The Proof Is in the Poison, page 18
We loaded back into my van and drove down to the Moonshine Shack, where I promptly opened my store and set out my sandwich board. Granddaddy plunked himself down in a rocking chair out front with his tumbler of iced tea and his whittling tools. Though my shop had been closed less than twenty-four hours, it felt like a lifetime.
It was late afternoon by then, nearly dinnertime. I was debating whether to order takeout or make do with a can of soup and saltines from my storeroom, when a familiar clop-clop-clop sounded out front. A moment later, Marlon’s voice drawled, “Whoa, girl.”
I came out of my stockroom, walked through the shop, and opened the door. “Hey, Marlon.”
“Hey,” Marlon said as he tied Charlotte’s reins to the post. He gave my grandfather a nod. “How’s your day going?”
Granddaddy rocked back in his chair. “Fair to middlin’.”
Marlon looked from my grandfather to me. “You two eat yet?”
“No,” I said. “I was just debating what to do about dinner.”
Marlon crooked an arm up on the porch post. “I say we order a pizza. We can even get one with all of those red and green and yellow things on it if you want.”
I scoffed. “They’re called vegetables. And they’re good for you.”
“No green pepper!” Granddaddy hollered. “It doesn’t agree with me.”
“You just say that because you don’t like the taste.”
He harrumphed but said nothing further.
While Marlon called in our order—extra-large veggie supreme, no green pepper—I rounded up some carrots from the mini fridge in the stockroom for Charlotte and brought them out to her. Her velvety nose brushed my palm as she took them in her teeth. I ran my hand over her neck as she noisily crunched her way through them. Once Marlon had finished his call, we took seats side by side on the porch swing, like an old married couple.
He made a come-here motion with his index finger. “I feel like I only got bits and pieces of the story today. Catch me up.”
I told him about my day, how it started with me, Kiki, Kate, and Dalton at the coffee shop, where I stood behind Stuart Speer in line and noticed he didn’t get raw sugar and a stir stick today like he had yesterday. I told him how Speer acted strange when he’d spotted us comparing the sugar in the concessions area at the convention center, how he’d subsequently denied that he’d sabotaged Bert’s model, how none of us believed his proclamation of innocence. I went on to tell him how my friends and I had made the rounds at the convention center and spoken with Ronnie Wallingford and the Jaffes, how all of them had acted shady and suspect. I told him how I’d pointed out the sugar on the tracks to Dana and notified Ace, which resulted in his being summoned to stand guard over the model until Ace could take over and collect evidence from it, which she presumably did after dismissing me today. I told him about reading stories to Dalton, and what a misogynist creep Mike Mulligan was, how he didn’t deserve a new steam shovel after dumping Mary Anne.
Marlon cocked his head. “I think you’re getting a little off topic.”
“All I’m saying is Mike should have treated Mary Anne better. He shouldn’t have made her dig that big hole for him and then left her down in it. That’s all.”
“Agreed,” Marlon said. “He’s a jerk.” He reached out and twirled one of my curls around his finger, flashing a mischievous grin. “For what it’s worth, I’d never leave you down in a hole.”
“Careful,” I teased. “You might make me swoon.” Returning to the more important topic, I said, “Ace had me watch the security videos with her at the convention center. She needed my help identifying folks on the screen.”
“Did you two glean anything from the footage?”
“Not much,” I said. “The footage was worthless. One of the vendors had put up a huge banner that blocked the view of Bert’s booth.”
“So, you couldn’t tell if anyone switched out his jar of ’shine there? Or doctored it with poison?”
“Nope. We saw some people come and go on the video, Kimberly Jaffe for one, but whether they exchanged the jars at the booth or poured something in Bert’s bottle is anyone’s guess. After we watched the security footage, we went to Dana’s booth and Ace rounded up Bert’s toolbox and looked around. She dismissed me then. That’s the last thing I know.”
Marlon stopped swinging and instead stretched his long legs out in front of him, his black riding boots crossed at the ankle. “I can guess what Ace did next. She made the rounds of all those folks you mentioned. Rodney—”
“Ronnie,” I corrected him.
“Peter and Katherine—”
“Patrick and Kimberly.”
“Steve Spare.”
“Stuart Speer.”
I looked over to see that grin still playing about his lips, even bigger now. I scowled at him. “Stop yanking my chain.”
“But it’s fun to see you get riled up and feisty.”
I rolled my eyes.
Turning back to the investigation, Marlon said, “Ace searched all their booths and hotel rooms, I guarantee you. She’d have seized any of their cleaners that contained methanol so they can be compared to the other chemicals found in Bert’s jar of tainted moonshine. They all sound like good suspects. Chances are one of them did it.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “They all had a motive. But I still wonder about the housekeeper.”
“It wasn’t her,” Marlon said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because people always accuse the housekeepers, and it’s never the housekeepers.”
“You sound just like Ace.”
“For good reason. I respond to calls at hotels and businesses around here all the time, people claiming the cleaning staff took their jewelry or phones or tablets. Half the time I find the stuff fallen down behind the dresser or bedside table.”
He could very well be right. I hoped I wasn’t wrongfully implicating Martha. But it wasn’t like my suspicion had no basis at all. She had brandished a bottle of glass cleaner behind Bert’s back, called him a number of choice words under her breath. Maybe I’ll have to explore this angle on my own. I told him what Kiki and Kate thought. “They’re sure it’s Dana.”
“Could be,” Marlon said. “Some people take ‘till death do us part’ a bit too literally. But most often it’s the husband who kills the wife, not the other way around.”
“My friend Kate said the same thing. Besides, there’s no evidence pointing to Dana.” Bert had made a lot of enemies, but there were no clues clearly pointing to any of them, either.
Marlon intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on his belly. “In the time I spent with Dana Gebhardt today, she didn’t act like everything between her and her husband was peaches and cream. When a spouse is guilty, they sometimes act like they’re so heartbroken they can hardly go on. They overplay their hand. Their melodrama gives them away.”
I concurred with his assessment of Dana’s behavior. “She’s been fairly forthcoming about her husband’s faults. Not in a mean way, but in a realistic way. She wasn’t openly crying today, but she looked tired, like she hadn’t slept much, if at all, last night.”
“Either she’s very pragmatic,” Marlon said, “or he didn’t mean a whole lot to her.”
“I got the impression their marriage derailed years ago but, like a lot of people, she hung on for other reasons. Financial maybe. Maybe because they shared children. Maybe because being alone didn’t sound much better than putting up with a curmudgeon.”
“Speaking of being alone,” he said. “Let’s not do that Saturday. How about we get together instead and go on another trail ride? Charlotte would love to see some different scenery. What say we take her up to the equestrian trails at Summit Knobs?”
Nora was scheduled to work Saturday and Kiki had offered to help out, so the store would be covered. “I’m game if Charlotte is.”
Marlon looked to his horse. “What do you say, Charlotte?”
She raised her head and issued a nicker.
Marlon gave her a nod. “We’ll take that as a yes.”
Chapter Seventeen
Marlon, Granddaddy, and I enjoyed our pizza together on the porch of my shop. As we did, I glanced over at Marlon, wondering where things between us might lead. What kind of ticket did we have to this romantic ride? Would we stay on track for a long-distance trip, or would we split off at some point, recouple with other people, and head off in different directions?
I wondered whether he was seeing anyone else besides me, who I might be competing against for his attention and affection—besides Charlotte, that is. He’d made it clear she’d always be his number-one girl, and I was okay with that. Smoky would always be my number one guy, too. Though I was tempted to ask Marlon whether he was seeing anyone else, I wasn’t sure it was wise to put my cards on the table yet. I wasn’t seeing anyone else at the moment, but he didn’t need to know that. Not unless he asked. Yep, the only thing around my shop that had been labeled was the moonshine. Even so, it would be nice to establish a mutual understanding of where we stood. If he didn’t bring it up soon, I just might have to.
Granddaddy fell asleep in his rocker and proved he could, indeed, quote lines from High Noon in his sleep. He mumbled and muttered. “ ‘Don’t try to be a hero. You don’t have to be a hero, not for me.’ ”
* * *
* * *
In a rare act of affection, Smoky met me at the door of our cabin when I arrived home after work late Thursday evening. He’d become used to me taking him to the shop. I supposed it now felt extra lonely to be up here all by himself all day, especially when I’d left so early this morning to meet my friends for coffee and hadn’t returned until well after dark. I heaved the hefty cat up into my arms. He stiff-armed me with a paw to my chest, as usual, but he did let me smooch his furry cheek and carry him to the kitchen without putting up too much of a fuss.
After spooning a can of shredded tuna cat food into Smoky’s bowl, I poured myself a couple of fingers of my peach moonshine. I sipped the ’shine straight while Smoky and I curled up on the couch and watched the nightly news. I used the remote to circle repeatedly through the local stations, trying to catch any news about the murder. My shop didn’t seem to be mentioned in connection with Bert Gebhardt’s death on any of the channels as far as I could tell, thank goodness. In fact, there was only a brief mention in one of the broadcasts about an out-of-towner who’d been visiting Chattanooga for the model train convention and had succumbed to a suspicious methanol poisoning. The source of the methanol has yet to be determined, and the investigation is still underway.
As soon as the police lab had determined what other chemicals and ingredients had been in Bert’s ’shine, they could determine exactly what product had been mixed in. I was curious what it would turn out to be. Antifreeze used by Ronnie Wallingford? The chafing fuel Patrick Jaffe mentioned? A glass cleaner? It dawned on me that maybe someone had used windshield wiper fluid. All those rental trucks in the parking lot of the convention center would contain enough fluid to poison dozens, if not hundreds, of folks. It would be easy enough to siphon the fluid out of the receptacle in the engine by using a syringe or turkey baster or even those small pipettes that a few of the vendors had for sale at the convention. The tiny gadgets were intended to be used to apply thin lines or small dots of glue to a model train display, but they could have been repurposed for murder. Who knows?
Smoky slept curled up against my chest, and even deigned to purr softly for a few minutes before he dozed off, another rarity for the usually aloof feline. I supposed it was true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, even if that heart was a furry one. Maybe I should ignore him more often. I dismissed the thought nearly as soon as I’d had it. No way could I intentionally ignore my little guy, make him feel desperate for my attention. I adored him too much. Yep, he had me wrapped around his furry padded paw.
* * *
* * *
Now that my moonshine had been cleared and I was off the hook, I slept much better. I woke on Friday feeling refreshed. But I also woke feeling curious. Were Ace and Marlon right about Martha? Did the housekeeper have nothing to do with Bert Gebhardt dying? Or was I right to suspect there could be more to her story? I found it odd she’d come to the model train convention after having it out with Bert Gebhardt. Why would she purposely put herself in a position where she might end up in a confrontation with the man again? She’d have to have a compelling reason.
I decided to find out for myself. After all, whoever had killed Bert had the nerve to implicate my moonshine and could have put an end to my business and my dream. They’d used me for their own gain. My backside remained thoroughly chapped by that fact. If I could help put that person behind bars, I could even the score. This fight for justice was my fight, too. Or maybe I was just a busybody who enjoyed solving puzzles and was trying to justify my butting into the investigation. The truth was probably somewhere in between.
At any rate, I fed Smoky, ate my breakfast, and showered in record time. Rather than my usual overalls and logo-imprinted T-shirt, I put on the baby-blue A-line dress with white polka dots that I’d bought to wear to Kate’s baby shower months before. I paired it with white sandals, slathered my face with three times my usual amount of makeup, and pulled my curls up into a bouncy bunch atop my head in a poor girl’s attempt to look like Shirley Temple back in the day. The final piece of my disguise was a pair of cheap red plastic reading glasses that had belonged to my granny.
When I took a look at myself in my full-length mirror, I hardly recognized myself. Part of that was because I looked nothing like the everyday Hattie, but part of that was because the reading glasses distorted my vision. I removed the glasses, used my thumb to punch out the lenses, and put them back on. Yep, I definitely didn’t look like the woman in denim overalls everyone had seen around the convention center complex the past few days. Good. I’d have an easier time spying on Martha if I could do it incognito.
I gave Smoky a peck on the head and ruffled his ears. As I removed my hand, he reached up to swipe at it. “Be good while I’m gone. Don’t be lazy. Maybe chase a bug or do some squats. It’ll be good for you.”
He gave me a dirty look that said he thought he was perfect just the way he was, cinder block physique and all.
I grabbed my purse, went out to my van, and drove down the mountain, finding myself sitting in rush-hour traffic, creeping along at a snail’s pace as I made my way into the riverfront area. Thank goodness I don’t have to deal with this every day. Working irregular hours at my shop definitely had some benefits.
Finally, I arrived at the hotel. As I parked and turned off my van’s motor, I checked the time on the dashboard clock. It was half past eight. The housekeepers should be starting their rounds soon, if they hadn’t already.
I grabbed my purse and headed into the hotel. As I made my way across the lobby, my ears detected the unmistakable cadence of Kimberly Jaffe’s titter. Hee-hee-HEE-hee! I turned toward the sound to see a group of the model railroaders’ wives sitting at a long table in the restaurant seating area in the atrium. They were having breakfast together, plates of half-eaten waffles and pancakes sitting on the table in front of them. Dana Gebhardt sat among the ladies. While she wasn’t giggling like Kimberly, she did have a smile on her face, seeming to also find amusing whatever had set Kimberly off.
While it might appear that she was unaffected by her husband’s death, her mood might have been lifted by the mimosa sitting in front of her. Plus, I had to consider that, even if losing her husband might have brought her grief, it might have brought her some relief, too. Bert had been overbearing and controlling, treating her like his trains, expecting her to follow the course he alone had laid out for them. People could have mixed feelings about their spouses. Relationships could be complicated and contradictory. Smoky was proof of that. Many times he ignored me, as if I was unimportant and didn’t exist. Other times he grabbed my fingers in his teeth when I tried to pull my hand away after petting him. Moody little mongrel.
I continued on, making my way into the hallway where I’d seen Martha on Monday, taking a tongue-lashing from Bert. A housekeeping cart sat in the corridor up ahead, pulled over in front of an open door on the opposite side of the hall from the Gebhardts’ room. It would be the perfect opportunity for me to figure out which cleaning products the hotel staff used and whether any might contain methanol. It would also be a chance for me to speak with Martha. At least, I hoped the person cleaning the room would be Martha. I’d noticed hotels seemed to assign the same staff to certain floors, probably so that their faces would become more familiar to guests and make the guests feel more at ease with them going in and out of their rooms. Or maybe it was for ease of internal accountability, so that they knew who was or was not doing a good job on certain floors based on the appearance of the area.
As I tiptoed toward the cart, the sound of a vacuum started up inside the guest room ahead. Good. It would provide some cover for me. I scurried up, careful to stay out of sight of the open doorway, and pulled my phone from my purse. I quickly snapped a series of photos of the cleaning products lined up on the cart. Citrus-scented furniture polish. Bleach-based bathroom disinfectant spray. And aha! The bottle of cobalt-blue glass cleaner. According to the label, it was the Gleam Dream brand, the same type Ronnie Wallingford used, the brand that had been sitting in the bin at his booth with a bunch of other cleaning supplies. I knew from looking at its label earlier that, despite its benign-looking bright blue color, the brand contained copious amounts of methanol. The product was a spray bottle of potential death.
A reusable steel water bottle sat beside the cleaning products. Although I had yet to actually see the woman vacuuming in the guest room, the name Martha Grissom was written on the bottle in permanent marker.
