Murder the Tey Way: A Golden Age of Mystery Book Club Mystery (The Golden Age of Mystery Book Club Mysteries 2) (14 page)

“I most certainly will not!” my loving boyfriend shouted before I’d finished all I’d planned to say. “For one thing, what happened in Utah stays in Utah. I’ve no jurisdiction outside of New York. Outside of Nassau County, for that matter!”

“But—”

“In the second place, I’ve no idea if any of what Gayle said is true. She wasn’t exactly honest with you, was she?”

“Not at first, but—”

“In the third place, she’s wanted by my department for questioning regarding an ongoing homicide. She’d better get her butt over to Paulson’s office before sundown today.”

“Sundown!” I shouted back. “This isn’t a western! Gayle’s terrified and she’s innocent.” I lowered my voice. “And she’s my sister, Brian.”

“Dammit, I know she’s your sister!” He went silent. I knew not to say another word.

Seconds passed. “Tell you what,” he continued calmly, conciliatory, “if Gayle talks to Paulson today, I’ll make some calls to Utah to check out the situation.”

I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Thanks, Brian. And tell them about that Pete Rogers.”

“Oh, I intend to,” he said, his tone letting me know he’d already given the subject some thought. “Gotta go.” I heard something just before he hung up.

Was that a kissing sound?
I wondered as a grin spread across my face.

I drove into the garage, relieved that Gayle’s SUV was where she’d parked it. I’d left her sleeping soundly and didn’t expect her to take off, but my sister was capable of rash behavior–not including murder, I reminded myself.

I found her playing with Puss on the living room floor. She was dangling my bathroom belt above him, and the silly cat was leaping up after it. It was the most activity he’d had since the day we moved in, when he’d raced around the house leading me a merry chase.

I told Gayle that Brian would help her deal with the Utah police if she agreed to talk to Detective Paulson.

“Okay. I’ll do it,” she said, to my surprise and great relief.

I handed her his card. “You’ll call him?”

“Right now.”

She went into her room and closed the door.

I headed for my computer and checked my email. Then I Googled “Johnny Scarvino.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, surprised at the many pages the name brought up.

He was a thug, all right, and had been arrested for racketeering and other mob-related activities in New Jersey. There were many newspaper articles about other Scarvinos. I would have ignored them, but many of them concerned a murder trial I’d read about a few years back. John Scarvino—was that Johnny’s father?—had been charged and found guilty for killing another mobster and his wife.

“Lexie?”

I turned to Gayle. “You spoke to Detective Paulson?”

She nodded. “I’m going down to the precinct now.”

I suddenly felt chilled. Gayle was doing this because I told her to. But what if someone had screwed up the evidence and she got indicted for the crime? Labs made all kinds of mistakes. There were dirty cops who planted evidence. What if this Detective Paulson wanted to nail the murderer ASAP and wouldn’t hesitate to pin it on his only viable suspect?

“Want me to come with you?” I asked.

She paused, then shook her head. “Thanks, Lexie. You’ve done enough. I’ll call if I need you.”

Or need a lawyer
, I thought as we hugged. I watched her drive away, feeling as I’d felt the morning I’d watched my son Jesse walk to school by himself for the very first time.

I called Joy, eager to tell her Gayle had returned and that I’d found out quite a lot about Felicity’s Johnny. I got as far as “hello” when she cut me off.

“Talk to you later. I’m on the phone with the school nurse. Zack got hurt during recess.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

She called back a minute later. “Can you come over now? I have to take Zack to the emergency room. Things will go smoother if I don’t bring Brandon.”

“Of course,” I said, though I hated not being here when Gayle returned.

“I’d bring him over to you, but he just fell asleep.”

“No problem. I’m on my way.”

I left Gayle a note, grabbed my satchel of quizzes that needed grading and threw on a jacket.

“See you later,” I told Puss, who ignored me.

Joy was waiting for me outside her open garage. “Thanks, Lexie. Zack fell and hit his head playing soccer during recess. He might have a concussion, so I’m taking him to the ER. I left you a note on the kitchen table—what to feed Brandon when he wakes up.” She grinned. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you please change him if necessary? You do remember how to do that, don’t you?”

“I’ll do my best, though I may have blocked it from my memory. What about

Ruthie?” I asked as Joy climbed into her SUV.

“She’s going to her friend Robin’s house. Robin’s mom is driving them to dance class. Marcia said she’ll bring them home, too, and if I’m running late, I’ll ask her to keep Ruthie and feed her dinner. Ruthie won’t like the dinner part. Mike’s supposed to take the kids to Family Swim Night.”

“Busy, busy,” I commented.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Joy said before slamming the car door.

I checked on Brandon, who was fast asleep in his crib, then wandered through the house, trying to find a comfortable nook where I could settle down and mark papers. Every room, including the kitchen, was cluttered with toys and kiddie paraphernalia. I suddenly remembered  the leather lounge chair Mike had bought for his office, and headed for the back of the house.

His desk was strewn with papers, but the rest of the room was tidy, except for a few dog-eared sports magazines at the foot of the new chair. I set them aside and, red pen and quiz papers in hand, climbed aboard and pushed the lever way back. Comfy.

I finished off the two sets of papers, and got up to stretch. Time to check on the sleeping baby. As I passed Mike’s messy desk, I couldn’t resist giving it the once over.

There was a box with bills to be paid, magazine subscriptions to be refilled, an application for a home equity loan, and a pile of coupons for local restaurants. In the corner against the wall was an open weekly calendar. Snoop that I was, I peered at this week’s schedule. Tonight’s Family Swim was down, along with the address of this week’s Friday night poker game.

I flipped through the three previous weeks. “Make calls” was jotted down several times, no doubt a reminder to call guests for Joy’s surprise party. I noticed a dentist appointment, the times he had to pick up Zack or Ruthie from some activity, and one “call LL.”

My heart began to pound. “LL” could only mean Len Lyons! I checked the date and my pulse raced even faster. It was last Wednesday. The day before Len Lyons was murdered.

I paced in circles. Should I mention this to Joy? To Brian? To Detective Paulson? I felt like the worst kind of traitor. Here I was babysitting his son as I wondered if sweet, loving Mike Lincoln was a murderer!

And why shouldn’t I?
Right now the police were interrogating my sister because someone I knew had hidden the murder weapon in the room Gayle had used, no doubt to incriminate her.

A loud wail broke into my thoughts. I hurried to Brandon’s room to change his Pamper, then fed him some apple sauce and bananas.

Joy arrived home two hours later with a cranky Zack, who couldn’t understand why he had to miss basketball practice. She settled him on the couch in the den and turned on the TV, then called me into the kitchen. I gave her a detailed report of Brandon’s intake of food and elimination, and received a huge hug of appreciation.

“Want a cup of coffee?” she asked. “It’s the least I can do for you.”

“No thanks. Gayle’s been down at the precinct for hours talking to Paulson. I want to be home when she gets back.”

Joy’s eyes widened. “I hope everything works out well for her. I’ve the name of a good criminal lawyer, if you need one.”

“Thanks. We might.”

Or you might
, I thought as I shrugged into my jacket and gathered up my papers.

“Mom?” Zack shouted from the den.

“What?” Joy ran to see what was wrong. I trailed after her.

“Can I still go to Family Swim Night with Dad and Ruthie?”

“You most certainly cannot!” Joy felt his forehead for fever. “You’ll stay home and spend a quiet evening with Brandon and me.”

“But that’s hours from now. I’ll be fine then.”

“You’ll rest tonight and we’ll see if you go to school tomorrow.”

Joy walked me to the front door. “Have you heard? Corinne and Felicity are putting their house on the market, just as soon as they fix the damage that idiot caused the other night.”

I stared at her. “Where did you hear that?”

“The school nurse told me. Her sister-in-law works in the realty office in town.”

“I can’t blame them for wanting to move,” I said.

Joy’s eyes took on a calculating look. “Me, neither. But why did someone shoot up their house, and so soon after the bank robbery?”

I gave a gasp of surprise. “You think the two are related?”

“Only in the sense that they’re both really way-out events.”

Now was the time to tell Joy about Johnny Scarvino and what I’d learned about his father, but I had other, more pressing matters on my mind.

What did honest, decent Mike—former cop and Joy’s husband—want with the likes of Len Lyons, conniver, thief, and thug?

Super investigator that she was, Joy must have seen Mike’s notation to call Len Lyons while snooping around in search of evidence of his infidelity. We’d held lengthy discussions regarding who knew the murder victim, yet she’d never mentioned seeing the victim’s initials in her husband’s diary. Was she protecting him or what?

Should I mention it to Brian? To Detective Paulson?

Should I confront Joy?

“Lexie?”

I gave a start. “What?”

“Weren’t you going to tell me something you discovered online?”

“Oh, that!” I waved my hand. “I decided it’s not relevant to the case.” 

Joy’s face scrunched up in puzzlement. “But you sounded excited when you called this afternoon. Sometimes it’s the little things that break a case.”

The little things. Were finding the dead man’s initials in her husband’s diary a little thing?

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I say, edging closer to the door. “Now I want to get home to Gayle.”

“Of course,” Joy said, sounding disappointed. “The cops could sure use some new leads.”

We hugged and I walked home. Gayle pulled into the driveway as I was unlocking the front door. She looked drained. I opened the garage so she could park there, then steered her toward the kitchen and filled the kettle for tea.

“How did it go?”

She offered me a wan smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“So Paulson doesn’t consider you a suspect.”

Gayle shrugged. “One of many. The results of the knife came back. Evidence of blood. No fingerprints.”

“No surprise there,” I said, but inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. I told her about finding Len Lyons’ initials in Mike’s weekly diary.

Gayle simply shrugged. “It doesn’t mean a thing. For all you know, Mike might have wanted him to fix a faucet or some such thing. Lyons was a handyman, right?”

I laughed, suddenly relieved. “I never thought of that.”

“Everyone in your book group is connected one way or another to Len Lyons,” Gayle said.

I grimaced. “Just like in an Agatha Christie novel.”

“But not in one by Josephine Tey?” Gayle asked, surprising me by remembering her name.

I shook my head. “Though Tey wrote a few traditional mystery novels, the two our group read and discussed are most original. One involves the solving of a five- hundred-year-old mystery; the other,
Brat Farrar
, concerns a stolen identity and an eight-year-old murder.”

“Murders that took place in the past,” Gayle mused. “Len Lyons was a career criminal and involved in plenty of illegal activities. What if he was murdered because of something that happened some time ago?”

I shrugged. “We’ll never know.”

The kettle whistled. I poured hot water into our mugs. As I set out an array of teabags and cookies, another thought occurred to me.

“Josephine Tey believed facial expressions reveal a person’s character,” I said. “In
The Daughter of Time
, Alan Grant takes on the task of proving Richard the Third’s innocence based solely on a photograph of a portrait painting. He works on the premise that Richard looked extremely unhappy and responsible, that he suffered illness as a child and wasn’t the sort of man who would kill his nephews for the crown.”

“Okay,” Gayle said, not knowing what I was leading up to.

“I think I’ll give it a go.”

“Lexie, what on earth are you talking about?”

“Even better, I’ll have the person in the flesh to work with, not some photograph of a painting.” I grinned. “I’m going swimming this evening, Gayle. Stay here and hold down the fort.”

I entered the pool area wondering how a person could feel hot, damp and chilled, all at the same time. I wrinkled my nose at the strong chlorine fumes, one of the many reasons I avoided coming to the high school pool, which remained open Tuesday evenings for Ryesdale residents throughout the school year. Though I was a good enough swimmer, the idea of going out into the cold after being in an environment suitable for delicate flowers, restricted my swimming to dips in friends’ pools during the summer months. But I couldn’t pass up the chance to speak to Mike tonight.

There were about thirty people in the pool, mostly parents and their elementary school-aged children. One man in his sixties was trying to swim laps, and seemed annoyed whenever a splashing child got in his way.

I walked over to the shallow end and stepped down. Though the water wasn’t cold, I shivered at the idea of wetting my entire body as well as my hair, then having to dry off before dressing again and stepping out into the nippy November evening.

“Lexie! I didn’t know you came to Family Swim Night?”