nine

Francine was anxious to move on to a different suspect. “Who would be number three on your list?”

“I don’t have a specific person, but I would put members of the Town Council up there.” Charlotte returned to her seat and picked up the pencil. “Let’s start with Janet Turpen. Apparently she’s Camille’s financial advisor. I’ve heard of financial advisors doing all kinds of bad things.”

“Generally the bad things they do aren’t deadly. More likely she would have embezzled Camille’s funds than killed her.”

Charlotte didn’t disagree but she didn’t agree either. “I wish I could remember where she was at the time of the murder. It was dark and Toby was doing his luging act and everyone was distracted. She could have gotten backstage ahead of me.” She wrote Janet’s name down and went on.

“Vince Papadopoulos is next. He and Camille locked horns over almost every Council matter. Vince perpetually loses. He could be very angry with her. Although, he’s just an angry person in general. I’ve heard rumors that he’s struggling, that the Papadopoulos Funeral Home is for sale.”

Francine hadn’t heard those rumors, not that they would change her analysis. She found him to be a more likely suspect than Janet, but the evidence was circumstantial in any event. “What about Fuzzy? He was hanging around her house today, and Eric seemed to be afraid of him. But I don’t know much about him. We obviously don’t travel in the same circles.”

“I knew him when I was a schoolteacher. I was there at the time he and Cass went through the divorce. It was ugly. We never did figure out why she kept his last name. Probably spite, especially after she nabbed his family’s homestead in the divorce settlement.”

“She was quite a bit younger, wasn’t she? Is she still teaching?”

She is. She moved over to Avon schools sometime after the divorce. Fuzzy is in his mid-fifties now, so I guess Cass is in her mid-forties.” Charlotte doodled on the page.

“For some reason I think she was at the show,” Francine said. “Didn’t she bid on the bartender stripper? I feel like she made a shut-out bid.”

“We used to call her the Cass-trator. She was a real ball-buster!”

Francine burst out laughing. Cass had been the boys’ phys ed teacher, and Francine remembered her as beautiful and strong, an athlete in the mode of Serena Williams. “I think my boys were a little afraid of her.”

“Hell, we were all afraid of her,” Charlotte said, snickering. “That’s what made her a good phys ed teacher, though. She could take command. I think that might have been what caused the break-up between her and Fuzzy. He got tired of being told what to do.”

“So then he moves on to the Council, where he lets Camille make all the decisions?” Francine mused about it as she said it. How could that have had anything to do with why Camille was killed?

“Camille did it in a much nicer way,” Charlotte said. She looked at the name she’d written below Fuzzy’s. “Tricky Dicky Raden is my next choice, though I’m giving him the same rank as Vince. They were always together on the losing end of votes.”

Raden had gotten the nickname “Tricky Dicky” because he looked so much like former President Richard Nixon. His head had the same backward slant and the same receding hairline. Then there were the paranoid psychological similarities. Tricky Dicky had a hunker down, don’t trust anyone mentality that had driven Camille, Janet, and Fuzzy Carter nuts.

“How he convinced people to vote for him is beyond me. He always believed the rest of the Town Council was against him, which was why he ran.”

“They were against him, all except Vince. It wasn’t his imagination. His developments were stupid. Why would you try to stick a Dollar Tree in the retail space for a grocery store in a high-end housing development? But as for how he got elected, his district is mostly rural people who resent the fact the Town annexed them against their will.”

Francine propped a hand under her chin. “Let’s go back to Vince Papadopoulos for a moment. Wasn’t he the Council President before Camille?”

“Yep, another reason he’s high on my list. Camille beat him out just barely, three to two. She and Fuzzy became tight after that. For whatever reason.”

“It’ll probably remain a mystery now,” Francine said. “Unless it all comes out when the police solve her murder.”

“When we solve it, Francine. When we solve it.”

So you keep telling me.”

 

Francine was in the middle of vacuuming the upstairs bedrooms later in the afternoon when she received a phone call from her youngest son, Chad. She had changed into jeans and a blue Indianapolis Colts sweatshirt, even though Indianapolis was in basketball season and the talk had turned to the Pacers. The Colts sweatshirt was one of the warmest she owned. She felt the phone buzz in her pocket and turned off the vacuum.

“You didn’t think to call or at least text me that you were involved in another murder investigation?” he asked without saying hello. “This may be getting to be a routine occurrence for you, but it’s not for any of us kids. I checked with Craig and Adam, and they hadn’t heard from you, either. How were we supposed to know you were okay?”

“I was going to call you later. Your father and I didn’t want to worry you.”

“It worries me when I see Joy reporting on the national news about another event that has your Sixty Lists written all over it, but then it turns into a story about a murder in Brownsburg!”

Drat that Joy and her reporting, Francine thought, feeling a little guilty. What’s the world coming to when you can’t even keep your son who lives in Kansas City from sounding like a Jewish mother? “No one else was hurt. It was a targeted attack.”

“I was sorry to see that it was Camille Ledfelter who died. How is Eric holding up? Do you know? I heard he was doing a benefit for the Parks Department when it happened. That had to be awful.”

Francine wiped her brow with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “It was. I was helping Mary Ruth cater the event. The lights went out, and when they came up, Camille had been stabbed. She died later at the hospital. Eric was there for the whole thing.”

“Do you know anything about the funeral arrangements? I can’t come, but I want to send a sympathy card and donate to a charity in her memory.”

Francine wondered how much she should tell Chad about their offer to help with the funeral arrangements. Eric had said he would take them up on it, but then he disappeared and they still hadn’t heard from him. But full disclosure was probably the best course of action. Or, at least almost full disclosure. “Eric was just here this morning.” She tried to sound as casual as she could. “Charlotte and I have offered to help him make the arrangements. He didn’t know where else to turn.”

She could practically see Chad smiling over the phone. “In some ways, I’m not surprised,” he said. “You and Dad were surrogate parents to half the kids on the football team.”

For a moment Francine was swept into the past. She remembered the excitement and the hoopla that surrounded each game. She and Jonathan hosted breakfasts for the offensive linemen before they went to school on those mornings. By the time Chad began playing for the varsity team, Francine and Jonathan were fairly well entrenched in the group of parents who provided support.

“It’s a long time since then,” she said, “but I’m glad he felt comfortable coming to us. I don’t know when the funeral will be, though.”

“I think I’ll give Eric a call, see if there’s anything I can do.”

She hoped Eric would at least answer the phone. She wasn’t confident he would. “Let me ask you a question. Has Eric always been single? I understand for a male stripper that’s probably a good thing, but I don’t remember him having this kind of loner personality in high school.”

“He changed during senior year. There were rumors it had to do with a girl, but he was very secretive about it. I think he carried a torch for her for a long time afterwards.”

“Who was she?”

We never found out. Not sure why he was so guarded about it, but he must have done it for a good reason.” He paused. “Mom, I think it’s great that you’re helping Eric with the funeral arrangements, but please don’t get involved in Camille’s murder.”

“Why would you even think that?”

He snorted with laughter on the other end. “Two reasons. Number one, Aunt Charlotte will drag you into it.” The boys always called her “Aunt Charlotte,” even though she wasn’t actually a member of the family. “And number two, you can’t resist a mystery.”

“That’s not true! Charlotte is the one who can’t resist a mystery.”

Okay, then. You can’t resist a puzzle. But it’s the same difference here.”

Francine could see how he might have that perspective. “I’m not going to argue with you. But I am not getting involved.”

She added much under her breath.

Chad filled her in on the latest about Laura and the twin girls. Chad and Laura lived in Overland Park, Kansas, where he was the comptroller for a Fortune 500 company. He’d followed in his dad’s footsteps and gone into accounting, but where Jonathan was content to start his own firm and be his own boss, Chad had sought the corporate life. Laura had been a practicing speech pathologist with a school corporation until kids had come along. Then they’d made the decision for her to stay home. Francine thought they were almost throwbacks to the era she’d grown up in.

After hanging up the phone with Chad, she had her hand on the switch to start the vacuum up again when Joy called. “Can you come over?” she asked.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t have sent shivers up Francine’s spine, but she was already primed from having made a list of suspects with Charlotte and then being asked by Chad not to get involved. “Sure.” She tried to keep suspicion out of her voice. “What’s up?”

“I need help trying to salvage as much as I can from the auction. This was Camille’s baby, so I wasn’t totally involved, but now it’s fallen to me to try to piece the results together.”

Francine was relieved it wasn’t more than that. “When do you need me?”

“Are you busy now?”

Francine wheeled the sweeper down the hall and into the hall closet. That’s what friends are for, she thought. “I’ll be right over.”

She bundled up for the walk over to Joy’s house with her winter down coat, fuzzy earmuffs, and knitted scarf. The air was crisp and cold. Like most days in Indiana in February, it was overcast and gray. The wind seemed to come out of all directions and batted at her cheeks like a cat playing with a ball. Joy lived on Bridge Trail Road, the main entrance to the Summer Ridge subdivision. As the birds fly, it was a very short distance to Joy’s house, but in practicality she would have to jump two fences and cross a yard with dogs to get there. So she walked the long way: down Overlook Court, across the Summer Ridge Drive East, and up Bridge Trail Road. By the time she got there, her cheeks were red.

“You look downright frosty,” Joy said. “C’mon in. Can I get you coffee or tea to thaw you out?”

“Tea would be great. I’d love it just to stop my hands from shaking.” She tried to unzip her coat but her fingers were frozen, despite the woolen mittens she’d worn.

“Let me get that,” Joy said. She pulled on the zipper and unfastened the coat. Francine slipped out of it, placed the earmuffs and scarf in the side pocket, and handed it to Joy.

“I’ve got everything laid out on the kitchen table. Go on in while I hang this up.”

Francine didn’t need a second invitation. She could smell some kind of apple cinnamon spice emanating from the kitchen and knew the oven would be warming the whole room.

Joy’s house was a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch with one outstanding feature—a large sun room that faced south. When the sun shone in the winter, it was exceptionally warm and toasty, but that was not the case today. The oven was a better choice.

“What are you baking?” Francine asked. “Smells delicious.”

It’s an apple cinnamon coffee cake. I got it frozen from Mary Ruth, so I can’t take credit for actually making it. I’m having it at Bridge Club this evening.”

Francine had totally forgotten about bridge in the craziness. “I wasn’t sure if we’d be having it after last night’s …” She wanted to say murder, but the word didn’t want to come out. “Problems.”

“I’ve done enough reporting for the television station for one twenty-four-hour period. I’m off until tomorrow, and I don’t want to even think about it. Bridge will be a good distraction for all of us.”

Francine wasn’t sure much bridge would be played, but she knew Joy would go into the evening hoping it would, as good a bridge player as she was. “Heaven knows we need a distraction.”

“I’m glad you agree.” Joy led the way into the kitchen. She pointed to the boxes, baskets, and stacks of paper that were piled on her kitchen table. Even expanded with two leaves, the table couldn’t contain everything without some of it being stacked. “There’s the mess,” she said. “After I wrapped up my reporting duties outside the Crown Room this morning, the police let me gather it up and bring it back. I threw it on the table and haven’t had the heart to dig in by myself.”

Francine saw that the coffee cake was out of the oven and on a cooling tray. She cracked open the door to the stove and basked in the warm air coming out of it. She let her fingers dangle, flexing them to get them moving normally. “What’s in the boxes?”

“The auction items.” Joy picked up a piece of paper. “Each page has an auction item listed at the top, a note on how much it’s worth, and lines so people can write down their bids. Didn’t you look at any of this last night?”

“I didn’t have time. I was going to take a look later, but you know how that went.”

Joy shuddered. “I keep going over it in my head. I can’t believe it happened.”

“It’ll keep you on the air for weeks.”

You know I promised Jud I’d recuse myself. I can’t go back on it.”

Francine’s fingers seemed to have loosened up. After a couple of minutes of thawing, she closed the oven and perused the table. She found a summary sheet of the items to be bid on. An idea came to her. “Are all of the items here? Did any of them get stolen?”

“The bigger ones are back in the second bedroom. I still need to match up the bid document with the actual donation to make sure we have them, but I think they’re all accounted for. Theft didn’t appear to be the motive.”

A teakettle whistled, and Joy filled two mugs with boiling water. They each selected a tea bag. “How can I help?” Francine asked.

Joy indicated a pad of green pre-printed spreadsheet paper. “I’ve made a spreadsheet with all the items. I need you to go through this stack of bid sheets and put the highest bid on the Winner line along with the name, address, and contact information. I’m going to try to reconcile the list with the physical item. Of course, not all items were there. Some are made to order, like Mary Ruth’s Fabulous Flourless Chocolate Cake.”

“I wonder how much it went for.” Francine paged through the bid sheets until she found it. “Eighty dollars.” She scrunched up her nose. “That’s low.”

“I think a lot of people were saving their money to throw at the dancers. I’m hoping we’ll tally enough to justify not having a follow-up fund-raiser anytime soon.”

Joy started laying out some of the prizes in an orderly line across the sunroom floor. She placed a sticky note on each one identifying it and checked it off her list. Francine tried to locate the bid sheet for each one to identify the winner.

“I’m sorry the evening didn’t work out for you. I know you were hoping to get your problem resolved before you had to see Roy next.”

Joy shrugged. “He won’t be expecting me to be in the mood, not for a while. I probably have another two weeks before he suggests it again.”

Francine still felt bad about Joy’s fear of intimacy with Roy. She wondered how they would be able to discreetly hire a male dancer now to test out Joy’s reaction to mostly naked men.

The doorbell rang. Before they could get to it, they heard the door swing open.

“Sorry, I’m late,” a woman’s voice called. The door slammed shut. The person tromped into the kitchen, thoroughly covered in warm outwear. The knee-length coat was red, and the attached hood had an inner white down that almost covered her face. On her feet were black leather boots made for style and not for snow. The figure flipped back the hood, but by then Francine already knew who it was. Marcy Rosenblatt, publicist.

“It’s colder than Donald Trump’s welcome to a Mexican immigrant out there,” Marcy said. She shivered as she took off the coat. She dropped it on a chair before Joy could reach out to take it. “Hi, Francine. Joy didn’t say you were going to be here.”

“It was a last-minute thing.”

Well, it’s good you’re here. I have some terrific ideas how we can get additional exposure from this latest fiasco you’ve gotten yourselves into, and I can’t wait to tell you about them.”