Death by Marriage (10 page)

Deb and I watched, fascinated, as he retrieved the menus, gathered his dignity, and approached the Widow Kellerman, who looked as if disconcerting house stewards and anyone else who might be gawking was all part of her daily routine. Actually, from what I could see as she glided toward our table, she basked in it. Throwing the bull at her might be more difficult than I’d anticipated. I hadn’t even met her yet, and I couldn’t stand the woman.

For shame, Gwyn
. Okay, okay, so I wouldn’t be much of an investigator if I couldn’t keep an open mind.

Vanessa Kellerman took the chair to my right. Jeb Brannigan maligned her when he called her a Boxtox babe. She was still
hovering
on the right side of forty, and, as far as I could tell, she hadn’t needed Botox to win the role of trophy wife. Just a youthful gene pool, impeccable facial care, the boob job . . . and chutzpah.

I expressed my condolences, which were accepted with murmured thanks and a gracious nod. After we placed our lunch orders, I summoned my best customer smile. “My mother wanted to speak with you in person,” I said to Vanessa, “but with the Season coming on, real estate is sizzling. I hope you don’t mind me substituting.”

The Widow Kellerman fluttered her inch-long false eyelashes in my direction. “Of course I understand. And I’m delighted to meet you at last. Martin always spoke highly of you.”

Not the reply I wanted. This was the
enemy
. She wasn’t supposed to be well-mannered. “As you may know,” I said, “Mom is in charge of the Hospital Auxiliary’s Fund-raiser this year, and she was wondering if you would like to participate. Maybe it’s too soon,” I added hastily, “but we thought perhaps having something to do would . . .”. My words trailed away. I was going to have to improve my conversational skills. Obviously, I spent too much time at the drawing board and sewing machine.

Vanessa Kellerman’s liquid brown eyes lit up like a child about to tear into a stack of birthday presents. “What a lovely suggestion,” she cooed. “Quite frankly,” she added, “I’ve been told it takes years to get into the Hospital Auxiliary.”

“It does. Mom thought she should make an exception in your case.”

Fortunately, our food arrived in the midst of Vanessa’s gushing thanks. Now what? We’d taken care of the excuse for this lunch meeting. How on earth did I maneuver from charmingly friendly conversation to “Excuse me, Vanessa, but why didn’t you grab your husband before he fell overboard?”

Maybe this lunch wasn’t such a good idea after all. I’d foisted Vanessa Kellerman onto the Hospital Auxiliary with nothing to show for it.

Vanessa gazed out the window as a cruiser remarkably similar to
Rainbow’s End
passed by, heading toward the passage through the Golden Beach jetties. “You probably didn’t know,” she said softly, “but Martin was allergic to peanuts. The police suspect he died of anaphylactic shock.”

I almost choked on a piece of chicken. Deb’s fork dropped onto her plate. “What?” we chorused, almost in unison.

“He couldn’t go near a peanut,” she said dolefully. “He had an epi pen, of course. He carried it all the time. But the Santa pockets were so deep . . . evidently he couldn’t find it in time.”

Santa pockets.
My
Santa’s pockets. I gulped, fighting the surprise, the horror of having played a role, however inadvertent, in Martin’s death. Even if he’d found the pen, he’d have had to push up the heavy velvet sleeves . . .

Fighting revulsion, I took a sip of Pinot Grigio.
No, no, no, no, no, no
! Something was wrong here.

I tried to speak. Swallowed, tried again. “Mrs. Kellerman, are the police sure that’s what happened? I mean, anaphylactic shock is instantaneous, right? Where would Martin run into peanuts on board his own boat?”

The widow’s heavily lashed eyes widened. Innocence radiated from her like one of Crystal’s auras. “That’s what’s so strange.” She knuckled her lower lip, eyes misting. “We never had peanuts or peanut butter in the condo or on the boat. Not even candy bars. I can’t imagine how it happened.”

I could.

It didn’t take much creativity to picture Vanessa hanging a bag of peanuts or maybe a netted dollop of peanut butter as an ornament on the boat’s tree.

Surely Martin would have noticed.

Not if the “ornament” was hidden in the branches and he was so allergic that he didn’t have to actually swallow the peanuts to have an attack.

I was stretching. Trying to get myself off the hook? No. Now, more than ever, I was convinced Vanessa Kellerman had a hand in her husband’s death. “I saw the whole thing,” I said. “If only you’d had time to grab Martin before he went overboard.”

She’d had time, plenty of time.

Vanessa hung her head. “I was in shock,” she whispered so softly Deb and I had to lean in to hear her. “At first I just thought he’d lost his balance for a moment, that he’d grab the tree, no problem. And then when he went down, I couldn’t move. It was unreal. The lights, the loud music, all those engines. The boat hit a wake, and I had to grab the tree myself. The next thing I knew, Martin was gone, and I was down on my knees, screaming. It was awful. Awful.”

God, she was good. I could only stare in admiration. She’d covered all the bases and come up smelling of roses. Everything she said fit the timeline I’d seen with my own eyes.

I didn’t believe a word. Somewhere on the bottom of the Intracoastal was a bag of peanuts or peanut butter. Maybe it was fishfood already. The Widow Kellerman was going to inherit all Martin’s worldly possessions, and no one was going to be able to prove a thing.

Just because you don’t like the woman doesn’t mean she’s guilty of murder.

Shut up!
I snapped at the common sense side of my personality. For the moment it worked.

Deb and I made all the expected sympathetic noises. We finished our lunches, I gave Vanessa Mom’s card with the date and time of the next Fund-raiser committee meeting. She beamed and assured me she’d be there.

After she left, Deb and I looked at each other and shook our heads. “Do you think that story’s true?” she asked.

“I’m trying hard to tell myself we’ve made a mountain out of molehill, but I’m not there yet. It doesn’t feel right.”

“I ran into Laetitia Van Ryn at Publix,” Deb said, the inquisitive gleam back in her eye. “She told me you met Chief Talbot. Maybe you should ask him what’s going on.”

“As if he’s going to tell me word one.”

“Come on, Gwyn. Miss Letty spilled the beans. Crystal
told her your aura and C
hief’s went neon when you met. Give it a try. The worst the farm boy can say is no. It’s not like he’s going to haul you off to jail for a little excess curiosity.”

I waved my fingers. “Bye, Deb. Thanks for arranging lunch. Maybe a little more info than I expected, but I’m regrouping. We’ll figure this out yet.”

Five minutes later, I slid behind the wheel of the Malibu, turned the key to start the air, then sat there unmoving, my mind as numb as when the deputy woke me to say Scott was DUI.

I was in way over my head. Only in my daydreams could I solve the puzzle surrounding Martin’s death. And as for Miss Letty’s aura, I hadn’t a clue. The entire North Bypass Mall was probably laughing at me. Boone Talbot had undoubtedly heard about my feeble efforts and joined the chorus.

No, more likely Boone Talbot was pissed. And I really hadn’t wanted to throw a monkey wrench into a promising relationship.

Relationship? Oh, wow, Gwyn, you really do have a lot of imagination
!

I heaved a sigh, and headed back to the shop, my mind skittering in a relentless kaleidoscope of Martin, Vanessa, Jeb, Scott, Mom, Crystal, and Miss Letty.

The bare bones danced around me, mocking my inability to establish control, to force the wildly careening pieces into a coherent whole.

I was driving down our beautifully boulevarded main street, solidly planted with towering royal palms—past elegant shops on the right and our central park-cum-parking lot on the left. Past the large gazebo where residents clustered to hear every kind of music from Christmas choirs to jazz. Serene. Perfect. The ideal small town, a jewel safely separated from the ugly sprawl city Golden Beach had become.

As I crossed the old Tamiami Trail and headed toward the Center Bridge, I gritted my teeth and stripped the puzzle down to basic essentials. A young senior (Martin), an old senior (Miss Letty). One dead, one threatened. No possible connection, right?

So why was my brain trying to make one?

Because both Laura Wallace and Gwyn Halliday had too much imagination.

Or so I told myself at the time.

Chapter 8

On Wednesday morning there was a rat the size of the QE II lying in front of DreamWear’s back door. Artemis wound around my legs, preening.
What a mighty hunter am I
. While I made suitable cat-talk noises, assuring Artemis he was a champion, the rat was the biggest I’d ever seen (true), and he was such a good boy to give his treasure to mommy, I opened the trunk of my car and retrieved the long-handled “grabbit” and a plastic grocery bag I keep on hand for these emergencies. The rat was heavy, challenging the grabbit’s pick-up power. Darn it, you’d think Artemis would have taken a bite or two out of something that couldn’t have been an easy catch. I took another look at the battered, beady-eyed corpse and decided Artemis was every bit as smart as I thought he was. This was not an edible rat, even by cat standards.
But he thought I’d like it. Thanks a lot, cat.

Artemis sat on his haunches while I finally bagged the rat, then followed me to the Dumpster. He uttered what might have been a satisfied meow when the lid clanged shut and then he stalked off—a four-footed orange tank, tail straight up—pausing at the rear door of the deli for a few appreciative sniffs of the odors drifting out as Sal and A
ngie began their day’s routine.

I was late today. No time to survey my kingdom, to enjoy the dust motes drifting over the displays in the front window or the row of animal heads sitting on the shelf. Someone was out front, peering in. As I crossed the length of the shop, I got a better look at our early customer. The door to the niche where I’d parked Boone Talbot crashed open, and my hormones somersaulted out, bouncing around like a tumbling act from Cirque du Soleil. Topping that was a rush of satisfaction that I was dressed for High Tea in a crinkle gauze dress patterned in tiny magenta and pink flowers. Its bias-cut skirt flowed around me as I dashed to the door, flipped the sign to Open, and turned the dead bolt. After all, one didn’t keep the Chief of Police waiting.

“Good morning.” Boone Talbot’s perfect white teeth flashed as he offered me a downhome Nebraska smile.

Guess he hadn’t heard about Scott. Or my feeble attempts at sleuthing. Or maybe he had, but his mama brought him up with good manners.

“My new shipment of mustaches hasn’t come in yet,” I said, “and that wig catalog I told you about is still sitting in my workroom at home. Sorry about that.” I was babbling again. He had that affect on me.

The C
hief gave me a slow appraisal from the hot pink bow confining my hair at the nape of my neck to the tips of my black ankle strap high heels. What started out as sexy-appreciative gradually faded into a give-no-quarter cop face.
Oh-oh
. “I hear you’ve been asking questions,” he drawled. “Find out anything I ought to know?”

A blush shows up almost as well on skin the color of mine as it does on skin the color of milk. I couldn’t hide it. A “gotcha” moment, but the Chief’s lips didn’t even twitch. “Sorry about your brother,” he added, pursuing his advantage with a vengeance. “But on the plus side there’s nothing like a night in the drunk tank to set off a bit of soul-searching.”

The crack in the door to the Talbot niche in my brain slammed shut. The distinct snick of the lock echoed in my head. I backed up, zipped behind the counter, and perched on my tall stool, adding inches to my height. I was now almost eye to eye with the
C
hief, but inside I was still quivering. If Boone Talbot wanted to shake me up a bit so he could see what fell out, he’d done a good job of it.

Counter-attack time. “Vanessa Kellerman told me Martin died from anaphylactic shock. Is that true?”

He didn’t even blink. “That’s what the coroner says.”

“Peanuts on a Christmas tree. Seems kind of odd.”

“Maybe they were in his Santa suit.”

“Wha-at!” I lost my cool. The word came out on an unladylike screech.

“Sorry.” The C
hief’s long fingers flicked the implied accusation away. “No matter where the peanuts were, Miss Halliday, no one thinks you’re responsible. But you’re a witness, a good one who pays attention to detail. I’m surprised you’ve already heard about the peanut allergy, but if there’s anything more you can contribute, I’d like to hear it.”

I repeated what I’d learned, emphasizing the Hospital Auxiliary’s role in my lunch with Vanessa Kellerman. Okay, so I might have given the impression that the Fund-raiser was my sole reason for lunching with Vanessa and the mayor’s wife, and her confidences had tumbled out because she felt an urge to talk. Female bonding and all that.