Breezy Spoon Diner Box Set Collection Page 32

  “So when you heard that Lloyd Duval was out of jail and back in town, you went to confront him about the robbery? Did you really think you could get him to admit having anything to do with it?”

  Maurice laughed bitterly. “I don't care what he admits; I know he did it and he knows he did it. I heard he was making a lot of money with those stupid lectures he was giving, so I figured he wouldn't mind sending a little cash my way on a regular basis to make sure his adoring fans don't find out what a crook and a fraud he is.”

  “You were trying to blackmail him?”

  “Hey, fair is fair! I was just getting my own back!”

  “From what the witnesses saw, it sounds like he didn't like your little plan too much,” I said. “I guess you had to find another way of getting revenge on Lloyd.”

  “What are getting at?” Maurice growled. “Are you trying to say that I killed Lloyd? You can't pin that on me!”

  “You had 15,000 reasons to want him dead.”

  “So what?! A lot of people hated that crumb! What about the guy he killed? I'll bet he had a family! Go bother them for a while! Hey, Todd!”

  A moment later the door opened and a near-clone of Maurice Sharp walked in; same oily hair, same unshaven face and smudged glasses, only a younger version. Maurice stood up from his desk. “This is my son Todd,” he said. “Todd, this is someone who's leaving now, and if you see her around here again throw her out!”

  Todd was an inch shorter than I am and didn't look like he was capable of throwing anyone out of anywhere. He rubbed his hands on his overalls and mumbled, “Um, I guess you should go....”

  “Would you like to tell me where you were on the night Lloyd Duval was killed?” I asked Maurice as I stood up. “Or would you rather tell your story to the police?”

  “I know, I know, your brother's a cop!” Maurice grumbled. “I wasn't anywhere near East Spoon Creek City that night; Me and the boy were at Chucky's Bar here in Kettletown until late that night. You can ask Jasmine the bartender; I was at the bar playing video poker and Todd likes to shoot pool with the guys. Isn't that right, Todd?”

  Todd blinked and looked confused, then said, “Yeah, I was playing pool. Everybody saw me....”

  “Satisfied? Now beat it, lady!” Maurice snapped. “I got a business to run here!”

  He already had the phone in his hand as I walked out the door, ready to call Jasmine at Chucky's Bar to get her story right in case I went there to check on him. I was satisfied, all right; satisfied that I had my first good suspect!

  Chapter 6

  The next afternoon found me in the town square with Brendan, setting up our booth for the city fair. The fair was beginning tomorrow, so the square was bustling with plenty of other people doing the same thing as we were. There would be about 20 booths with food and various things for sale, about seven or eight booths with games for the kids, and a stage for various local bands to entertain.

  Mayor Pumphrey always made an opening statement which was more like a political speech listing all of his contributions to the betterment of East Spoon Creek City during the past year. That didn't take long. Of course, it would have been interesting if he and Lloyd Duval had actually had the debate that was scheduled. Now the debate was canceled and it seemed that Mayor Pumphrey would be running unopposed again.

  “I see that Mayor Pumphrey hasn't started putting up his booth yet,” I said. “His wife is due back this evening so I suppose she'll put it together.”

  “That's usually the way it happens,” Brendan agreed. “Mayor Pumphrey doesn't have much to do with the booth, and this year especially he didn't seem to be doing much but fretting about debating Lloyd Duval. He was pretty upset about it; I was at the firing range a couple days before Duval was murdered and the Mayor had a stack of Duval's life coach brochures with Lloyd's picture on them. He would tape them to cans he found in the trash container, line them up on the fence and shoot them. Didn't miss a one. I didn't realize that he was such a good shot.”

  “Motivation works wonders. Why are their so many beer cans at the firing range anyhow? Should a bunch of drunks be standing around shooting at things?”

  “Soda cans,” he replied. “No alcohol for obvious reasons. Do you think Duval could have won the election?”

  “I don't know; he had a lot of enemies,” I said. “On the other hand, he was a handsome guy and he was obviously a good speaker; look how many people he had coming to those ridiculous lectures! I wonder what the Mayor would do for a living if Lloyd did win. I was overseas when he first got elected; what was he doing before he ran for mayor?”

  “He had a job at a Chevrolet dealership over in Pumpkin City. From what I hear he never sold a car all the time he was there so his head was always on the chopping block. Our previous mayor, Marty McFadden, had been working part-time at the bowling alley in Kettletown and decided to make it full time so he didn't run for reelection. Pumphrey saw his opportunity so he went all around East Spoon Creek City passing out tickets for a free ride to anywhere you wanted to go in the state in a brand new Corvette. His opposition was Al Sholes' wife Noreen. She promised that if she won she would put a toll both at the city limits so that anyone trying to leave the city would have to pay a $10 toll. That way the residents would be encouraged to spend their money here instead of going elsewhere.”

  “Did she get any votes at all?”

  “Well, there was one from Al, and she voted for herself, of course.”

  “If Mayor Pumphrey knew that was her platform, he probably didn't need to have bothered renting that Corvette.”

  “Oh, he didn't rent it,” Brendan replied. “Shortly after the election the dealership he worked for found out that their new demonstrator model Corvette had 172,000 miles on it. They threatened to sue Pumphrey but decided not to waste their time when they learned what the East Spoon Creek City Mayor's salary was.”

  “Do you think that Mayor Pumphrey could have shot Lloyd?” I asked. “A guy like him without many prospects outside of politics might fight pretty hard to hang onto his position.”

  “He's a silly little round guy who always eats with his mouth open. Can you really picture him shooting Duval and hauling his body off to McGee's onion bin?”

  “Not really, but plenty of silly little round guys have murdered people,” I said. “Who knows what people are capable of doing when they've got no other way out of the trouble they're in?”

  As we were talking, Cooter and his cousin Jake walked up to the booth, carrying a large sign that said “Kissing Booth- $1 per Kiss”. A strange feeling came over me. I think it was horror.

  “So you guys are going to have a kissing booth this year?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” said Cooter. “No way would Jolene put up with that. We're just helping Miss Dora and Miss Pollyanna get set up. Miss Pollyanna wants us to set up a card table next to the booth selling little bottles of mouthwash. I done told her that ain't nobody at the fair interested in buyin' stuff like that, but she said she's pretty sure they will. We split the profits with her if anybody does buy the stuff.”

  “We told her that not many people line up to kiss Miss Dora,” said Jake, “but she says they will this year.”

  “So has Pollyanna given up on the idea of a wrestling show?” I asked.

  “Nah, she's still doing that,” Cooter said. “She's gonna wrestle Suze from Mollie's Yarn Store.”

  “Suze Peters?” I asked. “She's going to wrestle Pollyanna?” Suze is a purple-haired hippie girl in her early twenties with more tattoos than the rest of the people in town combined. She's been managing Mollie's Yarn Shop while her Aunt Mollie is visiting her sister in Alaska, and spent her first month in charge selling marijuana out of the shop. She managed to avoid going to jail because of technicality (caused by Cooter, of course) but she seems to always be up to something crazy and possibly a little illegal. There's nothing illegal about wrestling, of course, but this was pretty crazy even for Suze, considering that she's about half Pollyanna's size and
looks about as athletic as your average pot-dealing hippie.

  “Yep, they're gonna have a wrestling show every afternoon,” Cooter replied, “and Pollyanna's gonna help out at the kissing booth the rest of the time.”

  “Pollyanna doesn't strike me as the kissing booth type,” Brendan said.

  “Well, she ain't gonna do no kissin',” said Jake. “She said she's just gonna help men find their way to the booth.”

  “Ah, I think I get the idea,” I said. “This should be interesting.”

  “Yeah, it'll be somethin' to do for fun seein' as there ain't gonna be no debate now,” Cooter said. “Me and Jake was lookin' forward to seein' Lloyd Duval debate Mayor Pumphrey. I think he would have won, him bein' such a good speaker and all. I reckon you folks are as bummed as we are about what happened to him. He was always so kind to everyone.”

  Kind? Lloyd Duval? Maybe Cooter had been sampling the mouthwash.

  “At least the sheriff arrested the feller that killed him,” Jake said.

  “The sheriff has arrested someone?” I asked. “You don't mean....”

  “Yep, Gene 'the Onion Ringer' McGee,” Cooter replied. “That's what everybody's calling him. Jolene says Pearl told her that she read on the internet how exposure to onion fumes can make people go crazy if they're around 'em too long, so I figure that's what must have happened. Say, I was gonna go down to McGee's Market and see if they're hiring now that Gene's in jail; maybe I ought to buy one of them doctor masks from Al's Emporium first just to be safe.”

  I would have warned Cooter that putting anything from Al's Emporium on his face was more dangerous than onion fumes, but I had bigger problems on my mind. “Excuse me a minute,” I said as I made a beeline for my car, dialing Bob's number as I went.

  “Hi, sis,” Bob answered. “Since I know exactly why you're calling and exactly what you're going to say, how about I just recite it to myself in my head and save us both a lot of time?”

  “How could you arrest Gene McGee?!” I shouted. “You know he couldn't kill anyone!”

  “Look, I like Gene as much as you do, but we have to follow the evidence.”

  “Oh, I suppose you fingerprinted the onions?!”

  Bob sighed. “We got a call from Mike McGarity at McGarity's Garage saying he found something funny in Gene McGee's car when he brought it in to get his tail light fixed. We went over there and found the murder weapon in the trunk of Gene's car, along with a money wrapper from the Farnsworth Bank. Gene said he was working late at the market that night, but no one can vouch for his alibi. We had no choice but to arrest him.”

  “You've got to be kidding!” I cried. “Even if you think Gene was mad enough to kill Lloyd, you can't possibly believe he robbed the Farnsworth Bank! Whoever killed Lloyd is trying to frame Gene! Isn't it obvious?”

  “Maybe Gene went to the rec center to confront Lloyd and walked in on him breaking into the bank vault. Perhaps Lloyd was the one with the gun and it went off as they fought over it; it could have happened, Dani.”

  “And then Gene dragged Lloyd's body back to his own market and tossed him in the onion bin? Why are you so quick to clap Gene in irons when there were plenty of other people who wanted Lloyd dead?!”

  “Dani-”

  “Did you even talk to Maurice Sharp from the glove factory? Lloyd stole $15,000 from him and he's hated him ever since! He even went to one of Lloyd's 'Courage' lectures and threatened him!”

  “And just how do you know that?” Bob asked. “Have you been snooping around again? Dani, how many times have I told you to leave the police work to the police!”

  “Don't change the subject,” I said. “If you want to do police work so much, then go arrest Maurice Sharp!”

  “Arrest him for what? Not being Gene McGee?”

  “Don't be so clever,” I snapped. Just then I remembered something Maurice Sharp had said. “And what about the guy Lloyd killed six years ago? I'll bet he had a family, and they wouldn't be members of the Lloyd Duval Fan Club! They've probably been waiting for the day when Lloyd would get out of prison so they could get their hands on him!”

  “You know, sis, it takes more than your imagination to make a case against someone. Besides, I don't think Troy Belcher was much of a family man. Look, we're still investigating and I promise we'll check out every angle; just stay out of it, okay?”

  “Who did you say? Belcher?”

  “Troy Belcher; that's the guy Duval killed in that bar fight six years ago.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, goodbye then.”

  “Wait, why did you ask? Do you know something you're not telling me? You're going to go playing detective, aren't you?”

  “I can't stay here talking all day; I have to finish setting up my booth,” I said. “Don't keep calling me like this while I'm working.”

  As I hung up I was thinking about the grizzly bear with bad manners who had come into the Breezy Spoon the day before Lloyd Duval was killed. “Belcher's Towing”; that's what it said on his overalls. Could he be Troy Belcher's brother or maybe a cousin? It could just be coincidence, but Belcher isn't a very common name and not 24 hours after he shows up in town Lloyd Duval takes a nap under 50 pounds of onions. That didn't sound very coincidental to me.

  I could have told Bob about Belcher, but I didn't think he'd be too impressed by my story, even if I pointed out that Belcher took four sugars in his coffee, which is something only a dangerously insane person would do. First I'd need to find out for sure if he was related to the man Lloyd killed.

  Just then there came a knock on my window and I looked up to see Mark waving to me. As I opened the car door he said, “I stopped by the booth to see how you were doing, and Brendan told me that you heard Gene McGee was arrested and you went to your car to get your deerstalker hat and junior detective kit.”

  “Very funny. Tell Brendan that he should be a stand-up comedian when he grows up.”

  “So you think Gene McGee is innocent?”

  “I know he's innocent; he's being framed.”

  “I'm with you on that. I believe the real killer is setting him up. That's probably why the body was left at McGee's Market in the first place.”

  “Really? You mean it?”

  “Yes, and I also believe the real killer wouldn't think twice about killing an amateur detective, so you should stick to setting up your booth and let the sheriff handle the investigation.”

  “For a minute there I thought you were actually being sweet,” I grumbled.

  “Not wanting to see you murdered seems pretty sweet, but if that's not good enough for you, I'll go even further and hang your ridiculously heavy menu board up on the booth for you.”

  “Oh, I love you, Mark!”

  “That's understandable,” he replied. “Shockingly handsome, hot bod, charming, witty, intelligent, charges reasonable rent, regularly risks tetanus by changing the oil in your rusty Firebird, willing to keep you from being lonely by snuggling and talking about feelings; what's not to love?”

  “And incredibly conceited. Is it too late for a do-over?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Brendan was grinning. “So you really like to talk about feelings, do you, Mark?”

  “Sure do. Like, I'm feeling hungry, do you have anything I can eat that isn't salad? Or, I'm feeling bored, why don't we switch to the football game instead of watching this cheating husband chick flick? I'm a caring, sensitive guy. You know that, Brendan.”

  “I do know that about you. At the softball game last Saturday when you slid into home plate cleats first and ran into the catcher, you apologized and bought him a beer later on. You're a thoughtful person, yes, you are.”

  “This is true. And anyone who thought I was just getting back at the guy because the last time I slid into home head first he smacked me in the head with the ball so hard that he almost knocked me out, well, that person would just be wrong. I not only bought him a beer afterward, but I went up to the counter to get it for him because he was limping so badly.”
/>
  “You're an inspiration to us all. I hope the SOB choked on it.”

  “Actually he did. I bought him one of those craft beers that was grapefruit flavored.”

  Brendan raised his hand. “Hit 'em high, buddy!” he said and the little boy-men did high fives and chest bumps while I struggled to put the menu board up on the booth by myself.

  That evening when I was on my way home, I decided to stop at Gene and Laurie McGee's house and see how Kitty and Laurie were holding up. Gene's arrest was surely putting a lot of stress on both of them, and that made me even more determined to find the real killer, and fast. When I reached the house I saw my best friend Tammy's car in the driveway. Either she had heard about the arrest from Brendan or the gossip mill had made its way around to her bakery, but either way I was glad to see that Kitty and Laurie weren't alone.

  Tammy opened the door when I rang the bell. “How are Laurie and Kitty doing?” I asked.

  “About as well as can be expected,” Tammy sighed. “Come on in.”

  Laurie and Kitty were sitting in the living room, and I could tell that they had both been crying. The aroma of spaghetti sauce and baking bread was wafting in from the kitchen where it looked like Tammy was cooking dinner. I sat down next to Laurie on the sofa and gave her a hug.

  “I'm so sorry,” I said.

  “How could anyone think Gene is a murderer?” Laurie cried.

  “Someone's framing him. Whoever really killed Lloyd is working to set Gene up to take the blame.”

  “But why? Why Gene?”

  “They must have known how much Gene hated Lloyd. He did threaten to kill him in front of the crowd at the Breezy Spoon. I'm sure a lot of people heard about that.” As I was speaking, I remembered the man in the Belcher's Towing overalls again; he had been there that morning! He would have heard what Gene had said. I turned to Kitty. “Kitty, do you know anything about the man Lloyd killed six years ago? I think his name was Troy Belcher.”

  “Not much,” Kitty replied. “I don't think he was someone Lloyd knew; they just got into a brawl in a bar and Lloyd took things too far like he always did. Why? Do you think there's a connection to what happened to Lloyd?”