Mummified Meringues (22 page)

“Oh, he was dead all right. It’s just that he didn’t die from a punch or a blow from a baseball bat,” the man said.

Nans fixed him with a steely glare. “And just
who
are you, anyway?”

“
And
how did you find out about this meeting?” Davies added angrily.

The man shrugged. “I have my ways.”

Davies sighed. “This is detective Binder of the FBI.”
 

Davies made a round of introductions and Binder pulled a chair up to the table.

“So, you knew we were meeting the whole time?” Davies asked. “How?”

“We’re the Feds, we know everything,” Binder said importantly. “Our sources told us you were having this soiree and we bugged the room. We figured no one would open up to
us
and
we’d have a better chance of finding out the truth if we listened in. Anyway, we just got the full autopsy report back and Earl wasn’t killed by fighting with any of you.”

Davies brows rose. “Well, what killed him, then?”

“Poison.”

“What?” Paddy Sullivan’s forehead collapsed in layers of wrinkles. “How could that be? He was walking around fine. If he ate something poisonous, wouldn’t he have died where he ate it or at least have been physically sick?”

“It wasn’t
ingested
, it was
injected,
” Binder replied.

“What? How?” Davies asked.

“And when?” Jack added.

Binder shrugged. “
That
, we’re not sure about. The autopsy revealed traces of aconite in his tissue. It’s a poison. We think it may have been injected through a tiny pinhole in his neck, but it’s hard to tell, given the condition of his skin.”
 

“If someone injected him with a needle, why would he be just walking around the neighborhood?” Floyd asked.

“Maybe the poison made him delirious or something before he died,” Ron suggested. “He
was
acting strange.”

“Nope, that’s the thing. That kind of poison would kill him pretty much instantly.”

“Instantly?” Nans chewed her bottom lip. “But Floyd was the last one to see him alive.”

Everyone looked at Floyd, who spread his hands. “I didn’t inject him with any poison. Did you see any syringes on me? I wouldn’t even know how to use one.”

“You wouldn’t need to use a hypodermic. Just a prick of a needle with concentrated aconite on it could do the trick.” Binder glared at him. “Do you have a garden?”

“What?” Floyd looked at him like he was crazy. “No!”

“Why do you ask that?” Nans asked.

“The aconite comes from a plant. The wolfsbane plant,” Binder replied. “But we don’t think it was Floyd or any of you, anyway.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Nans said.
 

“So, you think it was one of the other people he scammed, then?” Davies asked.

“Scammed?” Binder’s brows creased for a second. “Oh, you mean that insurance thing. No, that’s not why we’re interested in, Earl.”

“Why are you, then?” Jack asked.

“Earl Schute was in the witness protection program. We lost track of him in nineteen-fifty-five. When we heard his body had surfaced, we had to come check it out.” Binder squirmed in his seat and glanced at the door. “You see, our department was the one that lost track of Earl and it’s been a black mark on us ever since. We get the crappiest cases—the bottom of the barrel—because of it. Of course, I wasn’t around then, but if I could close the case, it might redeem our status.”

“Witness protection?” Nans stared at Binder. “Why was he in there? Was he some kind of gangster?”

Binder nodded. “He ratted out his boss and we put him in protection.”

“I knew there was something odd about him,” Esther Witt said. “That explains the way he acted.”

“But what do you need to solve?” Nans asked. “I mean, now you know where he is and that he’s been dead all this time.”

“Earl testified against the mob boss, Harry Gooch. We think Harry sent one of his guys to kill him,” Binder said. “A particular assassin who used this type of poison. That assassin has been on our Most Wanted list for sixty years and if we could find him, that would go a long way toward raising the status of my department.”

“You think the assassin is still around?” Violet asked. “It’s been decades. He’s probably dead by now.”

“Maybe. But the mystery is that this particular assassin who has this M.O. disappeared the same time Earl did. I need to find out what happened to him, whether he is dead or alive.”

“M.O.?” Nans perked up. “What exactly was his M.O.?”

“He usually stalks his victim and kills using this poison. But the thing is, he doesn’t need to get near the victim—he shoots a poison dart. Then he cuts off a body part and sends it back for proof.”

“The toe!” Lexy blurted out.

Binder nodded. “Yep, Earl’s toe was cut off post-mortem. We think it was by this assassin.”

“And you think the assassin is one of us?” Floyd asked.

“No, that’s the thing. We checked you all out and you’ all lived here long before Earl showed up. Plus, we don’t show any of you traveling to the areas the assassin made his kills in. The assassin would have had a big deposit in his bank account after Earl’s kill was verified and none of you have that.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Floyd said. “And here all these years I thought I’d killed a man.”

“Me, too,” Ron echoed.

Paddy nodded. “As did I.”

“The thing is, very little is known about this guy,” Binder continued. “We call him Blow Gun Bennie because of the methods he uses. We don’t know his real name and no one has ever seen him. He’s been very clever.”

“Well, I’m just glad it wasn’t one of us,” Nans said. “And we don’t have to go to jail.”

“Oh, I didn’t say you weren’t going to jail. I just said you weren’t going for
murder
.” Binder leaned back in his chair. “But you’re all accessories. After all, you did dispose of the body and that
is
against the law.”

“Oh, dear.” Nans looked at him with wide eyes. “So you’re going to incarcerate all of us?”

“Well, I
could
… but I might be able to convince the judge to go easy on you if you help me out.”

“How can we help you?” Nans asked.

“You were all out there that night when Earl died. The assassin was out there, too. If any of you can give me information that helps us uncover the identity of the assassin, then I’ll make sure you all get off with probation and community service.”

“Well, obviously the assassin must have been the stranger,” Lexy blurted out.

“Stranger?” Nans looked at her quizzically, then her brows shot up. “Oh, yes, how could I forget? You all remember the stranger that was around the neighborhood back then, right?”

The others nodded.
 

Binder’s brows shot up and he leaned in toward the middle of the table. “Tell me about him. What did he look like?”

They all talked at once.

“Tall.”

“Medium.”

“Blonde.”

“Dark.”

Binder’s brows crept higher on his forehead with each person’s description. “That sounds like more than one person. But our sources tell us he may have been a master of disguise. Maybe he just changed his look so no one could describe him.”

Nans nodded. “That’s probably it.”

“Did any of you talk to him?” Binder asked.

They glanced at each other and Nans spoke. “I don’t believe so. We all just kind of saw him lurking around.”

“Where?”

“On the street and in the yards.”

“Did it seem like he was stalking Earl?”

“Now that you mention it, I think he was.” Nans turned to Paddy, Ron and Floyd. “Don’t you guys think he was?”

“Oh, yeah,” Paddy said.

“Yep,” came from Ron.

“I’m pretty sure I saw him poking around Earl’s yard,” Floyd added.

“How long was he around?”

“Just a few weeks that summer.” Nans scrunched up her face in thought. “It wasn’t more than two weeks.”

Binder pressed his lips together, and his eyes sparked. “This could be our guy.”

“Yes,” Nans said. “I do believe you could be right because I don’t recall seeing him at all after Earl died.”

“Is that right?” Binder looked at Paddy, Ron, Floyd and Violet.

“Yep, I didn’t see him after,” Paddy said.

Ron looked at Esther. “I don’t remember seeing him after Earl died, do you?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“Me, either, Violet said.

“Nor me,” Floyd added.

“So, you see, we’ve solved the mystery.” Nans looked at Binder. “So you’ll help us avoid jail time, like you said?”

“No. I said I’d help you if you gave us information that helped us uncover the
identity
of the assassin. You’ve only verified a stranger was on the street. That doesn’t help us figure out who he is.”

Nans bristled. “Well, how are we supposed to help you do that?”

Binder stood up. “Give us something concrete to go on and then I’ll think about helping you.”

He walked toward the door and had it halfway open when Nans asked; “What do you mean by concrete?”

Binder turned. “Something tangible. A clue that leads me to a person. But you’d better hurry. You only have two days and after that, the deal is off.”

And with that, Binder stepped out into the hall and closed the door, leaving them all looking at each other and wondering how in the world they were going to come up with a concrete clue in only two days.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Lexy, Nans and the neighbors headed to
The Cup and Cake,
which they hoped the FBI hadn’t bugged. They didn’t want them to overhear their conversation. Davies and Jack had police business to attend to, so it was only Lexy, Nans, Violet, the Sullivan’s, the Witt’s and Floyd Nichols. They pulled two tables together and sat down to discuss their plan.

Lexy tingled with anxiety—she should have been in the kitchen, focusing on her meringue cookie recipes for the dessert contest, but instead she was out here, seated across from her rival, Violet Switzer, and trying to keep Nans out of jail.

She glanced at Violet out of the corner of her eye. Was she scoping out the bakery? Lexy hoped the older woman wouldn’t find something in here to use against her and get a leg up in the contest, but the truth was that Violet’s demeanor had changed since the meeting at the police station. She wasn’t combative or snarky anymore—quite the contrary. Lexy hated to say it, but Violet was acting nice. Then again, maybe that was part of her plan to throw Lexy off-kilter.

“What does he mean by something concrete?” Paddy asked as he bit into an almond scone.

“I guess something physical, that you can hold in your hand,” Floyd answered.

“Or maybe a lead to a real person, like an address or something,” Esther suggested.

“Well, it’s going to be kind of hard to get anything like that,” Ron said.
 

Lexy nodded. “Right, because it happened over fifty years ago and any physical evidence of the stranger would be gone by now.”

“Well, that …” Nans looked at Lexy and grimaced. “And also because there was no stranger.”

Lexy jerked her head back. Had she heard Nans correctly? “What?”

“We made it up,” Nans confessed.

Lexy’s brows drew together. “Why?”

“When I heard Earl’s body had been discovered, I knew someone would come asking questions. So I high-tailed it over to the McDonalds’, then to Floyd, Paddy and Ron and we agreed to pretend we all saw a stranger. That way, we could act like the stranger had killed Earl.”

“Except we forgot to get together on the description,” Mary said.

“We never dreamed there really
was
another person … we thought one of us killed him!” Nans added.
 

“But if there was no actual stranger, then who really killed Earl?” Lexy looked around the table, but everyone seemed just as perplexed as she was as to who the real killer could be.

Nans shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I guess the assassin really was lurking around and we didn’t know it at the time.”

“Right,” Ron said. “Binder said this Blow Gun Bennie shoots the darts from a distance. He must have been hiding behind the houses and shot Earl when he was fighting with Floyd.”

“That would explain why you thought Earl had fallen into the punch,” Nans said to Floyd. “He really did fall and he was already dead before his face hit your hand.”

Floyd shuddered. “Well, I’m glad Bennie had good aim. He could have missed and hit me.”

“Yeah, but the problem still remains,” Paddy said. “How are we going to get this concrete evidence Binder wants?”

Violet, who had been quietly listening, said matter-of-factly, “We’ll just have to manufacture it.”

Floyd looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “Now, Violet, I don’t know if you want to get involved. If the Feds catch us manufacturing evidence to support our lie about this stranger, we could be in even more trouble than we already are. And you weren’t even involved in killing Earl … why, you just happened across us that night and helped us out in an act of neighborly kindness.”