Death By Rum Balls Page 10

  “Ms. Reyes,” I said after hearing a soft-spoken hello on the other end of the call.

  “Yes. This is Agnes Reyes. Who is this?”

  After I introduced myself and stated the reason for the call, Ms. Reyes asked me to call her Agnes. I was speaking in a normal voice—not a raised voice—that she could hear perfectly fine.

  “Can you tell me whose names were assigned the numbers for the blind rum ball taste exchange?” I asked after I explained Julia’s brother had been eating a box when he appeared to have been poisoned.

  “Certainly. Let me get my notebook for the club.” She left the phone for a moment and returned saying, “Okay, is there a number in particular, or do you want all eight of them?”

  I asked for all eight and wrote them down as she dictated the names and numbers. She went on to say that her number had been number eight and confirmed Julia was number three. She went on to explain that she ordered the boxes so they would all be uniform to make the exchange more fun and in keeping with the blind taste test.

  I asked Agnes if she sent her box with toothpicks of any sort or knew of anyone in the club who liked to use flowers or parts of plants for garnish. She said she didn’t send anything in her box except rum balls. She checked all the boxes and numbered them before she had her grandson drop them at Julia’s. She made sure only rum balls would be in the boxes and the members couldn’t give any clues as to which box was theirs to influence voting.

  “Could someone have hidden a clue on the bottom, inside the box?” I asked.

  “Maybe, but I looked in every box and I think I would have seen something there other than rum balls,” Agnes said.

  “Thanks for your time and for speaking with me,” I said.

  “That is terrible for that young man and his new wife,” Agnes said. “I know some of the members don’t like Julia, but I truly do not think someone in our club would go to that extreme. She can be a tad bit much to take from time to time. I’ve known all of these women, and their mothers, since they were little girls. I started this cooking club with their grandmothers.”

  “Yes, I agree. I’ve known Julia a while, and she often speaks first without thinking,” I said.

  “And she speaks rather loudly. You should talk to her about that,” Agnes said. “She might need to have her hearing checked.”

  I imagined seeing a smile on the face of the lady at the other end of the call.

  I thanked her and hung up. Agnes was sharp and seemed on top of the goings on with the cooking club. I hoped her eyesight was as good when she checked every box.

  Hanky arrived a few minutes before one o’clock and honked the horn for me to come out. I walked outside and was about to open the back door to get in the squad car when Detective Taylor leaned out of his window and said, “You really don’t want to sit in the back. We won’t even put Valentine back there. You might want to follow us in your vehicle.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well, let me tell you this before we get there. Frank knows a lot more of what goes on over there than even Julia suspects. He told me Julia was having an affair with the husband of one couple who showed up at the party. The wife is in Julia’s Pilates class and gourmet cooking club. She found out and confronted Julia and thought the affair ended. I think Frank did too. The neighbors who live across the street, the ones you saw at the Yappy Hour last night, told me Julia is still seeing him.”

  “This just keeps getting better,” Hanky said.

  “I think there’s more than just that. You need to get Frank talking and not let him think you see him as a suspect. Otherwise, he will start crying if he feels threatened, and you won’t get any useful information from him,” I said.

  “Crying?” Detective Taylor asked and had an exasperated look of disbelief on his face.

  “They are a different sort of couple,” Hanky said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t call them a couple,” I said. “I see them more along the lines like those symbiotic pairings. You know, like a shark and remora, or the bird that sits in the alligator’s mouth, trusting the alligator not to eat it?”

  “Well, we all know which one Julia is,” Hanky said.

  “I have to be home by five o’clock at the latest. Jiff and I have plans to go caroling in Jackson Square.”

  “You’re going caroling? Aren’t you afraid someone will release a pack of barking dogs on you and try to run you off?” Taylor asked with just a hint of a smile.

  We were all in Julia’s double parlor opposite the dining room where Larry’s body and Donna had been found. There was still crime scene tape across the dining room doors. Hanky and Taylor were standing while the rest of us were seated.

  “I asked Brandy to come here because she knows you both and might be able to contribute to something one or more of you saw the night all this happened,” Hanky said.

  I asked, “Frank, what did you do with that gold foil box that looked like all the other rum ball boxes Jiff and I gave to you last night?” By way of explanation to the confused look on Julia’s and Hanky’s faces I added, “Jiff and I saw something in the mailbox the night we arrived so we brought it in.” I didn’t want to be the tell-all on Julia with the unhappy neighbor over the lights, Pilates, gourmet cooking group, neighborhood association, and the rats in the box. We would get to that soon enough.

  “Oh, right, that box. I left it outside on the back porch. Well, not outside, but I hid it in the dryer so no one would find it,” he said. Then he jumped up and ran off in the direction of the porch.

  “There’s another box of rum balls?” Hanky asked.

  “Why…” both Julia and Hanky started to ask.

  “Why did we give it to Frank?” I finished for them. “I’ll let him give you the details on some of the stuff he told me Friday morning. The box had a note on it about…you’ll see when Frank brings it back.” I asked Hanky, “Did your forensics group have anything unusual on or in the rum ball boxes they took to examine?”

  “I’m waiting on a call with those results,” Hanky said.

  “I’ll check while we wait on Frank,” Detective Taylor offered. He walked into the hall to make his call.

  Frank came in with a gold box identical to the two rum ball boxes that Larry had been eating from. I nodded toward Hanky for him to hand it to her. She had a plastic evidence bag she opened so Frank could drop the gold foil box into it.

  “Yes, it looks like the same box with the note Jiff and I brought in. Julia, you said all of your gourmet cooking club made rum balls, but only the president knew who made which box because they were numbered? Isn’t that right?”

  Julia nodded yes. Detective Taylor came back into the room.

  “This box doesn’t have a number.” I nodded toward it, and Hanky handed the plastic bag with the gold foil box in it to Taylor.

  “We’ll take it and have them analyze what’s in it, and maybe we can get prints from the boxes to see who handled which one besides Frank,” Hanky said. “This box might be contaminated, but no one ate anything from it. We still need to confirm if it’s a group effort that caused the death of your brother or if it’s one misdirected individual.”

  “Frank, tell Detective Hanky the other stuff you told me yesterday. You know, the box that was left anonymously on the front step, the person who complained about the two deer and left the signed note—everything you remember.” I said. “Tell them about the rats.”

  Frank started crying.

  “What rats?” Julia asked as she handed him a tissue from the box she had been carrying around under her arm. Her eyes were red from crying, so she was slow on the uptake. “Rats? Here?”

  “Before he answers,” I said turning to Julia, “have you had any arguments with your pest control people?”

  “No. Why are you asking me that?” Julia snapped.

  “Brandy stood by you when you were arrested for murder when everyone else thought you were guilty, including me,” Hanky said. “It’s to your advantage to have her here, but if you want her gone�
��” Hanky’s stinging comments seemed to shame Julia into realizing she might be in the hot seat. Julia shrugged by way of answering.

  “Frank,” Hanky tapped her notepad. “Rats.”

  Frank said he didn’t want to scare or worry Julia with everything else going on, and she was planning a nice party. Frank gave a very complete accounting about the rats in the box and why he asked me to open it, what was written on the bottom, the note from The Christian neighbor, and the warning from the Neighborhood Business Association. It was much the same as he told me, and I didn’t hear anything new or remember something he may have forgotten. Julia was horrified at the rats in the box and had no idea who could have done it.

  “Tell us who didn’t come to the party and why they might have wanted to harm you or why they don’t like you,” Hanky said.

  I gave Frank a look to keep quiet.

  Julia gave Hanky the names of several neighbors who didn’t respond to the party invitation. She thought some of them might have less than a warm-and-fuzzy feeling toward her.

  “Let’s see,” Hanky started to recap. “The Neighborhood Association voted to fine you; one neighbor left an unsigned note saying he or she was Christian, implying you are not; another anonymous sender left you three rats in a box; and the Secret Santas from the gourmet cooking club all gave you rum balls that might be poisoned. Did I leave anything out?”

  Frank raised his hand to speak. I guess the look I gave him was more effective than I intended. “What else can you add, Frank?” Hanky asked.

  He looked at Julia before he started to speak. “There’s also the neighbor’s two high school boys Julia called the cops on.”

  “What was the complaint?” Detective Taylor asked.

  “It was when she first put the reindeer on the front lawn. She saw two neighbor boys messing around with them and told them to get off her lawn.”

  Detective Taylor was making notes and asked Frank, “Did these boys destroy property?” He also would sneak a peek at Julia, checking out her reactions when Frank’s story was unfolding.

  “Wait a minute,” Julia started to say, and Hanky shushed her, holding up a hand like she was stopping traffic.

  “Frank, what else?” Hanky asked.

  “Well, we’re not sure it was them. It most likely was them because the next morning the deer were arranged to make it look like they were mating. The parents begged Julia not to press charges for fear it would ruin their chances at the Ivy League school the boys were being considered for,” Frank finished and would not return Julia’s stare.

  Detective Taylor asked Julia, “Miss Richard, what did these boys do to provoke you to call in a complaint?”

  Julia pounced on the first silent second to go into her rant, “My neighbors spawned monsters and refer to them as their children. One is always being arrested for one thing or another. I see their names and addresses in the paper every other day,” Julia stated as if this was common knowledge.

  “When she sees one mentioned in the newspaper, she goes looking for the parents when she’s walking the dogs so she can rub it in that their kid was the one arrested,” Frank said while doing a heavy eye roll. “Most of the neighbors don’t like her.”

  “So, let’s add all neighbors with children to the list that might want to see you dead, or who’d want to poison you, right?” Hanky finished and closed her notebook. “Is there anyone you haven’t offended, because I don’t want to go door to door questioning people if they didn’t come to the party or might be someone you haven’t had an issue with. That might remind them of a reason they should have a grudge. We don’t need to look for more suspects. I have enough here to keep this investigation going for months.”

  “Miss Richard, who came to this party and knew your brother and his new wife?” Detective Taylor asked.

  Julia sat up a little straighter and tossed her hair when Detective Taylor spoke to her. “No one else knew them, but several people knew of them,” she answered.

  “What do you mean? Knew of them?” Taylor asked.

  “I’ve talked about my brother… all right. I complained about my brother—you know family stuff—to Brandy and Frank,” Julia said. “No one at the party knew him or ever met him before.”

  “What about your brother’s new wife? Did anybody here know her before last night or know her from some place else?” Detective Taylor asked.

  “I have no idea. I only met her yesterday at four o’clock in the afternoon before the party. They got here three hours early, so I asked them to go spend a couple of hours in the French Quarter so I could finish the party preparations,” Julia answered.

  “What about your neighbors across the street?” Hanky asked. “Did they know your brother and his new wife?”

  “No, I really don’t talk to them much and I don’t socialize with them,” Julia answered.

  I saw Frank do an eye roll.

  Hanky then asked, “Julia, this man you’ve been seeing, how well do you know him?”

  Julia started to answer she met LB at a bar and Hanky interrupted her. “No, not LB, Patrick MacFinn. Sheila MacFinn’s husband. How did that start and how long have you been having an affair with him?”

  All the color drained from Julia’s face. First the rats and now this. Julia didn’t like being caught off guard.

  “Did Sheila tell you that? We ended it when Sheila found out, and we all decided to remain friends.” Julia turned slightly in her chair away from Hanky and folded her arms and crossed her legs.

  Hanky looked at Frank. I felt sorry for him because he looked pitiful and about to cry. “What do you know about Miss Richard’s affair with Patrick MacFinn? Did you ever see them together?”

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” Julia snapped. “Don’t drag him into this. Sheila is in my Pilates class and her husband offered me a ride home one evening when he came to pick up Sheila, but she didn’t make that class. I invited him in for a glass of wine, and well, you know…” Julia answered sharply.

  “How long ago was this? The glass of wine and …you know…?” asked Detective Taylor.

  Julia’s face was reddening and her jaw was set. I didn’t think she was going to answer, but then she said, “Six weeks ago. It started six weeks ago.”

  “How did his wife find out?” Detective Taylor asked.

  “He must have told her,” Julia said.

  “No man on this planet would volunteer that information to his wife, so how do you think she found out?” Taylor asked again.

  “One of the busybody ladies in my gourmet cooking club who is also in my Pilates class must have told her. Possibly Bicky, Bicky Favalara. She saw him give me a ride home that day and two more times when Sheila didn’t come to class or went to another one,” Julia said.

  Detective Taylor looked at Julia and said, “And?”

  “Patrick thinks she saw him leaving my house one afternoon. I guess Sheila put it together or she asked him when he got home,” Julia answered.

  “So, how did it come about they were here for your party?” Hanky asked. “Seems odd if you were having an affair with her husband, and she knew it, that she would agree to come to a party at your house.”

  “I apologized to Sheila, and she was good with that, so we all moved on,” Julia pulled out another tissue from the box under her arm.

  “When did she find out?” Detective Taylor asked.

  “I don’t remember exactly,” Julia said.

  “About a week before the party,” Frank answered. “They were all here in the kitchen for a class. Sheila threw a handful of flour at Julia in front of all the members and then tossed the rest of the bag all over everything in the kitchen.”

  “So, a week ago, a woman finds out you are having an affair with her husband, flours you, then finds it in her heart to forgive you both and comes to your home for a Christmas party?” Taylor asked. “She either has an attorney filing to divorce him for everything he has, or she wants to harm, maybe only embarrass you. I don’t think her marriage and
your friendship moved on to Nirvana in only a week.”

  “Bicky Favalara? Is she related to Favalara Pest Control?” I asked. “The slogans on their trucks say they are Termite-NATORS, E-Rat-OCATERS and D-Bug-GERS. Not very original but memorable.”

  “Bicky and her husband own it,” Julia said. “Bicky is married to Sheila’s brother. I remember them talking about that at a Pilates meeting.”

  “Bicky told Sheila you left Pilates with her husband?” I asked Julia. “I think we can guess where the rats came from.”

  Hanky said, “We’ll follow up with Mr. Favalara and ask how he e-Rat-ocates his rodents or where he sends them. Where can we find your boyfriend? Now I’m talking about the person you refer to as LB. Do you have a phone number to reach him?”

  Julia gave Hanky an 800 number. “He uses that for his business associates to contact him on. It’s a free call. That’s the only number I have.”

  “What’s his full name?” Hanky asked.

  “LB Sutton. I don’t know what the LB stands for,” Julia said.

  I made a mental note of the 800 number in case I had to find him or Julia with him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hanky and Taylor left saying they would be back once they went to the lab and talked with the coroner to see what actually killed Larry Richard. I stayed to tell Julia if she didn’t want me here I understood.

  “No, she needs you here,” Frank said to me before she could answer. “Julia, tell her who called right before you got here.”

  “Frank, you’re going to find yourself without a job when this is all over if you don’t quit blurting things out,” Julia said and turned to me. “Larry’s boss called me. I gave the hospital the name of the company where Larry worked so they could verify Donna was on his medical insurance. The hospital also informed Larry’s boss that he had died. I guess Larry had me listed as his next of kin and hadn’t updated it with Donna’s information.”

  “What do they need you to do?” I asked.