Final Fondue (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) (14 page)

“No, leave it with me. If the fingerprints belong to Fawn’s husband, we’ll know he’s in the vicinity. Someone reported seeing her talking to a man just as the fireworks were starting.”

Val waited for more details about the man, but the chief didn’t supply any. “Does Fawn have any other family?”

The chief grunted. “The hardest part of my job is talking to the victim’s family. I spoke with her parents. The mother’s coming here today. I told her I couldn’t release her daughter’s body because we’re still waiting for the autopsy results from Baltimore.”

“Is an autopsy necessary?”

“Suspicious deaths always trigger autopsies, though there isn’t much doubt what killed Fawn. The rope around the neck did the trick.”

“Did she have any other injuries, like bruises or wounds?”

“Only those consistent with struggling to save herself and clawing at the ligature.” The chief leaned back in his chair. “According to the medical examiner, Fawn was eating strawberries and chocolate when she was killed.”

A final act that any chocoholic would appreciate. “Granddad served fondue in the afternoon. Fawn helped herself to seconds Friday night. Did you find a fondue fork in the yard? One of ours is missing.”

“No, and we looked for a fork. We figured she must have used one because she didn’t have strawberry juice and chocolate on her fingers, only around her mouth.”

“We also have a missing knife. Maybe the killer took the fork and the knife.” Both might still be in the house. “Can you search the bedrooms at the house for evidence? Granddad would give you permission.”

The chief smiled. “Your mother asked me the same question. Didn’t she tell you what I said about that?”

Val couldn’t resist walking through the door the chief had opened. “Mom doesn’t talk to me about her conversations with you.” No sign of discomfort or embarrassment from Chief Yardley, but of course he’d had years of practicing the poker face while interviewing suspects.

“Then I’ll tell you what I told her. Except for the victim’s room, we can’t even go into the other bedrooms unless the people who paid to stay there let us. We can turn those rooms upside-down if we have a search warrant, but we need probable cause to get one.” The chief checked his watch. “Anything else you want to talk about?”

Yes. What’s going on with you and my mother?
Val bit back the question. That was no more her business than her relationship with Tony was Mom’s business. “Nothing else. Thanks for your time.”

The chief escorted her to the door. “By the way, Fawn’s mother said she wanted to see where her daughter died. I’m sure your granddaddy won’t mind. I’ll phone him when I know what time she’ll be there, probably this evening.”

Once outside police headquarters, Val called Gunnar and was surprised that she’d woken him. Being a zombie must have been tiring if he was still asleep at ten thirty. He agreed to meet her at the booth at eleven so they could go to the maze.

The missing fondue fork occupied Val’s mind on the short drive back to the festival. Fawn’s killer might have taken it to make sure the police didn’t test it for incriminating evidence. Maybe Fawn had shared her fondue and fork with the person who then strangled her. She’d only do that with someone she knew and didn’t fear. Hard to imagine she’d share her chocolate with the husband she was divorcing and whose debts she had to pay.

When Val arrived back at the booth, she heard business had been slow.

“A lot of people are probably at church,” Tanisha said. “A really gorgeous guy came looking for you half an hour ago. Dark hair, nice smile.”

A description of Gunnar, except for the gorgeous part. “That would be Tony, my former fiancé.”

“
Former
fiancé? I told him you’d be back soon. He said he’d stop by again at eleven. I hope that’s okay.”

“That’s fine.”

Or was it?
Val looked at her watch. Gunnar was picking her up for their trip to the maze just about the time Tony planned to return. She could call Gunnar and suggest they go to the maze later, but heck, why should she adjust her schedule for Tony? He rarely showed up when he said he would anyway.

He broke with tradition this time, arriving two minutes early.

She grabbed her shoulder bag and met him outside the booth. “I can’t talk to you now, Tony. I have—” She was about to say an appointment. With Gunnar approaching, she changed her mind. “I have a date.”

Tony’s face sagged. “I’ve checked out of my hotel. I don’t want to stay here another night, but I also don’t want to leave without talking to you.”

“I’ll make time, but not now.”

“Call me when you’re free, okay? Or I’ll call you.”

It sounded like an ultimatum. He would bug her until she heard him out. She stepped toward Gunnar, smiling.

No answering smile from him. “My car’s this way.” He pivoted and took big strides walking back the way he’d come. “I thought you weren’t going to have anything to do with Tony. Now he’s going to call you or you’re going to call him?”

Her shoulders tensed. She felt like a rope in a tug-of-war, her mother yanking her one way, Gunnar pulling the other way. “I had no idea you had such a jealous streak.”

“This isn’t about me. It’s about you and Tony.”

She had trouble keeping up with Gunnar because he was walking so fast. “I told you Tony meant nothing to me. That doesn’t mean I won’t talk to him. I don’t
owe
him a hearing, but after he’s come all this way, I’ll give him one.”

Tony’s arrival had touched off something in Gunnar she’d never seen before. If he couldn’t handle her talking to another man, they had no future with each other. They walked in silence for a minute.

He stopped and faced her. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. Something about Tony just rubs me the wrong way.”

Val’s shoulders uncramped. “You’re a good judge of his character.” But not of hers. “Let’s not talk about him.”

As Gunnar drove to the maze, they stuck to a safe subject—the murder. She told him what she’d learned from Payton and the chief.

Once inside the maze, he stopped at each intersection where they turned and took photos, like digital breadcrumbs. Without eerie noises and scary scarecrows, strolling on corn-lined paths was pleasant. The cornstalks rustled in a wind stronger than last night’s, but seeing the stalks swaying in the breeze made the sound less ominous. Along the way, they encountered families with children and groups of less rowdy teenagers than those who’d visited the maze last night.

Val marked their progress on the maze map. “The last time I went through the maze in daylight, I took the most efficient route and didn’t pay any attention to the other paths. According to the map, if you make a wrong turn at a signpost, either you’ll come to a dead end and have to go back, or you’ll circle around to the same spot. You can’t get lost. You’ll just take longer to go through the maze.”

They arrived at signpost five in half the time it took Val and Bethany to reach it last night. From there they turned onto the path to the left.

Gunnar slowed down after a while. “This looks like a familiar bunch of cornstalks.”

Val studied the corn plants on either side of the path. They looked the same as all the corn in the maze. “Seriously? Growing up in the Midwest means you can distinguish one group of corn plants from another?”

He laughed. “Just joking. When I took up my post yesterday, I counted the number of paces from the last turn to my hiding spot.”

“Now for the challenge. Which paths did you take when we heard Jennifer call for help? Bethany went running after you, and I followed her, but I wasn’t paying attention to how long we stayed on one path before we turned on another.”

Fortunately, Gunnar had an unerring sense of direction and a feel for how long it would take them to walk as far as he had run the night before. They soon reached the place where they’d come upon Jennifer the previous night.

He walked a little further along the path and pointed to flattened cornstalks. “There’s where she hid among the corn.”

“Now let’s go back to the intersection where Bethany and I met Sarina and Noah. From there, we might be able to figure out where those two started their search for Jennifer.”

They reversed direction on the path. Something on the ground under the cornstalks caught Val’s attention. A really long worm? She stopped short and bent down for a better view.

No, not a worm. A rope with loops, like the one she’d seen around Fawn’s neck. Val felt a sudden chill.

Val crouched for a better look at the cord on the ground. She pointed to it. “Look, Gunnar.”

He squatted next to her and took off his sunglasses. “A length of rope perfect for a strangler. You have a loop at each end for your hands. You cross your wrists.” He stood up and crossed his wrists, pretending to have a rope in his fists. “You slip the rope over the victim’s head and tighten it by yanking sideways on the ends.”

Val recoiled at the sudden outward jerk of his arms and nearly fell over. “Where did you learn how to strangle someone?”

“From a buddy who went through combat training. You approach from behind so the victim can’t see you coming and fight you off. Is the rope the same type the strangler used?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t study it.” She stood up. “That looks like a complicated knot. Who would know how to tie it?”

“It’s actually a simple knot—a bowline. Boy Scouts learn it. Boaters use it. It’s easy to tie or untie if the rope is slack, tight and reliable if the rope is taut.” Gunnar stepped to the side of the path to allow a family with two preteens to go by.

Val said nothing until she was sure the family couldn’t hear her. “I was ready to chalk up what happened in the maze last night to Jennifer’s panic, but the rope suggests that Fawn’s strangler was here or that someone wants to give that impression.”

“Don’t rule out a sick joke. The strangling is big news. Imagine a teenager telling his friend,
Don’t mess with me, or I’ll make you my next victim. I’ve got my rope right here.
He pulls it out of his pocket.” Gunnar reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a phantom rope. “Then the kids horse around, drop the rope, and can’t find it in the dark.”

“I’d be more willing to believe that if this rope were lying somewhere else, not on the path where Jennifer ended up.” Val rummaged in her shoulder bag for her cell phone. “Chief Yardley has been working on the theory that Fawn was murdered by her ex-husband. The second rope may convince him that Fawn wasn’t the target. Jennifer was, and she’s still in danger.”

While she called Chief Yardley, Gunnar studied the maze map. The chief told her to stay where she was and make sure no one touched the rope. He would relay her news to the sheriff’s office, and someone would call her with further instructions.

“Should I alert Jennifer about it?” she asked.

“If I think she needs to know, I’ll tell her. Don’t say anything to anybody about this. Too much information is leaking, making folks nervous.” The chief clicked off.

Gunnar pointed to where they were on the map. “This is an alternate path to the maze exit. Plenty of people could have walked along here and dropped the rope, either before or after Jennifer was here.”

“Sure, other people
could
have come this way. Sarina and Noah definitely did. Either of them could have brought the rope with them, Sarina in her tapestry shoulder bag and Noah in a pocket of his cargo pants. And they both have a reason to resent Jennifer.”

“Why would they ditch the weapon among the corn?”

Val paced on the narrow path between the cornstalks. “We were all standing in this spot when you announced that the maze manager was coming to fetch us with a sheriff’s deputy. The person with the rope might throw it away in case the deputy searched people for weapons as they left the maze. In the dark the rest of us wouldn’t have noticed someone dropping a rope.”

Val’s phone chimed. She answered it. Deputy Holtzman from the sheriff’s department was at the maze entrance and asked if she could guide him to her location. She suppressed a groan. She and the deputy had clashed during a previous murder investigation. He would be an obnoxious addition to the weekend’s already foul stew. She’d love to direct him to paths that would get him hopelessly lost, but that would just delay her return to town. She used the map and Gunnar’s photos to put the deputy on the most efficient route.

When the deputy had one more turn to make, Val muted the phone and said to Gunnar, “The last time this deputy investigated a murder, he accused me of playing Nancy Drew. I don’t want to listen to that again. Don’t tell him we’re trying to reconstruct what happened last night.” She tucked the map in her shoulder bag.

The grim-faced Deputy Holtzman wore a Stetson-like hat that shaded his protruding eyes and most of his doughy face from the sun. The deputy accompanying him was the young one who’d asked questions last night after Jennifer was chased. Val pointed out the rope under the cornstalks.

After peering at it, Holtzman asked Gunnar to provide his colleague with contact information. As they moved a few yards away, Holtzman turned his raptor eyes on Val. “No need to give us your contact information, Ms. Deniston. We have it in our files. Why did you call the police about this find of yours?”

“It resembles the rope I saw in the backyard the night Fawn Finchley was strangled.”

“You realize, Ms. Deniston, that you and your grandfather are the only people outside law enforcement who know what the rope used in the murder looked like.”

As usual, Val’s blood pressure rose in his presence. When he was investigating a murder three months ago, he’d treated her like a suspect and implied she was withholding evidence.
Here we go again.
“Are you suggesting I planted that rope?” Or possibly even committed the murder?

“I’m curious how you happened to find it. It’s well camouflaged.” His bulging eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Is this where last night’s chase occurred?”

“The place where Jennifer hid from her pursuer is farther along this path.” Val swiveled and pointed toward the place where the cornstalks had been pushed aside.

“Why did you come back to this path today?”

He made it sound as if she’d returned to the scene of her crime. She’d lost her temper with him in the past, and now he was needling her, daring her to do it again. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to his bait. Taking deep breaths and counting to ten, she quelled her anger. “To enjoy a daytime visit after my night visit was cut short.”

He waved her away as the young deputy and Gunnar joined them. “You can leave now. Keep quiet about this rope. If word gets out, I’ll know who to blame.”

Val marched away, seething, and grabbed Gunnar’s arm. “Let’s go.” She tugged him away.

They quickly reached the intersection where she and Bethany had met Noah and Sarina while searching for Jennifer last night. Val unfolded the maze map.

Using the map and Gunnar’s estimates of the time between Jennifer’s first and last cries for help, they found the spot where the wedding group had split up.

On the map Val traced the paths that Jennifer, Noah, and Sarina had taken, based on what the three had said the night before. “See how the path on the left, which Noah took, eventually converges with the path Jennifer took. So he could have chased her.”

Gunnar looked over Val’s shoulder at the map. “You said Sarina was supposed to take the path back in the direction they’d come. She wouldn’t have met up with Jennifer that way.”

“But what if Sarina switched paths, once Noah was out of sight? If she went to the right, instead of back, she could have caught up with Jennifer and chased her part of the way.”

“I’ll buy that either of them could have chased her, but not to put a rope around her neck. They would be the obvious suspects if she were found strangled.”

True, but Val had another idea. “What if they didn’t want to kill her, only scare her? Drop a rope on the path, pretend to find it, and convince Jennifer that a strangler was after her.”

A middle-aged couple approached them. The man looked at the sky, and the woman asked, “You have a map? Could we see it, please?”

After the couple returned the map, Val said, “I think we’re done here, Gunnar. Let’s head out. Do you want the map?”

“It’s imprinted on my brain. Let’s go.” He led the way. “You sound convinced that Noah or Sarina brought a rope to the maze and chased Jennifer to frighten her. I don’t buy it. If Sarina resented her because the blind date didn’t turn out as planned, she’d have dropped her as a friend. She wouldn’t take part in the wedding or wait months to take a lame-brained form of revenge.”

Val couldn’t argue with him. “True, and hardly anyone expects blind dates to work out. But Noah has more reason to resent Jennifer.”

“Why? She’s probably the only pretty woman who ever looked twice at him. And he introduced her to his rich, handsome friend. What an idiot. He’s kicking himself, not blaming her, and he’s hanging around, hoping the dude dumps her. Then she’ll cry on Noah’s shoulder and, if he’s lucky, decide she really loved him all along.”

When Val first met Gunnar, he’d shown more regret than resentment over the fiancée who’d broken up with him. She had to admit that Noah’s behavior and demeanor were consistent with what Gunnar had said. “There’s another person who might have brought a rope to the maze—Payton’s ex-girlfriend, Whitney. Last night I saw a woman here who resembled her. I couldn’t see much of her face because she was wearing a crab hat.”

“Why would she bring a rope?”

“Either to strangle Jennifer or to convince her that Bayport has a serial strangler and she’d be better off cutting her weekend short. But after Jennifer freaked out and law enforcement showed up, Whitney couldn’t risk being caught with the rope. So she threw it away.”

Gunnar steered her by her elbow onto a path to the right. “That’s a long shot. You don’t even know for sure that she was here. But you skipped over someone who was definitely here and had the best chance to pull off a hoax last night.”

“You mean Jennifer.” He nodded. Val tried to remember if Jennifer had anywhere to stash a rope. “She had a narrow, quilted bag about ten inches long hanging from her wrist. The rope would have fit in there. She could have faked the chase too.”

“Is she the kind of person who likes to be the center of attention?”

“She’d like more attention from her fiancé. She expected to spend the weekend with him. Instead, he’s been busy at his parents’ house, to which she was not invited. If she faked the chase to get his sympathy, she succeeded. When she told him what happened, he left his folks’ house and drove to town to comfort her.”

Gunnar reached for Val’s hand. “It’s also possible that pranksters brought the rope and chased her.”

“Yes, but I can’t rule out that someone really was trying to kill Jennifer. Even if the strangler couldn’t count on finding her alone last night, no harm in trying. I came up with lots of possibilities here, but no conclusions.” Wandering in the maze hadn’t brought Val any closer to knowing who had killed Fawn and what the killer’s next move might be. “Still, this trip wasn’t wasted. I’ve enjoyed strolling amid the corn with you.” She squeezed Gunnar’s hand.

“We could find a secluded path and stay a while.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

She laughed. “No path is secluded enough for what you have in mind. Can you come to Granddad’s for dinner tonight? You can get to know Mom and, after dinner, you and I can go someplace together.”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry. Tonight I’m stuck being a zombie again.”

Darn.
Compared to all the other bad things that had happened this weekend, though, this one was minor. “Well, Mom will be here most of the day tomorrow. I’ll find a time when we can all get together before then, though we may be rushed.”

They walked in silence to the maze exit and the car.

Val climbed into the Miata’s passenger seat and took out her phone.

Gunnar pulled out of the parking space. “Are you calling the chief to give him your conclusions?”

“I haven’t reached any conclusions yet. I don’t want to tell him what we talked about, especially the idea that Jennifer might have faked being chased. This morning I spent a lot of time trying to convince him that she was in danger of being the murderer’s next victim. That’s still true, even if she pulled the stunt in the maze.”

“You’re afraid that the police will brand her as the bride who cried wolf and that they won’t go to her aid when the real wolf comes after her. You underestimate them.” Gunnar steered onto the country road heading for the main drag to Bayport.

No one would lose money underestimating Deputy Holtzman. “Jennifer doesn’t need the sheriff’s deputy badgering her, after everything else that’s gone wrong for her this weekend.”

Gunnar turned onto the main road to Bayport. “Where to? Straight back to the booth?”

“I’m not sure until I talk to Granddad.” She speed-dialed the landline at his house. After six rings, he answered. “Hey, Granddad, do you need me to pick up anything for the fondue?”
Or stir the chocolate to keep it from burning?
“I can come by the house and give you a hand with it.”

“No! Don’t come near here. I don’t want people like Irene Pritchard saying I didn’t make this dish myself.”

“Well, she’s used that line before.” At least this time, he could honestly say he’d done it on his own. That wouldn’t necessarily stop Irene from making her usual accusation. “My alibi is solid. I have a witness who’ll swear I was elsewhere while you were making the fondue.”

Gunnar nodded, pointing to himself.

“Funny you should talk about a witness. I found one this morning who will change how the police are thinking about the murder.”

“Who?”

“Your mother’s coming in the door. I gotta put her to work cutting up fruit for the fondue. I’ll call you back.” He hung up.

Val clicked her phone off, her curiosity roused about the witness Granddad had found. If he didn’t call her in fifteen minutes, she’d phone him again. “I can go straight to the festival. My grandfather says he doesn’t need my help with his chocolate fondue.”

“I have fond memories of fondue. My grandmother used to make it. Is it having a comeback?”

“The comeback was about twenty years ago. Now it’s out of style again.” The word
comeback
reminded Val that she had yet to mention her job offer to Gunnar. “Between the murder and the maze, I forgot to tell you about
my
shot at a comeback. My former boss offered me my old job back. With a nice raise.”