The Invasive Species, page 20
part #4 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
“Victor Santiago? Your marketing person?”
“Yes. Marshall thought Primo Nordmann was a troublemaker, with all of his protesting against biotechnology and insulting one of our potential donors on his website. She probably said something to Santiago like, ‘will no one rid me of this turbulent eco-warrior?’ And he went and took care of it for her.”
“You think Santiago is so serious about his job he’d kill someone to make his boss happy?”
“It wasn’t just commitment to his job. He’s infatuated with Marshall Dixon.”
“How do you know?”
“The way he looks at her.”
“The way he looks at her? That doesn’t exactly prove—”
“Santiago is the killer. Let’s call Detective Medeiros.”
Donnie gave me a look.
“Fine. I’ll call Detective Medeiros. Oh, better yet, I’ll email him.”
“Molly, why don’t you sleep on it? I’ve heard you say it’s a good idea to give your unconscious a chance to work things out. Maybe it’s the best thing to do in this case.”
“You’re right.” I scooted closer to Donnie and rested my head on his shoulder. I knew Victor Santiago had a motive, but Donnie had a point. It would be a good idea to wait until I had some actual evidence.
Chapter Forty-Four
I pulled up to the curb in front of Emma’s house, a neatly landscaped split-level in the deepest suburbs of Upper Mahina. I wasn’t supposed to call, knock or ring the doorbell, which would risk waking Yoshi, and I wasn’t allowed to park on her concrete driveway lest I stain it with my Thunderbird’s chronic oil leak. I waited at the curb and texted her while I idled the engine. I could have shut it off, but starting up again wasn’t a 100% proposition.
Five minutes later, Emma came out, dressed for our yoga workout and carrying a travel mug.
She plumped into the passenger seat and handed me her coffee. I held it for her while she buckled in.
“You gotta get some cup holders in this thing.”
“They didn’t have cup holders in 1959.”
“What did people do? Didn’t they drink coffee?” She took her cup back from me.
“Not in their cars. I think they smoked instead. Hey, did you ever talk to IT about those pictures coming up on our photostream?”
“Not yet.”
I pulled out of Emma’s cul-de-sac to the main road. The Cruise-O-Matic transmission bucked into second gear. Fortunately, Emma’s travel mug had the lid in place.
“Emma, aren’t you worried about security? If someone else has access to our account—”
“Hey, we got some new pictures,” Emma interrupted. “Wanna see?”
“No.”
“I’ll bring ’em up on my phone.”
She stuck her phone in front of my face. The screen was filled with a scrawny brown male torso, his articulated abs adorned with swirling script tattoos.
“Please don’t do that while I’m driving. Hey, can you can search their faces online, maybe identify who hacked into our account?”
“They aren’t showing their faces. It’s just abs and biceps, a few lats, and delts. Anyway, they don’t look like hackers to me.”
“Really? Why not? You think these guys can’t be hackers because they’re lean and fit, and hackers are pasty and pudgy?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Aha. Who’s stereotyping now? Listen, I’m going to talk to IT today if you won’t. What if some political group does a Freedom of Information Act request on the university’s records and these body parts pop up? How is that going to look?”
“Oh, all right. Fine. Man, you’ve been grouchy lately.”
“No I haven’t.”
“I don’t blame you, crowded into that tiny house with Donnie and Davison. When’s your beloved stepson leaving anyway?”
“His flight is later today. After that, it’s just going to be Donnie and me in my teeny house. Oh no, I hate this left turn.”
I swiveled my head left and right looking in vain for a break in the morning traffic. I finally managed to zoom through as the yellow light changed to red.
“Yeah, it’d be better if there was a left turn arrow. Or even a left turn lane, ’cause I can tell you’re stressing out about all the cars stuck behind you.”
“I know. Tell it to the city planners. You’re preaching to the choir here. Do we even have city planners in Mahina?”
“So what’s going on down at Donnie’s place? When’s he gonna start rebuilding?”
“The police and the insurance company are still investigating,” I said. “It’s a little more complicated than when the tree fell onto my house. Whatever fueled the fire would normally have burned itself out without causing much damage.”
“Right, the piñata?”
“Whatever it was. But because of the propane tanks, the heat caused what is called a BLEVE. Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. That’s why it looked like a bomb went off. They still don’t know what, or who, started the fire in the first place.”
“How come you had propane tanks sitting in your entryway? Guy drop ’em off that day?”
“Actually, the tanks had been sitting there for a while. I heard Donnie ask Davison to bring them in. A couple of times.”
“Oh man. I sure wouldn’t want to be Davison right now. I bet he’s feeling the love from his dad. Hey, what about Nicole Nixon’s ex-husband Scott? Do you think he started the fire? ’Cause he wants Nicole back? And she’s having these secret nighttime meetings with your husband?”
“Scott Nixon’s still on the mainland, as far as I know. And I thought you were convinced Donnie wasn’t having an affair with Nicole Nixon.”
“Maybe we should ask around at the yoga studio.”
“Oh Emma, really? It’s are-you-freaking-kidding-me-o’clock in the morning, and I just want to have a nice, energizing, low-impact workout. I don’t want to do any investigating right now.”
“What’s wrong? You have a rough night?”
“Not at all. I had a perfectly delightful night.”
I told Emma about the movies Donnie brought home, along with the sushi and the wine.
“It sounds amazing. All the things you like. Alcohol, sushi, and some dusty old movies. Man, I wish Yoshi would plan a nice evening for me instead of sitting around the house like a fungus.”
“We watched Becket.”
“That means nothing to me. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. What do you think of this? Victor Santiago is good at his job, and takes it seriously. Not only that, he’s in love with Marshall Dixon. One day, Marshall remarks her life would be a lot easier without Primo Nordmann buzzing around antagonizing her important donors.”
“And Victor Santiago uses his swordcraft to make her wish come true.” Emma finished my sentence.
“Exactly. What do you think?”
“Perfect, except we don’t have any, what’s it called? Oh yeah, proof.”
“Killjoy.”
“Hey, speaking of administration, any news on your tenure application?”
“In fact there is, but you can’t tell anyone.”
“Ooh, is this gonna be scandalous?”
“Kind of. The good news is it looks like I have Vice President Marshall Dixon’s support for my tenure bid.”
“Great. So what’s the bad news?”
“It’s a long story.” I told Emma all about how I’d used Mary Pfaff’s editorial cartoon to get Marshall Dixon on my side, finishing my narrative just as I pulled into the strip mall parking lot. “You still want to associate with me?”
“You know, Molly, I’m impressed. Most of the time you seem like kind of a schlemiel, but once in a while, you manage to grow a spine.”
“You’re not horrified?”
Emma and I climbed out of opposite sides of the Thunderbird, pulled out our workout bags, and started inside.
“You’re learning to play their game.” She socked my shoulder. “Good for you. You tell Donnie?”
“No, Donnie’s kind of old-fashioned. He wants to think of me as Innocent and Pure. I don’t think he wants to know about my Machiavellian maneuvering.”
“Yeah. Sounds fair. He doesn’t seem to have any problem keeping things from you.”
Chapter Forty-Five
I walked through the front door of the Laughing Lotus yoga studio anticipating a serene warmup of gentle stretches and sighing background music, followed by a low impact but rigorous workout, with the scent of smoldering joss sticks drifting in from the meditation room. I was not expecting Sharla to intercept us the minute we were past the reception desk, physically blocking our progress and accosting me with cries of, “Hey, you. Business professor.”
Sharla held a worn wooden box. It had a slit carved into the top, and was fastened shut with a small brass padlock. The sides of the box were decoupaged with mandalas, Tibetan suns, and yin-yang symbols.
“She’s talking to you,” Emma said.
“Hi, Sharla. Guilty as charged. What’s up? Isn’t that the money box?”
It turned out Sharla wanted to get some free business consulting from me. Money continued to disappear from the Laughing Lotus, and could I step into her office for just a minute to talk about it? Emma managed to slip away to the class, leaving me to deal with the assertive Bostonian by myself.
“Sharla.” I followed her to the back. “Loss prevention isn’t really my specialty. And Heaven knows, I’m not an accountant. Why not just get rid of the box, and make sure people pay at the front desk?”
She paused at a door and produced a ring of keys. “We can’t do that.”
“I understand. You want to have an honor system. It conveys an atmosphere of trust.”
Sharla opened the door and waved me inside. Her office didn’t particularly look like it belonged in a yoga studio. With its putty-colored file cabinets and its secondhand faux-walnut-and-chrome desk, it could’ve fit right in at an insurance agent’s, a real estate office, or any small business. The stale cigarette stench and the small black plastic notched ashtray on Sharla’s desk gave the office a retro feel.
“I can’t afford to cover the front desk all the time. But sure, what you said about having trust? That too.”
“Sharla, this is really not my specialty at all. I can ask around when I get into the office today—”
“Tell you what, hon. Gimme a half hour right now, and I’ll trade you for a free class session, any time you want.”
“A half hour? Sharla, you said a minute. And I don’t need a free class session. I’ve already pre-paid for six months of classes.”
“I’ll stick an extra week on the end of your contract. You could really help me out here, Molly. Me and my sister. I love Sharon to death, but honest to—she can be such an airhead sometimes.”
I wasn’t even sure the Laughing Lotus was going to be in business six months from now, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Sharla no. Emma was right. I really could be a schlemiel sometimes.
Sharla closed the door, sat down, and lighted a cigarette. She caught my expression, rolled her eyes, and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “Here’s the thing, I think it’s an inside job. I don’t think it’s someone who’s just wandering in off the street. It’s happening too regularly. Gotta be an employee or a regular customer.”
“Have you notified the police? I know they’d rather handle these things themselves. I get the feeling they don’t care for amateurs doing police work.”
“I don’t have anything to tell the police.”
“Do you even have a suspect?”
“I haven’t narrowed it down to just one.”
I wondered whether her sister Sharon was the likely thief, and if so, whether Sharla was hoping to prove it was really someone else. People say they want to know the truth, but they’re not always happy when they get it.
“I’m thinking of setting up some kinda surveillance,” she said. “Like a computer with a camera in it. You know how I can get started with something like that? I wanna buy something high quality enough that it’s not gonna break, but I don’t wanna get ripped off.”
“I thought you said you don’t want to pay someone to watch the counter. A surveillance system is probably going to be even more expensive.”
This kind of hit a nerve with me. At Mahina State, we never had enough money to replace faculty members who left, yet our administration could always find funding for some new computer system to automate advising or grading.
“Since you asked my opinion, Sharla, I don’t like the idea of replacing people with computers.”
“I’d rather deal with a computer than a person. A computer’s not gonna call in sick when it’s a nice day out, or come in and steal my money out from under my nose, or freak out and have a big hissy fit when I accidentally call it the wrong name.”
“Computers can crash, or get hacked. If you don’t have anyone you trust, maybe you and Sharon should split desk duty and keep the money box in sight at all times. In my opinion…what do you mean a hissy fit? Who had a hissy fit?”
“Oh.” Sharla massaged her sun-browned forehead with one hand. “Princess Crystal Phoenix does not answer to her real name.”
“What’s her real name?”
“Christine Roach. Which she hates, FYI. I accidentally called her by her name one time, and man. I thought her head was gonna explode.”
“Crystal is working under an assumed name?”
“It’s not too unusual. I see it a lot in this business. People go through some hard times, they find yoga, and they reinvent themselves. It’s a good thing, mostly. Like Primo Nordmann. Primo wasn’t his real name either.”
“I know. When he was my student, I knew him as Harold. So how do you know peoples’ real names?”
“I do a background check on all our employ—contractors.”
“Right. You’d need the social security number for taxes, worker’s comp, all of that.”
“What? Oh, yeah, sure.” Sharla picked her stubbed-out cigarette from the ashtray and put it down again.
“Well, as a customer of your yoga studio, I’m happy all of your instructors have passed rigorous background checks.”
“Don’t get too excited. Ten bucks an hour, you’re not exactly getting Mary Poppins.”
Sharla finally freed me, but of course, the class was over.
“So, you have a good workout?” I asked Emma as we drove back to her house.
“You took long enough. I hope you got a big consulting contract out of it.”
“Not exactly, but I have a pretty good idea who might have burned down Donnie’s house.”
I told Emma what Sharla had told me, how touchy Crystal Phoenix—nee Roach—was about her birth name.
“Oh, and Davison busted out that cock-a-roach costume. Crystal musta thought he found out her real name and was doing it on purpose to make fun of her.”
“Exactly. How much you want to bet that the mysterious kindling substance on the front porch is a papier-mâché cockroach costume? I heard Donnie scolding Davison for forgetting to lock the door. I bet Crystal just walked right in when no one was at home.”
“Well, we maybe didn’t solve any murders this morning,” Emma said, “but it looks like we figured out an arson. Should I call the police, or do you wanna do it?”
“Let me tell Donnie first.”
Donnie was sitting at the kitchen counter when I got back to my house, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the latest copy of Island Business.
“Where’s Davison? Aren’t we taking him to the airport?”
“He wanted to get a workout in this morning. He’s going to be sitting on that plane for hours.”
“I have some interesting news for you. I think you’ll be happy to hear it. Or at least relieved.”
Donnie was not relieved, as it turned out, and certainly not happy. In his mind, I was trying to put the blame for the fire on his beloved son.
“It’s not what I’m saying at all, Donnie. I’m blaming Crystal. She’s the one who set the fire. At least, it’s a possibility. The cockroach costume was an unfortunate coincidence. Who could have guessed Crystal’s real last name was Roach? Or that she was so sensitive about it?”
Donnie removed his reading glasses. “You don’t know what really happened. And the insurance company might try to say the fire was Davison’s fault. Davison invited Crystal into our house. He did something to make her angry, and he forgot to bring the propane tanks in after I asked him to.”
“What are you telling the insurance company?” I asked.
“I’m answering all of their questions truthfully.” Donnie swiveled away from me and back to his magazine.
“So you don’t want to tell Medeiros about this.”
“There’s nothing to tell him.”
“We could ask him to test the burned patch where the fire started—”
Donnie swiveled back around to face me. “Molly, what would be the point? You want this young girl in prison for arson? And what if it wasn’t her? What if your theory is wrong? Anyway, Davison’s leaving today. If it really was Crystal, she’s not going to bother us again.”
I glanced up at my Felix the Cat wall clock. “Speaking of which, isn’t Davison supposed to be here by now? When is his flight?”
“He’s supposed to be back any minute.”
“I thought he was looking forward to going back to school and seeing his friends again. He’s not trying to miss his flight or anything, is he?” I pulled down a coffee mug from the cabinet and brewed myself a cup of coffee, not that I needed the caffeine. I was pretty worked up about Donnie’s unfair and wet blanket-y dismissal of my brilliant sleuthing.
“Of course, he doesn’t want to miss his flight. Relax. It’s probably just taking him longer to walk back from the gym than he expected.”
“I’m not comfortable waiting until the last minute. Donnie, maybe we should go down to the gym and get him. So he doesn’t miss his plane. We can take my car. It’s blocking yours in.”
