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  “One day I wrote my phone number on a napkin,” Bette continued, “and handed it to him with his tea. I couldn’t believe it when he just walked out. On me! I figured Suzanne was right: he was gay. But he came right back in, walked up to me and asked, ‘Who should I ask for?’ ” She looked up at Delyth. “Being that clueless can be cute, don’t you think?”

  Delyth glanced beyond Bette to where the partyers were slipping out. “How did you feel when he took up with Suzanne?”

  Bette snorted. “He was long gone out of my life by then. At least, I tried to get him out of my life, but he kept calling. Like when his dog died. I don’t understand people and their dogs. I mean dogs can be cute, I guess. But a dog is a dog. There’s no reason crying over it. Do you think that makes me emotionally shallow?” She brought her glass to her lips, but returned it to the table without drinking. “Did you ever think that colorblind people don’t know red and green are different colors unless someone tells them? They have to take their word on it, too. I wonder if any of them suspect it’s all a conspiracy to make them feel inadequate.” Her words were starting to slur.

  Delyth needed to get Bette back on track before she was completely incoherent. “So why did Zad call you about his dog?”

  “To go to the funeral. Would you believe he had a bunch of people there to put the dog in the ground? I broke a heel stomping through the mud. I beat it out of there when they started brainstorming how Zad could get revenge.”

  “Revenge against…?”

  “The neighbor. Zad was convinced he’d fed the dog antifreeze. Even the vet’s assistant who was there said it could’ve been mushrooms, but Suzanne insisted it’d been deliberately poisoned.”

  “Suzanne was there?”

  “Oh, yeah. That was the first time I knew they were a thing.” Bette raised the champagne bottle toward Delyth, asking if she wanted more, apparently not noticing that Delyth had barely touched her first glass. “You know, I saw her that night?”

  “What night?”

  “The night when Zad was shot. She was standing at the front door like she was looking for someone.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In my car.” At Delyth’s questioning look, she went on. “I was leaving Shawn’s. I never spend the night.”

  “You were there?”

  Bette nodded.

  “When was this?”

  “Maybe eleven-thirty.”

  “Had you heard the shot?”

  She laughed. “Shawn’s a noisy one.”

  “Did you tell the police?”

  “They never asked. Why should they? They don’t know I’m boinking a neighbor. You have to be cleverrer…” She stumbled over the word. “Cleaverier.” She giggled. Delyth suspected Bette Lee rarely giggled. “Smarter than the cops.”

  “Don’t you think you should tell them?”

  “Not really. Safer to just stay out of it.” She looked around to the now empty conference room. “Did I offer you a piece of cake?”

  “Thanks, but I’m expected for dinner.” Which wasn’t true, but she’d seen the cake. It looked like it was bought at the same supermarket as the champagne.

  “I think I’d like another piece,” Bette announced.

  When she stood, she seemed less stable than when Delyth first saw her. “Are you going to be okay?” Delyth asked.

  “I got a ride home.”

  They shook hands. Delyth watched her to make sure she maneuvered safely to the conference room.

  Outside, Delyth said aloud, “That was interesting.” First, Bette contradicted Suzanne’s story, who was standing at the front door an hour-and-a-half after she’d said she went to bed. She may have heard the shot and been looking for the killer. But why would she have stood in plain sight? Why leave Zad lying on the kitchen floor until morning? Why didn’t she tell the police? Second, Bette admitted to being close to the crime scene herself at the time of the murder. She may have made up the story about Suzanne to cast suspicion away from herself. But why bring it up if the police weren’t even considering her? If she wanted to stay out of it, why had she told Delyth? She was drunk, which could loosen careless lips, but maybe the champagne was just an excuse to say what she wanted to say all along. Ajnabee’s neighbors seemed suspiciously intent on implicating each other in his death. Maybe, just maybe, there was a front-page story here somewhere.

  TEN

  Helen had the week off for Spring Break. Not that the rain over the weekend or the damp chill of an unseasonably thick fog that day could be considered spring-like. At least it gave her a chance to interview Suzanne. She drove to the Haven Café, hoping to catch her during change of shifts.

  Delyth had called the night before to report on her meeting with Bette and her surprise revelation that she’d seen Suzanne awake and standing at the door the night of Ajnabee’s murder. Helen wasn’t sure how to get Suzanne to share anything incriminating about Bette Lee, though. Champagne might have been the reason for Bette’s loose tongue, but Helen doubted it was on the Haven’s menu. She wondered whether she should have brought some vodka to spike Suzanne’s tea.

  The tarot reader sat alone in front of the Haven. Instead of gazing into the future, she was reading a paperback with a half-naked man and full-breasted woman overflowing her blouse embracing on the cover. Helen supposed her clients had been driven away by the fog that penetrated the spring jackets most people had already switched to. Inside, on the other hand, most of the tables were occupied. Apparently, what the cold and drizzle took from the fortuneteller, it gave to the restaurant, as people lingered over herbal teas and mid-afternoon, vegan snacks.

  Helen stuck her umbrella into the stand by the door and looked around. At first, she couldn’t spot Suzanne, not until a man at a table toward the back stood and revealed her sitting there. The man was Shawn Cunningham. The woman sitting beside Suzanne was Bette Lee. Helen didn’t know what to make of it; they were supposed to hate each other.

  When Helen talked to her last, Suzanne was more than eager to spread malicious gossip about Bette and, according to Delyth, Bette jumped at the chance to incriminate Suzanne in Ajnabee’s murder. Could they be in it together? Could their mutual scorn be a subterfuge aimed at deflecting suspicion from themselves? Not wanting to interrupt whatever business had brought them together, she hoped to find a table close enough that she could eavesdrop. She’d started to turn away, when Suzanne waved and beckoned her over.

  “Helen, right?” Suzanne said when she got in earshot.

  “It’s so cold out, I thought I’d get something warm to drink,” Helen said, perhaps too quick with a cover story.

  “Join us.” Suzanne pointed to the extra chair at the table.

  “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “I remember you,” Shawn said. “You were at Howard’s the other day.”

  “Nice seeing you again,” Helen said, not sure if she meant it under the circumstances.

  “I was just going to ask for more tea,” Shawn explained. “Would you like some?”

  Suzanne laughed. “Not the coffee. I had to dump out a whole cup last time.”

  Helen could feel her face flush.

  “Try the hot lemonade,” Shawn suggested. “It’s delicious.”

  “Honest, I don’t want to bother you. I’m sure I can find a table…” She looked around, still hoping to sit close by, but the only vacant table was a small one by the door.

  Suzanne turned to where Helen was looking. “That table’s terrible,” she said. “You get a cold blast every time the door opens. We’re just about done here anyway.”

  Helen couldn’t understand Suzanne’s insistence. It felt too cheerful and effusive for someone she’d met once and in unusual circumstances. Did she remember that Helen was supposed to be working with a reporter? Did she hope to spin an innocent explanation for the three of them being there together?

  Bette neither smiled nor spoke, apparently not as happy about Helen’s intrusion on their party as the other two. Helen e
xtended a hand. “You probably don’t remember me. I’m Helen Terfel. We met—”

  Bette took her hand in a hint of a shake. “Yes, of course.”

  “You have to forgive poor Bette,” Shawn said. “She’s nursing a hangover.” At the glare Bette gave him, he added, “I’ll be right back with your water.” Turning to Helen, he said, “And a hot lemonade.” He left her standing awkwardly at the table.

  “You might as well sit until he gets back,” Suzanne said. “If you want you can carry your drink to a different table after.”

  She made not sitting seem impolite, so Helen sank into Shawn’s vacated chair.

  Suzanne smiled. “We’ve been planning Zad’s memorial.” She paused as if expecting Helen to respond.

  Helen didn’t know what to say, weighing options from ‘That’s so sad,’ to ‘Way to go.’ She settled on the trite. “I’m sure he would have appreciated it.” Never having met Zad, she didn’t know if he would have or not, but it sounded good. “I really shouldn’t interrupt.”

  “We’re done. We’re keeping it small. Worried about ghouls wanting to gawk at a murder scene.”

  Bette stopped massaging her temples to add, “Zad didn’t have many friends in any case.”

  “Yes he did,” Suzanne objected.

  Bette turned to Helen. “Not many who’ll be willing to admit to knowing him.”

  Shawn returned and handed Bette a glass of water. “Willow will bring your lemonade.”

  Helen started to stand. “I’m sorry. I took your seat.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll grab a chair from another table.” Before she could object, he stepped to the next table. A smile and a quick word earned him a reciprocal smile and an “Of course” from the two women sitting there.

  Once he rejoined them, Suzanne said, “Nothing formal, of course. I’ll invite a few people to the house for sandwiches and champagne.”

  “Did the police let you back into Zad’s house?” Helen asked.

  “It took them long enough. You wouldn’t believe what a mess they left it. Robert paid for a crime-scene cleanup company to help clean up the place. Really professional about it, efficient, though they couldn’t get all the bloodstains completely out of the kitchen floor. I’ll get the flooring replace when the estate goes through probate, and the place is actually mine.”

  “What?” Bette said. “Wait. What do you mean the place will be yours?”

  “Zad left it to me in his will.”

  “What will?” Bette demanded.

  “I found it in his papers. My lawyer filed it with probate.”

  “You’re kidding me. No way.”

  “Did you think he was leaving the house to you?”

  “Not that.” To Helen, she didn’t sound particularly convincing. “I just can’t believe he got it together to make out a will.” She looked at Helen. “Sure, he’d mean to do it, like he meant to do lots of things. But he’d never have gotten around to actually doing it.”

  “Are you accusing me of forging the will?” A little too defensively, in Helen’s opinion. Suzanne swiveled in her seat and squared her shoulders. “You can look at it. It’s all in his handwriting. It’s completely valid as is.”

  “Ladies,” Shawn interposed, “please. Don’t make a scene.”

  The two women ignored his plea.

  Bette tilted her head back and looked down her nose. “It makes no difference to me. You won’t stay there once you get the cash. And I have a client who made an offer on the property. I’ll make my commission regardless of who owns it.”

  “Zad never told me someone wanted to buy the place.” Suzanne said. “Who’s the client?”

  “I can’t say. He wants to remain anonymous.”

  Suzanne sniffed. “Made him up, I bet. Doesn’t matter. I won’t sell.”

  “Oh, you will. The only reason you stuck around was to suck him dry.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “I could do better than the likes of Zad Ajnabee.”

  "Is that why you dumped him? Because you found somebody better?”

  Shawn looked ready to say something, perhaps defend his qualifications as Zad’s successor except, whether by coincidence or because other customers were starting to notice the women’s raised voices, Willow chose that moment to deliver Helen’s lemonade and Shawn’s tea.

  “Thank you,” Helen said. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Shawn already paid,” Willow answered as she hurried off to wait on customers who’d just sat down.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Helen told Shawn.

  He eyed Bette. “Maybe we should be going.”

  “Drink your damn tea. That’s what we were waiting for. I was ready to leave fifteen minutes ago.”

  “You don’t have to go on my account,” Suzanne told Shawn. Then glaring at Bette she added, “I have to get home to make sure no one has broken in and stolen anything.”

  The seemingly irrelevant remark must have hit some target, because Bette immediately said to Shawn, “Let’s go.”

  All three stood and left, Suzanne to the back of the restaurant and the other two out the door, leaving Helen alone to drink her lemonade—which was very good—and to mull over what had just happened.

  Suzanne was defensive about something. Her presumed inheritance could be a motive; people have killed for less. Helen expected a murderer to be cagier, but that could be giving murderers too much credit. Then there was the mysterious buyer. Who would make an offer on a property that wasn’t for sale? That puts you in a weak bargaining position. From the outside, Zad’s place didn’t seem anything special. Maybe the buyer knew something no one else did. But what? Whatever it was, would it be worth killing for?

  ◆◆◆

  Helen hadn’t expected that the next time she’d be driving to the Duddas’ farm, it would be with Frank and not Delyth. But the day before, when she was telling him about her encounter at the Haven Café, he mentioned that her story about the Duddas had gotten him thinking.

  “Which part?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Which part of my story got you thinking?”

  “You said that Delyth said that the Dudda woman said—”

  “That’s a lot of saids.”

  He went on as if Helen hadn’t interrupted. “That her roots ran deeper than the apple trees her grandfather planted. It suggested to me an art piece that talks to how people get enmeshed in the land they live on.”

  “Like what?

  “I don’t know yet; it’s more an intuition that something might be there. I wondered if the Duddas would be willing to talk about their history on the farm. Maybe if I could see photos of some of their ancestors, an idea might take shape.”

  While Helen knew Frank had been fretting over his next big project, she didn’t expect Jerzy and Karen to agree. They seemed skittish about strangers in general, and especially now because of the murder and Jerzy being a suspect, but she told Frank to call anyway.

  Five minutes on the phone was all he needed to arrange a meeting. “They were very excited by the idea. Karen especially. I’m going over there tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You think I could come with you?” After all, she did have the week off. Which led to her being in the car with Frank the next day driving to the Duddas.

  “I’m serious about this,” Frank was telling her. “I don’t want them kicking us out because they think it’s all an excuse to interrogate them.”

  “You’re as curious as I am.”

  “I won’t deny that Saturday was pretty heady, but this has nothing to do with the murder.”

  “But you admit that one of them could be the killer?” Helen didn’t feel the need to spell out which one was highest on her list of suspects.

  “I didn’t say that. But let’s say one of them is, we don’t want to provoke him or her by asking provocative questions.”

  Helen agreed to behave, although she wouldn’t object if Karen let slip some pertinent information.


  With Frank driving, Helen was able to enjoy the sky, a clear, pale, April blue, and a relief after the rain and fog of the last few days. A soft breeze, streaming through open windows, was redolent of damp earth and new growth. As they turned onto the gravel road to the Duddas’ farm, Frank pointed out some half-dozen apple trees lying on their side, white and pink blossoms still clinging to the branches.

  “How sad!” Helen said.

  “What?”

  “This beautiful emergence of renewed life just breaking forth, and they get lopped down.”

  Frank stopped opposite the end of the felled trees where a ball of roots and dirt dwarfed the tractor sitting beside it. “That’s an interesting object?”

  It was Helen’s turn to ask, “What?”

  “The roots. Something could be made of that.”

  He drove on, parking in front of the Duddas’ two-story farmhouse.

  Jerzy Dudda answered their knock. He gave a suspicious look at Helen, then extended a hand. “You must be Frank?”

  Grabbing Jerzy’s hand, Frank said, “You got me.” Then half turning toward Helen, he added, “You remember my wife, Helen.”

  Helen reached out for a similar shake, but Dudda nodded, forestalling any physical contact. Helen quickly pulled her arm to her side.

  “You’re the reporter woman.”

  “Actually, I was only helping out a friend. Today I’m just enjoying an outing with my husband.”

  Jerzy stepped aside to let them in.

  As they entered, Karen Dudda rose from the sofa. “I must apologize for the last time you were here,” she said to Helen. “Things were a bit hectic that day.”

  “I understand,” Helen said. “Did you make it to your daughter’s swimming lesson on time?”

  “Oh, yes. If we hadn’t, the instructor wouldn’t have let Kyla in, and I’d still be hearing about it.”

  Jerzy didn’t introduce his wife to Frank, instead launching the room into two conversations. “I can’t stay. I’m clearing some apple trees.”

  “I know what you mean,” Helen said to Karen while trying to listen to the two men. She was doubly distracted by a dog whining in the next room.