A Plain Vanilla Murder, page 20
“Right. His wife is his alibi, which—as you know—can be challenged. As for motive, Selms had plenty of reason to hate Fairlee. That greenhouse, for one thing, which everybody says made Selms look like a total dolt. It must have been a sore that festered every time he went out and looked up at the roof. For another, we’ve been told that Fairlee apparently stole some of Selms’ research and published it under his own name. And there seems to have been bad blood between them that goes back a couple of decades.”
“You said there were three. Who’s the third?”
“Jennifer Haley’s father. He’s got a mile-long list of grudges against Fairlee—he once even got a dozen faculty members to sign a letter demanding that the man be fired. Not to mention that he was royally pissed at Fairlee for sleeping with his daughter. And Haley was home alone. No alibi at all.”
“I suppose you’ve surveyed the other faculty. Just to eliminate,” I added. “The last thing you need is to come up with more suspects.”
“You said it,” Sheila replied emphatically. “But yes, Denise Maxwell, the campus security director, interviewed everybody who has offices in the Plant Sciences building. Their statements and alibis all have to be checked, of course, but she says nothing jumped out at her.” She pulled her mouth down. “I was glad to have Denise’s help. We’re perennially shorthanded here. Besides Miller, Megan Donnelly is working on Fairlee’s computer and his phone, and Gene Parsons is handling the searches—the victim’s apartment, his office, and his vehicle. Which was used to transport plants, by the way. Jennifer Haley, the current girlfriend, said that Fairlee sold orchids at various orchid shows.”
“Ah, the girlfriend. Maggie said she’s a grad student.” I raised my eyebrows. “Is she a suspect, too?”
“She says she was studying for an exam, with a friend. Haven’t checked the alibi yet, but my guess is that she’ll be cleared. I still need to talk again to the department secretary, Charlaine Rudolph, who is one of Fairlee’s cast-off lovers. And I’d like to find the woman who gave him that orchid.”
“You know it came from a woman?”
“Yeah, according to Jennifer. One possible theory: Fairlee was involved with an orchid smuggling ring that brought plants into the country, then distributed them through orchid shows. His murder is related to that.” She raised her shoulders and dropped them. “But that’s all it is, a theory.”
“No physical evidence? Nothing on the gun?”
“Stolen. There was a partial print on the suppressor.”
“The suppressor? That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”
“Right.” Sheila’s grin was bleak. “Suppressors are a big-city crime toy. We don’t often see them here in Pecan Springs. Miller traced it to the original owner, who reported it stolen not long after he got it. We sent the partial print through AFIS and didn’t get a match.” She rubbed her face with both hands. “Not surprising—it was pretty smudged.”
“Anything helpful turn up in the searches?”
“Not yet. The phone and the computer are both passwordprotected, and while Donnelly is plenty smart, all she has is on-the-job experience. As somebody said once, ‘You fight the war with the army you’ve got.’ Or something like that.” She nodded toward the terrarium on the bookshelf. “And then there’s the orchid. Or maybe not.”
“Ah, yes, the orchid,” I said with a sigh. “I’m sorry Maggie couldn’t give you more information about it. I’m confident that she’s told us all she knows.” I paused. “You said that Jennifer Haley saw the woman who gave Fairlee the orchid. Did you get a description?”
“Nothing terribly helpful. White, short brown hair, medium height, medium weight, middle age. Wearing jeans and a blue Adams County Hospital T-shirt, which could have been obtained anywhere locally, new or in a thrift shop, or even at the half-marathon, where they’re handed out to runners. Jennifer saw her when she gave the orchid to Fairlee, at his greenhouse. On another occasion, the same woman picked Fairlee up in the lot behind the Plant Sciences building. He kissed her—not a casual kiss, according to Jennifer. So there seems to have been something going on between them. Besides the orchid, that is. The illegal orchid.”
“She picked him up?” I asked. “What was she driving?”
With a smile, Sheila tented her fingers. “Now, that might be a little more helpful. It was a late model Volkswagen Beetle. Green, maybe metallic green.”
“Of course. The Beetle you asked Maggie about.”
That was indeed a little more helpful. Texans tend to drive big trucks and big cars. Forget about fuel efficiency—the bigger the better is our mantra. And green isn’t our favorite color, either. Texans vastly prefer metallic bronze and brown. There couldn’t be more than a couple of hundred green Beetles in the state. But maybe this one wasn’t registered in Texas.
“Plates?” I asked.
“Jennifer didn’t notice. Connie’s running a registered vehicle check now. Trying to, anyway. The DMV computers are down.”
I thought of something else and turned to look at the terrarium. It had a round base, some three or four inches high, into which the domed glass top fitted. “Do you know if the woman who supplied the orchid to Fairlee gave it to him in this terrarium?”
Sheila frowned. “I’d have to check, but I think I remember Maxwell saying that’s how he reported the theft. Why are you asking?”
I pointed to the terrarium. “Both Maggie and I, and presumably also Fairlee, have handled that container. But we’ve touched only the outside. There may be a separate inside container that holds the soil—probably fir bark, which is the usual orchid-growing medium. Whoever assembled it might have left prints on the inside of the base. Or maybe even on the interior of the glass dome.”
“That’s a thought,” Sheila said, brightening. “I’ll have it checked right away.” She dropped her feet to the floor, leaned forward, and pushed a button on her phone. “Connie, come in for a second.” When her assistant came in, she pointed to the plant. “Please take that terrarium down to Miller and tell him to get somebody to disassemble it—carefully, without harming the plant—and see if they can pull any prints off the inside of the base and the dome.”
As Connie took the terrarium, I said, “Hey, Con, how’s Lillian?” Connie had worked for McQuaid when he served for a few months as the police chief, after Bubba Harris retired and before Sheila was hired. I had heard that her sister had cancer.
Connie pulled down her mouth. “Not so good. She’s having surgery next week.”
“Fingers crossed,” I said. “Tell her we’re thinking of her.”
“I will.” Connie glanced at Sheila. “Want some coffee, Chief? I’m going past the coffee machine.”
“I wish,” Sheila said wistfully. “But I’ve already had mine for the day. No point in wiring the baby. You want coffee, China?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m good.”
After she had gone with the terrarium, Sheila shook her head glumly. “I just wish I could keep Connie forever.”
I was startled. “She’s going somewhere?”
“Afraid so. She’s going to Dallas to take care of both her mom and her sister. You know that her mother has Alzheimer’s?” When I nodded, Sheila added, “We’re pretending that this is a short-term thing, but she has no idea when she might be back. This is something Connie feels she needs to do. All I can do is try to make it easy for her.”
“Uh-oh,” I said quietly.
“Yeah. I’ve been interviewing replacements.” She pulled down her mouth. “As if anybody could come within a mile of replacing Con.”
I could hear the pain in her voice. “Oh, Smart Cookie,” I said sympathetically. “I am so sorry—now, of all times.”
“This is making me understand just how much I depend on her.” Sheila shook her head. “In fact, Connie is the only person in this whole friggin’ department that I can trust a hundred percent. I can’t begin to imagine doing this job without her.”
“Ruby and I function that way a lot of the time,” I said. “We back each other up, especially when things are difficult. Work wives, we call each other. After all, we’re together for eight or nine waking hours a day. When we have a catering job, it can go to ten or twelve. More time than most married couples spend together.”
“Work wives,” Sheila said, as if she was surprised by the way the idea clicked with her. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Connie and I just seem to—” She was interrupted by the short, sharp buzz of the phone on her desk. She answered it, listened a moment, then hung up. “Walker is fingerprinted and ready to leave. You can meet her in the lobby. And one of our suspects is waiting for Miller and me in the interview room.”
I got up. “Go get ’em, Sherlock,” I said. “Maybe your suspect will get the urge to confess and you’ll make an arrest this afternoon. It could happen, you know.”
“I suppose it could.” Sheila got up, too. “But I have to go to the bathroom first.”
Chapter Twelve
Baked Chicken with Balsamic-Orange-Vanilla Sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 teaspoon orange zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-inch piece vanilla bean, split lengthwise
Cooking spray
8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat oven to 450° F. Combine first 8 ingredients in a small saucepan. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean; stir seeds into broth mixture.* Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced to 1/2 cup (15 minutes). While the sauce is reducing, coat the bottom of a roasting pan with cooking spray. Arrange chicken in a single layer. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and bake at 450° for 10 minutes. Brush half of sauce over chicken; return to oven, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Brush remaining broth mixture over chicken; return to oven for 15 minutes, uncovered, or until a thermometer registers 180°. Serve over pasta or rice to 4 hungry diners.
*Bury the piece of vanilla bean in a canister of sugar. Wonderful in tea, coffee.
The delicious chicken dish we had for supper took no more than about ten minutes to assemble, fifteen minutes on the stove, and another thirty in the oven. The balsamic I used is an ordinary, off-the-shelf balsamic, tart and fruity but not as richly complex and tangy as one that is traditionally made and barrel-aged. The best balsamic is so pricey that I use it only after cooking, to add a final touch. I served the chicken with angel hair pasta (cooks fast), a green salad, and slices of Cass’ carrot cake, brought home from the shop. McQuaid and Caitie chowed down with gusto, while Winchester waited beneath the table, alert for possible contributions.
When we were finished eating, Caitie went out to the chicken coop to discuss laying schedules with her girls. Several of her best hens hadn’t finished molting, so production was down and she was worried about filling her egg customers’ orders.
“I hope you’ll be able to spare a dozen for me,” I called after her. I was planning to make a vanilla custard for the next workshop session. If I’m going to the expense of real vanilla beans, I want real eggs, too.
“I’ll tell them,” she said over her shoulder. “But I can’t promise.”
At an age when most girls are jabbering nonstop into their cell phones, Caitie is unusually focused. Right now, her flourishing chicken and egg business takes all the attention she can spare from school and music. Her fifteen hens usually lay ten or a dozen eggs a day, with no time off on weekends or holidays. We pay her for those we use and she sells the rest to neighbors and friends, buying the feed out of her earnings and banking what’s left. Toward college, she says, although the money her father left in trust for her education should take care of that, as well as grad school and more. Still, saving is a good habit for a kid. We encourage it.
These days, though, Caitie’s chicken-and-egg story has a couple of new characters. Earlier, I mentioned Blackheart, the very valuable Ayam Cemani rooster that was chicken-napped along with Caitie’s rooster at the Adams County Fair. What makes Ayam Cemani chickens so extraordinary is their astonishing color: their plumage is a shiny, glistening black, their legs and toenails are black, and so are their beaks, their tongues, their combs, and their wattles. Even their meat, bones, and inner organs are black—or so I was informed later. At the time, I was too busy liberating Blackheart to investigate down to the skin-and-bones level.
I also learned later that, back home in his chicken yard, Blackheart had an Ayam Cemani wife named Goodheart. Goodheart’s fertile eggs, which are a very ordinary brown (really? not black?), sell on eBay for an astonishing $18 to $20 each. In gratitude for the safe return of her at-large rooster, Blackheart’s owner gave Caitie a half-dozen of Goodheart’s pricey eggs. Fertile eggs.
Caitie considered setting her six precious eggs under Dixie Chick. But she was afraid that Dixie might not be interested in investing twenty-one days of her life in another hen’s eggs—or that she might carelessly allow one or two of the eggs to get broken. So McQuaid helped her turn an old Styrofoam cooler into an incubator by inserting a twenty-five watt light bulb into one side and a plexiglass viewing window into the lid. She kept it in her bedroom (where else?), monitoring the temperature and humidity and turning the eggs before breakfast, after school, and when she went to bed at night. Her motherhen diligence was rewarded when, after twenty-one days, all six eggs successfully hatched. The baby chicks were black as midnight, down to their tiny beaks and toes.
Now, Caitie has a new angle on the chicken business. She plans to keep a boy chick and two girl chicks and sell the other three when they are ten weeks old—for the going price of $150 each. Presumably her boy and girl chicks will grow into fatherhood and motherhood and produce their own fertile eggs. I have the feeling that whatever she does for a living when she’s grown up, she will always have plenty of pocket change.
McQuaid, heading for his office, paused in the kitchen doorway. We hadn’t talked about the investigation during dinner, but we had spoken by phone during the day, and he knew that Carl Fairlee’s death had been ruled a homicide. “Any progress in the investigation?” he asked.
“I don’t know if you’d call it progress,” I said, putting the leftover pasta into the fridge. “I spent an hour at the PSPD with Maggie Walker this afternoon, making sure she didn’t talk her way into a blind alley. Afterwards—”
“Whoa.” McQuaid held up his hand. “You did what? I thought you were through with lawyering. Done with it forever. I hope this doesn’t mean—”
“I wasn’t lawyering. I was just helping a friend avoid a possible felony. When we were finished, Sheila updated me on their progress.” I told him where the cops were in the case—and where they weren’t.
“Sounds like the research assistant is their best bet,” McQuaid said. “Gardner, is it?”
I nodded. “Sheila says he had both motive and opportunity, plus a familiarity with guns. But Carl Fairlee seems to have attracted enemies like flies. There is no shortage of viable suspects.” I glanced up at the clock. “Did I mention that Kate Rodriguez is coming over tonight?”
“The lady who got pregnant with the turkey baster?” McQuaid raised one eyebrow. “No, you didn’t. But I won’t be in your way. I’ve got a few things to tidy up in the office, and then I’m heading over to the Banners’. Tom is having some guys over for poker.”
Tom and Sylvia Banner are our neighbors. Tom is ex-Army, an Adams County reserve deputy, and a homesteader who has been a helpful resource for Caitie where the chickens are concerned. Sylvia, a talented spinner and weaver, tends a flock of Gulf Coast Native sheep on their thirty acres.
“I’ve got something for Sylvia,” I said, taking a jar of Queen Anne’s Lace jelly out of the cupboard. “I promised to give her this, and I keep forgetting. And tell Tom that all six of Caitie’s black chicks hatched.” Together, Tom and I had corralled the rooster rustler, who turned out to be a marijuana farmer, as well. It had been an action-filled encounter that ended with Tom being shot and me being questioned about my role in an officer-involved shooting.
McQuaid disappeared, Caitie came in and then went upstairs to do her homework. I was brewing a pot of after-dinner mint tea when I heard a car in the drive and a moment later, a knock at the kitchen door.
It was Kate, a tall, sturdily built woman in her early thirties. She has inherited a quiet beauty from generations of Latina foremothers: large brown eyes and heavy lashes, ivory-satin skin, high cheekbones, a full mouth, and straight dark hair. She was wearing denim leggings and a sleeveless red blouse.
“Hey, Kate,” I said. “Come in.” Winchester left his doggie bed and trotted over for an eager, inquisitive sniff of her sneakers and socks. Kate and Amy have a dachshund named Flossie, and her scent always intrigues Winchester. He couldn’t wait for Kate to settle down so he could spend the next half hour with his nose on Kate’s toes and his mind on flirty Flossie.
“I’ve brought a treat,” Kate said, putting a box of assorted cookies on the table. “Amy and Grace baked this afternoon.” She took one out and held it up. “Grace said she made this one especially for you.” It was shaped sort of like an elephant and frosted with bright pink frosting. She took out another. “And if elephants aren’t to your taste, here’s a green dinosaur with purple paws. Amy dyed the frosting with Kool-Aid.”
“Tell Grace her cookies are spectacular,” I said with a chuckle. “Almost too pretty to eat.”
A few minutes later, we were sitting on the front porch with our tea, a plate of cookies, and Winchester, who was mooning over Kate’s sneakers. The low western sun cast lengthening shadows across the grass, and twilight was beginning to fall across the late-summer landscape.
