Dressed Up 4 Murder, page 19
I leaned against the tall file cabinet in his office and smiled. “Cameron Tully’s will. He must’ve had a will. Did anyone look into it? There are lots of beneficiaries who never know they’ve got money coming because the insurance companies don’t notify them. It was a big scandal a few years back. On Sixty Minutes. Or was it Front-line? Oh well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not the guy had a will and if someone killed him in order to collect on it.”
Marshall had this strange sheepish look on his face. “Nate and I discussed that with Ranston and Bowman when we joined the investigation, but it never went any further. We got so busy with the other tentacles in this case, we kind of dropped the ball. Good thing you’ve got your wits about you. I’ll make some calls.”
“Okay. Catch you later.”
“Hey, before you go, thought you’d like to know we’ve been busy this morning looking into the Coldwater Seafood clients of Cameron’s who could’ve been having an affair with Tucker. I’m surprised Bethany was so up-front. Jealousy’s certainly a motive for murder. Let’s hope she didn’t inadvertently shoot herself in the foot.”
“She said she never asked her husband. But then again—”
Marshall tapped his fingers on the desk. “I know. I know. People lie and we get stuck sorting things out.”
“Is that what Nate’s doing right now? Sorting things out?”
“Uh-huh. He’s checking with some of those other clients. According to what he told me, only two of those supermarket chains had female managers. He’s paying both of them another visit.”
“Do you think Tucker came in contact with those women when he worked for Coldwater Seafood?” I asked.
“That’s the only way I can figure. Short of coincidence. Like meeting someone at a laundromat or in line at the motor vehicle department. Which reminds me, I need to do my homework, too. That means revisiting those fancy seafood places.”
“Yeah. About that. Remember when my uncle Louis complained about the quality of the seafood at three of those spots? Maybe Coldwater Seafood was pulling a switch on them. Giving them an inferior product but charging them as if it were premium. Those restaurants would gradually lose their reputations and their business. If Cameron was responsible, it would be another motive for murder.”
“Criminy! We’ve got more motives than we can count on one hand.”
“True. But look at it this way. One of them is bound to be the real deal.”
“Thanks, Sherlock. I’d better have Augusta set up some return visits for me this week to those restaurants. I’ll be so sick of seafood I won’t even want to open a can of tuna. Hey, I can always chat with the owners in the evening. Unlike other businesses, restaurant owners are usually around for the night crowd. Any of those establishments sound enticing to you?”
“Not according to what Louis says. But I wouldn’t mind a return visit to La Mar Maravillosa. I never did get to try the Chilean sea bass. You can check out the other places on your own.”
“Fine. By the end of the week, the mercury level in my body will have skyrocketed. I’ll have Augusta start with Taste of the Sea in Scottsdale and go from there. Nothing like walking into a restaurant with two thoughts on my mind—was the owner screwing Tucker Cabot or was Cameron Tully screwing the owner? Sorry, hon, for the vulgarities.”
“I’ve heard worse from Herb’s pinochle guys. Remember? More expletives were shouted from the catwalk at the Stardust Theater than anything you or I could come up with.”
Marshall shook his head and chuckled. “How true.”
* * *
By Wednesday afternoon, Marshall and Nate had completed yet another round of revisiting possible suspects on the guise of information gathering. Unfortunately, all of their efforts resulted in one big fat zero. It was getting depressing. As for me, I got to drive over to my mother’s house the day before to “catch a first glimpse of Streetman’s Nutcracker Suite costume.” Shirley was still making adjustments because her measurements weren’t as accurate as she would’ve liked. Mainly because the dog was so squirmy.
As I entered Sun City West, I could see the residents had wasted no time tossing out their dried-up pumpkins and cornstalk figures and replacing them with anything that glittered, glowed, or sparkled. On our block in Vistancia, the house next door had swapped its giant Halloween spider and plastic turkey in exchange for an enormous Santa balloon that dropped its pants, revealing red and white polka-dotted boxers.
The contrast between the two neighborhoods was astonishing. On my mother’s block, most of the cacti had small holiday lights wrapped around them and the palm trees featured dazzling white lights, sometimes offset with greens, reds, or blues. It was the same on other streets as well with some exceptions. The ceramic pig was now dressed as Mrs. Claus, complete with wire-rimmed glasses. According to my mother, the Iowans who own the pig dress it up seasonally. Don’t ask. In our neck of the woods, it was all blow-up reindeer balloons, and snowmen.
I rang her doorbell and she greeted me immediately. “Good. You’re here. This will only take a second. I want you to see how cute he looks. We’ll remeasure him tomorrow. I bought some string cheese so I can bribe him to stand still.”
What I saw took my breath away. Shirley must’ve been working nonstop all weekend to produce the masterpiece in front of me. My mother held up a deep blue velvet jacket with tiny seed pearls sewn around the edges. Painstaking work. The buttons were made of pearls as well, and a faux mink stole graced the collar.
“It’s a double-layered costume,” she explained. “Shirley used a lovely shade of gray suede to create the Mouse King. She stuffed it with pillow batting and is working on the tail. She’s considering sewing the jacket right onto the rest of the costume so everything stays in place.”
“Holy Cow! It looks like—”
“It is! It’s one of the designs from the Bolshoi Theatre. Don’t you want to see how it looks on Streetman?”
I looked across the room at the small dog who was curled into a ball on the couch. What I don’t want to see is the process involved in getting him to wear it. “No! I mean, no. I want to be surprised at the parade. I’ll wait and be dazzled like everyone else.”
“If you insist.”
I insisted all right, all the way to the front door. That was when my mother took me by the arm and let out one of her famous long-drawn-out sighs. “I honestly don’t know how much longer I can stand this.”
“The anticipation?”
“No! That unsolved murder. Every time I look out at the back patio, all I think about is that corpse.”
“The Galbraiths will be back any day now. They’ll decorate the place and you can think about something else.”
“Until your boyfriend, your boss, and that deputy duo figure it out, the only thing I’ll be thinking about is how this could’ve happened in the first place.”
“The murder?”
“Not the murder. The location. Why did they have to pick my backyard neighbors?”
“Everyone investigating thinks it was random.”
“But you don’t, do you?”
“I, um, er . . .”
“That’s what I thought. You need to do what you’ve done before, Phee. Put all those little notes of yours together and come up with a solution. Hanukkah and Christmas are weeks away. I want to enjoy myself with my granddaughter. I don’t need this nightmare hanging over my head.”
Granted, she was going a bit overboard with the drama, but she was right about one thing. While I was doing little bits of sleuthing and a whole lot of sharing and telling with my boyfriend and my boss, I wasn’t actively putting things together. Maybe it was time to get out of the back seat.
* * *
That opportunity came the following day, on that dog-tired Thursday afternoon. Marshall had already talked a second time with the owners and managers at the two Phoenix establishments and the one in Scottsdale. He waited until he had completed his last visit before opening up with Nate and me. I was taking a late-afternoon break and Nate was conferring with Augusta about something.
Marshall walked out of his office, popped a K-cup into the Keurig, and groaned. “Unless Tucker’s gay, and there’s absolutely no indication of that, there’s no way he was carrying on with any of the owners or managers at the restaurants I visited this week. And that includes today. Most of them are happily married, divorced and intending to keep it that way, or at least twenty years his senior.”
“So, that leaves Jocelyn at La Mar Maravillosa,” I said. “Hmm, that would be a tight little circle. I mean, she dated Cameron, now an affair with Tucker . . .”
Nate swiveled his head away from Augusta’s desk. “Unless the Tucker affair was first.”
I stepped closer to where Nate was standing. “Or the Tucker affair was the reason Jocelyn and Cameron broke up. And we’ve got two different versions of how that went down.”
Augusta slapped a hand on her desk. “Do all of you plan on standing here playing ‘who’s got the better rumor’ or are you going to confront that little hussy?”
“We don’t know she’s a hussy, yet,” I said.
Augusta grinned. “You will tonight. I called La Mar Maravillosa and told them one of our investigators needed a few more minutes with Ms. Jocelyn Amaro.”
Marshall looked at me, his face flushed. “Uh-oh. I forgot to tell you. I asked Augusta to set up that meeting this evening. I thought we’d get dinner there. I meant to say something this morning, but it completely slipped my mind.”
“Chilean sea bass it is!” I exclaimed. “Along with a side order of hussy.”
At that point, we all laughed.
Surprisingly, the traffic into Tempe was light. I expected long delays, especially since it was the week after Thanksgiving and lots of shoppers would be on the road, not to mention tourists and commuters. We arrived at La Mar Maravillosa a little before seven. In addition to informing them that Marshall needed to speak with Jocelyn, Augusta had also made us a reservation for seven thirty.
The road traffic might’ve been light, but the restaurant was packed. Marshall checked in with the hostess, the same thin curly-haired woman who had greeted us the last time. She suggested we relax at the bar and waved her hand in that direction.
The bartender whom I’d met the last time wasn’t there. Maybe it was his night off. Marshall and I sat at one of the bistro tables toward the rear of the bar and perused the place. A spiky-haired girl with freckles and screaming red lipstick bounced over to us with more energy than most toddlers. “Hi! I’m Paige. What can I get you?”
Paige. The blabbermouth waitress. You can get us information and lots of it. I jabbed Marshall in the ankle and mouthed, Paige.
“I know,” he whispered, but Paige heard him. “Good! I’m glad you both know what you want.” She stared at me and smiled.
I had to think fast and the only thing that came to mind was a holiday commercial I watched the night before. One in which everyone was at a wine tasting. “Um, I’ll have a semi-dry Riesling and . . .”
“Samuel Adams,” Marshall said. This time considerably louder.
She nodded and sped off.
I sighed. “That was awkward. I hope I like semi-dry Riesling. We’d better figure out how we’re going to approach her when she comes back with our drinks.”
“Ha! I wondered where that order of yours came from. Listen, hon, I’m so tired and wired I’m going for the jugular. I’ve still got Jocelyn to deal with, too.”
As soon as Paige returned to our table and set the small cocktail napkins down, Marshall cleared his throat. “I hope there haven’t been more encounters like the one your boss had a while back with that burglar. We’re hoping for a quiet meal and not a robbery.”
Paige leaned over the table as she put Marshall’s drink down. “I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the money that guy was after.”
“Really?” I sounded more like Pollyanna than Stephanie Plum.
“Uh-huh. Something’s going on, that’s for sure, but like I said, it was more of a personal nature.”
She started to turn away, but Marshall called her back. “The ex-boyfriend, right? The one who was found dead in Sun City West.”
“How did you—”
“It’s been all over the news. No surprises there. Look, we happen to work for Williams Investigations in Glendale and we’re trying to gather information without calling too much attention to ourselves.”
With that, he took out his card and his license. Yep. No time wasted here. Going right for the jugular.
“All I know is Jocelyn and Cameron had a whooping-big fight about a week before he turned up dead. It was over the seafood. Of all things. I mean, sure, the guy was her distributor and all that, but usually when people are sharing a bed, the fights they have don’t involve seafood. Know what I’m saying? Especially since it was no secret Jocelyn was getting it on with another guy. And get this, I served those men at the bar a few days later. Talk about weird.”
Marshall and I bobbed our heads and he motioned for her to continue.
“Anyway, the night Jocelyn and Cameron got into it, I was in the pantry, getting ready to set the dinner tables, when I heard them. They didn’t know I was in there. Cameron told Jocelyn he knew something shady was going on and that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they were swapping the high-priced seafood like tuna for cheaper imitations but charging the patrons as if it was the real deal.”
Marshall put his hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze as Paige went on.
“I wasn’t sure if he was talking about her or if he meant the other restaurants he serviced. It didn’t matter because Jocelyn went ballistic. Told him where he could stick his fins, and next thing I knew he stormed out of there.”
“So, their breakup was kind of mutual?” I asked.
“Duh,” was all she said before looking around again and rushing off.
“So, if what she said was true, it wasn’t Coldwater Seafood pulling the switch, it was the restaurants. Boy, my uncle Louis’s palate had it right all along.”
“We don’t exactly know that, yet,” Marshall said, “but we’re getting closer.”
We finished our drinks and were notified by the hostess that our table was ready. The bar filled up to capacity and it was impossible to catch Paige again. Marshall explained to the hostess that his secretary had arranged for him to have a brief chat with the owner once we were done eating. He handed her his card and she nodded.
“I’ll let Miss Amaro know. Right now, she’s in her office. Her brother stopped by and, from the sound of things, they might be in there longer than anticipated.”
Her brother? What brother? “Did you know she has a brother?” I asked Marshall.
“She said she had family, but no one was in the restaurant business with her.”
Once the hostess seated us, our waiter arrived. The same one as last time. Tight-lipped, professional Bernard. I ordered the Chilean sea bass and Marshall selected the creamy pesto shrimp over linguini.
“I know a shrimp when I see one,” Marshall chided. “It would be tough to substitute them for anything else.”
“Do you really think Jocelyn’s doing that? Engaging in fish fraud?”
“I was kidding, but obviously Cameron hit a nerve with her. At least, according to Paige. There’s one way to find out—compare the menu with the stock order from Coldwater Seafood. Shouldn’t be too hard to do. I’ll call the company tomorrow. Seems like they’re not the ones who have something to hide.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Might as well use this time for a quick stop in the ladies’ room.”
Marshall stood and pulled my chair back. It was a small gesture, but all those little things reiterated what I already knew. I was head over heels for the guy and glad it was mutual.
I was told the restrooms were located in a small alcove near the ornate welcoming station. The hostess must have stepped away from her spot, because I was the only one standing in the lobby. I took a step toward the arched entrance when I realized I was standing in front of a door with a bronze sign that read: “Office.”
Drat! Must be another alcove. This place has more alcoves and columns than a hypostyle prayer hall.
No one was there to see my mistake and I spun around. That’s when I heard the argument behind the office doors. Someone had forgotten to close them all the way. I lingered for a second. Long enough to hear the conversation between Jocelyn and her brother.
It was none of my business, and I should’ve left except for one thing—I was suspicious of anyone and everyone who came in contact with my mother’s backyard corpse. And Jocelyn was high on the list. I stood by the door like a statue, trying to glean every word. I didn’t have to try too hard. Her brother was practically explosive.
“Who died and put you in charge of my life? And so what if I bought new wheels. Maybe my business is picking up.”
Then Jocelyn spoke. “What business? Making deliveries? That’s not a business. It’s a grunt job. You’ve got a degree. Why are you wasting it?”
“Who says I’m wasting it? It just so happens I have a lucrative side job that more than pays the rent.”
“Oh my God! Are you dealing drugs?”
“What? Are you insane? I figured out a way to put more cash in my pocket, and I’m doing it while I can. Don’t knock it. If it wasn’t for my menial delivery job, you’d be in a hell of a mess, and you know it. And while we’re talking about messes, don’t stand there and tell me you haven’t monkeyed around with the books, either.”
“If you’re insinuating I’ve engaged in fraud like some of those other places, you can get the hell out of here right now.”
“That’s the best thing you’ve said so far.”
My God! He’s going to walk out that door and trip over me.
I had every intention of spinning around and charging toward the ladies’ room, but I panicked and my feet froze. Too late to make a dash to the other side of the lobby, I did the next best thing. I tossed my bag on the floor and bent down to retrieve it just as the office door opened and the guy charged out, nearly crashing into me.
