Sentenced to Death

Twenty-One

It was long past eight o’clock when Tricia finally made it back to Stoneham, and she was ravenous. But as she hadn’t done any shopping, there was still nothing of substance in her fridge, and the thought of yogurt or toast wasn’t at all appetizing—not after what she’d been through that evening. Worse, she hadn’t phoned Angelica to tell her she couldn’t make their rendezvous with Michele Fowler. Oddly enough, Angelica hadn’t called her, either.

Tricia pulled into the municipal parking lot, cut the engine, and pulled out her cell phone. Angelica answered on the first ring. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important. Are you alone?”

“Absolutely!” Angelica said with chagrin.

“Then can I come over and mooch something to eat?”

“Sure. What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there. See you in a minute.”

It took two minutes by the time Tricia let herself into the Cookery and made her way up the stairs to Angelica’s loft apartment. Angelica met her at the door. “Is it a hot cocoa, wine, or something-stronger kind of funk you’re in?”

“Wine sounds good.”

“I just happen to have a couple of bottles. Red or white? Although it rather depends on what leftover you choose as your entrée. Come on in.”

Tricia followed her sister down the corridor to the loft’s kitchen that overlooked Main Street. Angelica hadn’t bothered to draw the blinds, and the gas lights down below glowed, attracting an assortment of insects that buzzed around them.

Angelica opened the door to the fridge to survey its contents. “I’ve got tons of food—all recipes I’ve tested for the new cookbook.”

“Good grief, is that an entire roast turkey in there?” Tricia asked in disbelief, peering over her sister’s shoulder.

“What’s left of one. I told you, I’m working on Easy-Does-It Holidays. My editor wants me to include a section on how to make use of Thanksgiving leftovers. Of course, I don’t have any cranberry sauce, but if you don’t mind it sliced cold, I could whip up a salad and some veggies or make you a turkey salad sandwich. Or would you rather have turkey tetrazzini or turkey curry?”

“How hot is the curry?” Tricia asked.

“Hot enough to curl your hair. And I’ll zap a papadum in the microwave for you, too.”

“I’ll go for it. Now pour me a glass of white wine and I’ll tell you a tale that might curl your hair, too.”

“Oh, this sounds interesting,” Angelica said, and snagged a couple of glasses from the cupboard and the wine from the fridge. She poured.

“I got a phone call from Elaine Capshaw just as I was about to close the store.”

“And?” Angelica dutifully prompted.

“She’d received another threatening call. I tried to convince her to call the police, but she asked me to come over to be with her when she did. It couldn’t have been fifteen minutes from the time I left until—”

“Let me guess—you got there and she was gone,” Angelica said, taking a plastic-wrap-covered bowl from the fridge.

“No, she was dead.”

Angelica scowled, and with hands on hips demanded, “Don’t tell me you found her?”

“Almost. Whoever called her made good on their threat before I could get there. She’d been bludgeoned to death.”

Angelica winced as she transferred the curry to a saucepan.

“Her poor little dog suffered a similar fate,” Tricia said.

Angelica’s head snapped up. “Someone killed her dog?” she cried in anguish.

Tricia shook her head. “No, but it’s badly injured. I ended up taking the little guy to the local vet—that’s where I’ve been for the past two hours. He’s already cost me half a grand, and it looks like I’m responsible for him, unless a relative or one of Elaine’s neighbors claims him. If that doesn’t happen, I suppose I’ll call the Humane Society or maybe a dog rescue service to find him a home. If he recovers.”

“Oh, no!” Angelica cried, distressed.

Tricia nodded. “According to the vet, Sarge’s lungs were bruised. He must’ve been kicked into a wall or some other solid object.”

“Bruising is better than busted ribs,” Angelica said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

“Maybe, maybe not. There’s a danger his lungs could fill with fluid, and then he’d probably—” Tricia stopped before saying the D word. Angelica had once had a poodle she’d loved. She’d said she’d never recovered from losing her little Pom-Pom. Hearing about Sarge’s injuries might be too painful for her.

Angelica’s bottom lip trembled, and she looked close to tears. “That poor, poor puppy.”

Tricia frowned. “I’ve met him three times now, and he seems like a wonderful little dog. I wonder if Grace and Mr. Everett would like a pet—if he makes it, that is.”

Angelica sighed. “They’d be good doggy parents,” she agreed.

Tricia nodded. “I’ll ask Mr. Everett in the morning.”

“So what do you think happened to Elaine? It had to be a friend—or someone she knew, right? Why else would a frightened woman open the door?”

“That’s what I figured—and so did the Milford cops. But she told me when we met on Saturday that she had no one to depend on and said it again tonight when she phoned me. I’m sure that’s why she called me to come be with her.”

“You were lucky the killer was already gone. Or should I say, smart not to barge in on a crime scene. Did you actually see the body?”

Tricia winced. “Yes. The police asked me to identify her.”

“Was she in worse shape than Kimberly Peters?”

Kimberly, the niece of the late New York Times bestselling author Zoë Carter, had been hit in the mouth with a baby sledgehammer. It had been Tricia who’d found her. She’d survived the attack, although she’d required extensive dental reconstruction.

Tricia shook her head. “That was worse. Still, identifying a body is not my favorite pastime.”

“Here, you stir this, and I’ll get that papadum going,” Angelica said.

Tricia did as she was told, taking over at the stove, and watched as Angelica opened the cupboard and took a flat disc of what looked like yellow plastic from a cellophane bag. She squirted it with cooking spray, placed it in the microwave, and punched in twenty-two seconds. Tricia never tired of seeing a papadum transform from something flat and dull into a tasty, bumpy flatbread.

“You know, Elaine had something in her hand. I didn’t really see it. But it looked like a knickknack or something.”

“Why would she be holding a knickknack when someone was trying to kill her?”

Tricia shrugged. “She’d turned her back on this person. You wouldn’t do that if you were afraid.”

“So you think it was someone she knew?”

“It had to be.”

Angelica grabbed a plate, a fork, and a serving spoon, and thrust them at Tricia. “Take as much as you want.”

Tricia spooned the curry onto her plate while Angelica placed the finished papadum on another plate at the spot where Tricia usually sat. Tricia took her seat while Angelica refilled their glasses.

“How was your day?” Tricia asked, and plunged her fork into the curry, wishing it sat on a bed of Basmati rice.

“Oh, the usual. In fact, more boring than usual. I feel like I’m awash in paperwork. Anything else happen to you today?”

Tricia tasted the curry and gasped. Angelica hadn’t been kidding when she’d said it was hot. “Wow. Is this the recipe you’re using in your book?”

“Of course not. I make it triple strength for myself. Americans are such wimps when it comes to adding spices.”

Tricia grabbed her wine and took a healthy swig. Ahh—relief! “I take it you’ve never been to the Southwest.”

“Of course I have. There are always exceptions to the rule.”

Tricia took another mouthful of curry, and while volcanic, it did not displease her, but again she wished for rice. She bit into the papadum, which promptly shattered, sending shards across her place mat. It, too, was wonderful.

As she swallowed, she remembered her visit from Boris Kozlov. “Good grief! I almost forgot.” She jumped up from her chair and grabbed her purse from the counter. Rummaging through it, she came up with the DVD Boris had given her hours before.

“What is that?” Angelica asked, swirling the wine in her glass.

“Video from the Coffee Bean’s surveillance camera. Boris Kozlov set it up to catch Deborah tossing her garbage in his Dumpster. He told me it shows who robbed the Happy Domestic last night.”

Angelica’s eyes snapped wide open. She got up and grabbed the jewel box from Tricia’s hand. “Let’s watch it.” Without waiting for an answer, Angelica headed for the living room and the DVD player.

Tricia tossed what was left of her papadum onto her plate and followed.

Angelica had the remote in her hand and the DVD drawer was already open by the time Tricia placed her dish on the coffee table and made herself comfortable on the leather couch. Angelica took the wing chair to her left, aimed the remote, and the drawer slid shut. The TV’s blank screen flashed gray and the alley behind the Coffee Bean came into view. Nothing happened for what seemed an eon. Tricia dug back into her curry.

“I think Boris is playing a joke on you,” Angelica said after a couple of minutes went by with no action on the tube.

“Give it a chance,” Tricia said, scraping the bottom of her plate. As she swallowed the last mouthful, a car pulled into the frame.

“Okay,” Angelica said with relish. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” But when the figure emerged from the car, its head was covered by the hood of a sweatshirt. “Damn!”

“Indeed,” Tricia agreed.

The person walked out of camera range. Tricia picked up her wineglass and sat back. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Tricia wished the burglar would hurry up and make a reappearance. After all, how long did it take to trash a small book and gift shop?

“This is pretty boring,” Angelica said, and got up from her chair, heading for the kitchen. “Do you want a refill?”

“ ‘I wouldn’t say no,’ ” Tricia said, quoting a line from one of John Mortimer’s Rumpole stories. It went right over Angelica’s head.

Angelica returned to the living room with the wine bottle, topped up Tricia’s glass, and made herself comfortable once again, before the hoody-clad figure returned to the TV screen, encumbered by a large carton.

“What do you suppose is in there?” Angelica asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Tricia said, studying the shape of the figure, which was not what she’d expected. She’d been expecting the person to be . . . rounder. More mature . . . more womanly. “Rats,” she groused.

“What?” Angelica asked.

“I thought for sure the robber was going to be Elizabeth Crane. But the person we just saw weighed a lot less than Elizabeth.”

“So who could it be?” Angelica asked.

Tricia shook her head as the figure disappeared from view once again. “Do you recognize the car?”

Angelica shrugged. “The only car I can identify, besides my own, is a Corvette, and Corvettes don’t have trunks like the one on the screen.”

“I’ll bet Captain Baker knows a lot more about cars than we do. If he or one of his men can identify it, they should be able to use the state DMV computer to narrow down the search within the Stoneham zip code.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, whoever it was had to know about the stock within the Happy Domestic. It was targeted, after all.”

“Didn’t Elizabeth say her other children were in town? What if she encouraged one of them to break in?” Angelica asked.

“I don’t want to speculate,” Tricia said.

“Well, I think you should call Captain Baker and report this right now,” Angelica said, and grabbed her wireless phone from its base, handing it to Tricia.

“But he’ll be off duty. It can wait until morning.”

“If Haven’t Got a Clue had been robbed, and one of your neighbors knew about the crime, would you want them to wait another day to report it?”

Tricia sighed. “I suppose not.”

“Call,” Angelica commanded.

Tricia knew better than to disobey such a direct order, and she punched in Grant Baker’s personal phone number. As she suspected, the call rolled over to voice mail. “Grant, it’s Tricia Miles. The owner of the Coffee Bean has given me a copy of a surveillance tape that appears to show the person who robbed the Happy Domestic last night. I told him he should report it to the Sheriff’s Department and that you would want to speak to him, but he pushed it on me, anyway. Please call me in the morning. Thanks.”

She clicked the button to end the call. “There. Happy?”

“Yes.” Angelica accepted the phone, replaced it on the base, and glanced at the clock. “It’s getting late. I still have paperwork to finish and your cat is waiting for you, probably worried sick.”

Tricia blinked at that comment. Angelica had never spoken of Miss Marple possessing humanlike emotions. No doubt little Sarge’s predicament had reminded her of her long-lost Pom-Pom.

“I’m going. And I shall shower my cat with affection,” she promised as she picked up her dishes and carried them to the sink. It was then she remembered the plans they’d made for the evening. “Good grief! Weren’t we supposed to meet Michele Fowler tonight?”

“She couldn’t make it, so I asked her about tomorrow. She said she’d meet us at some place called Nemo’s. Have you heard of it?”

“No.”

“I’ll look it up online and get directions.”

Tricia started for the door to the stairs. Angelica walked along with her. “Will you lock up downstairs?”

“Yes,” Tricia dutifully answered. “Thanks for feeding me. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” Angelica called, and locked the apartment door behind Tricia.

As she made her way down the stairs and through the Cookery, Tricia thought again about the figure in the video. It had to be a woman. But if it wasn’t Elizabeth Crane, who could it have been?