Death by Deep Dish Pie (19 page)

But I wouldn't have ever married the likes of Alan Breitenstrater—and Geri had. And now that he was dead, she was thinning her thick coffee by literally weeping into it. Tears trailed down her heavily made-up face and quivered on her pointy chin before plopping into her coffee (which had started out black). That put to rest the long-held theory that she'd just been a gold digger marrying Alan for his money.

”I just don't know what I'm going to do without him,” Geri wailed, as if we'd been best friends forever. She'd been like that since I got there, answering the door herself, dragging me into the house and back to the kitchen. Then she'd dug out a mug for me and started babbling about Alan and how much she missed him already and how she'd had to make all the arrangements for his funeral and burial herself and how no one had been around to comfort or talk to her since Alan's death.

The simple fact of my appearance on her front doorstep had made me her new best friend—maybe her only friend—and I confess I didn't disavow her of this notion. She was volunteering way too much juicy, valuable information. And I listened.

“I mean,” Geri went on, “how am I supposed to manage this big old house now that he's gone? Sure, I've got the housekeeper and cook several days a week, but Alan took care of the hiring and firing and payroll.” She moaned.

“What about the family business. Will you run it?” I asked casually, thinking of Todd, hollering in his cell phone back at Cherry's. Todd, who worked for Good For You Foods International, and who, I reckoned, must have come to Paradise to work out a deal between his company and the Breitenstrater Pie Company. That made a lot more sense than him just being here to visit with Dinky.

“No, no, of course not! The business is set up to be owned by the entire family of Breitenstraters. Thaddeus Breitenstrater II, Alan's great-grandfather, was the last of the Breitenstrater line. He had one son and hoped he'd have lots of grandchildren. So he set up the company so that any Breitenstrater would own a share of the company. But he gave the oldest heir of each generation the greatest number of shares and put the heir in charge of the company, unless that person decided to turn the company over to someone else. It's a kind of complicated line of succession, but I guess Alan's great-grandfather really hoped this would be a family business everyone would want to be involved in.

“Anyway, as it turned out, Thaddeus ended up with just one grandson—Alan and Cletus's father. Alan, being the oldest, was in charge. Then of course Alan had two kids and Cletus had Dinky. When Jason died, his shares reverted to Alan. Alan held Trudy's shares in trust until she's of age. That meant Alan owned the majority of the company—at least until Trudy was of age.”

“So the business goes to just Cletus and Dinky, now that Alan is gone, until Trudy is twenty-one?”

Geri nodded. “That's the way it's set up. Unless, of course, the person owning the majority of the business sells it, which is what—”

Suddenly, Geri look struck, as if she realized she'd been about to say too much. “You know, I have so much to arrange and take care of, and I'm sure Alan wouldn't want me talking about all of this.”

“Geri, I know that Todd works for Good For You Foods International. And that he's really here to work out a deal between his company and Alan's. I figured it out this morning, from a cell-phone conversation overheard while Todd was getting his hair cut at Cherry's, next to my laundromat. Cherry overheard it, too. Before you know it, the whole town will know. You know that's how it is around here.”

Geri's chin quivered pitiably. “Alan was about to sell the business to Todd's company. He was going to announce the sale of Breitenstrater Pies at the pie-eating contest. He was so excited about it, too,” Geri wailed. “All he'd ever really wanted to do was be a river-rafting guide in Colorado. After the sale was to be complete in a few months, we were going to leave Paradise forever.”

Alan? A river-rafting guide in Colorado? I couldn't see it, somehow. But if that had really been his dream all along, it seemed to me he could have accomplished it easily enough by turning the business over to his brother or selling it years ago—right after getting in good enough shape to actually be a river guide, of course. But he, like so many people, had put off his dreams too long. What a shame.

Maybe the same thought occurred to Geri. A fresh onslaught of her tears plunked into Geri's Eeyore coffee mug. I stared up at the copper butts of the pans dangling overhead, and thought some more about Geri's confirmation. Alan had been about to sell Breitenstrater Pies. In fact, he'd been about to announce the sale at the pie-eating contest. Instead, he'd keeled over dead face-first into one of his company's own pies—a new, health-food pie.

“But what about Trudy's future? She didn't care about the company?”

Geri shrugged as if that really didn't matter. “Trudy wanted to be an actress. She just wanted to eventually sell out her shares to fund her acting career. And that broke Alan's heart. He talked about that often. He thought Trudy should want to take over the business, since her brother Jason is gone. But Trudy just wasn't interested. So Alan decided he'd sell the company.”

I thought through what Geri had just told me. Alan didn't care, really, about Trudy's dreams. Or about his brother and nephew's interest in the company. Truth be told, he blamed and hated his nephew for killing his son. He just wanted to get rid of his company and get out of Paradise.

Trudy wouldn't care that the family company was being sold. She'd get some money that would fund her acting career. And it sounded like daddy would be just as glad to be shut of her—she was too much of a reminder of the child he'd lost, the one he'd really loved.

But Cletus and Dinky would very much care. Sure, Cletus had the Fireworks Barn and his interests to keep him busy, but what he'd really wanted all along—if not for himself, then for Dinky—was the pie company. Dinky would want it, too, of course, because what else could he do? He'd already been hired and fired from a baker's dozen of jobs.

I shuddered—as many a Paradisite had—to think what Dinky would do with the business should he ever get ahold of it. Maybe that was at least partly why Alan wanted to sell the business—to save it from Dinky. But who was he going to sell it to? A new owner might not want to keep the pie company in Paradise.

The announcement of the sale, though a joy and relief for Alan, would have upset more than just Cletus and Dinky. It would have upset many a Paradisite who worked for a modest living at the pie company, and many family members of Breitenstrater Pie Company employees.

But now Alan was dead and so the sale wouldn't go through. The pie company would go to Cletus and Dinky. Except Cletus went missing right before his brother keeled over into a lemon ginseng health-food pie. Cletus, who, I'd learned from Mrs. Beavy that morning, was obsessed with the health benefits of ginseng tea.

And let's not forget, I told my coppery reflection in the bottom of a skillet, that my own Uncle Otis was in jail for ginseng poaching—but he wouldn't say for whom. And that Trudy's ferret Slinky had collapsed after eating a portion of either the chocolate cream or lemon ginseng pie—showing poisoning symptoms.

What a mess.

The only way to sort it out was one piece at a time. Sort of like dealing with a big old pile of filthy laundry, I thought.

Which reminded me of Sally at my laundromat. My gut clenched at the thought. What messes could Larry, Harry, and Barry have wrought by now?

I shook my head to clear it. Focus, Josie, focus, I told myself. One nasty piece of laundry at a time.

I looked down at Geri, who was still crying and dripping into her Eeyore mug. “Did the health-food pies have anything to do with the sale?”

“What?” Geri looked at me for a moment as if she'd forgotten I was there. “Oh, the health-food pies. Why, um, yes.” She blew her nose into a raggedy tissue. Then she stuffed the tissue back into her jeans pocket. I shuddered. I surely hoped she checked her pockets before doing her laundry. “Alan came up with the idea and Dinky told Todd about them. Todd works in product development—maybe marketing—for Good For You Foods International—something in product development. I'm not sure exactly what.”

She picked up her cold—and unnaturally creamy—mug of coffee for the first time since I'd arrived and started to take a sip.

I snatched the mug from her. “That's too cold to be fit to drink,” I said. “Let me just get a fresh cup for you.”

I took the mug to the sink, poured out the contents, rinsed the mug, then went over to the coffee pot and poured fresh coffee into Geri's mug. “How do you take your coffee?” I asked.

“Black,” she said.

I carried the mug back to her. She took a long sip, looked at me gratefully. “Thanks,” she said.

“So tell me more about Todd's role at Good For You Foods International.”

“He's some kind of muckety-muck there. When he heard about the health-food pies, I guess he got all excited—this was going to be the new rave, he said.” She wrinkled her nose. “I prefer just a plain lemon meringue myself—hold the health-food additives.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “Where's Good For You Foods International located?” I asked, hoping to wring the last bit of information out of her before she totally lost interest in the topic.

“Oh, I don't know. Hoboken, New Jersey?” Her voice lilted up in a question, as if I might know the answer. Then her chin started quivering again. “I feel so overwhelmed. I'm supposed to go to the funeral home today, make all these decisions. I mean, Alan had a detailed will, but I still have to decide on things like what suit he should have on f-f-for the funeral. . .” Her eyes welled up, putting her coffee in jeopardy again.

“Maybe Cletus could help you,” I said, hoping to prompt Geri into sharing information about his whereabouts.

Geri looked confused, shook her head. “I haven't seen Cletus since yesterday morning. Dinky said he'd track him down, though. He's been gone all morning. And Trudy . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she stared into space, as if she were trying to conjure a face to go with Trudy's name.

I sighed. I didn't know who to feel sorrier for. Trudy, the child. Or Geri, the woman-child who didn't seem much more mature than Trudy.

“Geri, there's something I came by to tell you,”—Geri looked at me sharply, suddenly suspicious—”I mean, in addition to checking on you, I thought you should know that Trudy left Slinky off at my laundromat yesterday with a note saying she was taking off for a while. Hitchhiking. Geri, she shouldn't be hitchhiking and she may not even know her father's dead, and—”

“Slinky?” Geri looked at me vacantly.

“Trudy's pet ferret,” I said impatiently. Had anyone paid attention to the kid?

“Oh, that thing.” Geri wrinkled her nose. “Alan hated the animal. He was always threatening to take it outside and squish it.”

I gasped. As much as Slinky got on my nerves, I sure wouldn't wish such a fate on the poor creature. No wonder Trudy felt totally alienated at home and had run away. If that was why she had run away. I'd suspected Cletus's disappearance could be related somehow to Alan's death—pop a little poison into big brother's pie, perhaps, then disappear—but I hadn't thought of Trudy being capable of doing away with her own father. But if she'd been totally ignored—except to have her only pet threatened with a gruesome death by her father—could she have been in cahoots with Cletus?

I shook my head to clear it of my wondering. “Don't you think you should call Trudy's mother, in case she's heard from her? Or in case she wants to notify the authorities? Do you have her number?”

Geri sighed. “Yes. I'll do that now. And then I guess I should—oh, I don't know what to do next! Without anyone around to help me, I just feel overwhelmed about these decisions I have to make . . .”

And that's how—after I made sure Geri really did call Trudy's mother—I ended up with Geri in her and Alan's bedroom, looking through gray suit after gray suit (every shade from pewter to charcoal) in their big walk-in closet, helping Geri pick out a suit for Alan to be buried in.

We settled on a charcoal suit with a pinstripe, a white shirt, and a burgundy tie, and when that decision was made, we sorted through her side of the closet to find something for her to wear. She wanted to wear a red suit and goldenrod yellow blouse, to signify her and Alan's favorite colors, and I tried to talk her into a black suit and a teal blouse, and she ended up with the black suit and the yellow blouse. Yellow had been Alan's favorite color, she said.

Then Geri collapsed on the bed and asked if I could do her just one more favor—get her bottle of tranquilizers and a glass of water.

I went to the master bath, filled her glass—which was crystal—with water from the tap, pausing for just a moment to admire the spiffy brushed-steel fixtures and the whirlpool tub with the marble surround. The prescription bottle of tranquilizers was out on the counter, by the sink. All I had to do was pick up the bottle and take it and the glass out to the bedroom. . .

Oh, all right, I confess I looked in the medicine cabinet. Can anyone really resist looking in other people's medicine cabinets? And besides, there might have been a different prescription bottle of tranquilizers for Geri. I sure didn't want to get the wrong one.

There were no other bottles of tranquilizers for Geri—but there were plenty of bottles for Alan. A quick glance revealed medicine names that I recognized, from my Aunt Clara's and Uncle Horace's prescriptions, as being for high blood pressure and heart conditions and cholesterol problems. Another bottle was labeled with a name of a medicine I recognized, from the ads on TV, as being an antidepressant.

I stared at the bottles, thinking. Alan had been a walking health time bomb. Doubt about my theory that he'd been poisoned fingered my thoughts. Maybe he'd really just had a heart attack. Maybe his heart attack had been coincidentally timed with that one bite of pie. Maybe his medicine hadn't been working—or maybe he'd stopped taking it, under some self-delusion that he was hale and hearty and fit to go off and be a river-rafting guide after all.