Murder on the Half Shell (A Red Carpet Catering Mystery Book 2) (12 page)

Chapter 16

Penelope slipped into a dark red sundress and twisted her long blonde hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. When she got downstairs she glanced into the library and saw Jeanne slowly gathering up the scattered sections of a newspaper and straightening the club chairs around the game tables. She was turned away from the door and dressed for her cocktail party in a pretty floral tea-length dress, the skirt swaying around her shins as she moved through the room.

“Hi, Jeanne,” Penelope said.

“My stars, Penelope, you gave me a fright,” Jeanne said, jumping a little, then quickly wiping a tear from her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Penelope said, taking another step into the room. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to thank you for letting me use the library earlier. Are you okay?”

Jeanne laughed nervously. “I’m just being silly. Sorry, dear.” She swiped more tears from her cheeks. “I’m going to have to touch up my makeup.”

“Is something wrong?” Penelope asked.

Jeanne shook her head, her hair waving softly around her pretty face, her glasses swinging by the lanyard around her neck. “I just…I don’t know. I guess I get a little sentimental sometimes.” She motioned towards the picture of herself and her husband on the wall. “Robert’s been gone for years, but I still miss him.”

“How long were you married?” Penelope asked, walking over to look at the photograph with her.

“Unfortunately, only two years,” Jeanne said. “He died in a boating accident not long after this picture was taken.”

“Oh, I had no idea. I’m so sorry, Jeanne,” Penelope said, placing her hand gently on the older woman’s shoulder.

“Thank you, dear,” Jeanne said, patting the top of Penelope’s hand with her soft palm. She pulled in a sharp breath and blew it out quickly. “People say everything is meant to be, but I’ve never understood that sentiment. How is it meant to be that my husband dies in an accident? Maybe it’s what I deserved, after all that time, loving him all of those years before we were finally able to be together, to be married. And then he was gone, just like that. Maybe God took him from me to teach me a lesson, take me down a peg.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t some kind of punishment, Jeanne. No one can explain why tragedies happen, why some lives are cut short,” Penelope said.

“You’re very sweet, dear,” Jeanne said.

“Excuse me, Jeanne?” The young server from the restaurant poked his head in the doorway. He was dressed in his bartending uniform, ready to serve at the Happiest Hour. “Sorry to interrupt, but they have a question for you in the kitchen.”

“It’s okay,” Jeanne said, turning to Penelope. “Will you be joining us, dear?”

Penelope nodded and watched her go, then returned her gaze to the photograph of Jeanne and Robert on the boat. It looked like it’d been enhanced. The bright colors reminded Penelope of the Technicolor movies she came across on the classic movie channel. Jeanne wore bright red lipstick, oversized Jackie O sunglasses, a blue and yellow striped shirt and white pants. Robert sported a sailing cap and a blue ascot around his neck that matched the blue of Jeanne’s shirt. They looked happy. Penelope couldn’t help but wonder about the accident.

“Hey, Penelope,” a voice called from the doorway.

Penelope turned and saw Lizzanne, one of Shane’s production assistants. Her skin was crisp with sunburn, heat radiating from her freckled cheeks.

“Hi,” Penelope said. “You ready to get back to work tomorrow? It looks like you got some sun this weekend.”

“A little,” Lizzanne said, glancing at her forearms. “Shane asked me to come in here and take pictures of the bookshelves. We’re filming in here this week and he wants to know what books he’ll have to get rid of.”

Penelope laughed. “He’s going to have to remove all of them or CGI them out. There aren’t any books in here that date back to 1890.”

“I guess,” Lizzanne said, holding her iPhone sideways and snapping a series of pictures of the shelves. “Who knows, maybe he can just shoot away from them, make it work somehow. If nothing is bright pink or whatever maybe he can just blur them.”

Penelope thought that might be distracting to the movie viewers but kept quiet. “Jeanne’s okay with us filming in the library?”

“I think so. It might be a little inconvenient, but production is paying her an additional per diem. We’re all staying here, but she’s also getting a location contract out of the deal since we’re using that suite upstairs for principal filming.” Lizzanne snapped a few more pictures. “He’s definitely going to have to take out that one that clearly says ‘1968.’ That would mess up continuity for sure, out us on one of those movie-fail websites.”

Penelope glanced up at the top shelf and saw the book she was talking about. “That looks like a high school yearbook.” Pulling it from the shelf she ran her finger down the imprinted blue leather cover, which was embossed with an abstract image of a panther baring its teeth, the year 1968 stamped in an arc above it.

“Whoa, that’s an antique,” Lizzanne said, looking over Penelope’s shoulder.

“Not quite. Vintage maybe,” Penelope said. “I’m afraid to ask, but what year did you graduate high school?”

“1995,” Lizzanne responded cheerfully. “Let’s look at the funky hairstyles. Wait, wasn’t everyone a hippie back then?”

“I don’t think everyone was,” Penelope said, carefully opening the book to a random page in the middle. The distinctive smell of aging paper wafted from the book as she gingerly turned the pages.

“Not a lot of hippies in here,” Lizzanne said, “but there are some beehives. That’s awesome. Look at that one.” She pointed to a photo of a nice-looking girl wearing thick-rimmed black glasses. Her hair had been teased and sprayed into a tall pile on her head, a small bow tucked in the front of it. “I wish that look would come back.”

“That looks like a lot of work,” Penelope said. She leafed past the class photos to the clubs and activities section, finally landing on the section entitled “Homecoming.” There she found a full-page color picture of the king and queen and their court standing on a stage. A beautiful girl with long black hair stood in a full-length sparkly dress. A small tiara perched on top of her head and a sash was draped over her shoulder declaring her Homecoming Queen. She wore long silk gloves that reached her elbows and one hand rested in the crooked elbow of the Homecoming King, who beamed proudly as he gazed at her.

Penelope imagined everyone at the dance being mesmerized by her beauty. She was simply stunning. Penelope thought she looked familiar and tried to place where she might have seen her, attempting to imagine this teenage girl’s features on an older face of someone in town. She glanced down at the caption under the photo and realized why she looked familiar. She read out loud, “‘Josephine Michaels and Robert Daniels lead the Homecoming Court for the Class of 1968.’ This must be Josie Daniels. Her picture is up over the bar at the Shrimp Shack.”

Lizzanne looked closer. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

Penelope held the yearbook closer, looking at Josie’s date. Then her eyes flicked to the oversized picture of Jeanne and her husband on the back of the boat on the wall. “Jeanne said her husband’s name was Robert.” Penelope studied the man’s hairline and chin in both photos. “Does that look like the same guy to you?”

“Maybe,” Lizzanne said tentatively. “It’s hard to tell from black and white. Also, Jeanne’s last name is Haverford. I deliver the daily paperwork and I’ve seen it a bunch of times.”

Penelope shrugged. “Maybe Jeanne never changed her name. She said it was a short marriage. If this is the same Robert, Jeanne and Josie were both married to him.”

Lizzanne took a closer look at Josie’s picture in the yearbook. “She’s beautiful.”

“Was beautiful,” Penelope said. “She died young, a long time ago.” She glanced once again at the photo on the wall. “That seems to happen a lot around here.”

Penelope turned a few more pages and found several featuring candid shots of students and teachers around the school, in classrooms and participating in extracurricular activities.

“Check out the bellbottoms,” Lizzanne said with a laugh. “Those have made a comeback, but not as wide-legged as these. Look at them.” She pointed to a picture of four girls sitting on top of a picnic table at the beach. They were dressed alike in wide-legged bellbottom jeans and matching tank tops with the panther logo from the yearbook on them, their arms linked together at the elbows as they smiled for the camera. Penelope recognized Josie second from the left next to a pretty girl with straight blonde hair, a wide middle part and thick round glasses, like the ones John Lennon wore. The two other girls had similar hairstyles with thick long tresses in varying colors, brushed out and frizzed up in the humid Florida air.

Penelope read the caption. “‘Henrietta Miller, Josephine Michaels, Elizabeth Haverford and Rose Marie Jones head up the Blue and White Society.’ Maybe Elizabeth is Jeanne’s sister. It’s hard to tell,” Penelope said, glancing up at the photo of Jeanne on the wall and back to the smaller black and white one in the book. “I do see a resemblance, but this picture isn’t the best quality. I’m pretty sure that’s Rose though. The lady who runs the beach shop on the avenue.”

Lizzanne nodded and asked, “What’s a Blue and White Society?”

Penelope shrugged.

“I think blue and white are the school’s colors. They’re on the sign in front of the school complex, the one with the panther on it. Maybe they were in some kind of spirit club or something.” Glancing at the picture on the opposite page she saw a male teacher standing in front of a classroom smiling at his students, appearing to be mid-lecture with his hands raised in a questioning shrug. He wore a wide tie and a short-sleeved dress shirt, his long bangs brushed across his forehead. The caption under the picture read, “Mr. Wainwright, Winner of Favorite Teacher Award and School Club Advisor, Class of 1968.”

“He looks like a hip dude. Cute, in a retro Ryan Reynolds kind of way. I’m sure the girls liked him,” Lizzanne said. She stepped away and started scrolling through the pictures she’d taken on her phone. “I better get these off to Shane. See you later.”

  Penelope said goodbye distractedly as she turned a few more pages in the yearbook.

“Penny,” Joey said from the doorway, startling her back to the present. He entered the library and kissed her on the cheek. “You ready?”

Penelope closed the yearbook and slid it back in its place on the top shelf. “Yes, let’s go.”

Chapter 17

Jeanne’s cocktail party was well attended. Faint music played from behind the small bar while her guests milled about, drinking and snacking on hors d’oeuvres. Penelope saw about half of the attendees were Jeanne’s friends and the other half were from the movie crew. The views from the roof of the Inn were magnificent, displaying the ocean for what seemed like hundreds of miles on end. A few people lounged underneath the canopy Jeanne kept on the patio for those who wanted to escape the direct sunlight.

Joey handed her a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc, a thin sheen of condensation already clinging to it. He held a beer in one hand and rested the other lightly on the railing, gazing out at the ocean.

“I had an interesting conversation with an old classmate,” Penelope said, pulling him over to the patio railing.

“Really? You got in touch with one of your friends from school?” Joey asked, his interest piqued.

“Summer Farrington, power chef de cuisine in Manhattan,” Penelope said, nodding and taking a sip of wine.

“Was she able to make you feel better about things?” Joey asked.

“No, just the opposite. She says she and Emilio were involved back in school. Sexually involved,” Penelope said, lowering her voice.

Joey put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Sorry, Penny.”

“It’s funny, because that was always the rumor, so I shouldn’t be shocked by what she said. But it’s somehow more real to me now that I’ve heard it directly from her. It’s not just whispers between classes now.”

“You never talked to her about it back at school? After Emilio left?” Joey asked, looking out over the ocean.

Penelope shook her head. “She never said a word to me, or anyone, I don’t think. That was part of the deal. She told me now because I let her believe he’d done something with me too…I didn’t come out and lie, just implied something had happened.”

“I know you’ve got to be disappointed in him,” Joey said. “But also keep in mind, in those kinds of situations, it’s he said, she said. She’s not claiming rape or anything like that, right?”

Penelope choked a little on her wine and shook her head again. “No, and she was over the legal age of consent. His actions were improper, not criminal. But he should have known teachers aren’t supposed to get involved with their students. Especially in a place like that, where they hold so much power over how well you do and where you end up after you graduate, career-wise.”

“So taking into account what Summer says happened, we now have even more evidence of Emilio’s lack of good judgment.”

“Summer also said Christine Sullivan might have moved to Vermont. Did you have any luck tracking her down?”

“I haven’t heard back from my partner back home yet, but I’ll text him. The Vermont lead might help.” Joey pulled his phone from his jacket and typed on the screen.   

Penelope sighed and glanced at the doorway, waving over Max and Arlena who had just stepped onto the upper deck. Arlena conferred with Max for a second, then weaved her way through the crowd, joining them while Max headed to the bar. She wore a simple black jumpsuit with flared pants and silver high-heeled sandals.

“Hello, Pen, Joey,” Arlena said, hugging Penelope around her shoulders. Joey slipped his phone back in his pocket.

“How did everything go today with Sienna?” Penelope asked, grateful for a change of topic.

“Perfectly. She’s very innovative, and she’s not afraid to tell me when my ideas aren’t working.”

Max sidled up, handing Arlena a glass of white wine. Dressed casually in dark slacks and a pale grey dress shirt opened at the collar, he took a sip from his beer bottle, scanning the crowd. “This sure is a sharp-looking group.”

“Jeanne doesn’t enforce a dress code, but it’s sort of an unwritten rule. She says she likes to bring a little elegance to the beach,” Penelope said.

“I can get behind that vibe,” Max said. He spotted Shane leaning against the other end of the railing and went to introduce himself.

“You guys are working inside all day tomorrow?” Penelope asked Arlena. “They want us to set up in the Inn’s parking lot for service.”

“Yes, we’re shooting a scene in the library. Max will be in the background,” Arlena said, looking down the railing at Max. He was leaning against the railing and talking with Shane, who gestured excitedly with his hands as he spoke.

“Look who decided to join the party,” Joey said, an edge coming into his voice.

Penelope turned and saw Emilio coming through the doorway, leading Dominique by the hand. He paused to scan the deck, and then strode directly over to Shane and Max. The noise level of the crowd died down as people turned to watch them pass.

Gavin and Sienna entered next, squinting into the setting sun and then joining Arlena at the railing. The noise level of the party was increasing with more people arriving every minute. Penelope looked around for Jeanne and saw her talking with an older couple next to the bar, smiling and laughing. But Penelope could sense a nervous tension in her gestures. Penelope excused herself and walked over to the bar. 

“Hi, Jeanne, great party,” Penelope said.

“Oh, thank you, dear,” Jeanne said anxiously. “I hope we don’t run out of food.”

Penelope glanced at the table. The platters were still about half full, the pigs in a blanket the most popular item. “I think you’ll be fine. I can always call my guys and have them open up the kitchen truck downstairs. We can serve everyone tacos in a pinch.”

Joey came up from behind and handed Penelope a fresh glass of wine.

“That would be something else, wouldn’t it?” Jeanne said gratefully. “We may have to try that one time and see how it goes.”

“Maybe for the wrap party after filming. I can talk to Shane. We can even invite people from the island to thank them for their hospitality—”

Penelope’s planning was interrupted by a loud shout and the sound of shattering glass. Emilio was standing close to Shane, his cheeks bright red with anger and his finger pointing against Shane’s chest. Max stood near them, a stunned look on his face. Dominique attempted to step between the two men, but was ignored by both of them as they stared each other down.

Suddenly Emilio grabbed Shane by the shirt and hoisted him onto the railing, teetering on the small of his back, his head dangling over the edge.

“Don’t!” Shane cried. Dominique grabbed one of Emilio’s arms while Max grabbed the other in an attempt to pull Shane back from the edge.

The crowd began to panic. Penelope felt Joey’s body go rigid next to her. He set down his drink and walked quickly to the railing, pushing his way through the terrified onlookers.

“I told you I’d kill you,” Emilio said. “I told you I would.”

Joey yelled to him, “Let him go, Emilio. Bring him back down.”

Shane howled, “Somebody help me! He’s crazy! Help!”

Joey eased Dominique’s hands from Emilio’s arm and took her place, working with Max on the other side to pull him and Shane back over the railing. Shane kicked his legs in panic, landing blows on Emilio’s lower limbs.

“Stop kicking,” Joey said to him as he struggled with Emilio. He made eye contact with Max and started counting. On three, they pulled Emilio as hard as they could, dragging him backwards. Shane’s head bounced against the railing before he fell in a heap onto the deck.

Emilio shook Max and Joey off and spun around, storming towards the door, awestruck onlookers parting to let him pass. Penelope noticed most of the crowd averted their eyes as he passed but she glared directly at him. He glanced briefly in her direction and Penelope saw that he was still enraged, but was surprised to see he looked hopelessly sad also. Dominique rushed after him, calling his name.

Joey and Max helped Shane into a deck chair and the crowd began to settle down. The bartender wrapped some ice in a towel and handed it to Shane, who held it gingerly to the back of his head. Max went to check on Arlena and Joey soothed a visibly distraught Jeanne. Only a few guests remained, staring at Shane as they finished their drinks and scarfed up the remaining appetizers. Penelope sat down in the chair next to Shane and asked him what had started the fight.

Shane looked at Penelope in disbelief. “He’s crazy, that’s what happened.”

“Why did he attack you? Did something go wrong at the restaurant meeting today?” Penelope asked.

“It’s a misunderstanding. He’ll cool off and everything will be fine.” Shane stood up unsteadily and made his way to the door. He turned back to her, frustration pinching his features. “Get down there early tomorrow. No one is allowed to be late. We’ve still got a movie to make.”

Penelope watched Joey sit Jeanne down, holding her hand in his and speaking quietly to her. She looked over at Max and Arlena, who stood with Gavin and Sienna. They were all taking in the aftermath of the party with vague interest.

“Max, what happened over there?” Penelope asked after she rejoined them.

Max shook his head, “I don’t know, one minute they’re talking about the color of the booth benches at their new place and the next minute that Emilio guy is going
Full Metal Jacket
on Shane, trying to lob him off the side of the building. That dude’s got a short fuse.”

“What did Shane say to set him off?” Penelope asked.

“I don’t know. Something about the house he’s rebuilding. Shane said he stayed there and there was a leak in the upstairs bathroom, and that he should use the same plumber they’re using for the restaurant. The next minute Emilio yanks the beer from Shane’s hand, smashes it on the floor and grabs him by the shirt,” Max said. “I was actually getting bored with their conversation until, well,
that
happened.”

Joey rejoined the conversation and thanked Max for his help.

“How is Jeanne doing?” Penelope asked.

“She’s pretty upset,” Joey said. “Emilio should watch himself. He’s out on bail, but an assault charge will get him locked up again.”

“Do you think Shane is going to press charges?” Penelope asked. “He didn’t seem like he wanted to. They’re business partners in the middle of closing a big deal.”

“I have no idea,” Joey said. “If he doesn’t want to there’s not much the police can do.”

Penelope noticed Jeanne had left. The server was on bended knee, sweeping up the shattered glass.

Arlena decided to head back to the boat, saying she’d had enough excitement for one evening. Gavin suggested the rest of them grab something for dinner.

“I’m up for that,” Sienna said. “Cocktail hour was exciting. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for supper.”