Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) Page 7

  I decided to change the subject. “Henry, are you excited about your party?”

  “Yes! I can’t wait. Grandma’s making the cake. Auntie, you are coming to my party tomorrow, right?” Henry asked, his eyes bright with anticipation.

  “Is it at your house?” I winced. My mother kicked me under the table. “Of course I’m coming, Henry. Would I ever miss your birthday?”

  “Good, you can meet Scopes!” Henry took off with Riley chasing after him and I left a few minutes later promising my mother I would show up for the party.

  Chapter Twenty

  The office that Maria Kravec had rented was in a small complex of one-story office buildings and I quickly located her suite. I wasn’t sure why I had stopped. I had the phone number for the assistant, which Ellery had given me, and I planned on calling her and setting up a meeting. I really didn’t expect to find anything, least of all an open office. With Maria dead, I was pretty sure the office would be closed, probably for good. But as long as I was here I might as well try and so I reached for the door knob and gave it a turn. To my surprise it opened up onto a small reception area.

  I didn’t see anyone but then I heard typing and called out. “Hello. Is anyone here?” I took a couple of steps into the room and called out again. “Hello?” I heard the typing stop and a second later a young woman appeared in the door way.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  I couldn’t fault the young woman for her bluntness; she just caught me off guard and called me out on it. “I’m Alex Harris. Maria Kravec was my neighbor. Her daughter Ellery hired me to look into her death.”

  The young woman, who was short with a full figure, looked bewildered. She had very short hair cut in a trendy but rather severe fashion dyed that weird almost-maroon color, and designer glasses that looked too big for her face. She took them off and rubbed her eyes. “Ellery hired you to look into Maria’s death? Why? The papers said she died from anaphylactic shock.”

  It seemed like I made it here well ahead of the police. Of course, they were pretty certain they had their suspect in Mr. Kravec, and maybe they did, but it wouldn’t hurt to see what else I could come up with. After all, Ellery had asked me to look into her mother’s death and I had promised I would.

  “She did. But there were some questions the family had and they asked me to look into things. Are you Nadine?”

  “Yes. Nadine Davis,” the woman said as she came around the reception partition and shook my hand. She was dressed in a black skirt and royal blue jacket and I noticed she had on shoes with about a four-inch heel. Take those away and she had to be under five feet. “So what do you want to know? I’m kind of busy,” she continued in her blunt way.

  “Do you mind if we sit down?” I asked, moving over to a small sofa and setting my purse down on the end table. “Well, for starters I’m a little surprised Maria had an office space. Couldn’t she write her blog from home?”

  Nadine settled herself next to me on the sofa. “She did at first, but with the new products line starting up soon, we needed more space for a distribution center.”

  “Products line? Distribution center?”

  “Have you seen Maria’s blog?”

  “Yes. I checked her Web site out.”

  “She and her partner, Ryan Reynolds—.”

  “Ryan Reynolds the actor is her partner?”

  Nadine gave an exasperated sigh. “Everyone asks that. No. Our Ryan Reynolds has a full-time job as a salesman for a payroll company. He and Maria met a while ago at some store or someplace, and he’s helping her develop a line of vegan products. As soon as everything is in place, we’ll be filling orders from here.” Nadine looked around the small space. “At least until we can afford something bigger. But it takes time to build up your customer base.”

  “What kind of products?” I asked.

  “All sorts of things. Cookbooks, packaged snack foods like vegan jerky. Hemp products. Ryan’s working on putting together a custom line of sauces and salad dressings and cosmetics.”

  I started to wonder about money. As far as I could tell from the Web site they weren’t selling anything yet so where was the money coming from to pay for this place, and, I assumed, a salary for Nadine. And coming up with a custom line of products had to cost something as well. “Who’s paying for all of this right now?”

  “Maria put up all the funding so far. I still have my job at the university. I used to be Maria’s assistant there, and of course Ryan has his full time job. We aren’t getting paid anything yet but once things start rolling we’ll both be partners. I’m also in charge of getting advertisers for our site. We’ll rent them space on the site for related products that complement our line.”

  “And now that Maria is dead, what will happen to the Vegan View and all your plans?”

  Nadine took the glasses off and rubbed her eyes again. I was beginning to think it was a nervous gesture as this was the fourth time she had done it. “Happen? Ryan and I will run things together. I’ll take over the blog and the site and Ryan can continue doing what he does. I don’t know how it’s all going to pan out but we’ve put so much effort into it so far.”

  “Would you have an address for Mr. Reynolds?” I asked.

  “For his home? No. I can tell you were he works. The company has an office in New Haven.” Nadine got up and teetered on her heels over to the reception desk for a piece of paper and wrote out the name of the company and address. As it turned out, it was the exact same company we used to run our payroll and if I hurried, I should be able to get there before they closed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Back on the turnpike I headed toward New Haven. My grandmother used to have a brownstone not far from Yale and I spent a lot of time visiting her as a child. Her home was conveniently located close to a park, an Italian bakery, the best pizzeria in Connecticut, and three Catholic churches. Meme lived in the basement apartment of the brownstone and rented the three floors above out as apartments, usually to professors or young couples.

  Ellery told me that Maria’s brother lived in New Haven. She had also supplied his name and phone number and if I had time, I hoped to stop by and talk with him. Maybe he could shed some light on exactly how happy the Kravec marriage really was—or wasn’t.

  The offices of PayAcc occupied three floors of a building across from the New Haven Green. As a kid, I loved going there. Meme and I would walk to the park before picking up stuff at a small grocery store. There were three churches on the green and one of them had a crypt that contained the remains of many early residents of the city. Meme liked to tell me there were pilgrims buried there.

  I parked in an underground parking structure and walked a block to PayAcc . I asked to speak to Ryan Reynolds and the receptionist called up to another floor to see if he was still there.

  She put the phone down and looked at me. “They said he literally just left. The elevators are over there,” she pointed to the left of her desk. “He should be coming down any minute.” We heard the ping of the elevator and a second later she pointed him out to me.

  I walked quickly toward the elevator. Ryan Reynolds had turned right and was headed toward a side door. I caught up with him just as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “Mr. Reynolds?”

  He turned and looked at me. He may have had the same name as the actor Ryan Reynolds but his looks were almost identical to the actor Kevin Bacon. Now, I have nothing against Kevin Bacon. I think he’s a good actor and from what I read in People magazine—and we know they can be trusted—he seems like a good guy and family man. But something about his looks bothers me. Maybe it’s his severe cheek bones and thin face, but he always has a sinister look about him. Ryan Reynold, the PayAcc employee not the actor, had those same defined cheek bones and the same cocky smirk. I put him in his mid-forties. He had a lean body and looked like he kept in shape.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, I’m Ryan. Can I help you?” From the way he looked me up and down it seemed like he wanted to devour me. Yuk.

  “My name is Alex Harris and I’m looking into the death of Maria Kravec.” I thought in this situation it was better not to use Van der Burg, especially since once John found out what I was up to, it probably wouldn’t be my name for much longer. “Is there some place we can talk?”

  Ryan directed me toward a coffee shop next door and once he placed our order, we took a table by the window.

  “Terrible. Terrible news,” Ryan said. “I can’t believe she’s gone. So sudden. You say you’re looking into her death. Are you with the police?”

  “No. Her daughter hired me.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Why?”

  “The police seem to think there may be something more to it than an accidental death and they have their sights set on Mr. Kravec. Ellery Kravec thinks her father is innocent and wants me to prove that.”

  “Ellery may have to get used to the idea of having a guilty father. Maria and Sergei had a lot of problems. He was a serial cheater for one thing and he was really pissed about the blog series Maria was doing on the meat industry. But why would the police look at him? Maria’s death was due to an allergic reaction to something, right?”

  I wasn’t sure how much I should share. I hadn’t read the papers and had no clue as to how much was being divulged at this point. “Yes, that’s what I heard. I really don’t know the particulars but Ellery wanted to make sure if anything did develop, her dad would be in the clear. So, just in case the situation changes can you think of any reason why someone would want Maria Kravec dead?”

  Ryan took a moment to mull this over, slowly sipping a drink with one of those long names that only a barista would ever remember. “Nope. Nothing comes to mind. She was pretty harsh in her blog, but so what? A lot of people have blogs. It’s just her opinion.”

  I knew for certain the Corliss family did not take her blog lightly and at least in part, it seemed to have contributed to the failure of their business.

  “So what exactly was your working relationship with Maria?” I asked.

  “Funny thing. We met standing in line at Target. I was talking to the pharmacist about natural sleep aids. I’ve always been a health nut. When we decided to launch our own products we came up with the name Farmaceuticals in honor of how we met. Maria thought it was a clever play on words especially because we’re hoping to get all our fresh ingredients for sauces and salad dressings and the like from local farms. Anyway, we exchanged emails and she would contact me from time to time if she had a question. We became friends and when she decided to build the site she asked for my help. At first she just wanted to do a blog but I convinced her to take it a step further. This isn’t for public broadcast yet, but I’m in negotiations to do a morning show on total body health. Just a couple mornings a week on the local New Haven station with the hopes it gets picked up by a network at some point and our thought was we could tie my appearances and recognition in with the Web site and the products line we planned on introducing. So along with the blog and an array of vegan products, we would also advertise the show with a link to the most recent broadcast that people could watch. And of course I would talk up the site and our new products on the show as well so both ventures would get maximum exposure.”

  “So what’s going to happen now?”

  Ryan ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I don’t know. Maria was the writer and a good researcher and reporter. I’m the sales end and visionary. There are lots of sites, but we wanted to have the whole spectrum and, with the possibility of the show, it was all coming together.”

  “Do you think you and Nadine will continue?”

  “Nadine? Nadine Davis? Why would you ask about her? Maria fired her several weeks ago.”

  “Are you sure? I just came from the office Maria rented and Nadine was working there and said she hoped the two of you would be able to go forward with the product line and Web site.”

  Ryan Reynolds seemed visibly upset about this news. After a few seconds he put a smile back on his face. “I guess Maria must have changed her mind and hired her back at the last minute and hadn’t gotten around to telling me.”

  “Why do you think Maria fired her in the first place?” I asked. Nadine Davis neglected to tell me this little tidbit and I wondered why. Whatever the reason maybe it was severe enough for Nadine to kill Maria.

  “Nadine was lazy for one thing. She was constantly on her cell phone, playing on Facebook and showing up only when she wanted to and yet she kept angling for a piece of the pie. She used to work for Maria at the university and her work habits were the same so Maria got rid of her and sent her to another department. She really wanted to fire her but couldn’t. University politics and all that. Instead, Maria made sure everyone knew what a loser Nadine was. All the innuendo cost Nadine a big promotion.”

  “So why did Maria let Nadine work for her now on the Web site?”

  Ryan leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Maria is, I guess was, a user. She filled Nadine’s head with all the big plans for the business and told her she couldn’t pay her now but once things were up and running, if Nadine proved herself, Maria would make her a minority partner.” Ryan gave a small laugh. “Maria never had any intention of doing that. Nadine is good at one thing and that’s designing Web sites. Maria let her create the site, get it up and running. Nadine also created our email system and monitored email feedback from the site. Maria had Nadine teach her everything about how to add pages, upload stuff and fix the email site when it went down and then she fired her again. But if you say Nadine was at the office then I guess Maria softened and took her back. My guess is Maria needed something else from Nadine.”

  I thought back to the Web site. It was quite professional looking and had an engaging design, good links and flow. I had paid quite a bit to have our site designed and updated until Millie took a few classes and was now handling all aspects of the site for the agency.

  I thanked Ryan for his time and went back to my car. As I was in New Haven, I decided to call on Maria’s brother, George Schruder. But given all these new facts I just learned about Nadine, she warranted another talk. If she had been fired twice losing out on first a promotion and then a piece of the Vegan View pie, she just might be a viable candidate for murder.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I pulled the address for Maria’s brother out of my purse. It didn’t seem to be too far away and after considering calling first I decided to just surprise George Shruder.

  Mr. Shruder lived in a small house on an older street of well-kept homes with lush yards and lots of trees. He answered on the first knock almost as if he had been waiting for me on the other side of the door.

  “Mr. Shruder, I’m Alex Harris. Your niece, Ellery, gave me your address.”

  Mr. Shruder took a step back and waved me in. “She told me about you when we talked about…about plans for my sister’s funeral.”

  “I’m so sorry for you loss. Your sister was my neighbor and while I didn’t know her well, she seemed like a lovely person.”

  “Yes, well, come on in. Can I offer you anything?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Did Ellery tell you why I’m here?’

  “Something about helping Sergei. Not sure why she would want to bother.”

  “Well, he is her father.”

  George Shruder was tall and a bit too thin for my liking, almost like a bird. He had thin, bony hands and very long legs. I looked around the room noting there were no pictures and no sign of any other person living in the home. But there was beautiful crown molding, lovingly restored hardwood floors, and some modern touches I spied through an archway into the kitchen.

  “I take it you didn’t like Sergei?”

  “I didn’t dislike him. The man has a certain way of drawing people in. I just felt he was not husband material and my sister should have never married him. I
have to be honest and tell you I didn’t spend a lot of time with my sister or her family. We weren’t close as children and didn’t seem to have much in common as adults. Our parents were cold people, Ms. Harris. They didn’t encourage shows of affection or a lot of interaction. I turned to music and it has remained my life’s passion. My only passion.” He looked around the room as if he suddenly realized what a truly lonely existence he had created for himself.

  “My father always felt I was too soft. I wasn’t manly enough for him. My sister seemed to have fared better in our parents’ esteem, maybe because she was a girl, I don’t know. But for whatever reason she and I never forged a bond.”

  “Did you see her often?”

  “No, not much. Once she moved out of here and got married, we saw each other very seldom.”

  “Moved out of here?

  “Yes. We grew up in this house. My parents actually left it to Maria, probably because she had a family, but she and Sergei liked their other house so she let me continue to live here. Now that she’s dead, it belongs to me outright. That’s how our parents wrote up their will.”

  “Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill her?”

  Mr. Shruder laced his thin fingers together. “No. I don’t know her friends or what she does with her life. Sergei’s a cad. And I do know they had fights. They’ve had a few over the years right in this house when they would visit our parents. He can become quite worked up very quickly. I have been witness to that.”

  “And what about Ellery? Did she get along with her mother?” It wasn’t an area I felt comfortable exploring but I had to cover every base.

  “My sister had opinions about everything. Strong opinions. She could be almost obsessive in her ideas and she took a lot of that out on Ellery. She seemed like a good kid. Always well behaved when she would come to visit. Maria wouldn’t stand for anything less. She kept Ellery on a short leash.” George Shruder shook his head. “I know next to nothing about children, but from my observations, Maria seemed hard on her child. Controlling about everything. I know teenagers can be difficult at times and I would imagine that my sister and Ellery did not have an easy time during the years.”