Scam Chowder (3 page)

Granddad pointed a fork mounded with pie at Val. “I think he faked it.”

Val leaned toward him. “Why would Scott do that?” Maybe because he got wind of Granddad's plans to trap him. She took another bite of pie and waited for her grandfather to answer, but he just stuffed pie in his mouth. Val looked at Lillian. No response there either. “I saw Scott's face, Granddad. Unless he applied sallow makeup, he wasn't faking. And unless he's really good at sound effects, he was sick in the bathroom.”

“Remember that syrup your mother gave you when she thought you ate poisonous berries? It made you upchuck really fast.”

“Ipecac.” Lillian cut off a dainty morsel of her pie. “It's off the market, but I'm sure it's still in a lot of medicine cabinets. Hardly anyone disposes of old meds.”

Hardly anyone could name an off-the-market drug as fast as Lillian. Val had nearly forgotten about the berries and their aftermath, but hearing the word
ipecac
brought the unpleasant memory back. “I can't imagine anyone taking that foul stuff intentionally, unless they needed it.” But she could imagine a foul-minded person slipping it into someone else's food and then claiming that food was poisoned.

Granddad pushed away his empty dessert plate. “That was mighty good, if I do say so myself.”

Lillian rested her fork on a plate that still had two good bites of pie on it. “It's time I went back to the Village.”

Granddad reached for her hand. “Won't you stay awhile? We can watch a movie.”

“No, I suspect you're as tired as I am. Thank you, Don, for the lovely dinner party.”

Val nearly choked on her pie. A lovely party, when one guest collapses in pain and the others scatter without finishing their food? Lillian must have attended some brutal dinner parties in her life.

Granddad's girlfriend stood up, smoothing the creases in her Capri pants. She had a trim figure for a woman pushing seventy and could have modeled in a jewelry ad. Rings with sparkling rocks encircled the fourth finger of each hand. Gold chains of different lengths glimmered against her powder blue silk top. The jewelry looked expensive to Val, but what did she know about such things? She'd chucked the only pricey bauble she'd ever worn, a diamond solitaire ring, flinging it at the feet of the man who'd given it to her. She regretted some of her impetuous acts, but not that one.

While Granddad saw Lillian to the door, Val stayed in the dining room, wondering how to coax more information from him about tonight's dinner. She'd rather not tell him she'd overheard him talking to Lillian about trapping a con man.

She glanced toward the hall and saw him close the front door. “How about another sliver of pie, Granddad?” An offer he couldn't refuse . . . she hoped.

“Don't mind if I do.” He returned to the dining room. “It might cheer me up.”

She put seconds on his plate, delivered it to the table, and sat down. “Why did you invite Thomasina and her son to dinner tonight?”

Granddad's fork stopped on its way to his mouth. “She's one of the best-looking women at the Village, next to Lillian, of course. And Scott visits his mother on weekends. I couldn't leave him out.”

He could have thrown the dinner party on a weekday and left Scott out, but not if the scammer was the guest of honor, as Lillian had said. “With all the excitement, I never introduced myself to Scott and his mother. What's their last name?”

“His name is Freaze,
F-R-E-A-Z-E.
Thomasina's name is Weal,
W-E-A-L.
I don't know if she went back to her maiden name after she split up with Scott's father, or if she remarried and got a new name that way.”

“What kind of work does Scott do?”

Her grandfather dug into his pie and took his time answering. “Investment management. He gives seminars at the Village.”

A good place to troll for investors to swindle. “Did you go to any of his seminars?”

“I've heard about them. Why are you asking me about him?”

Uh-oh
. Granddad's guard was up. She'd better drop the subject of Scott for now. “Just curious about your guests. Who's Omar?”

“A family friend of Lillian's. He was nearby and wanted to see her. We set an extra place at the table for him. And don't ask me his last name. I don't think Lillian said it when she introduced him.”

“Where does he live?”

Granddad shrugged. “Thomasina asked him if he lived on the Eastern Shore. He said he was just passing through.” He stroked his chin. “Odd thing. Scott kept looking at Omar like he was trying to place him. They didn't say anything about knowing each other.”

“When Scott left the house, he shook off Omar's help and leaned on his mother and me.” By then, he might have figured out how he knew Omar and wanted nothing to do with him.

Granddad scraped up the last of his pie and stood up.

Val followed him to the kitchen. She'd better warn him about Irene's hidden agenda. “I didn't expect to see Irene Pritchard here tonight.”

“Me neither. Junie May asked if she could bring a guest. She didn't tell me who she was bringing.”

“I can guess why Junie May contacted you and brought Irene with her tonight. Irene convinced her to interview you.”

Granddad's mouth turned down in skepticism. “I don't think so. Junie May interviews prominent local people all the time.”

“Prominent people around here live in waterfront estates that have names like English country houses. They're business tycoons, best-selling authors, and former cabinet members.” The local rag's recipe writer was so far down the Eastern Shore's celebrity totem pole, he was buried in the ground. “Irene's a generation older than Junie May. They have nothing obvious in common. Yet they came here together because they had a common purpose—to expose the Codger Cook as a fraud.”

Granddad dropped his dessert dish in the sink with a clatter. “What?”

“Irene wants to get back at both of us. She was slated to manage the Cool Down Café until I came along. Then when you won the contest for the new recipe columnist, she was furious because she expected to win. She went around saying you knew nothing about cooking and I was writing the column for you.”

Granddad frowned. “Why didn't you tell me that?”

“I didn't want to upset you. She was on a rampage that day and even accused me of withholding evidence in a murder.” Totally false, unlike Irene's claim about the recipe column. “What difference would it have made if I told you what she said? You weren't going to turn her away at the door tonight.”

“I wouldn't have been so nice to her. You shouldn't keep secrets from me. How am I supposed to protect myself if I don't know who my enemies are?”

“Protect yourself or protect your Codger Cook scam?”

His face turned red, a stark contrast to his white fringes of hair. “It's not a scam. I'm not harming anyone or taking their money.” He glared at her.

She opened the door to the dishwasher and stepped back from the blast of hot, moist air. “You keep secrets from me too.”

The phone rang and stopped her from telling him something that would have steamed him even more—that she'd eavesdropped on his scam chowder conversation with Lillian.

“I'll get it.” He hustled out of the kitchen toward the front hall, the only place on the first floor with a landline.

She gave up on emptying the dishwasher until the plates cooled off. She walked past the hall toward the study and heard him say into the phone, “I'm sorry to hear that, Thomasina.”

Val felt a sense of dread so strong it took her breath away.

Chapter 3

Granddad hung up the hall phone and swept his hand across his forehead as if wiping away sweat. “That was Thomasina. She says Scott's worse. In pain and upchucking.”

Val released a relieved breath. She'd feared even worse news. “She called just to tell you that?”

“To find out if anyone else got sick. I told her they were all fine when they left.” The skin around his eyes and mouth sagged as if gravity exerted more power than usual. “Irene had a chance to put that upchuck syrup in the chowder. She sneaked into the kitchen when Thomasina and Scott came to the door. I got away as soon as I could and found Irene in the kitchen by herself.”

Val remembered how long she'd sat on the staircase after hearing the doorbell ring and the dog bark. “She had enough time to contaminate the chowder, but I tasted the creamy chowder after that, and I feel fine.”

He pointed his index finger at her. “Maybe you didn't get enough of it, or you ate it before her secret ingredient had time to dissolve. She wouldn't care how many people she made sick, as long as she wasn't one of them.”

Val couldn't disagree with his assessment of Irene's character, but his scenario had a few weak points. “To contaminate a whole pot of creamy chowder, she'd have needed a lot of ipecac or whatever else—”

“She had a purse as big as a carpetbag with her, and she took it with her to the kitchen.”

“But with no leftover chowder, we have no proof Irene added anything to it. Did you throw out the chowder or did Lillian?”

Granddad scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling as if checking for a leak. “I threw it out, but it was Irene's idea to chuck it.”

Val believed the second half of his answer, but not the first. “Irene will look ridiculous if she keeps harping on food poisoning. I'm going to research foodborne illnesses on medical websites to prove she's wrong.”

She went into the study while he stood near the sitting-room fireplace, staring into space. She sat at her computer and jiggled the mouse to awaken the display. The sites she checked confirmed what she'd told Irene earlier. “I was right, Granddad. Most types of food poisoning take a day or more to sicken people. Staph could appear in as short a time as two hours, but Scott's symptoms came on much faster than that.”

A few more seconds at her computer should settle whether she or Granddad was right about the definition of
scam.
She brought up her favorite online dictionary.

Granddad came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. “That's not a medical site. You looked up
scam.
What does it say?
A scheme to obtain money or something else of value through the use of false pretenses.
” He straightened up. “So you were wrong. The Codger Cook column is not a scam. No one's losing anything of value because of it.”

Val could have said that the pittance the newspaper paid for the column gave him money that a more qualified recipe writer ought to receive, but she had a stronger argument. “See what else it says on the screen?
False pretenses include confidence tricks in which individuals misrepresent themselves as experts.
You've misrepresented yourself as a food expert and gained something of value, a reputation as a cook.” She expected him to argue with her, as usual.

Instead, he said nothing. His shoulders slumped. “It's late. I'm going to bed.” He shuffled out of the room.

Full of pep before the dinner party, he'd looked forward to impressing a TV reporter and outmaneuvering a con man. In the last two hours, he'd aged ten years, resembling a man in his eighties rather than his seventies. Val wished she hadn't added to his burdens tonight by labeling his column a scam
.

She followed him down the hall to his room. “For a while, you were trying out my recipes before submitting them, but not recently. Go back to doing that. Before long, you'll
become
the cook you pretend to be.”

He closed his door and probably his ears to her suggestion.

She returned to the computer and typed “Scott Freaze” in a search box. His investment business, located in a suburb of Washington, D.C., had dozens of clients that rated his services as “good,” “very good,” or “excellent.” A handful of reviewers rated his services lower, saying their investments didn't do as well as they anticipated. Given that clients unhappy with a product or service were more likely to post an online review than those pleased with it, Scott had decent ratings. Of course, he could have paid people to write positive reviews.

Val tried a more specific search. Coupling Scott's name with
scam, swindle,
or
fraud
didn't produce any hits. If he only ripped off the elderly, though, he victimized the people least likely to complain about him online. Or maybe he wasn't a scammer after all.

 

 

The Cool Down Café at the Bayport Racket and Fitness Club had barely a dozen customers the following morning. Val couldn't attract breakfast eaters despite the enticing aromas of freshly brewed coffee and the vanilla-and-butter scent of baked French toast. No one was around to sniff those aromas on a beautiful Sunday in late July. Temperatures in the mid-eighties and uncharacteristically low humidity drove the fitness worshippers outdoors. Who'd want to climb on a treadmill or recumbent bike when they could jog or cycle in peace along the water's edge? Who'd want to sit at a rowing machine looking at treadmills when they could paddle on the river? With the tennis leagues on hiatus until September, the club's courts attracted fewer players. Most of Val's tennis teammates had left town for vacation.

The morning's high point occurred around eleven o'clock when Val had two occupied bistro tables. Three women, who faithfully attended the Sunday-morning yoga class, sat at one table, a pair of college-age men at another.

Val was making a fresh pot of coffee when she heard footsteps. Her tennis teammate and café assistant, Bethany O'Shay, galumphed toward her in magenta clogs.

“So, Val, food poisoning at your house?” Bethany's voice matched her clothes—loud. Her bubblegum pink peasant top bloused over a cranberry red skirt. The colors clashed with her tangle of ginger curls. “How did the food get poisoned?”

“It didn't.” Val glanced at the bistro tables. Her customers had given up talking and eating in favor of listening. Here was her chance to set the record straight, even if just for a small audience. She matched Bethany's loud tones. “A man came to dinner and got sick before anything he ate at our house could have bothered him.”

Bethany approached the counter where Val stood. “So he ate something bad before he went to your house?”

“I didn't say that. He probably had a stomach virus.”

Bethany sat at the eating bar. “I hope you didn't get anywhere near him.”

The women at a bistro table pushed their half-eaten yogurt parfaits away and stood up. One of the young men eyed his quiche with suspicion. Val had to restrain herself from shouting,
My name isn't Typhoid Mary!

She walked around the counter and sat on the stool next to Bethany's. With their backs to the customers, they could have a private conversation. “Where did you hear about last night's dinner?”

“People were talking about it outside the church.”

“Does Irene Pritchard go to your church?” At Bethany's nod, Val continued, “She's the source of the food-poisoning lie. She's been dissing my grandfather for weeks.”

“Then how come he invited her to dinner?”

“He didn't. Another guest at the dinner brought her along. I really appreciate your coming by and telling me what you heard.” Earlier in the summer, Bethany had worked in the café from late morning to closing time at two. Val felt bad about hiring her as an assistant and then cutting back on her hours barely more than a month later. But with café profits down, she had no choice. “Want something to eat? Besides the usual lunch stuff, I have a lot of breakfast leftovers.”

“Breakfast here is mostly grains and dairy. They're a no-no on my diet.”

Bethany could use a few more no-no's in her clothes-shopping list. Her neon colors and ruffles suited the six-year-old girls she taught, but they made a generously proportioned woman like her look bulky.

“What kind of food is a yes-yes on this diet?” Val hoped it had more variety than Bethany's previous diet, which required downing cabbage soup at every meal.

“Lots of meat and some fruit and nuts. It's the caveman diet.”

Val hadn't discouraged Bethany from going on the cabbage soup diet. Though unappetizing, it wouldn't do any harm. The caveman diet didn't sound healthy. “Cavemen had a life expectancy of thirty years. Let's say you follow that diet for five years. By then, you'll be thirty. A diet based on animal proteins and fats will take its toll.”

“You're exaggerating.”

A little, and Val should have saved her breath, given that Bethany's diets had a life expectancy of five days.

Val's cell phone chimed. She jumped off the stool, walked around the counter, and picked up the phone she'd left near the coffee machine. Her mother was calling. Odd. She usually called the landline at the house rather than Val's cell phone.

“Hi, Mom. I'm at the café. Can I call you back later?”

“Don't call me from the house. I want to talk to you about something your grandfather shouldn't hear.”

Val's curiosity kicked in. What did Mom want to hide from her own father? “Okay. Give me a second.” She put the phone against her shoulder and said to Bethany. “Can you take over for a few minutes?”

“Sure.” Bethany clomped to the food prep side of the counter.

Val took the phone to the café's far corner, where a table for six offered the most privacy. She sat on the settee. “What's up, Mom?”

“I found out something about your grandfather that worries me.”

Could her mother, two thousand miles away in Florida, have heard about last night's dinner party? News goes viral in a small town as fast as it does on the Internet, and Mom, who'd grown up in Bayport, still had friends here, aka spies. “What have you heard?”

“That he's taken up with a good-looking woman ten years younger than he is.” Her mother's voice sounded as if she'd had to force the words through pursed lips.

Val released the breath she'd been holding. With any luck, rumors about last night's dinner would blow over before they blew south. “Who told you that?”

“Ned called me. Don't tell your grandfather. He might turn on his best friend for talking behind his back. Do you know anything about this woman?”

“Granddad's been seeing someone for the last five or six weeks. Her name's Lillian. I don't know if she's a whole decade younger, but she's close.”

“Ned said she might be a gold digger. What do you think?”

Based on Lillian's jewelry last night, Val would call her a gold
flaunter,
but that didn't necessarily make her a
digger.
“Fortunately, Granddad doesn't have much gold to dig. He always says Ned's a worrywart.”

“Don't let your grandfather's tightwad ways fool you. He has money squirreled away. Besides that, he has the house. What happens to it if he marries her?”

While her mother talked, a long-legged blonde in formfitting shorts and a top that bared her midriff came into the café. Spandex Barbie sat on a stool at the eating bar. Bethany approached her.

“What were we talking about, Mom? Oh yeah, the house. If Granddad marries Lillian, you probably won't inherit it, but you never planned on moving back anyway.”

“This isn't about inheriting. Dad and I have enough to be comfortable, but Lillian may push
you
out of the house.”

Keep that from happening,
a little demon inside Val growled, but a sweeter voice reminded her not to be selfish. “Then I'll find somewhere else to live. If Lillian makes Granddad happy and he wants her to move in, it's none of my business.”

“But will she make him happy? He's been glum since your grandmother died. If Lillian takes him for all he's worth or even drops him suddenly, he may go into full-blown depression. That's really dangerous for older people.”

Val could dismiss all her mother's concerns except that one. “What do you want me to do?”

“Dig up what you can about her. I understand she's not from around there. Find out where she comes from and what brought her to Bayport.”

“I'll look into it, Mom.”

“And keep your grandfather busy so he has less time to spend with women. Make him cook instead of just modifying your recipes for his column.”

“That would keep me busy too, cleaning up after his kitchen disasters. Speaking of busy, I'd better get back to work.”

Val ended the call, stood up, and walked toward the counter. Bethany raised her chin at Val and flicked her wrist three times. Val checked her step. What did the pantomime mean?

The woman at the eating bar leaned down to rummage in her athletic bag. Bethany mouthed
no
and used her wrist again to shoo Val away.

Val shrugged, went back to the settee, and made a pretense of using her phone. Though the café alcove was small, the music blasting from the adjacent exercise room kept her from hearing anything said at the counter. That left her nothing to do but look at the back of the spandex woman's head and her hair woven into a French braid. Even if Val's hair suddenly uncurled itself and turned sleek, she wouldn't have the dexterity or the patience to plait it in such an intricate way. And it would take a lot of peroxide to turn her cinnamon-colored hair blond.