CHAPTER 7
Awkwardness settled over the room like a blanket. We looked around at each other while trying not to look like we actually were.
April broke the tension by laughing. “That’s bound to be a New Bison first. Apart from the fact that it’s ridiculous to think that one of my friends was a killer, can you imagine if I showed up in court and all my evidence was based on the fact that Baby didn’t attack an alleged intruder? I’d be laughed out of town.”
We chuckled. Although it sounded strained, even to my ears.
Hannah surprised me by saying, “April’s right. Octavia always said we had to stick to facts. That’s what Sherlock Holmes would do. Now, remember that quote Octavia always used?”
They smiled and recited the famous Sherlock Holmes quote: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
“Now, what’s the impossible?” Hannah asked.
“It’s impossible that I killed Mayor Rivers,” I said.
Tyler wrote it in his notebook. “It’s impossible that any of us would kill him, especially by setting up Maddy to take the blame.”
“So, we’re back where we started.” I sighed.
“No,” April said, “we know whoever killed Mayor Rivers had to be someone who was in the bakery either Friday night or Saturday morning.”
“On television, the medical examiners can never pinpoint the exact time of death,” I said. “How can you be sure about the time?”
“Our coroner’s the same way. He can give us a range based on temperatures, rigor mortis, and a lot of other icky things I won’t talk about while we’re eating.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“Plus, it’s too soon. He hasn’t even started the autopsy. I just mean we know what time you and Baby went to the bakery. We also know what time Leroy got there to open up.” She looked at me and smiled. “Now, I’ll admit, I don’t know you well, but you don’t strike me as the type of person who would pick up a bloody eel knife?”
“What kind of knife?”
April exchanged a knowing glance with Leroy. “Mayor Rivers was murdered with an eel knife.”
“What’s an eel knife?” I asked.
“It’s pretty much what it sounds like,” Leroy said. “It’s a knife with a very distinctive shape that is ideal for preparing eel. It has a single, thick beveled blade. The flat heel of the blade is used for chopping, and the angular tip is used for filleting.”
“Why would a bakery need an eel knife?” I asked.
Hannah snorted. “We don’t, but nothing would satisfy Octavia. She had to have the best knives. Claimed she was going to sell more than baked goods one day. Octavia loved to cook, although I know she never made eel a single day in her life. She wanted to do all types of cooking on the store side of the building, maybe even classes. She spent a fortune on those knives. Ordered them all the way from Japan.”
“I think cooking classes would be a great idea.” I exchanged a glance with Leroy.
Hannah snorted again. “I guess you really are related to Octavia, although you obviously didn’t inherit her gift for baking.”
I shook off the insult and settled in on the compliment. I didn’t know anything about cooking or baking, but if Aunt Octavia thought cooking classes was a good idea, then I wasn’t completely off base, and my confidence skyrocketed. I turned to Leroy. “What else can you tell us about the murder weapon?”
He sat up straighter, and his eyes flashed. Talking food was his passion. He bored us for a few minutes as he talked about the quality of the steel and the handle construction. My interest picked up when he mentioned that the knives were made by a company in Japan that had been making knives for over six hundred years and was originally famous for making samurai swords. “Miss Hannah’s right about one thing, the knives were expensive. That one knife cost over twelve hundred dollars.”
Tyler had just taken a sip of champagne and nearly choked. “Twelve hundred dollars for one knife?”
Leroy nodded.
“Is that a lot?” I asked.
Based on the looks I received, I got my answer.
Tyler finished dabbing at the champagne he’d spit onto his sweater, picked up his pen, and wrote. “Well, that rules out Hannah and Leroy.”
“Why? Not that anyone would ever seriously consider either of them as suspects.” I quickly added.
“Because, if we were going to stab Mayor Rivers, we wouldn’t have been stupid enough to use a twelve-hundred-dollar knife from Japan when a nine-ninety-five utility knife from Walmart would have done the job just as well,” Hannah said. “Besides, it would have been less mess to just grab one of those cast-iron skillets from the pantry. That skillet would have done the job just fine, with no cleanup.”
“Why run the risk of ruining the blade or damaging the handle?” Leroy said. “I know it sounds callous, but twelve hundred dollars is a lot of money.”
“Whoever used that knife either didn’t know its value or didn’t care,” I said. “Who wanted Mayor Rivers dead?”
Hannah snorted. “Anybody who met him.”
“That can’t be true. Everybody couldn’t have hated the man. How did he become mayor? I mean, was he a Democrat or a Republican?”
Leroy shook his head. “Neither.”
“Independent?”
Tyler shrugged.
“Well, he must have run on some party ticket or platform.”
Finally, April said, “Mayor Rivers changed his views based on whichever way the wind was blowing. Honestly, I’m not sure what party, if any, endorsed him. Our last elections were a bit . . . unusual. New Bison generally tends to be very conservative. There were two strong conservative candidates who split the vote, and the Democrat was so far left that he wasn’t even a consideration. Paul Rivers just slipped under everyone’s radar.”
“That’s the truth,” Hannah said. “Who would have thought that slick-talking, double-dealing hardware salesman would be running our town?” She puckered her lips as though she’d just eaten a lemon.
“Paul Rivers was a fast talker,” April said. “He reminded me of a used-car salesman. Once those rich folks from Chicago discovered New Bison, they started buying up all the lakefront property, and Mayor Rivers was like a kid in a candy store.”
“Aunt Octavia mentioned something about that in the video she left me.” I made a mental note to watch the video again. I’d look around the house to see if she had a VCR, or I could check one out from the library, as Chris Russell had done.
“Most folks around here were opposed to the developers coming in, snatching up all the land,” Hannah said. “Locals who were born and raised right here can’t afford to live here anymore.”
“I can attest to that,” April said. “My landlord is going up on my rent, and I’m having to find a new apartment by the end of the month, but there’s nothing in New Bison I can afford.”
“Most of us have to move farther away from the lake or south to Indiana, but even that’s getting expensive now,” Leroy said softly. “I’m thirty miles away.”
“I can’t even do that. I’m the sheriff. My contract requires me to live in New Bison.”
Hannah drank her coffee. “It’s a crying shame if you ask me. First, there was the casino coming in and buying up all of the farmland and bringing strangers to town, but that’s Indian land. You can’t do anything about that. Plus, I kind of like being able to go play the slots.”
Bradley Ellison had mentioned a casino, and it had to be the same one. New Bison was too small to have more than one. I decided against mentioning Brad to this group. However, I glanced at the flowers he’d brought me, which were in a crystal vase on a sideboard, and I couldn’t help smiling.
“The casino brought a lot of traffic to town,” Leroy said. “Weekend sales at Baby Cakes skyrocketed.”
“Sales aren’t the only thing that increased,” Hannah said.
“Traffic increased. Crime increased. And accidents, too, with those folks speeding up and down the roads like they’re in the Indianapolis Five Hundred. Isn’t that right, April?”
April shifted in her seat. “We have noticed an uptick in alcohol-related crime and accidents.”
“If Mayor Rivers was in favor of development, who was opposed to it?” I bit my tongue and didn’t add, other than Aunt Octavia and the folks around this table.
“When she was alive, Miss Octavia was pretty outspoken about her opposition to the developers,” April said. “And, of course, Garrett Kelley. He loved Miss Octavia and would agree with anything she wanted.”
“Baby definitely knows him,” Leroy said.
“Who else?” I asked.
After a moment or two of awkwardness, Leroy took a deep breath. “Most of us at the table.”
Tyler put his pen down and glared. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Leroy glared back. “You know what it means. Most of us were opposed to those rich folks from Chicago coming in and snatching up all the waterfront property, but not all. You certainly weren’t.”
“I own a business, and I need those rich Chicago folks to stay in business.” Tyler crossed his arms across his chest and took several deep breaths. “I guess that eliminates me from the list of suspects, since I was not opposed to the development.”
I wasn’t sure that I followed, but I wasn’t going to be the one to add fuel to an already flaming topic. “We have Garrett Kelley as a possible suspect, but there are a lot of reasons that people murder each other, aren’t there?”
“Miss Octavia always said the primary reasons were money, love or lust, and vengeance,” Hannah said.
“Did Mayor Rivers have a family?” I asked. “Who gains from his death?”
“He’s divorced.”
Hannah snorted. “Twice.”
Based on the looks on everyone’s faces that was a surprise. Hannah obviously liked a bit of gossip. She took a sip of her mimosa before continuing. “His first wife, Marjorie, was a beautiful wisp of a girl. Sweet as cherry pie, just like April.” Hannah gazed off into space as though she were looking back in time.
April smiled at the compliment. “What happened?”
“I always thought she’d marry . . .” Hannah shook her head and snapped back to the present. “She could have had any man in town. I never could understand why she married Paul Rivers, but she did. Everybody thought maybe some of her goodness would rub off on him, but . . . that’s not how things work. It only takes one rotten apple to infest the whole bushel, and that’s what happened. Poor Marjorie just seemed to shrivel up inside. Her personality changed, and instead of the vibrant girl that he married, after a couple of years, she just withered up, and the light went out of her eyes.”
April whispered, “What happened to her?”
Hannah paused. “No one knows. One day, she just up and left. Word on the street is she ran off with Garrett Kelley’s son, David.”
“Wait, Garrett Kelley has a son?” Tyler leaned forward with his mouth open. “I thought he spent his entire life pining after Miss Octavia, and if you tell me that he and Miss Octavia had a love child that she never mentioned, I’m going to faint.”
“You stop that foolishness. You know good and well Octavia never had any children.” Hannah swatted his arm.
Tyler fanned himself. “Well, up to a few minutes ago, I didn’t know Garrett Kelley had children, either.”
“I have to admit, I never knew Garrett Kelley had children, either,” April said. “What’s the scoop? Spill it, Hannah. You can’t just leave us hanging.” She fought to keep from smiling, but her eyes twinkled.
Hannah was the center of attention, and she sipped her mimosa and took her sweet time answering. “It’s true Garrett Kelley always had a crush on Octavia. God knows he asked her to marry him plenty of times. When he graduated from high school, he asked her to marry him, but she wouldn’t. He went off in a huff and joined the Army. When he came back four years later, he was married with a small boy. He had been stationed in Japan. His wife was a nice woman. She died giving birth. Garrett was tore up inside. He had her body shipped back to Japan to be buried with her ancestors. David, his son, spent most of the year in Japan with his relatives there, but always spent his summers here in New Bison. One year, he spent the summer as usual, but he never came back. That was the same year that Marjorie disappeared.”
We waited, but she simply sipped her drink.
“Is that it?” Tyler asked.
“That’s it. Just because the boy didn’t come back, doesn’t mean Marjorie ran off with him, but folks around here don’t like coincidences, and that was a coincidence,” Hannah said.
We exchanged glances.
“Did anyone ever ask Mayor Rivers what happened to her?” April asked.
“Or did anyone ask Garrett Kelley?” Tyler asked.
“Garrett said his boy didn’t like New Bison and moved back to Japan. For a few years, he made trips to visit. Well, that’s where he said he went.” Hannah gave a knowing look. “Later, he got a letter that David was killed in a car accident.”
“That’s it?” Leroy asked.
“That’s it,” Hannah said.
I brought the conversation back to the murder. “What about his second wife?”
“About five years ago, Mayor Rivers married Candace Hurston,” April said.
“Hurston? I know that name.” I snapped my fingers. “Is she related to Alma Hurston, my next-door neighbor?”
“Candace is Alma’s daughter. She’s a waitress at the New Bison Casino.”
“Pshaw.” Hannah snorted. “You call what that girl does waitressing?”
April narrowed her eyes and gave Hannah a hard look. “Now, Mrs. Portman, you know Miss Octavia didn’t take kindly to women putting other working women down.”
Leroy snickered, but a sharp glance from April put a cork in his merriment, and he bowed his head sheepishly and mumbled an apology.
“Waitresses take orders and deliver food,” Hannah said. “I have nothing but the highest respect for waitresses, but those scantily clad women at the casino are not waitresses.”
“She can’t pick the uniform,” April said.
I leaned over to Tyler and whispered, “What do they wear?”
“Basically, tattered rags. The casino has them dress like Native American squaws from a bad B-rated movie.”
Even though Tyler and I whispered, April heard us. “Which is sad. It’s bad enough that Hollywood has created this negative image of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages with those awful movies, but they also portrayed Native American women as little more than ignorant baby machines.” She leaned forward. “I read in the FBI crime report that the number of crimes against Native American women is fifty percent higher than crimes against other women.”
“Hollywood has a lot to answer for,” Hannah said, “but you’d think the casino would try to change the perceptions rather than continuing it by having those girls prancing around the floor wearing little more than scraps.”
“Is the casino owned by a Native American tribe?” I asked.
“It’s run by the Pothanowis,” Leroy said. “They’re a small band, but they were able to prove that they are indigenous and got their federal recognition. They bought a ton of land and built the casino.”
“Pothanowis . . . have you ever seen any of them?” Hannah said.
“I once met a really old guy who was a Pothanowi,” Leroy said. “He was sitting in the lobby.”
“I think it’s mighty strange that people from around here have never seen or heard of the Pothanowis, and I think it’s mighty funny that no one from New Bison ever heard of them before they came down and bought all that land and opened the casino,” Hannah said.
I picked up my phone and typed in Pothanowi. “You don’t think they’re a real tribe?”
“I’m not saying there were never Pothanowis. Of course, they’re a real tribe . . . or they were until they were just about wiped out by the government. I’m saying they weren’t here in New Bison.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any law that says they can’t move and settle wherever they want.” I shrugged.
“It’s those Chicago developers. They’re behind them. That’s how they got their claws in New Bison. They found some Native Americans who were just about dying out and threw some big-city lawyers with shiny shoes behind them and got five hundred acres of land. Then they thought they could just waltz in here and buy up all the land on Lake Michigan and build condominiums,” Hannah said.
She said condominiums as though it were a bad word, and I struggled to keep from laughing. “So, you think the Chicago developers are behind the casino?” I looked at Hannah.
“Of course, they’re behind it. They’re behind all of this, and Octavia was on to them. She figured out what they were doing and was going to stop them when they took her out.”
Tyler groaned.
“Are you saying the Chicago developers killed Aunt Octavia?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Those developers bought the land for the Pothanowis. They scooped up as much lakefront land as they could. They bought the mayor and the entire city council, but they met their match with Octavia. They couldn’t buy her or this land, so they killed her.”