No Parm No Foul, page 4
Don Frasco came up next to Ari and Carly, his eyes glittering. “Don’t say where you heard it,” he said, “but the reason they can’t announce the winner is that someone stuffed the ballot box with illegal votes.”
Carly’s mouth opened but nothing came out. Though she knew it sounded crazy, she couldn’t help wondering if her first entry into the competition had brought bad luck to the entire town.
Chapter Four
“My first competition, and it was rigged,” Carly groaned to Ari. She slipped a tiny bit of chicken, sans the fried coating, to the little dog gazing up at her with pleading brown eyes.
They were at Carly’s apartment, picking at the remains of their Chinese food feast. Carly had changed out of her vampire costume into a fuzzy-knit, pumpkin-colored sweater and black jeans. Ari had removed his Dracula cape and stashed it in the back of his pickup.
In keeping with their usual practice of cost sharing, it’d been Ari’s turn to treat, and they’d gone with the crab rangoon, the sweet and sour chicken, the vegetable lo mein, and the pork fried rice. Carly added a bottle of chilled sauvignon blanc, which she’d been saving for just such an evening. In spite of the delicious meal, not to mention the charming company, she felt decidedly out of sorts.
Ari gave her a sympathetic look. “I know it’s disappointing, honey, but eventually they’ll straighten it out. Once they do, I’m willing to bet they’ll find out that you won.” He gave her a smile clearly meant to be encouraging, but Carly’s heart felt heavy.
An hour earlier, she’d gotten a call from the recreation director further explaining the situation. During the counting of the votes, they’d discovered the number of votes removed from the ballot box had exceeded, by a total of twelve, the number of tickets sold. At this stage, it was impossible to determine which were the illegal votes, but they were determined to resolve the mystery. Those twelve votes had pushed Sub-a-Dub-Sub into the winner’s category, but it was unclear if those were the phony votes. The cheater, whoever it was, had used a photocopier to reproduce the original ballot and print out additional ones. Unfortunately, it had been easy to do. The original votes had been printed on plain white paper.
“Ms. Gray said they don’t have any idea who did this,” Carly had told Ari. “Not yet, anyway. They’re going to start an investigation. She’s confident they’ll figure out who the culprit is, but I’m not so sure.”
Ari reached over and wrapped his hand around hers. “The organizers have always done a great job, Carly. I’d be willing to bet it won’t take them long to figure out who tried to cheat. Someone must have seen the fraudster copy that ballot. Maybe in the library or in a local office somewhere. Who knows? Menard himself might have a copier in his restaurant.”
Carly made a scrunched-up face, then gave up a reluctant smile. “I know. I’m being a whiny baby, aren’t it?”
“Not in the least. You have every right to be ticked off.” He leaned over and kissed her nose, then delivered their empty plates to the sink.
“Ms. Gray said they’re going to examine every vote to see if they can figure out which are the bogus ones.”
Together they cleaned up the rest of the dishes and put the leftovers in the fridge. After finishing off the wine, they shared a humongous, mummy-shaped frosted sugar cookie from Sissy’s Bakery. In keeping with the theme, they curled up together on Carly’s sofa and watched the 1959 version of The Mummy. Havarti, acting as canine chaperone, nestled between them. Despite rolling their eyes at the cornier parts of the movie, they agreed it had undeniable vintage appeal.
After they watched the highlights of the eleven o’clock news, Ari wrapped Carly in a massive hug and bade her good night. “I had a wonderful day and a terrific evening,” he told her huskily. “But you’re super tired. I can see it in those beautiful green eyes.”
Carly smiled at him and stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. “I can’t deny that. It’s been a day, hasn’t it? Thanks for everything, Ari.”
“No thanks are needed. I’ll call you in the morning, okay? Maybe by then we’ll have some answers.”
Carly leaned into him for another long kiss, then reluctantly closed the door, locking it behind him.
She was trying mightily to take Ari’s advice and trust in the process, but it wasn’t easy. The idea that someone would attempt to skew the results of the competition still felt like a sliver of wood wedged under her thumbnail.
Was Menard involved?
It was hard to believe he wasn’t.
“Things will look brighter in the morning,” she told Havarti over a huge yawn. Only half believing it, she lifted him into her arms and squeezed him to her chest.
The dog gave her a quizzical look, then licked her cheek.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Regardless of how it turns out, it won’t affect your lifestyle. You’ll still get everything your little canine heart desires.”
***
The jingle of her cell phone jerked Carly out of a half sleep. Rolling to one side, she peered over Havarti’s furry head and glanced at her bedside clock.
6:56 a.m.
Who in the name of galloping goldfish was calling her on a Sunday at this unforgiving hour?
She fumbled for the phone and blinked at it through filmy eyes. Rhonda Hale Clark’s smiling visage beamed at her from the screen. Carly swiped open the call. “M-Mom?”
“He’s dead,” Rhonda bleated through the phone. “Ferris Menard is dead!”
Carly jerked upright. The sudden jolt sent Havarti scurrying off the bed. “What do you mean, he’s dead? You mean dead as in, he didn’t really win the competition?”
“I mean dead as in, he’s never going to wake up again.”
Carly sucked in a gasp. A lump landed in her gut like a block of lead.
“I’m heading over to your apartment now with breakfast. Norah’s coming too. And you’d better get dressed. Chief Holloway will be right on my tail if he doesn’t get there first.”
“Wait a minute. What does Chief Holloway have to do with—” Before Carly could complete her question, her mom disconnected.
Ferris must have died from a heart attack, Carly reasoned. Hadn’t Grant mentioned that he was on ticker medication?
Throwing on a pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt, Carly hurried into the bathroom and scrubbed her face. After turning up the heat a notch, she headed into the kitchen. Havarti was wagging his tail as he danced around his food bowl, but first things first. She clipped on his leash, put on a warm jacket, and escorted him outside into the yard for a bathroom visit.
The early morning air was chilly, damp with a slight mist. Her head spun with questions: Was Ferris really dead? Had his heart given out? Or had her mom gotten hold of some bad information?
Back in the kitchen, she poured kibble into Havarti’s dish and replenished his water. At the sound of footsteps clomping up her stairs, she raced to her door. Luckily, she now had a peephole that allowed her to check out visitors. Ari had installed it over the summer after her encounter with a killer.
She aimed an eyeball into the opening. “Thank goodness,” Carly breathed, letting her mom and Norah in.
Rhonda Hale Clark, her brunette hair pulled back neatly from her face and secured with a decorative black comb, looked as crisp as ever at barely 7:00 in the morning. “Good morning, dear.” Rhonda deposited a pink bakery box into Carly’s hands. “Take these and set them out on a plate, would you please? Norah, bring the coffee into the kitchen.”
A few strands of Norah’s usually perfect blond hair stuck out haphazardly as she rolled her eyes, threw Carly an air kiss, and shuffled into the kitchen with a yawn. In her hands she carried a cardboard holder with four covered cups tucked into the cutouts.
Four cups?
“Mom, what’s going on?” They followed the trail of caffeine into the kitchen. “Is Ferris Menard really dead?”
Norah grimaced. “He’d better be, for Mom to get me up at this hour.”
“Norah!” Carly’s mom scolded. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
Carly wanted to scream. “Will someone please fill me—” A knock at the door interrupted her. “Oh, for the love of daffodils in December, who’s here now?” She went over to the door and pulled it open. “Oh, hi Chief.”
Police Chief Fred Holloway removed his hat, displaying a head full of thick gray hair. “Good morning, Carly. May I come in?”
The chief was a longtime family friend. His wife, before she passed, had been in Rhonda’s book club, and his daughter, Doctor Anne, was Havarti’s veterinarian.
“Sure, why not?” She sighed. “My mom and sister are already here. I think they brought you a coffee.”
“That’s thoughtful of them. I called your mom first so I wouldn’t have to alarm you with an early morning call.”
Which made not an ounce of sense. Any early morning call would alarm her, regardless of the caller. She wondered if he’d wanted her mom there to help soften the bad news about Ferris. “Chief, I need to know what happened.”
They sat around Carly’s table, each with a cup of steaming coffee. Only Norah, not a fan of breakfast, passed on the pink box full of donuts.
After fortifying himself with a long gulp of black coffee, the chief sighed. He reached down to pet Havarti, who was vigorously sniffing his knees. “I’m sorry to confirm that Ferris Menard is dead. His daughter found him this morning in the restaurant. He was on the floor, face up, clearly not breathing.”
Carly shivered. “Oh, no, that’s terrible news. Sadly, though, it doesn’t surprise me. Grant told me Ferris was on heart medication. He obviously had cardiac issues.”
The chief nodded slowly, but then his jaw hardened. “Which doesn’t, I’m afraid, account for the steak knife that was found jabbed into his chest.”
The chunk of cinnamon cruller Carly had just swallowed stopped in its tracks. She managed to choke it back with a slug of coffee, but it still felt lodged in her throat. She looked at everyone in horror. “Mom, did you know about this before you got here?”
“I did,” Rhonda said quietly. “But I wanted Fred to be the one to tell you.”
“Chief,” Carly said with a gulp, “are you saying Ferris was murdered?”
“As best we can piece it together, it looks that way. Turns out Menard was taking medication for angina. His pill bottle, the one with his nitroglycerin tabs, was found on the floor, sitting upright, but out of his reach. One of the investigators has a working theory. He thinks that during his scuffle with the killer, Menard suffered an attack of angina and tried to get to his medication. The killer taunted him by setting it just out of his reach and waited until he…expired to stick the knife in his chest. It’s only a theory, and at this stage we’re far from proving it. There was one other critical finding, but we’re not releasing that information.”
“But why would the killer stab him if he was already dead?” Carly asked him.
“Again,” the chief said wearily, “it’s only an early theory, but the investigator believes the steak knife was added post-mortem, for effect. There was very little blood around the point of insertion.”
Post-mortem. Point of insertion.
Carly felt her head swim. She pushed away her cruller and took a long, slow sip of her coffee. Havarti, who always sensed her moods, reached up to her with both paws. She lifted him into her lap and pulled him close. “Do the police know what time this all happened? I mean, shouldn’t the sub shop have been closed?”
“It was closed.” The chief released a breath. “Like you, Ferris had closed for the duration of the competition, but he apparently decided to open afterward to take advantage of the usual Saturday night influx. On Saturdays he closes at nine, but his daughter explained that he often worked long after closing time. He’d roast meats for the next day, get them set up for the sub sandwiches, do some general cleanup.” His face reddened. “She said Grant used to do a lot of that for him, but now Menard was having to pick up the slack.”
Carly groaned. “Chief, Ferris thought I encouraged Grant to quit, but it’s not true. Grant did that on his own.”
“I believe you.” Holloway took another sip of his coffee. “I’ve gotta hand it to Menard, though. Hostile personality aside, he was a hard worker. Anyway, his daughter said that he always locked up when he left, of course, but while he was still there, anyone could have slipped in through the back door from the alleyway.”
An icy chill washed through Carly. She wrapped her arms around Havarti and cupped her elbows with her hands. “How’s Menard’s daughter doing? Finding her dad like that must have been a horrible shock.”
“She was in rough shape when we got there, crying so hard she could barely talk. She calmed down after a while. She kept wanting to throw herself at her dad’s…body, but obviously we couldn’t let her near him.”
Rhonda flicked a worried gaze at her daughter. “There’s one more thing, honey. Tell her, Fred.”
Holloway nodded. “Let me backtrack a little. From the way the place looked when we got there, we believe Menard was probably in the dining area when the intruder came in and confronted him. Bags of chips were scattered on the floor. A cardboard display of candy bars had been tipped over, so there was probably a scuffle. Also, according to the daughter, Menard had a row of plastic Halloween figurines lined up along the top edge of the counter, above the chips rack. You know—a ghost, a zombie, things like that. He puts them out every year during the season. With the exception of one, they were all found on the floor.”
“What about the other one?”
After a long pause, Holloway said, “The other one was found under Menard’s body. One of the investigators has a theory. Since it was too small to use as a defensive weapon, he’s thinking Menard probably grabbed it at some point during the tussle, that he might have chosen that particular one intentionally.”
“You mean, like he might have been trying to get a message across?”
“Exactly.”
“So, which figurine was under Menard?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. Right now, I need to speak to you privately for a moment. Can you see me to the door?”
“Um, sure,” Carly said, still half in shock.
Holloway drained his coffee cup and rose from his chair. “Rhonda, thanks for rounding up the troops, so to speak. Everything we discussed here is confidential, so please be sure it stays in this room.”
“Of course, Fred,” Rhonda assured him. Her worried expression broke Carly’s heart.
Setting Havarti gently on the floor, Carly accompanied the chief to the door. From his expression, she suspected she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
Holloway rolled his hat in his hands. “Carly, I want to make something clear. My visit here this morning was strictly a courtesy. I wouldn’t have asked your mom and Norah to join us if it wasn’t. But after this, the state police will take the lead on the investigation, so you’ll be required to come down for an interview with one of the detectives.”
An interview? An interrogation, you mean.
A cold lump landed in Carly’s chest. Unfortunately, she knew the drill. “I understand, Chief.”
Holloway lowered his voice. “But first I need to ask you something. It’s personal, but it’s extremely important. Were you with Ari Mitchell last night?”
The question took Carly by surprise. She felt a quick flush of heat color her cheeks. Was he trying to find out if Ari spent the night with her?
“Yes, Ari was here with me last evening. We had Chinese food, and then we watched an old horror movie and a bit of the news. We were both really tired, not to mention bummed by the news about the phony votes in the competition. I’m sure you heard about that. Anyway, Ari left well before midnight. Around eleven fifteen, I’d say.”
“I heard about the voting. At this point we don’t know if the competition has any bearing on Menard’s death, but I seriously doubt it. Right now, it’s minor in the scheme of things.”
Carly agreed. Nothing about the competition had been worth killing for. At this point, she didn’t care if they ever figured out who the real winner was. Menard’s unexpected death had cast a dark shadow over all of it.
“So, Ari didn’t return after he left?” the chief prodded.
Sneaky question, Carly thought, a little irked by the implication. “No, he didn’t return. I’d have told you if he had.”
“When he left, was he wearing the costume he had on at the competition yesterday?”
“You mean the vampire cape?” Carly frowned. “No, he took it off and stashed it in his pickup before we ate dinner. Why does that matter?”
Instead of answering the question, the chief rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Ari is at the police station now, being interviewed by one of the state police detectives. Carly, when I said you’d be required to come in for an interview, I’m afraid I meant right now. I need to bring you in for questioning. Your mom and Rhonda have already agreed to stay here with Havarti.”
Carly felt her knees wobble, and she grabbed the doorknob for support. “You’re serious?”
The chief looked at the hat in his hands and then at Carly. “I’m afraid so.”
That all-too-familiar feeling of dread gripped Carly by the throat. She’d felt that same numb horror after Gina’s ex was found murdered in her parking lot. She’d been questioned in connection with that murder too.
“So much for this being a courtesy visit,” she said stiffly. “Before we leave, I’ll ask you again. Which figurine was found under Menard’s body?”
After a long hesitation, Holloway said, “The vampire. The figurine under Menard’s body was Count Dracula himself.”
Chapter Five
By the time a patrol car dropped off Carly in her driveway, it was nearly 2:00 p.m. A damp chill had crept into the air—the kind that seeps into the bones and settles there. The sun remained tucked behind a cluster of gray clouds as if it were afraid to face her mood.
