The Pinch of Death – a mystery by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 23. Benson

Honey was dressing for a date.

“Look at this!” Jacquetta cried excitedly. “Look what I got at the Open House!”

“Ooo,” Honey gasped excitedly, “The mysterious Benson!”

“And wait what you see that’s inside!”

It was an anonymous letter carefully scrawled on blue paper ornamented with yellow daisies.

U R ROTING INSIDE. FEEL THE CANCER EATING UR GUTS. MAGGOTS CAN’T WAIT THEY ARE STARTING NOW. U HAVE EEN POISONED BY UR LOVING FAMILY. THEY CAN’T WAIT TO SEE U GO. I WOULD NOT EAT IF I WERE U.

“God, that’s awful,” said Honey, sitting down under the force of it. “But why send it to Benson? Wasn’t there a note?”

“No.” Jacquetta fetched the yellow pages and riffled through to “D”. “I think he was a detective she hired to look into the letters and he asked her to send on any more she received.”

“And he refused the letter because she was dead? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it either. But we’re way ahead of Benson because we know who wrote the anonymous letters. Yup, here he is. 115 Glasstown Pike. She went local.”

“I don’t get it. Who wrote the anonymous letters?”

“LeRoi! I forgot to tell you she had a box of this stationery in the trash at her apartment. Distinctive, wouldn’t you say?”

“But we don’t know who LeRoi is.”

“True. And I don’t think it’s Penny Dettler. She was at the open house and I’m telling you it would take quite a job to turn her into a cynosure that would impress a real estate agent.” She was dialing.

“What’s a cynosure?” demanded Honey. “Speak English.”

“A sex magnet.” She hung up. “His phone’s been disconnected.”

“I guess he IS dead.” Honey looked bleak. “It doesn’t feel like a coincidence.” She shivered. “I think you may have tripped over someone who enjoys killing.”

“Sure looks that way,” Jacquetta agreed. “And what about this “you” stuff. Weren’t you detecting right along side me?”

“Maybe not,” sighed Honey. “Depends on how dangerous this sociopath really is.

“Yes it does, doesn’t it?” Time to hide out in a convent?

115 Glasstown Pike was a burned-out shell. Jacquetta went into the news agency next door.
“What happened across the way? Looks like you had fire.”

The beaky-nosed man was happy to share his knowledge.

“Guy burned up. It was terrible. Rumor has it he torched the place and then shot himself.” He produced a tabloid-sized Glasstown Extra ARSON SUSPECTED IN LOCAL BLAZE. “Some say he worked for the Mob and it was a hit.”

Jacquetta tried to pay him for the paper but he waved her money away.
“That’s last week’s news – set for the pulper.”

She bought chocolate instead and consumed it nervously while she sat in her car reading. The story backed up the news agent’s first rumor: Benson had been shot with his own gun and the place had been torched by someone who didn’t care to conceal the signs of accelerant splashed every which way, burning up his files, correspondence, anonymous letters, everything. The police had no idea what case he was working on. But which happened first murder or arson? The investigators described the events as “simultaneous”. Jacquetta sat thinking.

Which of her suspects was capable of taking away a gun from an armed detective? George Cleese? Someone the private eye wouldn’t suspect. Certainly not Penny Dettler! Maybe the murderers worked as a team. Avalon and her husband? She didn’t seem to get along well enough with her brothers to keep even the most basic secret, much less one this potent.

I’m out of my depth big time, thought Jacquetta. And I’m making the same mistake Miss Rainbeaux made of underestimating a ruthless opponent.