Scam Chowder (14 page)

Val felt as if she'd stumbled onto the set of a play starring the musclewoman and her pet earworm. Act Three of
Café Sabotage.

The boys at the teens' table were deconstructing their sandwiches, probably in search of crawling things.

The girl who'd ordered a Cobb salad pushed it away. “I really don't want to eat this. Could I have a smoothie instead?”

The chubby boy guffawed. “If there's a worm in the smoothie, it'll be chopped so small you won't even notice it.”

Val had no choice. “Order whatever you like. Your lunch is free. All of you.”

With that incentive, the five teens decided to risk drinking a wormy smoothie.

After the café closed, the manager came in with the plate the complaining woman had shown him, now minus the salad and the earworm. With a temperament as even as his perfect tan, he usually greeted people with a smile worthy of a tooth whitener ad. Today his mouth was closed in a grim line. He asked Val the origin of her salad ingredients.

He winced at her answer. “An organic farm market? No wonder. From now on, Val, check the produce from that market carefully or buy somewhere else.”

If she argued that a total stranger had planted a worm in a salad, he'd ask why anyone would do that, and she had no answer. “Is the woman who ordered the salad a new member? I never saw her at the club before today.”

“She bought a daily membership. But this isn't the first complaint I've heard about things crawling in the café.”

Could she persuade him those complaints had been trumped up? “On Monday, I found a dead fish in my car. This morning, I slipped on water someone threw on the floor here. The complaints about the café are just part of a campaign against me.”

His raised eyebrows conveyed skepticism. “Did anyone see you fall?”

“No.”

Did he think she was lying, paranoid, playing for his sympathy . . . or all three? She couldn't tell. With a curt nod, he turned on his heel and left.

She envisioned her follow-on café contract slipping away. It was obvious who would benefit if she lost the contract—Irene. Maybe she'd hired the musclewoman to plant a worm in the salad.

As Val put together a breakfast casserole to be baked in the morning, Bethany called to confirm that she'd work from ten to two tomorrow if Val still needed her. Val certainly did. Between playing a tennis ladder match this afternoon and meeting with Junie May this evening, she wouldn't have much time to come up with the questions for the Brain Game unless Bethany relieved her at the café. Val told her about the water on the floor and described the woman who'd claimed to find an earworm in the salad. Unless the purple streak in the woman's hair turned green and the piercings disappeared overnight, Bethany would recognize her and watch out for trouble.

Val took extra care cleaning the café, making sure nothing was crawling around. When she finished, she had just enough time to change into her tennis shorts and rush out to the courts.

A pair of teenage boys played on one court. A woman stood alone near the net on the far court, a tall blonde in a body-hugging white tennis dress. That had to be Val's opponent, Petra Bramling.

As Val approached the court, she recognized the woman from her intricate French braid—Gunnar's ex-fiancée.

Chapter 15

Val and Petra introduced themselves and shook hands. They didn't mention their connection to Gunnar, but they didn't need to. Petra could have challenged any of the twenty women on the tennis ladder. Challenging Val was no coincidence.

Val couldn't control whether Gunnar returned to his fiancée, but she could control this match. So what if Petra had legs six inches longer? Most of Val's opponents had height in their favor. With good anticipation and stamina, she could prevail over taller players.

Trouble began early in the match. The first time Petra called Val's shot out when it was good, Val chalked it up to a mistake, possibly her own. After all, her opponent had a better view of where the ball had hit the court. The second time it happened, Petra was dead wrong. Val's shot had gone exactly where she'd aimed it—inside the line. But she didn't question the call and even gave Petra's shots the benefit of the doubt when they hit just outside the line. Experience had taught Val that generous line calls encouraged the opponent to reciprocate.

Other opponents. Not this one.

The third time Petra made a bad call, the ball was so far in the court that Val couldn't let it go. “Are you sure that ball was out?”

“Positive. I call the lines on this side of the net. You call the lines on your side.”

Okay, no more charitable line calls for her. Competitive juices gushed through Val like a rain-swollen stream. She blasted shots across the net and made Petra work for every point, running her from one side of the court to another. She was so fired up that she sometimes overhit, giving away a point. The score stood at four to two in Val's favor when Petra announced it in her own favor and immediately served the ball. Val hit the return into the net, distracted by the incorrect score.

“You made a mistake in the game score,” Val called out as Petra prepared to serve again. “You have two games. I have four.”

“That's not true. I'm winning.” Petra served the ball before Val could get into position to return it. “Now I'm ahead thirty-love in this game.”

Val felt her blood pressure rising. She approached the net. “When I served the previous game, I announced the score as three-two. Then I won that game, making it four-two in my favor.”

Petra joined her at the net. “I didn't hear you say that score, or I would have corrected it. And
I
won that last game, not you.”

Val felt rattled. Could she have announced the wrong score? Possibly, but probably not. She'd never done that before. What's more, she remembered every point of the previous game. “I can refresh your memory about that last game. I won the first two points on the serve—”

Petra twirled her racket. “The score is four-two, thirty-love. Let's play . . . unless you're giving up.”

Val's teeth clenched. “We have to agree on the score before continuing.”

Petra looked down her nose at Val. “You might as well give up. You don't seriously think you can compete with me. I always win.”

Not talking tennis here, are we?
“I've seen how you win . . . by cheating.” Val walked off the court, her racket tucked under her arm.

“Winning is winning,” Petra said. “And you just defaulted.”

Val went to Yumiko's office and told her what had happened. The tennis manager said she'd talk to Petra and try to resolve what must have been a misunderstanding.

Good luck with that.
“No misunderstanding. She was cheating. She'll tell you I'm a sore loser and defaulted. You know me better than that, and you don't know her at all. So whose version will you believe?”

“She is the customer, Val. You work here. The customer is always right. If you cannot reach agreement, her name will replace yours on the tennis ladder.” Yumiko pointed to the ladder list posted on her bulletin board. “You can speak to the club manager if you like.”

Not a good idea, given how low Val's stock with the manager had sunk. “Don't involve him. I accept your decision.” Val pivoted, took a few steps, and turned back to Yumiko. “When Petra Bramling first came to the club, she asked for Gunnar. You sent her to the café. Did you talk to her after that?”

“Yes, later that day. She said she went to the café and the woman working at the counter didn't know Gunnar. She must have spoken to Bethany. I told her your name and what you looked like. You were in the café too, she said, and heard her asking about Gunnar.”

“I didn't hear her.” Petra must have declared war on Val from that moment on. “I wish you had told me that the woman who challenged me was the one who asked about Gunnar.”

“She did not give me her name the day she asked about him. I'm sorry the match turned out so bad for you.”

Val went back to the Cool Down Café. She made a cranberry spritzer and took it to the corner table. The bad taste in her mouth from the tennis match disappeared quickly. The match had told what she couldn't have guessed earlier—that Petra hadn't succeeded in winning Gunnar back . . . yet. If she had, she wouldn't have bothered with the tennis confrontation. She'd acted out of frustration on the court, using tactics that couldn't possibly get her what she wanted, but revealed her character.

Petra played dirty. She would relish harassing Val, and all the dirty tricks had happened since Petra came to town. She could have found out what kind of car Val drove by following her to the parking lot after the café closed on Sunday. Easy to imagine Gunnar's ex thrusting a fish into a car, complaining about the café food, and throwing water on the floor, but Val couldn't pin the salad worm on her . . . unless the musclewoman was Petra's friend or even a relative. Both women had pinched features and steely eyes. Or was that just wishful thinking? Yes. Val was getting carried away because of her annoyance over the tennis match. She couldn't prove Gunnar's ex guilty of harassment.

She phoned Bethany and asked her to be on the lookout for both Petra and the musclewoman at the café tomorrow. Bethany said she'd keep her phone handy. If she saw the dirty-tricks suspects together, she'd snap a picture of them with her camera.

Val doubted the two would be stupid enough to hang out with each other anywhere at the club. Her phone rang a minute after she hung up with Bethany. The New York sommelier whose cookbook she'd publicized was returning her call.

“Hey, Val. Got your message. Yow!” Brakes screeched and horns blared. “I'm in a cab. Some idiot nearly sideswiped us. What can I do for you?”

He sounded in a hurry. She'd better get to the point fast. “Do you happen to know a sommelier named Omar Azamov? He works in the D.C. area.”

“Omar. Yeah. He was in the Master Sommelier prep course with me. I'm sure whatever wine he recommends will be terrific.”

“You know anything about his background or his family?” Val watched Gunnar's ex give the café a sneering glance on her way to the club exit.
Same to you, Petra.

“His parents were immigrants. I don't remember where from. They died when he was young. He started as a busboy and climbed the restaurant ladder. That's all I remember, and the cab's about to let me off. How's your cookbook coming, Val?”

Slowly—thanks to a murder last month and another this month. “I'm still working on it. Thank you for your help.” And for being too rushed to ask why she wanted to know about Omar.

“Let me know when you're back in the city.” He hung up.

What little she'd learned from him suggested Lillian had lied about knowing Omar's father. There had to be a reason for that lie.

Her phone rang again. This time it was her grandfather calling to ask when she'd be home.

“I'm meeting Junie May at six-thirty, Granddad. You can either wait until I get back to make dinner or microwave the chicken casserole that's in the freezer.”

“I'll zap the casserole. I don't want to wait for you. Lillian and I are going to a movie tonight.”

“I was thinking about her friend Omar. If it turns out someone poisoned Scott at your dinner, we'll need to find out as much as possible about every guest. See if you can get some information about Omar from her. She's the only one who knows him.”

“I'd just as soon forget about that chowder dinner for a few hours.”

Val couldn't blame him. After hanging up, she went to the locker room, showered, and changed her clothes. She looked forward to her meeting with Junie May. Maybe the reporter had dug up something new on Granddad's dinner guests.

Thanks to her aborted tennis match, Val had almost an hour to spare before driving to the reporter's house. She could spend the time poking around secondhand shops, where—according to Junie May—you might find old bottles containing poisonous substances now banned. Maybe Scott's poisoner had acquired arsenic locally.

Val didn't bother visiting the upscale antique shops in Bayport's historic district. They offered jewelry, coins, and decorative items made of precious metals. She'd have a better chance of finding toxic heavy metals at the secondhand shops on the outskirts of town.

The first two she tried, Old 'N Things and Must Haves, didn't carry vintage glassware or any apothecary items. The third shop, Cobweb Corner, had blue, green, and amber bottles with POISON embossed on them.

The grandmotherly shop owner watched her examine bottles. “A lot of folks like old poison bottles for the unusual colors and shapes. We have some three-sided and five-sided bottles. Now this here is one of my favorite shapes.” She pulled a clear bottle off the shelf.

Val didn't recognize the contours until the woman laid the bottle on its side. “Oh, it's shaped like a coffin. That's appropriate.”

“You see all the bumps, lines, and swirls in these bottles? The idea was that a person reaching for a bottle in the dark would know by feeling it that it contained poison, not cough syrup or a tonic, which came in smooth bottles.”

The poison bottles at Cobweb Corner contained nothing except air now. “Do you ever sell antique bottles with the contents still inside?” Val asked.

The woman shook her head. “We clean everything first.”

With no interest in clean, empty poison bottles, Val moved to a shelf displaying cooking vessels, including the copper pans and cast-iron pots that resembled her grandmother's. The ones in good condition had high price tags.

Her cell phone rang as she left the shop. Althea called to say her friend in Annapolis had been doing title searches today and researched the house Val had asked about. Lillian owned it free and clear, with no mortgage on it and no other obvious liens.

Granddad's sweetheart might have other debts not secured by the house, but at least she didn't have a mortgage company threatening foreclosure.

Val called her mother while she had good news to share. Waiting longer might mean she'd have to deliver bad news. She left a voice mail message, telling her mother not to worry about Granddad losing his money to his sweetheart. Based on the value of the property he and Lillian owned, he looked more like a fortune hunter than she did.

While Val tried to allay her mother's fears, she couldn't get rid of her own suspicions about Granddad's girlfriend. Owning an expensive house didn't mean Lillian wasn't after Granddad's money. Nor did it mean she wasn't a murderer.

Val drove to Treadwell and located secondhand shops more down-market than Bayport's.

She peered in the windows of several small stores, where the windows were clean enough that she could see they had no old bottles for sale. A shop named One of a Kind had dingy windows and assorted objects on shelves, tables, and the floor. Pictures and purses hung on the walls. Frying pans and suitcases were suspended from hooks in the ceiling. She went inside.

A Casablanca fan churned up musty air barely cooler than the outside temperature on a hot July afternoon. The only air-conditioning came from a single inadequate window unit. The shop had few customers—two middle-aged women examining teacups and a younger woman peering at jewelry in a glass case. A heavy, red-faced man stood immobile behind the counter. Wisps of his thinning brown hair fluttered in the breeze from the fan.

Val spotted glassware on the built-in shelves along the shop's back wall. Two shelves held dusty bottles, many with faded labels on them. After shifting three rows of glassware, she found a clear bottle of rat and mouse poison with a label listing the active ingredient as 1.5 percent arsenic trioxide. The bottle, embossed with a rat on the side opposite the label, had no cap on it and was empty. Behind it was another rat poison bottle, three-sided and containing liquid. Its yellow label listed the contents as 2.5 percent arsenic trioxide.

“Can I help you, miss?” the man behind the counter called out.

She turned to see him staring at her. She took the bottle with the yellow label to the counter. “This looks like something a friend of mine recently bought. I'm wondering if she got it here.”

“Doubt it. Most of our stuff is one of a kind, just like the shop name. Except for candlesticks and such. You want to buy that bottle?”

“I don't think you should have this for sale. It's labeled poison, and the bottle isn't empty.” She pointed to the contents listed on the label. “It says here that it contains arsenic.”

He eyed her with suspicion. “It says on the cap that it's fifteen dollars. I'm not lowering the price.”

“You're selling poison.”

He shrugged. “Everybody's got poison under the sink and in the garage. That bottle will cost you fifteen dollars and ninety cents with tax. You want to buy it or not?”

A week ago, she'd have bought it as her good deed for the day, to prevent an accidental or a deliberate poisoning. She'd have put the bottle in the locked shed where Granddad stored dangerous items until the next hazardous-waste collection day. But now, after Scott's murder by poison, she wouldn't put arsenic in Granddad's shed. Nor would she even carry it. She had no way to dispose of it without arousing suspicion.