Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) Read online

  Bob Spangler had no idea what I was talking about.

  After I had managed to wrangle my way into his office without an appointment, he sat there looking at me like I was crazy. And maybe I was. “Are you sure you never received her email?” I asked for the second time. Or maybe the third.

  “Look, Ms. Harris. I’m not saying it didn’t arrive in my email box. What I’m telling you is that I never saw it. Do you have any idea how many emails I get every day? Not only do my clients contact me but I receive close to a hundred a day from financial institutions all over the world. In this business things move fast. Our IT department also uses a spam filter so there is a very good chance that this email from—what was her name again?”

  “Maria Kravec.”

  “Yes, Maria Kravec. There’s a more than fair chance it landed in my spam folder and was deleted at the end of the day.”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out a copy of the email I had printed earlier. “Here. Take a look at this. Does it mean anything to you at all?” I passed the paper across the desk.

  Mr. Spangler picked up a pair of glasses and put them on and slowly read. He was a good looking man somewhere in his late forties would be my guess. Light brown hair, blue eyes and a toned body from what I could see. “Well, that’s my email address all right, but this means nothing to me. You know, I get calls all the time from people recommended to me by a current client. Maybe that’s what this is all about.” He put the email down and took the glasses off.

  “But it says that she has information for you of a sensitive nature. Do you know what that could be?”

  “No. You’d be surprised how many people contact me trying to get me to offer their latest and greatest financial venture to my clients. A bunch of whack jobs. But you do have my curiosity up so if you find out what it means, let me know.”

  I hopped back on the turnpike this time exiting in Bridgeport. Sergei’s Butcher Shop was huge. It had started out in the same spot but only in one suite of the small strip mall where it was located. Over the years he had added on a specialty poultry counter and another area for lunch meats and cheeses. Everything was always fresh and always expensive, but I had come to realize anything I bought here was worth the price. As a matter of fact, my mother had ordered a turkey for Thanksgiving and I hoped I could keep Sergei out of jail long enough to supply it.

  I walked into a very crowded store. At first I thought it was just holiday shoppers but there were people all over buying everything including fresh bread, which had been added in the cheese and deli section. Sergei kept everything separate and despite what Maria had blogged about the place was spotless, orderly, and packed. Her blogs may have kept people away from the vegan restaurant but they didn’t seem to deter Sergei’s clientele in any way. A new addition to the shop was freshly made sandwiches and I ordered one and took a seat at a small table to enjoy it.

  By the time I finished my sandwich, there seemed to be a lull in customers, but just a small one. Sergei saw me and came over.

  “I saw you earlier, but I couldn’t get away.”

  “Is it always like this?”

  Sergei looked around and nodded. “Yes, it is. I have been very lucky in my business. You offer a good product, excellent service and work hard.”

  An employee brought over a cup of coffee for Sergei and placed it in front of him. She asked if I wanted anything and I asked for a tea.

  “Maria’s blog seems to have had no impact whatsoever.”

  “Not a bit. So you see I had no reason to kill her.” He looked at me with his penetrating eyes.

  “How about all the money Maria sunk into the site? You’ll probably never see that again.”

  Sergei took a sip of coffee and looked around the shop. “Maria used her money. It was hers to do with as she pleased. I have my business and things are good as you can see. It was never about money between Maria and me. No issues there. I was a good provider and was more than happy to let her keep her own money to do with as she pleased. If I can get anything back from the her business then it will go to Ellery.”

  “What about Nena?”

  A small smile played at Sergei’s lips. “I’m sorry you and my daughter had to be witness to that. Nena was—”

  “Just a piece of fluff,” I offered, thinking back to what Meme had said.

  “At the risk of sounding like a cad, which I guess I am, the women with whom I spend time are sweet diversions. None has ever been serious. I loved only Maria. Unfortunately, Nena didn’t see it that way and I am sorry. It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”

  “And your wife? You didn’t think this ever hurt her?” Despite Sergei’s less than faithful ways I liked the guy. Not that I would want to be married to him, but still. He was charming.

  “Maria understood. It was our way.”

  “Then why did she go after you with her blog? Why all of a sudden was she so hostile? Was there someone else, besides Nena?”

  Sergei shrugged. “Two women are enough for one man, no? As for the other, I don’t know but certainly in the last month she was furious with me. When I tried to talk she said no, she would get me another way and then the blogs started.”

  “I talked with Nena. She told me that you said you were going to fix Maria good over the blogs. That sounds like a threat.”

  Sergei took a sip of his coffee and replaced the cup on the saucer before answering. “I have something of a temper. I come from a big family and if you wanted to be heard you had to yell. The blogs didn’t hurt my business as you can see,” Sergei said, looking around the store, “but it hurt my pride that Maria would lash out like that. We loved each other very much. I put up with her pettiness and her overprotective ways with Ellery and she put up with my, well, my ways. But we never threw things in each other’s faces.”

  I left the shop, but not until I got some bread and a selection of lunch meats for dinner and some pork chops for the weekend. The man may or may not be a killer, but a girl’s gotta eat.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

  Yeah, right, Winston, but I wanted to solve this thing now, patience not being one of my virtues. I had a ton of suspects but just couldn’t sort anything out. I felt I might be missing something. Plus my competitive edge was showing and I wanted to get there before the police, or more specifically, John. We had agreed not to discuss the case because he felt what he didn’t know I was doing wouldn’t hurt, but this made it difficult for me to find out stuff that only the police could find out.

  I needed to get the food home and in the refrigerator before I headed over to the university to talk with Nadine but first I had one more stop to make.

  “This is perfect!” I gushed to Sloth, or Seymour, as I think he preferred to be called, a few minutes later. He had emailed me this morning to say he was done with the design. I took another look at it and smiled. It was exactly what I wanted.

  “Good. As long as you’re sure, I’ll have a bunch made and then you can wear them whenever you want. Do you want me to put this one on you now?”

  Five minutes later I left with a tiny maple tree in full fall glory with one leaf drifting tattooed to my leg. It would be interesting to see how long it took John to notice. I ordered a pack from Seymour and he said he would drop them off at Meme’s and I could pick them up by the weekend.

  My body art taken care of and the food safely put away, I headed to Middletown after making a call to be sure Nadine was working today. Nadine worked in the main building and after waiting for fifteen minutes, she came out to the front desk.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, none too kindly.

  “Is there some place we can speak in private?”

  She walked me outside to a spot where there were some benches. Luckily, it was a mild day because I only had a light cardigan on.

  “So, what do you need to know now?”

  “You never t
old me that Maria fired you. Twice.”

  Nadine shook her head and the severe haircut did not move a bit. “Why would that be important?”

  “Well, I, along with the police, am looking for a killer. Some would say your lack of career development at the hands of Maria Kravec might be a good motive for murder.”

  “Seriously? You really think I would kill someone because I didn’t get some office job?” She gave a disgusted grunt.

  “It sounded like more than just an office job, but actually I was thinking about her firing you from the Vegan View. There wouldn’t be a partnership then and with Ryan’s TV show tie-in and the original product line, you might lose out on a great opportunity.” The truth was, it never sounded like a great opportunity to me. There were so many online retailers out there what were the chances of this venture really taking off? But then I’m sure someone said that about Amazon and Google and eBay at some point. People could look at my little business and wonder how I managed and yet Always Prepared had provided quite nicely for my team. We weren’t rich and probably never would be but I paid my bills on time and had a bit put away. Somehow I didn’t think Nadine was willing to settle for that.

  Nadine’s color turned to something a bit lighter than her eggplant-colored hair. “What makes you think Maria fired me again? We were a team.”

  I shrugged. “I heard she did. And if you don’t mind my saying, you look pretty upset now.”

  “Maria could be a bitch. But you know, so what. We had an understanding. She used me and I used her. I knew she just wanted me to help out with the blog and the site. So what,” she said again. “She got what she wanted and I was going to get a share of the business.”

  “And now you get a bigger share.”

  “Or I get nothing. Who knows what’s going to happen,” Nadine said, heaving a heavy sigh. “With Maria dead and my full time job, I’m not sure I’m even up for all the work anymore. Ryan wants me to catalogue all that stuff and take pictures. Where am I going to find the time, huh? These things are hit and miss and I’m not even a vegan. Who needs all the trouble?”

  Nadine had pretty much echoed my thoughts. Why bother indeed. And if she didn’t adhere to a vegan or even vegetarian lifestyle, then where was the passion? Plus, from what Deanna and Ryan told me, Nadine was lazy and you couldn’t be lazy if you wanted your own business. If I was a betting sort of a gal, I would say Ryan would soon be on his own and Nadine would pursue something else here at the university.

  “Do you know anything about auto injectors of epinephrine?” I asked.

  “Sure. Maria always had one in her purse and made sure we all knew about it just in case.”

  “Did you know she kept some in her kitchen?”

  Nadine gave me a funny look. “Duh. She had severe allergies. She probably had them all over the house.”

  “Let me ask you something else. I heard that Maria failed some student a while ago and he missed out on an important tennis match because of it. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Yeah. Jeff Metz. That was about two years ago. God, he was pissed. So were his parents. They were thinking about suing the school.”

  This was sounding promising, pissed parents angry enough to sue. Maybe I had just added three more suspects to my list. “Do you know how I can get in touch with Jeff?’

  Nadine snorted. “Good luck with that. He’s dead. Crashed his car a year or so ago. Drunk out of his mind. He was one of those rich kids. Mommy and daddy paid for everything and always thought their little darling could do no wrong. Kid was a mess.”

  “How about his parents? Do you know where they live?”

  “Manhattan. Why? You think they snuck into Maria’s yard with a Birkin bag filled with poison ivy? Give me a break. Maria wasn’t the only one who failed him. He eventually got kicked out of school.”

  I sighed. It looked like Jeff Metz and his parents would not be going on my list after all. And what about Nadine? Could I cross her off my suspect list? Or was the young woman playing a game and trying to throw me of track with her blasé attitude toward the Vegan View? I wish I knew.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Alex, where are you?” my mother’s voice chirped in my ear.

  “I’m just leaving the health club.”

  “We’re all at Meme’s. Your dad is visiting Grandpa at Mills Pond, Michael took the kids to piano lessons and out for dinner and I assume John is working the case. So we’re having a girls’ night and the food just arrived.”

  Twenty minutes later I walked into my grandmother’s house after stopping off at the bakery for some desserts. The bread and meats from the butcher shop would just have to keep until tomorrow.

  “Where have you been all day?” my sister asked. She took the box from my hands and peeked inside. “Yum. Cannoli.”

  After I loaded up my plate with basmati rice, tandoori chicken, some dal, which is a lentil dish, and several pieces of naan bread, I went out to the living room and squeezed onto the sofa between Theresa and Meme’s other good friend, Francis Haddock.

  “Alex, Meme tells me you’re working as a PI now,” Mrs. Haddock said. I had met her two years ago when I helped solve the first murder Indian Cove had seen for many, many years. She seemed in need of some new friends and I had introduced her to Meme. Francis Haddock was originally from Scotland. She had a beautiful head of white hair and she was much thinner than Meme. She was a quiet, kind woman who made a great cup of tea but my grandmother had managed to bring her out of her shell and she was a great addition to Meme’s group.

  “Well, not officially, but, yes, I am working on another murder.”

  “You live such an interesting life, Alex,” Mrs. Haddock said. “Tell us all about it.”

  I swallowed a piece of bread and shook my head. “It’s kind of a strange case because of the way the ivy was left under the leaves. The killer could have done that at any time. Mrs. Kravec’s daughter Ellery said the pile had been out there over a week, closer to two. So there was at least a ten-day period when someone could have snuck into the yard and left the ivy.”

  “And you got a great area for that with the woods and all,” Meme said.

  “True. Someone could have parked on the other side, especially at night, and walked in with a bag of the stuff and left it under the pile.”

  “Maybe the ivy just got raked up by mistake,” Mrs. Haddock suggested.

  I shook my head. “No. And the police haven’t released this bit of information so it goes no further than this room, but the auto injectors were emptied.”

  “Right. John mentioned that on Saturday,” Sam said.

  “So, I think we can assume the ivy was planted in the pile on purpose and the killer made sure no immediate help would be available.” Even if I had known about the pens, in the end they would have done no good. Surprisingly, it didn’t make me feel any better about not saving Mrs. Kravec’s life.

  “But what’s the motive?” my mother asked. I was glad she was interested and not telling me to keep my nose out of it. Maybe having a cop for a son-in-law had sensitized her to having her family involved in dangerous situations.

  “Actually, there are lots of motives. First the husband. They had problems and Mrs. Kravec was attacking him, or I should say his business, in her blog.” I ate a spoonful of rice and then continued. “But my gut tells me he didn’t do it. Then there’s the daughter. She’s a lovely girl, very close to her father but she and her mother had issues.”

  “All mothers and daughters have issues,” my mother piped up looking over at Meme.

  My grandmother waved her pudgy hand. “They do but they don’t kill each other over it. At least not yet. Who else you got, Alex?”

  I set my plate down on the coffee table and crossed my legs, smiling at my mother’s horrified look at my grandmother’s comment. “The brother,” I began, but then my sister screamed and the room went silent.

  “Samantha, what on earth is wrong with you?” my mother shouted.

 
; “There! Look at her leg! Alex, you didn’t!”

  I kicked my leg out with pride and pulled up my pant leg to show off my maple tree.

  My mother let out a gasp. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Is that a tattoo?”

  Meme cackled. “Sloth told me you stopped by. Good for you, kiddo. It looks real nice. Maybe I’ll get another one. Mine is all faded.”

  I thought my mother would faint. You’d think I had pierced my head with a voodoo cross or something.

  Sam took a closer look. “I want one. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  “It was kind of an impulse buy,” I said. “I’ll go with you this weekend if you want.”

  “Me and Theresa and Francis are going too. Pick us up at ten. Mable, you in?”

  My mother ignored Meme and looked at me. “Alex, you were telling us about the brother,” she said primly, clearly trying to get the subject off of tattoos.

  “Right. The brother. They were not close but he lives in the family home. Turns out it actually belonged to Maria and she wanted to sell it. With her dead, it goes to him. Then there’s this couple, Frank and Carol Corliss. They owned a vegan-slash-vegetarian restaurant here in Indian Cove and Maria wrote some blogs accusing them of not using pure vegan products. Customers stopped coming and they lost the business.”

  “Meme and I ate there once. Remember, Meme? The something world restaurant.” Theresa said.

  “Oh, yeah. Had some veggie casserole. Good food but not many people.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “About six months, now, give or take,” Theresa answered.

  This gave credence to my theory that the Natural World was doomed even before the blogs started. Restaurants are so difficult to pull off especially when you have no prior experience, which the Corliss’ did not, and your menu is so specific, which theirs was. Of course that didn’t mean they didn’t harbor resentment toward Maria because clearly they did.

  “Earth to Alex,” my sister said, interrupting my musings.

  “Oh, sorry, just thinking. So where was I? Oh, right. The two people she worked with on the vegan site had problems with her mostly over their ambitions and then there was this weird email I found that she sent to a man named Bob Spangler. He works at an investment firm in Stamford and I went over there today.”