Biscuits and Slashed Browns Page 15

  Chapter 27

  Noreen and Phil left the store once the drinks were finished, saying they had a seminar to catch in Bloomington. Adele left, too, because she needed to get back to her sheep. She’d also said she was going to try to tear Samuel away from his family research long enough to go contra dancing after dinner, which had made me smile. The energy of those two seniors was an inspiration. No sitting in a rocking chair reflecting on life for them.

  As I drove to Nashville at almost four o’clock, I thought about Noreen discussing her father’s real estate dealings. Was it really plausible someone had followed Connolly to Indiana from Boston to kill him? Or maybe it was someone who’d moved to Indiana from Massachusetts, found out the professor was going to be here, and seized the moment.

  My eyes flew wide and I nearly swerved off the road. Nick Mendes had moved to Brown County from Boston in the last year. And he’d probably rented an apartment back East. He was kind of young to own a house, so maybe Warren Connolly was his landlord. Suppose he’d evicted Nick, who then carried a grudge. Nick’s rental history was certainly traceable. As soon as I reached my destination, I’d text the detective about it. Murder as revenge for getting booted from your digs was still an extreme solution.

  After I parked, I leaned against a column in the lobby of the Nashville Inn and rummaged through my purse. Finally I swore under my breath. I hadn’t brought Thompson’s card. My message was going to have to wait until I got home. Or . . . I gazed down the hall. I could go see if Nick was in the kitchen, ask him myself. But how would I phrase it so, if he was guilty, he wouldn’t be alarmed by my questions? And how would I put it, anyway? “Nick, I was wondering if the murder victim ever evicted you from an apartment in Boston?”

  Forget it. This was clearly a case for the intrepid Detective Thompson. And . . .what was I thinking? We’d exchanged texts before. His number was in my phone already. I pulled it out and tapped away.

  Assume you know Connolly was landlord in Boston, evicted people to flip apts into condos. Maybe contact with Mendes?

  That done, I turned to watch the flow of people streaming out from the large meeting room. Many strolled in twos and threes, still discussing the urgent matter of the day. It was remarkable how many wore versions of the classic professorial tweed jacket. Then I spied Sonia, stunning in a pin-striped skirt, four-inch black-and-white heels, and a form-fitting black jacket over a shimmering yellow silk shirt. She was walking and talking with an older female colleague in slacks and the iconic tweed. I glanced down at my own butt-length green sweater and black leggings, feeling just a bit underdressed. Tough. I wasn’t here to win a fashion show.

  I called to Sonia and waved. She looked around, startled. After she spied me, she shook hands with the woman and strutted in my direction. If I tried to walk in heels that high, I’d suffer the same fate as the poor models who crumple to the ground mid-runway because of the impossible shoes they’re asked to wear, videos of which were all over YouTube.

  “Hey, Robbie. What are you doing here?”

  It wasn’t nice to lie, but I’d suddenly lost my nerve for telling her I wanted to talk about the murder. “It’s my day off and I had a delivery to make in town. Thought I’d stop off at the bar here for a glass of wine. Is the conference over?”

  “Just finished. No earthshaking discoveries, unfortunately, but we made progress. Join you for that glass of wine?”

  Bingo. “Sure.”

  We made our way into the bar, which was filling up fast with conference attendees probably reluctant to cut ties and get back to normal life, whatever and wherever that was. We snagged a booth in the corner and a harried-looking waitress took our orders. Sonia slouched across from me and heaved a noisy exhale.

  “Was it a good meeting?” I asked.

  “Yes, but exhausting. Intense. It was a cross-discipline gathering. Biochemists, climate scientists, soil experts, tree science researchers, you name it. All talking the health of the maple syrup industry.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. And then we had to honor”—she bobbed her head from side to side, looking disgusted at the word—“our departed colleague, Warren. Good riddance, if you ask me. But I told you how I felt about him the other day. We don’t need to rehash my issues with him.” Our drinks arrived, a Clos du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon for me, a martini for her. “Cheers.” She raised her glass.

  I matched the gesture. “Sonia, you were enjoying hanging out with Nick Mendes at Hoosier Hollow the other evening. Do you know where he lives?” I scrambled for a reason to ask but struck out.

  “He’s sharing a house with a couple of dudes he found on Craigslist, he said. Here in Nashville somewhere.”

  “He doesn’t have his own apartment. Seems kind of old for living like a student.”

  “He said he’d a bad experience with a landlord in Boston and wanted a setup where somebody else interfaced with the rent collector.”

  Double bingo. “Well, here’s to the police finding the murderer sooner rather than later.” I sipped and set my glass down, my fingers itching to text Thompson or Buck.

  She took a good swig of her own drink. “No progress in them closing the murder case, apparently.”

  “Not that I know of.” Should I tell her about my meeting with the detective? Might as well. It was an opening to gently prodding her on her Friday night whereabouts. “I had a chat with the detective this morning.”

  She tossed her head. “I had the same kind of chat. His euphemism for an interrogation.”

  “Actually, Thompson sort of asked for my help. Said the Rao family won’t talk to him and that I seemed to know them pretty well.”

  Sonia narrowed her eyes and gazed at me. “I heard Sajit had been arrested for the murder.”

  “He was detained, not arrested, but they don’t have any actual evidence against him, so they let him go.” I watched her. “Thompson also told me you refused to say where you were Friday night. It would help conserve police resources if you’d tell him, Sonia.”

  “Did he send you here to find out?” Her nostrils flared and she sat up straight. “Are you on the payroll as his amateur investigator now?”

  “No, not at all.” I wasn’t getting paid. That part wasn’t a lie. And I hadn’t actually said I’d talk to her. “But he did say he sent a few of his team out to ask questions around your neighborhood and your department and so forth, see if anyone had seen you Friday night.”

  “Hmm.” She backed off her offended posture and relaxed her face. “The thing is, I . . .” Her voice trailed off as she studied her glass, framing the base of the stem with a circle of her fingers. She looked up again. “I saw something. Something I should have reported.” Her hand trembled as she scraped a stuffed olive off its toothpick into her mouth.

  I waited. In my experience, most people wanted to fill uncomfortable gaps of silence. The noise of the bar flowed around us, glasses clinking, a man laughing, conversation humming.

  She drained her drink, as if to fortify herself, and took a deep breath, blowing it out through her lips. “I killed Warren.”

  Chapter 28

  What? “You did?”

  “Yes. Robbie, I saw Sajit push Warren onto a big stone block. And I didn’t do anything to help him. I didn’t call the cops. He died right there and it’s my fault.”

  Both she and Sajit believed they’d killed the professor. I repeated the words I’d told Dr. Rao. “No, it’s not your fault, or not entirely. He didn’t die from hitting the rock.”

  “He didn’t?” It was her turn to sound incredulous.

  I shook my head. “No. Naturally you should have tried to help him, should have called for help. There’s no escaping that. But someone else murdered Professor Connolly after he hit his head. And the means of death wasn’t a fall onto a block of stone.”

  She swore. “All this time I’ve been beating myself up about it.”

  Rightly so. I kept silent for now. Instead I took another sip of wine. The waitress stopped by a
nd asked if we wanted another round. I had to drive home, so I covered my glass with my hand and shook my head, but Sonia ordered a repeat.

  After the waitress left she went on. “I hated the man. I thought he was bad for society, for our field, for the health of our environment. And I’ll admit I’d had a couple of drinks after the evening seminar. I’d gotten in my car and was checking my messages when I saw Sajit confront Warren behind the dumpster. I was parked way at the back and could see them clearly.”

  “And then what?”

  “I saw Sajit leave in a hurry, and I did, too. He’s really the one who should have called it in. But I’m not responsible for his actions, only my own.” She blinked, staring at the table. “If I’d called 911, it might have prevented Warren being murdered after. But I didn’t. Do you see why I couldn’t tell the police later on?”

  “You can make it right by telling them now. Because if you don’t, I will.” I gave her my sternest look.

  She waited until the waitress set down her second drink and left before saying anything else. “All right. You’re correct. I was stupid. Really stupid.” She sipped the drink.

  Good thing she wasn’t gulping down this martini.

  “Do you think he’ll believe me, the detective?” she asked.

  “I hope so. He already knows that Dr. Rao pushed Connolly. Why shouldn’t Thompson believe you?”

  “Because I already lied to him?” She lifted carefully plucked eyebrows. “Whatever. I panicked once but I’m too smart to do it twice. I have to set this thing straight.”

  “I’m sure he’ll have more questions for you,” I warned.

  “Like what?”

  “Like, who else did you see? What did you hear? I don’t know. I’ve never met a detective yet who didn’t have lots of questions.”

  “I’ll answer them.” She shook her head slowly. “I wonder . . .” She gazed at the door to the bar.

  I waited but she didn’t complete the thought. “Wonder what?”

  “Never mind.”

  Grrr. People kept almost telling me pieces of information and then not finishing. It frustrated me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Let’s get this thing over with. I want you to see I’m following through.” Sonia rummaged through her yellow leather designer purse, eventually drawing out a card and a phone. “Got it. Here goes nothing.”

  She pressed the number and set the card on the table. I’d be sending my own message to Thompson. I didn’t want to tell him what I’d learned in front of Sonia but I could do it as soon as I left. I drained the rest of my wine.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she was saying. “No, I’ll text him instead. Thank you.” She jabbed the phone and nearly slammed it onto the table. “He’s out. And no, I’m not going to leave a message with a dispatcher type. Here I was all set to do my big confession.” She swore.

  I laid a ten-dollar bill on the table, enough for my drink, a tip, and then some. “I need to get going.”

  She pushed the money back toward me. “I got this. Really.”

  I’d let her treat me. I took back the money. “Thanks. Make sure you send the text, okay?”

  She looked at me, the skin around her dark eyes tense. “Yes, bratty little sister.” She laughed to take off the edge. “I will. Right this minute.”

  “See you for breakfast one of these days?” I stood, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

  Sonia nodded without looking up, her thumbs flying over the phone.

  * * *

  I climbed into my van in the parking lot behind the inn, sitting for a moment before heading home. The inn was tucked into the side of a hill and the sky was already dusky. A light on a tall pole cast a harsh hue on the hulking angles of the dumpster. I couldn’t see the stone where the professor had begun his passage toward death, but I knew it was there. What I didn’t know is who completed the passage for him.

  I shivered and started the engine, cranking the heat up to high, and sent another text to the detective.

  Sonia G told me Nick M had bad experience with landlord in Boston. Check his rental records.

  Just in case she’d chickened out on texting Thompson about seeing the push, I added,

  She also said she saw Sajit push Connolly onto rock. Said she would text you about it. She felt guilty about not calling 911, thought she’d killed Rao by her inaction.

  There. Obligations complete. But wait. The one thing I hadn’t asked Sonia was where she’d been after she left the inn. And she hadn’t offered it. She might have been lying when she said she believed she’d killed Professor Connolly by not calling in his fall. She could have murdered him later. The idea chilled me in a place the Ford’s heater couldn’t warm. As far as I knew, Sonia still didn’t have an alibi for the time of Connolly’s death, and I’d done nothing toward investigating the gap. I swore out loud right there in my seat. I wasn’t sure I’d accomplished anything, and I could only picture Thompson saying the same thing to himself when he read my messages. With a groan, I added one more text to forestall him needing to ask me the question that logically followed.

  S never said where she was after she left N Inn Fri night.

  I stared at the phone in my hand. Too bad I couldn’t just ask the device, “Who killed Warren Connolly?” and get an answer in the lovely robotic voice that gave directions to restaurants and answered other questions. But it was a computer, not a crystal ball. And I had so many questions. Oh. I had one more thing I needed to tell Thompson, what I’d eavesdropped in the park restroom. I should have texted him from right there in the park, but I’d wanted to get home. Once there, it had slipped my mind.

  Overheard Mona Turner-Rao at park today on her phone.

  Thompson was never going to believe I coincidentally listened to Mona’s conversation. Tough toenails. It was true.

  She told someone she couldn’t make exchange this week, that it was too hot, her words. Drug/money swap?

  I jabbed SEND. My duty to the law was done. Now what? “Now, Jordan,” I scolded myself, “you have a restaurant to open before dawn tomorrow.”

  I headed out to the road and downshifted to make it up an incline where the sun hadn’t quite set. Its rays, with a mass of slate-gray clouds as backdrop, turned the hills into a gold-burnished Gruelle painting. The breathtaking beauty of the scene couldn’t quite take the sting out of my failure to find Connolly’s killer. Or figure anything else out, for that matter.

  I shook off the dark place, and jabbed a button on the radio. When Emmylou Harris’s lyrical voice came on singing a rocking tune about two more bottles of wine, I smiled. She could lift my spirits like nobody else. I sang along, and soon enough entered South Lick. I stopped off to pick up a loaded burrito from Chili Mama’s since I was out of leftovers. I was so hungry I could eat the north end of a south-bound mule, as Buck sometimes said.

  Back in the van, the steaming burrito beckoning from the passenger seat, I was only a couple of blocks from my store when police lights flashed behind me. I dutifully pulled to the curb to let the cruiser pass. Instead, it pulled up next to me. The lights kept flashing.

  Uh-oh. My heart sank to the brake pedal. I knew I hadn’t been speeding. Had I forgotten to signal when I pulled out of Chili Mama’s? I hadn’t had so much to drink I was swerving. Had I? Was I? I’d been nailed with a speeding ticket in my younger years from the CHIPS, as we not-so-fondly called the California Highway Patrol back home. It had taken years to clear the infraction from both my driving record and my insurance. In the mirror I saw an officer approaching so I rolled down the window.

  The officer, a woman about my age I’d never seen before, said, “Good evening. License and registration, please.” Her hair was neatly pulled back in a low ponytail streaming out behind her uniform hat.

  “One second.” Sheesh. Why hadn’t I gotten those out as soon as I stopped? I fumbled in my purse for my license and rummaged through old napkins, a map of the state park, and a tire gauge in the glove compartment until I located the reg
istration. I knew I looked nervous. I was.

  I handed them over and smiled. I was about to ask if I’d done anything wrong but clamped my mouth shut instead, scolding myself silently. Stupid, don’t put ideas in her head. I clasped my hands in my lap to keep them from fidgeting.

  She shone her flashlight on the registration, examining it, and the license. “Do you know your right rear taillight is out?”

  What? Relief flooded through me and I blew out a breath. “No, I didn’t. Thank you. I’ll get it fixed first thing tomorrow.” Well, after I closed tomorrow, that is.

  She leaned in a little. “Have you been drinking, Ms. Jordan?”

  I swore silently. Busted. “Uh, I had half a glass of wine at the Nashville Inn.” So much for the relief. My heart now pounded like the Wabash Cannonball.

  She checked the license again. “Do you feel impaired?”

  “No, not at all.” I didn’t. Did I?

  “I see you’re near home, so I’m letting you off with a warning this time. I’m going to follow you to your residence to make sure you don’t imperil yourself or others. Please remember in the future no amount of alcohol makes you a safe driver. It’s always best to abstain if you plan to conduct a motor vehicle.” She handed me my documents.

  “Yes ma’am. Absolutely.”

  Corrine Beedle strolled up out of nowhere next to the officer. “Everything all right here, Officer?”

  What was she doing here? Oh. We were across the street from Town Hall. Of course Corrine was here. She’d probably just left her office.

  “Yes, Madam Mayor,” the officer said. “Ms. Jordan here has a taillight out. I was just informing her of that fact.”

  “Good, good. You okay, there, Robbie?”

  “I’m fine, Corrine, thanks.” Or I would be once I got home. “How’s Danna doing?”