A Plain Vanilla Murder, page 14
The place is already crowded and noisy when Sheila comes in. The usual noon-hour games are in progress in the pool room at the back, and the sharp crack! of a cue ball punctuates the buzz of diners’ voices, the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, and the nasal sound of Willie and Waylon on the jukebox. The Missouri Pacific tracks are less than fifty yards away on the other side of the parking lot, and every now and then, the rumble of a passing freight train drowns out everything else. The noise makes Bean’s a good place to meet for a working lunch. Nobody can overhear you. You can barely hear yourself.
Miller, already seated at a table in the back corner, puts up his hand to catch her attention. Sheila glances at the hallway that leads to the ladies’ room, coyly designated Heifers on a sign beside the door. (The men’s says Bulls, of course.) Whenever she comes into a restaurant these days, she automatically notes the location of the restroom and estimates the distance and how long it will take her to get there.
But she doesn’t need it at the moment, so she threads her way through the tables to join Miller, stopping to say hello to people she knows—the mayor, a couple of city council members, the manager of the Sophie Briggs Museum, the director of the library. She sees quite a few acquaintances, actually, which can be a bit of a nuisance when you go to Bean’s at the lunch hour. (It’s not a place to meet a secret friend.)
As she sits down, burly, red-haired Bob Godwin—owner, manager, and general factotum—saunters up with a red plastic basket of warm tortilla chips, a crockery mug of hot-as-hell salsa, and a frosty pitcher of iced tea to put out the flames. Bob is a stocky, broad-shouldered man with a gingery goatee and reddish hair as short and bristly as a scrub brush. A proud veteran, he is wearing a black T-shirt that displays an American flag and the blood-red proclamation, Freedom ain’t free. Some of us paid an arm and a leg for it. He is accompanied by Budweiser, his golden retriever, who is wearing a blue bandana and a pair of canvas saddlebags. Bud totes wrapped snacks and beer bottles from the bar to the tables, and money and credit card chits from the tables back to the bar. Since customers have an unhelpful habit of tipping the dog with food from their plates, Bob has hung a sign around Bud’s neck: If you feed me, Bob will bite you.
“How y’all doin’ today?” Bob takes an order pad out of the navy blue apron tied around his waist. When they say they are fine but hungry, he grins, showing two gold teeth. “Cabrito kabobs is good.” He gestures toward the chalkboard menu behind the bar, under a colorful sign: 7-Course Texas Dinner: A 6-Pack & a Possum. “Or there’s the reg’lar. Ribs, meatloaf, chicken-fried, catfish, and chili. What’ll it be?”
“The kabobs will do it for me,” Sheila says with a little regret, since she would rather have a burrito, which is heftier. But Bob’s cabrito kabobs—marinated in lime juice, soy sauce, and garlic and grilled with cherry tomatoes and chunks of onion, pineapple, and green peppers—are justly famous, with rice and guacamole on the side, so she’s content.
“Chicken-fried for me,” Miller says, spooning sugar into a quartsized glass of iced tea. As every Texan knows, chicken-fried is not fried chicken. It is a cube steak pounded into submission with the pointy side of a meat hammer, dredged in egg and seasoned flour, crispyfried, and served under a thick blanket of black-pepper gravy. Bob’s chicken-fried is fork-tender and comes with mashed potatoes, sweet corn, and coleslaw.
“Got it,” Bob says cheerfully. He grins at Sheila, and his approving glance drops down to her belly. “So when’s the big day, Chief Lady?”
“First weekend in November,” Sheila says.
“First weekend in—!” Bob’s jaw sags and his eyes get big. “No way! That’s opening day!”
Sheila widens her eyes. “No kidding?” she says, as if she is flabbergasted by this news.
She isn’t, of course. Blackie, Bob, and most of their friends are deer hunters, and the opening of whitetail season is sacrosanct, like Christmas or the Texas-Oklahoma football game. Sheila has often advanced the opinion that the first Saturday in November would be a perfect day for an alien invasion. Half of the male population of Pecan Springs would be found hanging out in their deer blinds or tramping through the cedar brakes hoping to get a buck with a halfway decent rack. The aliens would be unopposed.
Bob doesn’t disappoint. “First weekend!” He pretends great alarm. “Well, all I can say is that you better launch that bambino early or hang onto him for an extra two–three days. I’ll have a talk with that man of yours. Can’t let him miss out on openin’ day just because his woman is havin’ a baby.”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” Sheila says.
Bob says, “Damn straight,” and leans toward Miller. “Listen, I heard about that guy gettin’ hisself murdered up there on the campus over the weekend, Dylan. You arrested anybody yet?”
“Where’d you hear that, Bob?” Sheila asks sharply. They haven’t released the cause of death yet.
“One of the docs at the hospital was in a little while ago.” Bob drops his voice. “Said Doc Berry did the autopsy. Wasn’t suicide, like was first thought. Shot, he was, right in the head. You got any leads yet?”
“We’re working on it,” Miller says in an even tone. “What are you hearing?” This is not a frivolous question, since a lot of the news that travels around Pecan Springs walks in through Bob’s front door. Bob himself has a soft spot in his hard heart for the Blue Brotherhood, to which he has finally, if grudgingly, admitted Sheila. He can be relied on to tell what he hears, although what he hears isn’t usually very reliable.
“Ain’t heard nothin’ yet, but I’ve got my ear to the ground,” Bob promises. “I’ll holler if something turns up, bro.” He winks at Sheila and adds, “You hang in there, pretty lady. Just a few more weeks and you can go on full-time diaper patrol.” He pockets his order form and leaves, Bud at his heels.
Sheila has known Bob for years and has developed a tolerance for his humor. She is more amused than offended by his mildly sexist comments. Miller doesn’t find it funny, however.
“How in the bloody hell do you put up with crap like that?” he wonders. “It would drive me up the damn wall.”
“Comes with the territory,” Sheila replies. “Try being a female cop for a week or two and you’ll see.” She empties a couple of envelopes of pink stuff into her iced tea and gets down to business. “What did you dig up this morning? Anything useful?”
Miller, who is a methodical interviewer, pulls out a small notebook and begins with Dan Selms, whom he saw first. Selms proclaimed himself “shocked and appalled” to learn that Fairlee had been murdered, but Miller believes the news wasn’t a surprise.
“Looked to me like he knew this already—maybe guessed it.” Maybe more than that, Miller adds. “Selms’ wife is his alibi, but they have separate bedrooms, so he’s still on the suspect list.” A possible motive: anger at Fairlee for the trick he pulled with the greenhouse. But there is more.
“Selms told me that Fairlee ripped off his—that is, Selms’— research on plant DNA,” Miller goes on. “He made it sound like pennyante stuff, hardly worth mentioning, but he was downplaying it. When I talked to Haley, he said that—”
Sheila interrupts. “Did Selms happen to mention anything about Fairlee’s sexual involvement with students?”
“Nope.” Miller raises both eyebrows. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Fairlee’s ex-wife, Margaret Walker. She claims that Fairlee’s ‘unrestrained libidinous tendencies’ gave Selms some serious heartburn. Not from a moral angle, apparently. She says he was scared that the department might get a bad name or that the university might get sued. According to Walker, Selms had a couple of talks with Fairlee, cautioning him to cool it.” With a small smile, she adds, “I don’t remember hearing of somebody being killed to save his employer from a lawsuit. But it’s not hard to imagine a #MeToo revenge motive for murder.” She’s thinking of the Salvagings in The Handmaid’s Tale.
“Damn.” Miller is staring at her. “So there could be students with a possible grudge against Fairlee?”
Sheila shivers. “Your guess is as good as mine. The ex-wife suggested that Selms might know who they are. It’s worth asking him. Or Haley. Or both.” She snags a tortilla chip and backtracks. “So what were you saying about Haley and Selms’ research?”
Miller scribbles students and #MeToo into his notebook, adds a question mark, and underlines them. “What Haley says is that Fairlee ripped off Selms’ orchid-DNA research, and it was not penny-ante. It was a great big deal—or it would have been if Selms had formally reported the plagiarism to the department’s tenure committee, which Haley chairs. Haley says they would certainly have investigated. If they had found Fairlee guilty, the committee would have recommended revoking his tenure.” He grinned crookedly. “Haley called it ‘defrocking.’ Apparently, putting your name on somebody else’s research is a giant-sized no-no.”
“So why didn’t Selms report it? Seems like a convenient way to get rid of a bad-boy faculty member who is causing everybody great grief.”
“I asked Haley that same question. He fumbled around and finally advanced the opinion that Selms kept quiet because Fairlee had some kind of leverage over him. Blackmail, in other words.”
“Blackmail!” Sheila reaches for another chip. “Interesting collegial relationships in that department. Was Haley specific about the leverage?”
“He hinted that he knew but was reluctant to say. I didn’t push him, thinking we would include that question when we haul both of them—Selms and Haley—down to the station for a second interview. If Fairlee was blackmailing Selms and Selms felt he had to put a stop to it, murder dressed up to look like suicide might seem like a viable solution.”
Sheila takes out her notebook and makes a note of her own. “Maybe Charlaine Rudolph can tell us something about the blackmail, if that’s what it was. All the department paperwork crosses her desk, and I’m sure she catalogs every scrap of faculty gossip. Plus, she was sleeping with Fairlee for a while, according to the ex-wife. If Fairlee was blackmailing her boss, she’s likely to know it.”
At that moment, Bud trots up to the table with two cold bottles of beer in his saddlebags. He noses her knee politely. “Sorry, not ours,” Sheila says to the dog. Two tables over, a fat guy with tattoo sleeves calls, “Hey, Bud, over here with those beers,” and Bud corrects his mistake.
Miller’s dark eyebrows have gone up again. “Fairlee was sleeping with Rudolph and students?” He makes another note. “Plus his current girlfriend. He was one busy guy.”
“That’s Walker’s story,” Sheila says. “She’s bitter. Understandably, I guess. She wound up losing the house in the divorce.”
“Bitter enough to shoot her ex?”
“Possibly,” Sheila replies. “Her alibi is weak—a thirteen-year-old daughter, asleep in another room. Plus, she’s hiding something. I don’t know what, but it’s something.” Another tortilla chip, warm and crispy. “So what did you make of Haley?”
“Typical professor, pompous, stuffed shirt, full of himself. He was ‘horribly distressed’ to hear that his colleague didn’t commit suicide, which he seemed to feel was a natural end to a totally misspent professional life. Specifically, Fairlee’s sins included plagiarizing research, hogging more than his share of departmental travel funds, and building that greenhouse, which gave him the research space that enabled him to get even more grants. On reflection, Haley allowed that Fairlee was such a first-class jerk that it wasn’t much of a surprise that somebody knocked him off. A world-class favor to students, the department, and the university.”
“Ha,” Sheila says. “With all that baggage, Haley’d better have a world-class alibi.”
“No alibi at all. His wife was in San Antonio for the weekend, with one of their daughters. He was home, in his study, reading.”
“Too bad,” Sheila murmurs. “We’ve got more than enough suspects. It would be good to whittle down the list.” She pauses. “Did you get anything out of him about his daughter and her relationship to Fairlee?”
“Yep. He was candid on that point, too. Both he and his wife hated the idea of Fairlee and their Jennifer getting it on together—for the girl’s sake, Haley says, but there was clearly more to it than that. He didn’t even try to hide his relief that his potential son-in-law is dead.” Miller picks up his iced tea and takes a sip. “But here’s something else. According to Haley, the daughter had been seeing Logan Gardner before she got involved with Fairlee.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sheila raises both eyebrows. “So Fairlee stole her from his research assistant? Which presumably didn’t make Gardner happy.”
“Right. Haley says Gardner took it hard, very hard. However, the Haleys weren’t in favor of that relationship, either. Haley says Gardner cuts too many corners, and his DNA research is sloppy. Hard to tell how much of that is Haley’s ego talking, though. He doesn’t think highly of anybody’s research but his own.”
“A hotbed of intrigue,” Sheila says. “I feel sorry for Jennifer already.” She sips her iced tea. “What about the orchid theft? Anything there?”
“Hey, that’s the fun part.” Miller licks his thumb and turns a page. “Selms suspects that Fairlee staged the theft to cover the loss of a plant that died from his carelessness. Haley thinks Logan Gardner took it and that the orchid—the ‘demon orchid’ is what he called it—is worth a ton of money.”
Sheila thinks about Walker’s tale of orchid smuggling and wonders whether the stolen orchid is part of a larger black-market scheme. “Does Haley have any evidence for his suspicion?” she asks.
“Nope. Just his opinion. The guy has lots of them.” He turns another page. “And get this. Haley also says that Gardner was expecting Fairlee to file a plant patent in both their names. Fairlee apparently filed it in his name only, thus cheating Gardner out of both professional recognition and potential income. Gardner was pissed when he found out, according to Haley. He made threats.”
“So that’s what Gardner meant when he said it might be a little tricky to keep what belongs to him,” Sheila says. “We need to know when Gardner found out about Fairlee’s patent filing.”
“Yeah. That’s crucial. And here’s more about that demon orchid. Selms says Gardner told him that Fairlee’s ex-wife took it. Said he saw her skulking around the building the night of the break-in. She apparently has a key.”
“Huh,” Sheila says. “Walker claims to know nothing about that theft.”
Miller shrugs. “Apparently Selms didn’t buy the story, either. In fact, when I asked Selms who he thinks killed Fairlee, Gardner is at the top of his list.”
“You talked to Gardner? He has an alibi?”
“I had only a few minutes with him. Says he was home alone, working on his dissertation, so no alibi. What’s more, it turns out that he’s licensed to carry. He didn’t tell me that,” Miller adds. “I checked the DPS files.”
“Ah,” Sheila says, her interest piqued. Being licensed to carry means (among other things) that Gardner was required to submit his fingerprints to the Department of Public Safety. His prints should be in the system. “But AFIS didn’t pick up a match for that partial from the suppressor,” she reminds Miller. “Which should mean that Gardner is not our guy.”
“The print is pretty smudged,” Miller says doubtfully. “Maybe it just wasn’t good enough for AFIS. We’ll get a fresh set and check.” He adds, “Neither Selms nor Haley are licensed to carry. They’re not in the DPS system.”
Which doesn’t mean that they don’t own guns—legally. Texas does not require gun owners to be licensed, just those who want to carry their guns around with them, concealed or otherwise. She asks, “How about Walker and the Haley girl? Are they in the DPS files?”
“I didn’t ask,” he says, and reddens slightly.
“Sexist,” Sheila says, and grins.
“Here you go, pretty lady,” Bob says, sliding a plate of kabobs in front of Sheila, and an equally large plate of chicken-fried steak in front of Miller. “Sorry it took so long. The kitchen is pretty busy.”
There is silence for a few moments as they dig into their food. The cabrito is tender and flavorful, the vegetables are grilled perfectly, and Sheila no longer regrets the burrito. While she is eating, she updates Miller on her interview with Walker.
She concludes with, “The most significant thing, I’d say, is her claim that Fairlee was getting it on with Charlaine Rudolph and with students. We need to check this out with both Rudolph and Selms. Gardner may know about the students, too.” She pushes her plate back and reaches for her napkin. “And if this case isn’t complicated enough, there’s apparently a lucrative international black market in orchids. Walker is saying that Fairlee might have been receiving and selling smuggled plants. If so, Gardner is likely to have known about it. I’m wondering whether that ‘demon orchid’ might have been contraband.”
Miller is staring at her. “Black market? Smuggled orchids?”
Sheila chuckles. “Yeah. Who knew? Let’s put this on our list of things to talk to Gardner about. Selms and Haley as well. If this smuggling business is a real thing, people will at least have heard rumors.”
