Chapter 52
The Friday afternoon bar scene at Jimmy’s was rowdy and noisy today, but Norland had arrived early and snagged us a high-top table for six in the quietest corner. Because I’d walked over to the restaurant, I ordered a gin and tonic to indulge myself and celebrate summer. The windows of the bar area were open to the sea breezes, so the smells of grape, hops, and cocktails mingled with salty air in the best of ways.
By five forty-five, all the Cozy Capers were gathered around the table except Zane. Flo had a glass of chardonnay lined up next to her yellow legal pad and pen. Gin joined me in a G-and-T. Tulia sipped a ginger ale, while Norland nursed his pilsner.
Flo tapped pen on pad. “Where’s Zane?”
Gin glanced up from her phone. “He says he’s on his way.”
The waitperson stopped by and asked about appetizers. “Special Friday half price ends at six, so you know.” Discounted munchies were part of the not-happy-hour tradition.
“How about an order of the fried calamari for the table?” I asked, surveying the group. Jimmy’s never-rubbery calamari were always crisp and sweet with a hint of lime, and the thin slices of jalapeño deep-fried along with the squid added a perfect touch of spicy.
Flo nodded.
“Yum,” Gin said.
“Let’s make that a double order of the calamari,” Norland said, “And a plate of the stuffed mushrooms, please.”
Tulia looked up from the appetizer menu on the table. “Plus an order of the eggplant crostini.”
“That it?” the server asked.
“And six skewers of chicken satay with peanut sauce,” I added. Anything Thai presented an irresistible lure for me.
“You got it.” The server bustled away.
In her place appeared Zane, breathless and with furrowed brow. He slid into the only open seat, which was between Norland and me.
“Everything okay?” Flo asked him.
“I guess.”
“Is it the business with Leilani’s sister?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “On our way back from the midwife, Leilani confessed she’d never been close to Sita and wished her sister hadn’t come back to town.”
“That’s heavy,” Tulia said.
It was. I couldn’t imagine not wanting a sibling of mine to return to where we’d grown up.
The server set down the satay skewers and a plate of stuffed mushrooms that smelled so good my stomach growled out loud. Each was mounded with a delicious-looking filling of crab and sun-dried tomatoes, topped with bread crumbs and browned cheese. The waitperson took Zane’s order for an Oregon pinot noir and left.
“Who’s Leilani?” Gin asked.
At the same time, Flo said, “Sita Spencer has a sister?”
Right. Neither Zane nor I had shared with the group what he’d told me this morning. I pointed at him. It was his story to tell.
He explained about the mother who was bearing their twins, and how Sita and Carl had shown up at Leilani’s house yesterday not long before he and Stephen had. “The two of them were on her front porch arguing. We stayed back and well away until they left before we approached the door.”
The server brought the rest of our appetizers. I munched and savored a perfectly battered and fried calamari, dipping it in the plum tomato aioli. I chased it with a crostini. The eggplant topping had been roasted and whirred into a kind of baba ghanoush spread featuring plenty of olive oil, a bit of lemon, and a hint of roasted garlic. It tasted like heaven.
So did my sweet-and-bitter fizzy drink, with the wedge of lime adding the perfect flair. At least until I thought about the bitter tonic water. Had a G-and-T been the smoke screen for Byrne’s dose of taxine? A little shudder ran through me.
Flo swallowed her bite of mushroom. “What else do we have?”
“I looked into taxine a bit more,” Tulia offered. “You all know Sita works at an arboretum in North Carolina. An arboretum by definition grows and nurtures a wide variety of shrubs and trees. I happened to make a call down there, and they have a healthy specimen of the most toxic cultivar of yew.”
Norland smiled at her. “I like that you ‘happened’ to call them. That’s the definition of safe investigating.”
“Or not. Did you use your real name?” I asked, suddenly worried. “What if Sita checks in, or they tell her a person named Tulia happened to call? You have as unique a name as she does, after all.”
“Mac,” Tulia scolded. “Of course I didn’t use my English name. I considered giving my Wampanoag name, but that’s unique to me, too. Instead I said I was Professor T. Alexander, a botanical substances consultant with the FBI.”
Zane nearly snorted his wine, and his expression lightened for the first time since he’d arrived.
“They totally bought it.” Tulia grinned.
“I did a little poking around last night, too,” I offered. “I found a few highly negative review comments about Sita in her role as a tour guide. One said they were alarmed by how much she seemed to know about poisonous plants.”
“I can understand that.” Tulia glanced around the group. “Guess who does the pruning in the sector where that particular yew grows?”
No one ventured a guess, although I had my suspicions.
“Carl, that’s who.” Tulia’s smile was grim. “Whether Sita was in on the deal or not, I’d say the information could be useful to the detectives.”
“Have you told them yet?” Norland asked.
“Too busy, and now I’m here,” she said. “I will soon.”
“Good.” Norland nodded his approval.
Flo made a note on her yellow pad.
Carl doing physical work for his pay didn’t comport with what I’d seen of him. But maybe that was the only work he could find down there. Sita could have pulled strings to help him land the job.
“I can also share info about Carl,” Gin volunteered. “Him being my action item and all.”
I opened my mouth, remembering that I hadn’t communicated what Pa had told me about Carl and Byrne at the high school. I shut it again. Maybe Gin had discovered the same info.
“I found Carl’s name in the school faculty records,” she began. “And I dug up the principal from those years, whom I spoke with only an hour ago, a Mr. Benvenuto.” Gin related the same story Pa had told me. Carl had been hired to coach and to teach business English and a health class. He’d received rotten reviews and evaluations, and they laid him off midyear. Gin continued. “He apparently brought suit, but the school district was within their rights.”
“And he’s hated Byrne ever since,” Norland observed.
“That’s about the size of it,” Gin agreed.
I had nothing to add about that . . .or did I? “My father found out the same information. He told me a couple of hours ago. I asked if Lincoln knew, and Pa said he did.”
“Good,” Gin said. “I was wondering if I should tell him or Penelope. Or both.”
“Does anyone know if Carl and Sita overlapped at the school?” Norland asked.
“I don’t,” I said.
“Maybe they met there,” Gin said.
“Or not,” Tilia offered, “but if they met in North Carolina, they could have bonded over their dislike of Byrne.”
“I learned a bit about Edwin that’s important,” I began.
Before I could go on, my grandma bustled up to the table. Her expression as animated as ever, she nearly vibrated with excitement.
“Abo Reba, what are you doing here?” I asked, astonished. I didn’t think she was the happy hour type, at least not in recent years.
“Mrs. Almeida, won’t you join us?” Norland slid off his stool.
She held her hand to the side of her mouth. “I’ve been tailing them,” she said in a raspy whisper. She pointed at her hand in that thing people do when they want to hide the gesture from whomever they’re pointing at. “Don’t turn around, Mac.”
It was all I could do not to swivel and stare. Instead, I gazed at Flo across the table, who was facing the direction in question.
“The couple we’ve been discussing have taken a table for two,” Flo murmured. “The ones visiting from North Carolina, that is.”
Reba nodded her head, fast. “Isn’t that handsome detective with you? I thought surely he would be. He could apprehend them on the spot. I’m sure he’s never without a couple pair of handcuffs.”
I stared at her. “What do you know that we don’t?”
“Well, aren’t they the prime suspects?” Reba dropped her hand and gazed at each of us in turn.
I blew out a breath. “Maybe. But that’s for the police to act on. To tail, as you put it. Not us.” And specifically, not her.
Lincoln materialized at the table as quietly as my grandma had. “What’s this about prime suspects?”