve saved me lots of trouble, haven’t you? It all ends here tonight.” He put the needle back against Betsy’s throat.

The whole time Mr. Ripley was enjoying his triumph, CC was desperately trying to reach into her purse behind her. “Yes, that’s right, I was in the greenhouse. We know about the water mister. Pretty clever filling it with the alarm pheromones.”

“I thought that was very clever.”

Her purse snapped open. She had to keep him talking. “But what about Brian Kirby?”

“Mr. Kirby. He was very rich. He loved that boat. He wanted to take me for a ride and show it off.”

CC stretched her fingers as far as she could. She could feel the top of the glass jar. “He was an Olympic swimmer. He could have easily swum across the lake.”

“It’s hard to swim with lead weights tied round your ankles.”

CC took her index and middle fingers and desperately tried to twist the top of the jar open. “How did you know Tim Whitmore would drink the arsenic-laced tea leaves?”

“Who do you think sold him all the antique guns and uniforms?”

The lid wouldn’t open.

Mr. Ripley pulled a nine-millimeter gun out of his Armani suit. He pointed it at Anne. “And you, that brooch! That was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you buried it with that crazy old lady. If she would have given me the brooch in the first place, she’d still be alive.”

“How are you going to explain a bullet? Everyone else you killed, you made look like an accident or natural causes. I don’t think a nine-millimeter bullet is very natural, do you?” CC said. Anne sat in shock over the revelation about Sybil.

He laughed. “I like you. I’m going to kill you last.”

The lid popped off the jar. With a single motion, CC tossed the hot ghost pepper powder in Mr. Ripley’s face. He dropped the gun and needle and fell to the floor screaming. “It makes everything better,” CC said with a satisfied expression.

Detective Towers was one of the first officers on the scene. Anne and CC watched as they took Mr. Ripley away in handcuffs. He was saying something in Bulgarian as he walked past them. CC imagined it wasn’t very nice. Betsy Buttersworth came out and sat between Anne and CC on the front stairs. She put her arms around both of them. She looked at them both and then got up and went back in the house. A few minutes later, she came out with the original Phoenix glass vase. She handed it to Anne and then walked back in the house, closing and locking the door.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Sassy walked up and down the
Chicago Tribune
newspaper. The front page featured a picture of Anne and CC and a large headline that read, “Spoon Sisters Solve Murders For Sale.” Sassy did not see a picture of herself. “How could there be a story without the real heroine?” She was very upset. She pawed at the newspaper and turned her head and walked away. “Bad cat,” Anne said as she bent down and picked up the newspaper. She walked into the kitchen where CC was drinking her coffee and working on her blog, which now showed over 8,000 comments requesting help.

Anne flipped the paper around with a smile. “Front page, CC, front page!”

“I read the story online,” CC said. “Did you see what they’re calling us?”

“I think it’s neat.”

CC just laughed and went back to typing. “Dear Friends.” She stopped and sipped her coffee. She highlighted the header that read, “From the Estate” and clicked
delete
. She typed
The Spoon Sisters, Antique Hunters.