The Influencer, page 12
part #10 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
“That’s such a bleak view of humanity. I would hate to think Pat’s right about this.”
“Yeah, that’s your pride and spite talking. Eh, let’s talk about this later. I gotta get to class.”
That evening, Emma and I were having an early dinner and discussing the day’s events when Howdy Howell stopped by.
“Say, Professor Barda,” Howell said. “Is Mr. Flanagan here? We were supposed to meet up a little later, but I was in the neighborhood.”
“He’s taking a nap,” I said. “Would you like to come in?”
“Eh Howdy,” Emma called from the dining table, “we’re having leftover green candy corn for dinner. Want some?”
“And wine,” I said. “We were just talking about Edward Ladd getting arrested again. Did you know about it?”
Howdy hesitated, as if unsure how to answer.
“Come in, have a glass of wine,” Emma said.
“Come on,” I urged, “join us.”
He hesitated and looked at his watch, and at me.
“Thanks, Professor Barda. I suppose I can throw a little fuel into the engine.”
For appearance’s sake I quickly assembled a plate of crackers and cheese and placed it in the center of the table. I got a glass and a small plate for Howdy.
“Oh, now you set out the good stuff,” Emma said.
“Emma, if you wanted crackers and cheese, you could’ve said something. You can have whatever you want, you know that. So Howdy, how are you?”
Howdy paused and set down the cracker he was eating.
“I’m okay, Professor Barda. In fact, I’m better than okay. It looks like Jandie’s finally going to get some justice.”
“You wanted Ladd to get arrested?” Emma asked.
Howdy sighed.
“Not at first. It took me a while to come around to reality. But yeah, as disappointing as it is, you gotta face the truth. Kaycee thinks Ladd’s guilty, too.”
“Kaycee Kabua? Our landscaper?” I asked.
Howdy nodded.
“Sure, we’re friends now. Good friends. Professor Barda, I can’t thank you enough for introducing us—”
“You know what, you can just call me Molly,” I said. “Only my students call me Professor Barda.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Professor, thanks all the same. Pat told me I should call you Professor Barda and Professor Nakamura. Especially Professor Nakamura.”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “Especially Professor Nakamura? How come?”
Howdy rubbed the back of his neck.
“Um, he just, I mean, he said it was what I should do.”
“Pat gave you good advice, Howdy,” I said. “It’s always a good idea to use people’s proper titles, but Emma’s especially sensitive about being talked down to because of her h-e-i-g-h-t.”
“You think I can’t spell?” Emma pushed her chair back and stood up.
“What? Oh, shoot, sorry. I’m used to doing that around Francesca. Emma, I didn’t—”
Emma made a rude hand gesture and stomped off toward the guest room.
“Pat!” she yelled. “What are you saying about me you bald-headed babooze?”
“I see what you mean,” Howdy whispered to me. “She’s kind of touchy, isn’t she?”
“I heard that!” Emma bellowed from down the hallway. “I should come out there and knock that stupid straw hat right off your head.”
“Emma, you’re thinking of Mortimer Snerd,” I called back.
“What?” Howdy said to me.
“What?” I said to Howdy. “I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”
Howdy brought a quaking glass up to his mouth, splashing wine all over his hand.
“I can’t remember.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes ma’am, I mean, yes, Professor Barda. I’ll just wait here for Mr. Flanagan. I expect his nap is pretty much over.”
CHAPTER 30
THE NEXT DAY NEWS OF Edward Ladd’s arrest was everywhere. Pat Flanagan and Howdy Howell had a double byline on the front page of the County Courier, but the story was big enough to go beyond Mahina. The Honolulu paper and the wire services had picked it up: Social media star missing, presumed dead. Husband arrested. Some of the longer stories would mention, a few paragraphs down, that Edward Ladd had at one time penned a popular cartoon under the pen name Tedd Ladd. But, the writer would add, Mr. Ladd had been out of the public eye for many years.
It was a struggle to keep class on track. My students already knew, of course, about my celebrity tenant. I was used to discouraging their efforts to pry.
“Jandie and her husband chose Mahina because we treat them like neighbors, not like novelties,” I would explain. “Jandie already posts about where she goes on the island, what she buys, what she eats. We can always read her timeline if we want to know more about her. That should be enough to satisfy our curiosity. Otherwise, let’s let them live their lives and be happy here.”
But my usual deflections weren’t enough to fend off the questions I was getting today. How did he kill her? (We don’t know for a fact Jandie’s husband killed her, I told them.) Were there any signs they weren’t getting along? (Not that I saw, but I hardly ever saw them because I tried to mind my own business.) After my tenant was murdered, was I scared for myself? (No, I told my students. This was a lie.)
I came home that evening emotionally exhausted, to find a pile of what looked like bills and junk mail on the dining table. Emma must have brought the mail in.
I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to deal with the mail. A happy surprise was a postcard from Donnie, which had been sent from the airport in Las Vegas the first day they landed. A not so happy surprise was a letter-sized lime-green flyer folded in thirds. The return address was the Uakoko Street Homeowner’s Association. Underneath my name and address was stamped, Unauthorized Rental Violation: First Warning.
This I did not need. My homeowner’s association was hassling me now, over my respectively murdered and incarcerated tenants? I hadn’t even known it was against the rules to have renters. Who can remember all the different things you sign when you buy a house?
I started to unfold the paper and noticed there was no postage stamp. That meant it hadn’t been properly mailed; someone had just stuck it in my mailbox. I had heard only the Post Office was allowed to stick things in people’s mailboxes. Was that still true?
A quick online search confirmed my hunch. I may have committed an infraction against the Uakoko Street Homeowner’s Association, but whoever stuck this piece of paper into my mailbox appeared to have violated Federal law.
Too bad I don’t know any lawyers who would be interested in this, I thought. Then I realized I might know one after all.
Petty, I know. But in my defense, I’m not the one who started it.
I phoned Harriet Holmes. She picked up right away and urged me to come by in person. By the time I’d made the short walk up the street she was standing in her open doorway, waving me in. Even from the sidewalk, I could smell pipe smoke.
I followed Harriet inside. Because her hands were full (pipe in one hand, and a glass of what looked like whiskey in the other) I closed the front door behind us.
“Oh, ah, hello.” Nigel, Harriet’s husband, was ensconced in the telephone nook with a small laptop open in front of him. His bushy white eyebrows drew together, prominent on his purplish-red face.
“You remember my department head, darling,” Harriet said. “Molly Barda.”
“Molly. Quite.” The eyebrows relaxed. He ran a hand through his already-tousled white hair. “Yes, of course. Delightful. Delightful.”
The last time I’d seen Nigel Holmes, he had been wearing Jandie’s flowered hapi coat and pink leggings. The occasion was obviously more memorable for me than it had been for him.
“This is the first time I’ve seen your place since you moved in,” I said. “It looks nice.”
But Nigel had already tuned me out. He was staring at his computer screen, typing away.
“Don’t mind him, Barda, he’s rushing to meet a deadline.” Harriet led me over to a rather impressive bar, set her glass down, and with her pipe clenched in her teeth, poured me what looked like a double shot of excellent whiskey. It would have been rude to refuse, of course.
“Let’s leave him to it,” she said. “It’s lovely out on the lanai right now. Don’t worry about the mosquitos. We’ve got it screened in.”
“He’s working on his, uh, prison memoir?” I asked as I followed Harriet outside. We got seated at a stylish teakwood table with matching (and surprisingly uncomfortable) chairs. Harriet set the whiskey bottle on the table. Next to it she placed a small wooden stand that turned out to be a resting place for her pipe.
“Mm. The publisher’s an absolute tyrant about deadlines from what Nige says. But he doesn’t seem to mind. Keeps his mind engaged, he says.”
The sun sinking behind the mountains rendered the vast cemetery two-dimensional in the shadowless twilight. I decided I preferred the view from my own backyard. If I didn’t feel like staring at a graveyard every time I went outside, I could just tell Kaycee to let the foliage grow up a little higher. But Harriet’s house was further up Uakoko Street and at a higher elevation than mine. There was only the low retaining wall separating the backyard from the graveyard below.
“Harriet, thank you for having me over on such short notice.” I produced the plastic bag that held the green folded flyer. I’d already touched it, but I didn’t want to contaminate it more than necessary. “This was left in my mailbox. It’s not actual mail. It’s a crime to tamper with the U.S. mail, isn’t it?”
“Ah yes? May I?”
Harriet opened the bag and pulled out the paper.
“Oh, I was trying to avoid fingerprints—”
“This sort of paper doesn’t hold fingerprints well,” she unfolded the paper and smoothed it on the table. “And nobody’s going to test for fingerprints in any event. It’s a few hundred dollars’ fine at most. No prison time, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“Of course not.” Prison for putting a flyer in someone’s mailbox did sound a little excessive when she said it out loud.
“Ah yes, our ever-vigilant homeowner’s association. Hmm, nuisance, vacate immediately, daily fine, oh, it’s all here, isn’t it? No, she can’t do any of it.”
Harriet folded the paper and handed it back to me.
“She?” I asked.
“Head of the homeowner’s association. Asked me for legal argle-bargle she could use to sort out a resident who was running an illegal rental. Had no idea it was you she was after, Barda. Terribly sorry.”
I gazed out at the dark cemetery and sighed.
“I did not realize renting was against the rules. I mean, I know we read through the CC&Rs when we bought the house, but I had about a thousand papers I had to sign and initial. I’m starting to wish we’d never build that rental in the first place. Harriet, what can I do?”
“Ignore it.”
“Really? Sounds like kind of a daring legal strategy.”
“Linda likes to make herself feel important,” Harriet said, “but when it comes down to it, she can’t do any real harm.”
“Are you sure? Because...wait a minute. Did you say Linda? Likes to feel important? As in wielding what little actual authority she has in the most obstructive, bureaucratic, and misery-making way possible?”
Harriet took a deep pull on her pipe and blew a stream of smoke into the night air.
“Sounds like you know her.”
“I think I may. Is her last name Wilson by any chance?”
“Indeed. Linda Wilson. Ah yes, of course. Recently retired from the Mahina State University Student Retention Office.”
CHAPTER 31
HARRIET REFILLED MY glass up to the top. I did not object. Not only was the whiskey excellent, but the teak slats of Harriet’s stylish outdoor chair were cutting into my backside. Harriet was wearing her heavy field coat. She probably had no idea how uncomfortable her furniture was.
But worse by far than my physical discomfort was the prospect of Linda Wilson, my nemesis from the Student Retention Office, in charge of my homeowners’ association.
“Dangit. I had no idea she lived on my street, much less that she was the head of the homeowners’ association. I even chipped in for her retirement gift. She’s never going to stop persecuting me about this rental, is she?”
“I wouldn’t worry. Know what I think? She’s put out that she never was able to meet Jandie Brand. Feels snubbed. But she can’t admit it to herself, so instead she bangs on about peace and quiet and the unique character of our beloved Uakoko Street. Once this murder business is over it won’t be a problem.”
“Why? What’s to dissuade her from what is apparently her lifelong mission to make my life miserable? And now she’s retired, she can spend all day harassing me, can’t she?”
“Well, she’s not exactly got the moral high ground here. She’s renting to Nigel and me, after all.”
“Linda Wilson is your landlady?”
Harriet nodded and released another plume of pipe smoke into the night air.
“Wow. A few weeks ago I didn’t even know Linda Wilson even lived around here,” I said. “I thought I’d never have to think about her again after she retired. Now I find out she’s in charge of the whole place.”
“She’s harmless, really.” Harriet set her pipe down and refilled our glasses with her excellent whiskey. “Now, I’ve got a question for you. Our missing girl, Jandie Brand. Always dressed to the nines, was my impression.”
“Mine too. Whenever I saw her, she was always put together. Trendy clothes, fancy eyebrows, the whole thing. I think I remember her telling me designers sent her clothes and makeup for free. Hoping for the exposure. She never had to go clothes-shopping if she didn’t want to.”
“I thought as much. Barda, would it surprise you to learn that when she was found, she was dressed in drab and definitely unfashionable clothes? Like one would find at the Oxfam.”
“The what? Oh, Oxfam. Second-hand clothes. Here it would be Goodwill or Salvation Army. Sorry, that’s not really important. Yeah, it’s not like Jandie to wear thrift store stuff, but if she wanted a disguise...wait a minute. Harriet, how do you know what Jandie was wearing when she died? We didn’t see the body.”
“Never mind about that. My point is, there’s a theory the poor girl may not be Jandie Brand after all. If she isn’t Jandie, two interesting questions arise. Who is she? And where is Jandie?”
“Well now, hang on. If I were Jandie, trying to escape from my abusive husband, I would do something out of character to throw him off.”
“Fair point. Sad to think she went to all the effort for nothing. It’s something to think on.”
It had gotten completely dark while we were talking. The cemetery was now a sea of shadow, studded with moonlit gravestones. I took my leave and headed home. It was a good thing I had come on foot. Harriet was a generous hostess, and her whiskey was, as I may have already mentioned, excellent.
When I came back in, the house smelled comfortingly of pizza and coffee. Pat and Emma were at the dining table.
“Where’ve you been?” Emma demanded as I poured myself a glass of water and joined them. The Chang’s Pizza Pagoda box lay open in the middle of the table, containing a few slices of veggie pizza. I told them about my conversation with Harriet.
“Linda Wilson lives right here on your street?” Emma exclaimed. “No way. And she’s in charge of the homeowners’ association?”
“I thought it was just bad luck we ran into her that one time,” I said. “Nope. She was patrolling her territory.”
“No way. Molly, you gotta move.”
“Emma, I’m not going to let Linda Wilson chase Donnie and me out of our own home.”
“How’s Nigel’s prison memoir going?” Pat asked.
“He was working on it when I went over there. According to Harriet, his publisher is keeping him to some strict deadlines.”
“Maybe,” Pat said.
“What do you mean maybe?” Emma reached for another slice of pizza.
“I don’t know. Maybe Harriet is exaggerating to make Nigel’s work seem more important and sought-after than it really is. This whole thing with Ladd got me thinking. People will pull some pretty outlandish stunts to promote their books. Remember when Emma started a riot at that speakers’ event on campus?”
The accusation caught Emma mid-bite.
“Not,” she protested through a mouthful of pizza.
“You kind of did, Emma,” I said. “So Pat, you don’t think Nigel Holmes’ gritty tale of minimum-security prison is the blockbuster Harriet says it is?”
“Has she told you the dollar amount of the advance, or is it all just ‘loads of dosh’ or whatever?”
“It would be weird if she went around telling people the exact amount, Pat.”
“He’s been going over Ladd’s manuscript, that’s why,” Emma said.
“Oh, brave man.” I slid a slice of pizza onto my plate. Bamboo shoots and bean sprouts aren’t my favorite pizza toppings, but I hadn’t had anything solid for dinner. “I couldn’t get past the first couple of pages. Are there any clues in it about Jandie’s murder?”
“I thought you couldn’t make money by writing a book about your crimes,” Emma said.
“Son of Sam Laws,” Pat added. “Although, those only say you can’t profit from writing about the actual crime. And even with that narrow interpretation, they haven’t always held up in court. That’s not really relevant here anyway. There’s practically nothing in there about Jandie. He says something once about how other guys are jealous of him cause his wife is young and hot.”
“Here he is married to one of the biggest celebrities in the world,” Emma said, “and somehow he thinks people would rather read about him.”
“Do you think he was having an affair?” I asked.
“Only with himself, as far as I can tell,” Pat said.
