Murder from A to Z, page 15
The room had suddenly gone quiet. Everyone ate cake and the conversation stopped while we all savored the experience.
“I need a cigarette. That cake is better than se—”
“Irma!”
Irma coughed.
Our server came upstairs with coffee, which was the perfect finish.
“I’ve got to go. Don’t wait up.” Irma stood, wiggled her hips, and took a tug at her skirt, which was too short and too tight. Then she gave her blouse a tug so that her breasts pushed up. Irma winked and hurried downstairs.
Nana Jo shook her head and mumbled something that sounded like “smut,” but I might have misunderstood.
“Dorothy, what else did you get from the vampire?” Nana Jo asked.
“He spent an hour telling me about his illustrious family. But I don’t think the museum is doing as great as he would have us believe. When you look below the surface, the carpet is threadbare, the wallpaper is peeling in the restrooms, and wasn’t there more staff?” Dorothy glanced around.
“There used to be tour guides and someone selling tickets and gifts,” Jenna said.
“And a security guard,” I added.
“That’s what I remember too. Now, it’s just Ethan Linton doing everything. He was running around like a headless chicken. When I asked about it, he gave me a condescending smile and mumbled something about good help being hard to find.” Dorothy shook her head.
“Especially when you can’t pay them,” Ruby Mae said.
We turned our attention to her.
“Do you know something?” Nana Jo asked.
“I don’t want to interrupt,” Ruby Mae said.
“Please, go on. I think your information is much more interesting that mine.” Dorothy waved Ruby Mae on.
“If you’re sure.” Ruby Mae glanced at Dorothy, who nodded. Seeing no other objections, she pulled out her knitting and started working on a baby blanket. “Well, y’all know my daughter Stephanie owns a cleaning company. Her company had a contract to clean the museum five days per week for years. I used to clean his grandmother Charlotte Linton’s house years ago. When I retired, Stephanie took a lot of the contracts and Charlotte liked Stephanie and signed her to do the museum.” Ruby Mae allowed pride to wash over her face for a few moments before she pushed the look away. “Then Linton reduced the contract from five days per week to three days. He claimed the museum was getting a lot less foot traffic, so he didn’t need five days, which made sense. Although I think if the business is open five days, then he should have at least had the restrooms cleaned, but that was none of my business.” Ruby Mae pursed her lips.
We all agreed with her assessment, and I made a mental note to never use the restrooms at LIMA.
“Then Linton reduced the contract from three days per week to once per week, and the last check he sent bounced.”
“That must have hurt his ego,” Dorothy said.
“He blamed the bank, but Stephanie doesn’t play when it comes to payment. She believes in paying her workers on time.” Ruby Mae took a moment to bind off her knitting before continuing.
“Banks can make mistakes. Did Stephanie believe him?” Nana Jo asked.
Ruby Mae shook her head. “Nope. Plus, my nephew’s grandson was a security guard there for a hot minute and said the staff that were there complained about not getting their checks on time. So, she isn’t cleaning LIMA anymore.”
“It didn’t look like anyone was cleaning from the layer of dust on the furniture,” Dorothy said.
“Maybe things will improve now that he’s gotten the legacy from Alva’s estate.” I looked at Jenna.
“Possibly, but like I mentioned to Bethany at the seminar, it can take years to get settlement from wills. Even if she had a trust, now that Carl’s dead …” She shrugged. “It will depend on the police.”
“Well, I have something about that too,” Ruby Mae said. “I talked to Daryl. He said the North Harbor Police Department got several anonymous calls about Alva’s death being suspicious. Then, when Carl was murdered, he was able to get an order to have Alva’s body exhumed and they’ll run an autopsy on her.”
“That’s great news,” I said.
“Daryl doesn’t know if it’ll do any good. He thinks if she was poisoned, that it’s not likely that they’ll find out what was used.” Ruby Mae took a moment to count stitches before continuing. “Plus, it’ll take time. North Harbor doesn’t have the facilities to do the type of testing, so he’s going to have her autopsy done by the River Bend police.”
“It’s a bigger town and they have a lot more resources,” Jenna said.
“At least someone will be looking into it. That’s good news,” Nana Jo said.
We spent a few minutes discussing the challenges solving crime in a small town presented, but then moved on.
“The police investigation should put a halt on Alva’s will paying out. If Alva was murdered, the court will want to make sure she wasn’t killed for her money,” Jenna said.
I shared the information from this morning. Was it only this morning that I went to Bethany’s house?
“Are you sure having Isabella in your garage is a good idea?” Frank asked.
“She’s in the garage, not the house. I’m being careful.” I squeezed his leg under the table. “Plus, Nana Jo’s there.”
“And you better believe I’ve got my peacemaker at the ready,” Nana Jo said. “Nobody messes with my granddaughters.”
Frank fought back a grin and whispered, “When we’re married, please tell me that I won’t have to fight your grandmother for the right to protect you.”
I kissed Frank’s cheek. “I’m fully capable of protecting myself, but you’re too much of a gentleman to hit a lady. So, if you did have to fight, my money’s on Nana Jo.”
Frank had taken a sip of wine and nearly choked.
Chapter 26
“Dorothy, did you finish your report?” Nana Jo asked.
Dorothy was a million miles away, but snapped back to the present at Nana Jo’s question. “Yes. I was just thinking about something Ethan Linton said.” She paused for a few moments. “He knew Oliver Tarkington. Apparently, Oliver Tarkington came into town eons ago. He did a speech at MISU and then held an exhibit. Ethan swears that Oliver Tarkington made arrangements with Charlotte Linton, to leave a large bequest to the museum.”
“Alva did leave a bequest to the museum,” I said.
“I think Ethan Linton had expectations that were a lot higher than twenty thousand dollars and a couple of worthless paintings,” Jenna said.
“Maybe the paintings aren’t worthless,” I said.
Frank got a call and got up and walked downstairs to take it. I watched his back retreat. He worked hard, too hard. Maybe we should take a vacation. Our wedding was in two months and he’d been working extra hard to get his house ready to sell, and to keep the restaurant going. Just as owning a mystery bookshop had been my dream with Leon, Frank dreamed of having his own restaurant. Even though Leon didn’t live long enough to see the dream come to reality, I had been blessed to have my family to help me. Frank’s mom was a surgeon. While I had no doubt she could whip the restaurant’s vendors, contractors, and waitstaff into shape, she wasn’t interested in a career change. At least, I didn’t think so, but maybe now that she was … dating Stinky Pitt, she might want to move to North Harbor. No way, though. She’s a surgeon. If anything, Stinky Pitt would move closer to her, right?
“Sam!” Jenna elbowed me in the ribs.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Daydreaming?” Nana Jo asked.
“No, I was just thinking.” I didn’t need a mirror to know that I was blushing. I could feel the blood rushing to my head. “Sorry, what did I miss?”
“Did you learn something at that appraiser you talked to today?” Nana Jo asked.
“Like is Alva some forgotten artist whose works are now worth millions?” Dorothy chuckled.
“Obviously you haven’t seen Alva’s paintings,” Jenna mumbled as she sipped her coffee.
“I’ve heard that after an artist dies, their paintings increase in value,” Ruby Mae said.
“No. William Merkel estimated that Alva’s paintings probably weren’t worth more than a few hundred dollars, but …” I said.
“But you don’t believe him?” Nana Jo asked.
“I do believe him. Alva was a really nice lady, but she wasn’t talented. Those two paintings that she left to Isabella weren’t very good.” I sighed and tried to collect my thoughts. “It makes me sad to think that Carl might have been right when he said the paintings weren’t worth the canvas they were painted on. Mr. Merkel looked at the paintings with a magnifying glass and it looks like Alva painted over a previous painting.”
“Why would she do that?” Nana Jo asked. “Was she trying to save money?”
I shrugged. “No idea. But it makes me wonder why she went to so much trouble to make sure that Isabella got the paintings.”
“Maybe she imagined that after she died, her paintings would be worth a lot more money. You know, Vincent van Gogh never sold many paintings during his lifetime, and he left all of his paintings to his brother, Theo. Sadly, Theo died about six months after Vincent and his wife, Johanna, inherited them. Theo was an art dealer who always believed in his brother’s talent, and Johanna believed in Theo. It was Johanna’s efforts that brought recognition to Vincent years after his death,” Dorothy said.
“How do you know so much about Van Gogh?” Nana Jo asked.
“Google.” Dorothy waved her phone. “I’ve been researching art for this article. Plus, I spent an incredibly long day with Ethan Linton at the museum. They have a Van Gogh display. I had to keep myself from falling asleep somehow.”
“LIMA has a Van Gogh?” I scraped my brain to recall if I remembered seeing any when we took field trips in elementary school. Although I don’t think I would have known who Van Gogh was back then.
“Are you joking? That museum couldn’t afford a real Van Gogh. They just set up some books with pictures of his sunflower paintings and used a laptop to display the pictures,” Dorothy said. “I think it was Van Gogh’s birthday or something. He didn’t even splurge for real sunflowers. He had a vase with fake flowers he must have bought at the dollar store.” Dorothy shook her head. “Although he did put the art that Alva bequeathed him on a display promoting local artists.”
“Hard to talk about Alva in the same breath as Van Gogh. Alva Tarkington’s works don’t even seem to be in the same universe as Vincent Van Gogh.” Something tugged at the back of my mind. “Still, Alva took a lot of risks to write that addendum to her will on toilet paper. If we accept that she wasn’t batty.” I glanced around the table and received nods confirming that we were all still in agreement. “Then, why? Why take those two paintings and leave them to Isabella? Why risk getting caught altering her will? I mean, Carl had zero respect for Alva’s art. If she just told him she wanted to leave those paintings to Isabella, I would think Carl would have gladly given them to her.”
“You’re right.” Jenna frowned. “He certainly didn’t seem sentimentally attached to the paintings at all.”
“Maybe Carl didn’t realize the paintings were valuable. He wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer,” Nana Jo said.
“First off, Alva’s paintings aren’t valuable.” Jenna twirled her Moscato in her glass and stared at the pale pink liquid as if in a trance. After a few moments, she continued. “No, Sam’s right. If Carl thought those paintings were worth anything, I have no doubt that he would have contested the addendum based on the way he exploded when Andy mentioned it. He was ready to fight tooth and nail if Alva had left her money to someone else. Once he found out what the addendum entailed, he immediately dropped it.”
“Anything else?” Nana Jo turned to Dorothy.
Dorothy frowned. “Nothing. But there was something about one of Alva’s paintings that seemed odd to me.”
“Which painting?” I asked.
“It was the painting with the two sisters together. I can’t put my finger on it. It bothered me, so I took a picture with my phone.” Dorothy pulled out her cell and swiped through her photos until she found the photo she wanted. She sent it to each of us.
Moments later, all of our phones pinged as we received the picture. Then we all stared at our screens, trying to figure out what had captured Dorothy’s attention.
“I stared at that painting and tried to figure out what about it bothered me, but … I don’t know. It just struck me as odd.” I pinched the image on my screen and expanded it.
“I don’t see anything that leaps out at me, but there is something strange. Do we know which one is which?” Nana Jo asked.
“Look at the lockets,” Dorothy said. “I found a picture of Alva and Oliver Tarkington at the British National Gallery exhibit. It’s at least fifty years old, but Alva is wearing a locket just like the one in the painting. And the locket has an A. Zelda’s locket has a Z.” She sent us the link to the article.
When we compared the two photos we could see that both girls in Alva’s painting were wearing lockets. The girl on the left had a locket with an A while the girl on the right wore a locket with a Z.
“Even knowing which girl is which, I can’t tell them apart,” Ruby Mae said.
“I have no idea what it is about the painting that seems off, but there’s something odd. I just can’t see it.” Dorothy shook her head in frustration. “Darned twins.”
“I know what you mean,” Jenna tilted her head to the side. “Alva and Zelda were identical twins, but even with identical twins there is usually something different about them. There’s something that makes them different.”
“Well, you had twins, so you should know,” Ruby Mae said.
“My boys are fraternal twins, not identical, but I’ve talked to lots of parents of twins, especially when the boys were babies. And they all had similar stories,” Jenna said. “There’s usually something that distinguishes one twin from the other. Whether it’s a birthmark, dominant writing hand, head shape, or freckles, there’s usually something that the parents latch onto to tell their kids apart.”
“I heard of a lady who painted her babies’ toenails different colors so she could tell them apart, but of course when they got older, their personalities made it easier,” Nana Jo said.
“I wonder if Alva or Zelda had a distinguishing feature,” I said.
Dorothy and Jenna were both hit by the same lightning bolt. “That’s it.”
“What?” we all asked.
“Alva did have a distinguishing feature,” Dorothy said. “She had a mole near her right ear.”
We all stared at the picture on our phones. After several moments, Nana Jo broke the silence. “That is odd,” she said. “If the lockets are on the right daughters, then why is Zelda the one with the mole?”
“What does that mean?” Dorothy asked. “The woman we knew as Alva definitely had a mole.”
Nana Jo said, “So, either Alva grew a mole over her ear that exactly matches the one her sister Zelda had. Or …”
“Or the woman we knew as Alva was really Zelda,” I said.
Chapter 27
“How is that possible?” “Why?” “That’s crazy.”
Everyone started talking at once. I held up a hand to stop the questions. “They were identical twins. Alva’s husband, Oliver, was already dead. If they didn’t have any other close relatives, then who would be able to tell which sister died?”
“But surely someone would notice. How did Zelda … Alva die?” Ruby Mae asked.
“Heart attack,” Frank said.
I hadn’t noticed his return until he spoke.
“I just got a call from … a friend. When the sisters were young, one of them, Alva, got rheumatic fever, which caused heart problems,” Frank said.
“I haven’t heard of rheumatic fever in decades,” Nana Jo said.
“Me either. I thought it had been wiped out like polio,” Ruby Mae said.
“What is rheumatic fever?” I asked.
“Let’s find out.” Frank pulled out his phone and dialed. After a few moments, she picked up. “Hey, Mom, I have a medical question … No, I’m fine. I … Sam’s fine too.” He rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth several times, but closed it and mumbled agreement. When he got to a break in the conversation, he hurriedly said, “Mom, I’m going to put you on speaker. I’m here with Sam, Nana Jo, Dorothy, Jenna, and Ruby Mae.”
“Hello, everyone,” Dr. Camilia Patterson said. “Don’t tell me there’s been another murder.”
“There’s been at least one, but maybe two,” Nana Jo said. “Camilia, this is Josephine. What can you tell us about rheumatic fever?”
“Rheumatic fever?” Camilia paused. “Wow, I haven’t heard of any cases of that in decades. At least not in this country.”
“When I was a kid in Alabama, one of my cousins got it. The doctors thought she would die. It was awful. I thought they wiped that scourge off the face of the earth.” Ruby Mae shook her head.
“Rheumatic fever isn’t common in developed nations. Sadly, it’s still around. Mostly, it’s more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the South Pacific. We don’t hear of it much here in the States,” Camilia said.
“What is it?” Jenna asked. “Is it a virus?”
“No. It’s not a virus. It’s an autoimmune disease,” Camilia said. “It’s an inflammatory disease that comes from the group A streptococcus bacteria.”
“Streptococcus, like strep throat?” I asked.
“Strep throat or scarlet fever are streptococcus group. A bacteria. Generally, what we see is if those aren’t treated properly, rheumatic fever can develop.”
“How is it treated?” I asked.
“Antibiotics,” Camilia said.
“If someone had rheumatic fever as a child, does it cause problems as an adult?” I asked.
“Rheumatic fever can permanently damage the heart valves and causes rheumatic heart disease. So, the answer is yes. If someone contracted rheumatic fever as a child, it could cause problems later in life,” Camilia said.
