The Five Strangers, page 18
“Ed, have you talked to Jasper lately?”
“I have. Have you?”
“Don’t do that. I haven’t got much time, and I’m driving. As soon as I get into town I’m hanging up, so let’s not play word-tennis. Have you talked to Jasper since Sheila was murdered? Because he still thinks he’s cursed.”
“Isn’t that fascinating? As a matter of fact, we did discuss that very thing when we met in my office yesterday. Does a curse die with the sorceress? What little data I’ve found on the subject says no. Once created, a curse takes on a life of its own. In other words, curses don’t die until they’re killed off separately from the source – or shall we say, the sorceress?” He chuckled.
If I hadn’t been driving, I would have shut my eyes and counted to ten, but you can’t do that on a 2-lane road, no matter how low the speed limit.
“I need you to be serious now, Ed. We can’t let Jasper go on like this. Have you met that rat he’s got living with him now?”
“No, he hasn’t attended any of our little meetings, and Jasper didn’t see fit to even mention him. He was concerned with Sheila at the time, of course, so I suppose he didn’t see the need. So let me see . . . our first consultation was held at the diner – but you know that; you were there – and since then he’s been to my home office twice, most recently, yesterday. I have not met the so-called cousin, and I am hoping it doesn’t become necessary to involve this Grady person in my investigation. Did you know that our Jasper has had a post-homicide accident with his equipment?”
“Don’t say post-homicide. It makes it sound like you think he did it.”
When he did not immediately dismiss the idea, I nearly drove off the road.
“He didn’t do it, Ed. Jasper, commit a cold-blooded murder? Take it from me, it’s not possible. I’d know.”
“Perhaps you would,” he allowed, giving me far more credit than our Police Chief had. For the first time, I wondered what the rest of the Breezers might be thinking about Jasper’s guilt or innocence. If they turned on him, I don’t think he could survive it.
“What do you mean, Ed? You can’t possibly think Jasper could harm a fly, let alone a woman he was trying to stay away from.”
“You see, Taylor, that’s the operative integer in this equation of ours. Jasper was trying to stay away from Sheila because he was terrified of her. And how do you deal definitively with something that terrifies you? You do what you can to eliminate it. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought in the last thirty-eight hours, give or take, and I am not easy in my mind. Any information you may have, any hard evidence – a rock-solid alibi perhaps, or laboratory forensics – anything that would convince me that our little friend could not possibly have done this, would be greatly appreciated.”
In silence, I made the turn onto Locust Street. Girlfriend’s was only about two blocks ahead. I was in the heart of downtown Tropical Breeze, and it was time to end the call.
“I’ll get back to you, Ed,” I said tonelessly.
“Please do,” he was able to get out before I touched the red button, cutting him off.
I parked in the Store Manager Only space behind Girlfriend’s and got out, slamming the car door behind me.
Chapter 32 – Secrets and Surprises
“Okay, come on, let’s go,” I said as I stormed the shop from the back room.
As they stood behind the front counter, where they’d been lazily gossiping, Florence and Jelly raised their heads in mild surprise and blinked at me. Abraham slept on, laid out across the table he uses until the sun starts coming through the front window.
“Go where?” Jelly said. “Is it that time already?”
“Good morning, Taylor,” Florence said, sedately calling out my manners.
I slowed myself down.
“Good morning, Florence. Lovely day, isn’t it? Looking divine, as usual, Jelly,” (a playful ‘50s sock hop look, with bouffant helmet hair, an open-throated white blouse and a gauzy pink scarf tied around her neck). “I dig it.”
“And good morning to you, too, Abraham, there’s a good boy,” I added, going into my talking-to-animals voice. I began to stroke his warm black fur. After the way he’d been treated by Sheila, I felt protective, and as I massaged his bony shoulders I actually got a rumble from somewhere under the fur. We were making progress, Abraham and I.
“Happy, Miss Manners?” I said to Florence as I straightened up again. “Now that that’s out of the way, come on Jelly, let’s go or we’re going to be late.”
“There’s no such thing as being late to the diner.”
“There is when we’ve got a date.”
Jelly perked up. “We have a date? Don’t tell me, let me guess. Is it Caden?”
“Not that kind of a date, or I wouldn’t be coming. I mean Rita. She’s meeting us over there.”
“Sweet. And . . . why?”
I hooded my eyes and looked mysterious, and Jelly got the message: not in front of Florence.
Florence got the message, too, but she didn’t care. Florence just considers me one of the children, in spite of my age. She let us go without asking questions, or even seeming curious about whatever it was we girls were going to giggle about over lunch.
While crossing Locust, Jelly tried to find out what it was all about and I put her off by saying that Rita just invited herself along.
“You know how lonely and bored she is,” I added, embroidering a little.
“You picked up on that too when we had our high tea, huh? And with all this going on about Sheila Colson, I assume Rita has been sticking her nose in?”
“Of course.”
“And you have, too. Of course. Are we doing murder for lunch?”
“Something like that.”
“Oh, goody.”
Rita was in “my” booth – the one up front with a view of Locust Street – and we joined her.
After settling in and giving our orders, Jelly was fired up and ready to go, like a kitten with a new ball of yarn.
“So,” she began eagerly as soon as we had our drinks, “what have you found out so far? I heard about Jasper’s cousin, Grady. And Dusty! Can you believe we were listening to a performance by the guy who actually recorded the song? I mean, I knew he was doing a good job and everything, but wow! The original Emerson Fogg, playing at a hole-in-the-wall like Flounder Bob’s; who’da thunk?”
“Sounds like you’ve already got all the facts, ma’am,” Rita said.
Ah, I thought, so we aren’t going to mention Dusty’s wife, Chrissy. Interesting, and strangely pleasing. It was nice, for once, to know something that Jelly didn’t.
“As usual, you just know everything,” I said sweetly.
“In fact, I think we’re the ones who should be questioning you,” Rita told Jelly.
“Shoot. I’m an open book, especially when consulting with experts like you two. Though I don’t know what I can tell you, other than what everybody already knows.”
“I was wondering about Caden Vance,” Rita said. “With all these other newcomers suddenly appearing, I think he’s being overlooked, don’t you? I mean, Grady was hiding out with Jasper, and Sheila was looking for Grady, and Dusty – or are we calling him Emerson now?”
“Dusty,” I said firmly.
“Agreed. Dusty admits now that he was following Sheila, trying to stop the exact kind of thing that ended up happening. But what do we really know about Caden? I admit, he doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with the others, but he suddenly popped up right around the same time.”
“He already told us why he came here,” Jelly said coldly. “He wanted to start his own accounting business, and at the same time he wanted to be part of a small community, like ours. And he doesn’t like snow and ice, so he chose Florida. Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t know,” Rita said. “Is it?”
“He doesn’t seem like a man with secrets,” I said naïvely. “He willingly told us all about himself as soon as we met him. But if he does have any secrets, I bet you’re the one he would open up to.”
Jelly stiffened up. Our food arrived, and she didn’t even take one of my French fries.
“You know,” Rita said coolly, taking her first bite of grouper, “this is a case of murder. Caden is a really likeable young man, and I’d hate to think anything bad about him, but if he’s keeping secrets, what else can I think?”
“It’s not that kind of a secret,” Jelly shot back. Then she looked away, fuming.
“Don’t feel bad,” I told her. We were sitting side-by-side facing Rita, and I was able to whisper in her ear. “Remember, you’re dealing with a pro.”
“With two pros,” she snapped back.
“Nah. I’m just a poor animal lover who never wants to get involved,” I said. “But Rita’s a different story. Prepare to empty the bag, because she’s going to get it all out of you anyway, and it’ll be less painful if you don’t try to fight it. Besides, with your sordid past, you should be the first one to worry about a man who’s keeping secrets.”
“I already told you, it’s not that kind of a secret. He just wants to find his father. That’s understandable, right?”
Rita and I consulted one another silently. Then I said, “And he’s looking for him in Tropical Breeze?”
With a mouthful of salad, looking mutinous, Jelly said, “Dusty wasn’t the only one following Sheila. And she wasn’t the only one looking for Grady Grissom.”
“That’s his father?” I cried, appalled.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Caden doesn’t have much to go on, but what little his mother told him about his father kind of pointed that way.”
Rita said, “I haven’t met Grady Grissom yet. Have either one of you?”
Jelly told her no, and I said, “Barely.”
“What does that mean?”
“I went to check on Jasper this morning, and Grady opened the door.”
“So . . . what’s he like?”
“Oh, he’s a lot like Jasper, but totally different. Opposite, in fact.”
I thought I was going to have to explain that, but somehow they got it.
Nodding, Jelly said, “The man’s been on the road awhile, and I bet he ran out of money a long time ago. I’m not sure how much money one-hit wonders make in the real world, but I bet a lot of it went to the management company before Grady took off with the rest. Musicians are hopeless when it comes to contracts and getting themselves paid. They’re happy just to get a gig. Maybe it seemed like a fortune to Grady at the time, but sudden fortunes have a way of melting away. I bet he ended up sleeping rough a time or two before he got the idea to crash with Jasper.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s got a seedy look about him.”
Jelly seemed disturbed by that, and I reminded myself that I might now be talking about Caden’s daddy.
“What’s your evidence of paternity?” Rita asked, businesslike.
Jelly settled herself to tell the story, taking one of my fries and munching on it as she thought it over.
“He was driving somewhere with his mom one day; this was after he was out of school but still working for that accounting firm. That song, My Beloved came on the radio, and she reacted. Stiffened up. Changed somehow, and Caden was aware, even though she didn’t say anything. She moved to change the channel, and he stopped her. He knew the song, and he liked it. As the song was ending, Caden realized his mother was crying, and trying not to let him see. She turned the radio off and they didn’t talk for quite a while. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“‘What’s the matter, mom?’ he asked. ‘It’s such a nice song. I thought you’d like it.’”
She gave him a look, stared back out the windshield, then finally gestured toward the radio. “‘Your father,’ she said. ‘It just . . . brought me back to that time.’ Of course he started to ask questions, but she shushed him and wouldn’t talk about it anymore. When he kept at it she got mad and started yelling. She never yelled at him. That’s the only time he can remember her acting like that, and she was crying at the same time and it scared him, so much he stopped asking questions.
“He never would have brought it up again, but a couple of days later she sat him down and gave him the only explanation she ever did give him. She said his father had been a musician, and he’s been on that recording. She said he was a real bastard and that was why she left him when she found out she was pregnant. She made him promise he’d stay away from everyone in the band. But now his mother is dead, and he seems to feel he’s been released from his promise.”
I nodded and said, “And between the two Foggy Mountaineers we’ve met, only one qualifies as a bastard: Grady.”
“Right. Naturally, Caden researched everything he could find out about all the band members, and Grady Grissom was definitely the bad guy. Caden realized then that if his mother had stayed, Grady would have let her down, too. His father was a thief, a traitor and a user, who’d betrayed every woman he’d ever been with. Jasmine had been fixing to leave him anyway, and she made sure he never knew about the baby.”
“Jasmine?” I asked.
“Caden’s mom. That’s when she moved to Milwaukee – a place the band had never been and probably never would be. Like Dusty said – the land of polka, not country/western.”
“And now, given what he knows about his father, Caden still wants to meet him?” I asked.
Jelly shrugged. “I guess you have to be in his shoes to understand. It’s not the kind of thing you can imagine if your dad was always there for you.”
Rita was looking very calculating now, and I knew she was working on an idea.
“What is it?” I asked her. “We’re here to figure things out, right? So let’s hear what you’re thinking.”
“I wonder what he plans on doing when he finds his father. How old is Caden?” she asked Jelly.
“Thirty-two. Why?”
“Exactly 32?”
“Yes. He’s almost exactly four years younger than me. Again – why?”
Rita took a moment to calculate. “That means he was born in 1992.”
“So?”
“And according to what I saw online, Grady married Sheila early in 1993. Caden was born shortly before that. Could Sheila have already been in the picture when Jasmine realized she was pregnant? Maybe that’s why she left.”
Jelly started winding herself up and demanded to know what Rita thought she was getting at.
“Oh, nothing in particular,” Rita said lightly. “Just getting everything straight in my mind.”
There was one of those pauses where nobody was talking or eating, or even seemed to want to look at one another.
Then I said, “What I can’t understand is what Caden could possibly want from a man like that, even if he is his father.”
“And maybe more to the point,” Rita said softly, “what he’s going to do now that he knows where he is.”
“It certainly wouldn’t mean he’d kill his biological father’s estranged wife,” Jelly said mulishly.
“I never said it would. You know, it’s kind of ironic,” Rita said idly. “That band was together for a long time, maybe just barely making ends meet but managing to make a name for itself, building a fan base, and most of all just doing what they loved. And when they finally did have a hit, everything went sideways. It broke up the band and destroyed a marriage.”
I almost blew it and said it had broken up two marriages, but I caught myself in time. We weren’t telling Jelly about Chrissy. At the time I didn’t know why we were keeping it quiet, unless it was for the simple fact that as soon as Jelly knew anything, the whole town knew within minutes.
“We’re having a good old-fashioned spit-balling session now, right Jelly, so anything is on the table?” I said.
But by now Jelly was regarding us suspiciously, and she only ventured a little grunt.
“So no getting snippy with me,” I went on. “No elbow shots, no sarcasm, and absolutely no crying in the diner. We already know that Sheila used a detective to track down her husband. Do you think there’s any possibility that Caden could be that detective?”
I lowered my arm against a possible shot to the side, but all she did was widen her eyes at me and burst out laughing.
Rita and I regarded one another in quiet disgust as we waited for Jelly to compose herself. The whole diner was looking our way.
When Jelly finally quieted down, she told us, “I’ve seen his diploma from NIU. He’s a CPA, and I doubt he’s moonlighting as Sam Spade to make ends meet when he’s not doing spreadsheets. His mom left him a little nest egg, and he’s a pretty frugal guy when it comes to his own needs. When it comes to impressing a lady, I’m happy to say he’s more than generous, but otherwise he lives within his means. He doesn’t need a side hustle. A detective!” She began to chortle most unattractively.
“I suppose he’s already supplied you with a financial statement,” I said scornfully, but she actually said, “Oh, sure. Not an actual P&L, but trust me, he’s doing fine.”
Finally, peeved, I said, “By the way, you got your facts wrong, for once. It was not Jasper’s ladder that collapsed underneath him at the antique shop. It was Sheila’s.”
“Really?” She sobered up and stared at me. Jelly takes her gossip-mongering seriously.
“Jasper told me so himself.”
She seemed deeply intrigued. “Why would Sheila have an old broken-down ladder laying around? You’d think if she was just setting up shop, she would have had to go out and buy a new one. I mean, how many women just happen to have old ladders among the prized possessions they bring along when they move? When you first moved to Tropical Breeze, did you bring a ladder with you?”
I went back to the distant past, back to when I was young and fresh and just starting over on my own.
“No. But then I didn’t have any of the other junk Sheila brought along with her, either. Were you ever in that shop of hers? Bronze chimpanzees, creepy dolls and enough chandeliers to light up Mar-a-Lago.”
“Well, what difference does it make whose ladder Jasper took a dive off of,” Jelly said dismissively. “I’ve been saving the best for last. You know Brody Butterman, over at the Police Station?”
