The Poison in the Pudding Read online

  “You could have been arrested.”

  “I know,” I repeated. “I guess too many pre-Prohibition cocktails is a bad idea.”

  “I guess,” he said under his breath. He got out of the car and opened the door for me.

  August Nixon’s memorial service was held that Saturday, which meant that Lucas was able to play escort. We arrived at the Masonic Lodge—the Nixons weren’t churchgoers—suitably dressed in somber colors. Well, somberish. Lucas was sophisticated and elegant in a classic black suit, but the closest thing to a somber color I owned was a cobalt-blue maxi dress.

  The lodge had been built in 1923 after the original building burned down, but the Masons had insisted on replicating the gorgeous nineteenth-century building, complete with front columns. It was like a mini White House perched on the side of the hill, elegant and mysterious. Or maybe that was just me.

  “Are you sure about this?” Lucas asked, pausing outside the wide double doors. There was a fine mist in the air and droplets clung to his salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Why? Scared?” I sniped back, starting to withdraw my hand from the crook of his arm. Why couldn’t he just be supportive?

  “After last time?” he asked, refusing to let go of my hand. “Of course I am. You nearly died. Twice. I don’t relish the thought of it happening again.”

  His answer mollified me. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  He sighed but said nothing more. Really, he was sweet to worry about me, but I could handle myself.

  Inside the grand lodge, chairs had been lined up facing the southern end of the room, where an enormous photo of the deceased had been set up on an easel. Massive floral arrangements drowned the floor, crowding out the wooden podium and perfuming the air. The pollen tickled my nose, and I stifled a sneeze. Great. I should have taken my allergy pills today.

  People milled about, speaking in hushed tones and casting glances at the smirking picture of the dead man. Either Nixon had a lot of friends or he was in a high enough position in Astoria society that people wanted to be sure they were seen at his service. Call me cynical, but I was betting on the later. This was definitely a “see and be seen” sort of event. No one appeared terribly sad.

  Eventually everyone was seated, and the service began. Various pillars of society took turns at the podium, droning on ad naseum about the wonderful qualities of the deceased. Maybe I was the only one who noticed it, but they didn’t seem to know the man very well. It was all generalities and butt-kissing interspersed with sympathetic glances at the widow. I tuned them out and focused instead on the attendees, specifically the widow and her son.

  Mrs. Nixon was not a young woman, but she had that ageless sort of beauty I associated with Golden Era actresses, such as Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn. She was dressed in a simple black shift that fell just below the knees, sensible but elegant black heels, and a simple strand of white pearls. To ward against the chill of the old building, she’d wrapped a gray silk shawl around her shoulders. The most ostentatious thing about her was the giant rock on her left hand. I wondered if that had been her choice or his. Wedding rings said a lot about people, in my opinion. Based on the rest of her understated outfit, I was betting the ring had been his choice and she wore it because he wanted her to, not because it was her style. I hadn’t known Nixon, but he struck me as the type who liked to flash his cash. He’d certainly enjoyed lording it over his underlings, if Portia’s stories were anything to go by.

  The son looked to be in his early thirties, reasonably attractive, and not terribly thrilled to be there. Although he sat up straight, there was a slight slouch to his shoulders as if he’d like to melt off his chair and away from everything. His sandy hair tumbled into his eyes and curled over his collar, desperately in need of a trim. His suit, although expensive-looking, didn’t fit quite right, as if he’d grabbed it off the rack and hadn’t bothered with alteration.

  Mother and son sat stiffly side by side, neither looking at nor touching each other. Did that mean they weren’t close? Or that they were angry with each other? Perhaps they weren’t the touchy-feely sorts, or maybe they were fighting over the will. Or what if they knew who killed Nixon!

  I fidgeted through the entire service, equal parts bored and anxious. I couldn’t wait to get myself in front of Mrs. Nixon and try to worm some information out of her. Subtly, of course.

  The minute the service was over, I plowed my way toward the front, Lucas trailing a bit reluctantly, albeit with some amusement. I knew he didn’t like me getting involved in a crime again, but tough cookies. It was my friend who was in trouble, and I wouldn’t stop until I’d proven her innocence.

  “Mrs. Nixon,” I burst out, interrupting a middle-aged couple overdressed for the occasion. I gave them an apologetic smile and turned back to my quarry. “I am so sorry to hear about your loss.”

  “Thank you.” Her tone was elegant and cultured, her expression cool and distant. Did rich people practice that look in the mirror?

  I squeezed her hand in sympathy. “It must have been such a shock when the police informed you.”

  “Yes.” Her expression gave nothing away.

  I scrambled for something else to say. A way to ask questions without being totally obvious. Behind me, Lucas shifted, stretching his hand toward the widow.

  “Mrs. Nixon. So sorry for your loss. Lucas Salvatore.”

  Something in her perked up. “The Lucas Salvatore? The author?”

  He had the grace to blush. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

  Although outwardly Mrs. Nixon remained calm, her eyes were practically dancing with excitement. Clearly she was a big-time fan.

  “Mrs. Nixon...” he began.

  “Mary, please.”

  “Mary.” He squeezed her hand, and she actually fluttered her lashes. I managed to hide my amusement, though it wasn’t easy. “How did you manage? Hearing about something like that? You must have been devastated.”

  Oh, the smooth talker. She didn’t even know what hit her. I had to admit, Lucas had a way with the ladies. If I were a lesser woman, I’d have been a seething mass of jealousy. As it was, things were working in my favor. Go, Lucas.

  “It was such a shock,” Mary Nixon agreed. “I couldn’t believe it. That, at the very time I was enjoying myself at the movies with friends, my poor dear August was lying dead.” She let out a little sob and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

  I wasn’t sure if she was being genuine or having a case of the dramatics. And a movie as an alibi? I’d seen enough Perry Mason to know that could be faked. I wondered how I could finagle her friends’ names out of her so I could question them.

  “I do hope you had someone to stand by your side.” He patted her hand and gave her a look of deep sympathy.

  “Oh, yes. Roger Collins was lovely. Took care of everything. That man has been a godsend.”

  “Oh, please, mother,” the son snapped, standing up so abruptly from where he’d been lounging on the folding chair that the chair toppled backward with a crash. People turned to stare, but he ignored them. Instead, he gave his mother a hard glare. “Do you have to be so obvious?”

  She touched her strand of pearls, eyes wide. “I don’t know what you mean, Blaine.”

  He snorted in derision. “Sure you don’t, mother.” He turned and stomped off toward the stairs leading up and out of the ballroom. I gave Lucas a look, hoping he’d interpret that I wanted him to stay and pump Mary Nixon for info while I took off after Blaine Nixon.

  Blaine was quick on his feet, I’d give him that. By the time I made it up the stairs, he was nowhere to be seen. He could be in the men’s room, which would be a rather awkward situation should I barge in, or...

  I shoved open the front door and stepped out onto the porch. Sure enough, Blaine was standing on the front lawn, but he wasn’t alone. He was having a loud argument with a balding man wearing an ancient, beige suit and horn-rimmed glasses. The two were shouting at each other like a couple of fishwives. Being the nosey
git I am, I moved closer so I could hear better.

  “Listen, you old—” (I won’t repeat the word Blaine used, but it was quite the insult.) “Get out of here before I call the cops.”

  “I came to pay my respects, you arrogant waste of flesh. Your father and I may have had our differences, but never let it be said that I didn’t observe the proper etiquette.”

  “That’s rich,” Blaine sneered. “I don’t give a flying—” Again with the language. “Get out of here.” He grabbed the older man by the lapel and dragged him across the lawn toward the street. With one hard shove, the older man stumbled off the lodge’s property, and Blaine stomped back toward the building. Right before he went inside, he turned and shouted, “You better not show your face again, old man, or you’ll regret it.”

  Chapter 8

  The Feud

  THE MAN IN THE BEIGE suit shot Blaine an angry look before going on his own merry way. I dithered. Should I go after Blaine? Or question the man in the beige suit?

  I knew who Blaine was. I could easily track him down and question him later. I had no idea who the older man was or how to find him again. Beige Suit it was.

  I hurried across the lawn, heels sinking into the soft soil. Really, I had to get better funeral footwear if I was going to go chasing suspects through rain-softened grass. I made it to the street without breaking an ankle and clattered after Beige Suit as quickly as I could. He must have heard me, because he turned around as I came huffing up to him.

  “May I help you?” He seemed only mildly interested.

  Bracing my aching side with my palm, I gave him what I hoped was a sympathetic smile. “Viola Roberts. I saw what happened between you and Blaine Nixon. I don’t know what sort of history you two have, but I thought he treated you terribly. And I, uh, just wanted to tell you that,” I finished lamely.

  The smile he gave me was genuine. He was a pleasant-looking older man with a round face and overly exuberant white eyebrows. They sort of made up for the lack of hair on his head. I caught a whiff of Old Spice, which I found quite pleasant. It suited him.

  He held out his hand. “Charles Phillips. Pleased to meet you.”

  We shook hands. “How do you know the Nixons?” I asked.

  “I’m their neighbor, actually. Have been for over twenty years.”

  Color me surprised. Blaine had acted like the man was the anti-Christ. “Well, that was awfully nice of you to show up. I can’t believe Blaine was so nasty about it.”

  He shook his head and gave a little sigh. “Not really his fault, poor boy. His father and I never got along, you see.”

  “I see. And yet you still came to the service. That’s quite mature of you.” I nearly smacked myself in the head. Of course it was mature. The man must be near on to seventy. He’d better be mature by now.

  Charles Phillips chuckled, not at all offended by my gaffe. “I do try.”

  “Can I ask why you didn’t get along? Was it because Nixon was The Louse?”

  His grin widened. “Is that what they call him?” He appeared incredibly cheered by the thought.

  I returned his smile. “Well, that’s what the women who worked with him called him. Because, well, he wasn’t a nice man.”

  “Grabby,” Phillips said as if he knew what he was talking about. “Not just about women, either.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  He turned and began to stroll down Franklin Street, hands clasped behind his back. “That’s what our feud was about. You see, I inherited my house from my mother. My father built it shortly after World War II.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.”

  “It was how things were often done back then. And my father was a master craftsman.”

  “Even more impressive. So, what happened? With Nixon, I mean.”

  “Well, when the Nixons moved in, August immediately had the land resurveyed. Turns out, the fence which had been put in several decades earlier was actually partially on his property.”

  “But possession is nine-tenths of the law or something, right?” I’d read that somewhere. Property laws often broke down to who was actually making use of the land, regardless of what old documents said. The neighbors simply signed an agreement, perhaps a changed a token amount of money, and everything was hunky dory.

  “You’d think so,” Mr. Phillips agreed, “and I thought that would be the case. And after months of expensive lawyers and court visits, it looked like it was going my way.”

  “I’m guessing it didn’t.”

  “We’ll never know,” he said grimly. “One night, August rammed his car into the fence, taking half of it out in one fell swoop.”

  “Crikey!”

  “Indeed. It wasn’t that I cared so much about the land or the fence, but my mother had planted some beautiful rosebushes along the fence after my father died. She cared for them like they were her babies. If things went against me, I planned to relocate them, but August never gave me a chance.”

  “He destroyed the roses?”

  “Every one of them.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  “It does,” he admitted. “And it led to a decades-long feud with my neighbor.”

  “You couldn’t forgive him?” I asked.

  “Oh, that wasn’t the problem. He sued me for damage to his car.”

  “What a jerk!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Or rather, I could. August Nixon had been a big, fat louse. Worse than a louse. “Do the police know about your feud? Because they might decide you’re a suspect.” Though I couldn’t see him being a killer.

  “Oh, they know,” he said with a wave of his hand. “But I have an alibi.”

  “Well, that’s good. Especially if you can prove it easily.” I hoped he’d get my nudge.

  “Oh, believe me, I can.”

  I waited. Surely he’d tell me.

  “I was at the police station.”

  “SERIOUSLY?” CHERYL asked, eyes wide. Her hair was spikier than usual and...

  Was she wearing glitter? Naw, I had to be imagining it.

  “That’s what Charles Phillips said. He was in the middle of reporting some kids for vandalism. I double checked with Bilson, the duty clerk, and she confirmed it.”

  Cheryl and I were sitting with Nina at her wine bar, enjoying a late afternoon glass of wine. Outside, it was raining in earnest. Lucas had left straight after the memorial, as he had a reading at Powell’s Books in Portland the next day.

  “Vandalism?” Nina asked. “In Astoria?” She sounded amused. “What did they do? TP his front lawn?”

  “Actually,” I smirked, “that’s exactly what they did.”

  Nina chortled. Cheryl shook her head and said, “You gotta love small towns. But I guess that means we can cross Charles Phillips off the suspect list.”

  I nodded. “The police sure have. It’s pretty obvious. Hard to be in two places at once, and it doesn’t get much better of an alibi than a police station.”

  “No kidding.” Nina leaned against the bar and reached over to top off my glass. Pinot noir today. “Well, I’m sorry I missed old August’s memorial. Bet it was a hoot.”

  “It was certainly interesting,” I admitted. I’d left out the detail about me getting drunk the night before the memorial service and leaving a note on Bat’s police vehicle. I already felt like a big enough idiot.

  “I’m relieved you talked Lucas into going instead of me,” Cheryl said. “I hate memorial services. Plus that looming deadline.” She stared forlornly into her glass.

  “Don’t tell me you’re blocked, too,” I said. It happened to the best of us. Not in the way people talked about, like you had no idea what to write. More like, you got stuck in a plot. You weren’t sure which way to move or what should happen next. How to connect point D to point J, as it were. It always happened. Every time. Every book. It was always to be expected, and always frustrating. Usually for me, the best way to shake it was to do something else. Something random and new. O
r something fun and enjoyable. I’d feel guilty half the time, but it was a necessary part of the creative process. So far, though, it wasn’t working.

  “Totally,” she said, taking a sip. “Stupid Dirk got his stupid butt locked up in a Hungarian prison with no way out.”

  “Helicopter,” I suggested.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “One of his cohorts could land on the roof with a helicopter and break him out.”

  “Can’t. No one knows he’s in Hungary.”

  “Dynamite.” Nina’s suggestion.

  Cheryl shook her head. “Where would he get it? Not like they have stacks of the stuff lying around in Hungarian prisons.”

  “Fake illness.”

  We all stared down at the end of the bar where Lloyd sat in his usual spot, nursing a glass of cheap table wine. He always bought a bottle at a time and never paid more than ten dollars a bottle.

  “What are you talking about, Lloyd?” Nina demanded, propping one fist on her hip. She was wearing jeans today with a snug, navy sweater. Her Saturday work uniform.

  “Hungary is part of the EU. Got standards, even in prisons. Prisoner gets sick enough, they gotta take him to the hospital, don’t they? Then he can escape. Easier from a hospital.” Lloyd buried his nose in his glass again.

  Cheryl hopped off the stool, dashed to the end of the bar, and planted a big kiss on Lloyd’s cheek. “You’re a genius,” she crowed. Lloyd blushed cherry-tomato red. Cheryl dashed back to her seat and grabbed her purse and jacket. She downed the last of her wine. “Gotta go. I’ve got a jail break to plan!”

  Chapter 9

  Lying Louse

  I THOUGHT ABOUT FOLLOWING Cheryl out of the wine bar. I had my own book to write, after all. Plus there was the investigation, not that I had anywhere to go with that. I was pretty much stalled at the moment.

  “So, you talked to the wife, huh?” Nina asked, holding up a bottle of Syrah.

  Might as well. I gave her the nod, and she filled my glass with rich, red liquid. I took an appreciative sip. Berries and sunshine and maybe a hint of chocolate. Heaven.