A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1

by Livia Day

  It occurred to me that he was expecting me to tell him my plan. ‘So,’ I said brightly. ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day? Need more of my people to blog about?’

  ‘I’m good, ta. Found some people of me own. But if the café is closed, do ye mind if I work on the mural?’

  ‘Not going to stop you.’ I stood up, and brushed grass from my skirt. ‘I have an expedition tomorrow. You can come along if you like—might be Sandstone City compatible.’

  ‘Works for me.’ Stewart drank the last of his coffee, and looked bereaved about it.

  ‘You’re not really interested in painting my walls,’ I teased. ‘You just don’t want to be parted from my coffee machine.’

  ‘It is the one true love of me life,’ he admitted, and held my gaze for a little longer than he had to. Hmm.

  * * *

  So, breaking and entering. Not exactly my area of expertise. But everyone has to start somewhere.

  I already regretted having closed the café. Apart from anything else, my staff insisted on being paid for all their regular shifts, because of the short notice. Still, if Darrow was driving around Hobart in that taxi of his, he was sure to spot that the café was closed.

  If there’s one thing Darrow hates, it’s not being in the loop.

  I hadn’t bought much time. I couldn’t afford to keep the café closed for more than a day or two—plus Nin would actually murder me if I carried it on longer than that, using sharp knives instead of eyebrows. I had to find out what was going on, fast. That meant a visit to Darrow’s place.

  I’d assumed he wasn’t there—he hadn’t answered the phone or returned a message for six weeks. Either he’d been deliberately avoiding all contact and was actually still at home, or the place would be empty and thus potentially full of clues about his absence.

  Which brings us back to breaking and entering.

  The way Darrow looks and dresses, not to mention the way he throws his cash around, most people expect him to live in a shiny bachelor pad apartment, maybe with a view of the river.

  But he has this fetish about Tasmanian heritage buildings, and his home is one of the collection. It’s a tiny, old-fashioned stone cottage that belonged to the mistress of one of the colony’s governors, a couple of hundred years ago. The street is so narrow that it can only fit one line of parked Saabs and Land Rovers, and the gardens are all of the tiny, overgrown ‘this plum tree has been here since 1808, and these roses have a better lineage than you’ variety.

  I stood in Darrow’s garden, wondering how old the glass in the windows was, and whether it would be a moral and aesthetic crime (as well as, you know, a criminal one) to break it.

  It was really, really important that I figured out what Darrow was up to, and whether it was going to endanger my business. But I wasn’t sure if I was willing to risk arrest to find out. Particularly not if the arresting officer was someone I knew, and the odds of that were hardly in my favour.

  I stood back, and circled the cottage. Along the side, one of the windows was slightly open. Entering without breaking. Much better. I slid my arm into the gap, trying to lever the window up with my shoulder. Ow. Bruised something. I pulled my arm back out, and shook it until it stopped feeling numb.

  I needed to get into shape. Zee wouldn’t have trouble with a titchy little window like this, not with her sleek arm muscles and great self confidence. She’d just give it a little shove, and…

  The window flew open, and I screamed. Strong arms hauled the pane of glass upward, and a head appeared. ‘Can I help you with something?’ asked Xanthippe.

  Crap.

  13

  So yeah, there is a possibility that Xanthippe is not entirely perfect and cool at all times. I mean, she’s human. Has to be. I’ve seen her in mismatched underwear in the school change rooms. I not only witnessed her failed experiment at mixing vodka with Bailey’s and half a kilo of blueberries, but I lost a favourite pair of jeans to the hideous aftermath. I was there when she cried for twenty minutes about some boy who shall remain nameless, then pulled herself together and glared at me and said ‘We never speak of this again.’

  Still, she’s such a stylish robot from the future these days that any reminder she is a real person is gratefully received.

  I shouldn’t have been so delighted that when she caught me trying to break into Darrow’s house, she was wearing nothing but a Spider-Man t-shirt, grey knickers and a hair towel. But I was. Gleeful.

  Xanthippe placed a cup of tea in front of me.

  ‘Yes, all right, I was trying to break in,’ I said crossly. There was no point in lying about it. She didn’t have any more right to be here than I did.

  Unless … she and Darrow hadn’t hooked up again, had they? I lifted the cup to my lips, and tried to think of a tactful way of asking if Xanthippe was boning her ex.

  ‘I’ve moved in, by the way,’ she said, and I almost snarfed the tea.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Nice place, this. Darrow has taste—for an unreliable son of a bitch who deserves to die horribly.’ She gestured around at the sleek kitchen. The outside of the cottage might be all heritagey and historical, but he had spared no expense on modernising the interior. I suspected that the gleaming stainless steel kitchen had never even had a cup of tea made in it before.

  ‘So, why?’ I asked, keeping it simple.

  Xanthippe gave me one of those ‘you are so very stupid’ expressions that she specialised in, back in school. ‘I was looking for clues. Obviously. And then I got comfy. I needed somewhere to crash while I was around. If anyone owes me crash space, it’s Darrow. Well, no. What he owes me is money, and serious grovelling. But I’ll take what I can get.’

  ‘How much money?’ I couldn’t resist asking.

  Her face closed over. ‘None of your business. Why have you shut the café?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Xanthippe laughed. ‘I suppose I deserved that.’

  ‘So … no clues about where Darrow might be?’

  ‘No,’ she said. I figured she was probably waiting for me to ask about Crash Velvet, and what the hell she had been doing the night before, with the knife and the drama, and…

  ‘I’d better be going,’ I said, with a genuine smile. I so love to mess with her expectations.

  ‘Of course. Party shopping.’ I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘Oscars day,’ she added.

  Damn. I’d forgotten. Ceege would never let me live it down if I didn’t provide him with an Oscars watching soirée. No wonder the sneaky bugger had made me waffles that morning—keeping me sweet. ‘You know me,’ I said lightly. ‘You can come, if you like.’

  ‘Not really my scene.’

  Fine, be like that. I’d been trying to figure out whether we were still friends or not, and I guess that was my answer. ‘I thought you liked dressing up.’

  ‘Are you going to ask me, or what?’ she said impatiently. ‘About the party last night.’

  Heh. For once in my life, I had outcooled Xanthippe Carides. Winnah and champion. ‘Were you at the party last night? There were so many people…’

  She smirked a bit. ‘Okay, then. Leaving by the door or the window?’

  ‘It’s a nice window, shame to waste it.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She took my teacup, and rinsed it in the sink. ‘I like your new sidekick. Figured out all his secrets yet?’

  ‘Who says he has any secrets from me?’

  Xanthippe looked amused. ‘I bet you haven’t even googled him. You’re so twentieth century, Tish.’ There was the old teenage nickname again, a reminder of how long we’d known each other.

  ‘I have email,’ I said, a little wounded. ‘I have broadband.’

  ‘Yes, how are Ceege and his gay shamans going?’

  ‘They’re metrosexual, actually.’ I was tired of this conversation. I went back to Darrow’s shiny white sitting room, and slid one leg over the window sill. ‘If you find Darrow, once you’ve finished breaking his ribs or making hi
m beg for forgiveness, can you tell him I’d like a word about the café?’

  ‘I’ll try to remember,’ she said.

  I bruised my tailbone climbing out of the damn window, and as I walked away I spent at least five minutes thinking of nothing but how much I hated Darrow and Xanthippe and the stupid pretty house.

  Before I got to my car, though, I flipped open my mobile phone and called the café. Stewart picked up on the first ring. ‘Café La Femme, it’s no’ me fault it’s closed…’

  ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Do you have a tuxedo?’

  He sounded a little alarmed. ‘Right this minute?’

  ‘No, for tonight. It’s an emergency.’

  ‘Tabitha, most people don’t have tuxedo emergencies. Not getting married, are ye?’

  ‘I need you at our place tonight. Dress pretty.’ I heard a sound in the background. ‘Stewart, do you have a woman there?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am using your café as a love shack. It’s proved remarkably successful.’

  ‘Sponge down the furniture afterwards. Also, bring tequila.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘By seven. Or I cut off your coffee supply.’

  ‘Cruel woman.’

  ‘You love it.’

  * * *

  Ceege rolled home from lectures that afternoon to find the house transformed in a mass of streamers and balloons, with the scent of hors d’oeuvres billowing out of my oven. ‘You remembered,’ he said with delight.

  I tried not to look guilty about the near miss. ‘Of course. Idiot.’ I sat at his computer in a blue ballgown, my hair skewered high in defiance of the laws of both gravity and hairspray. I was also wearing a long strand of fake pearls, and shiny diamante stilettos.

  ‘I’ll get dressed,’ Ceege said, grabbing a handful of caviar blinis from the buffet table. ‘You stay off the internet. I don’t want to hear you’ve already caught up on Oscar spoilers from the live broadcast.’

  The downside of celebrating international events of glamour and glory is that they happen at the wrong time of day for us—the Oscars screen live in our afternoon, but we wait until the evening to party because some of us have real jobs.

  ‘I’m doing something else, promise.’ Actually, I was busy checking my sources on Stewart McTavish’s secret internet life.

  I’d come across the Diana Glass story the first time I googled him. There was even a Wikipedia article devoted to Stewart’s original article—‘Why Romance Novels are Bad for the Soul’ in Vogue, no less, three pages of snark which served mainly to tear strips off the works of a certain Melbourne romance writer. Some fangirl had scanned and posted the original article, which I had to admit was as funny as hell. I had also read acres of forum comments about the unfairness of the article, mainly from pissed off romance writers, both published and unpublished. Wikipedia linked to a follow up story about an electronic slapfight between Stewart and Diana Glass on Amazon.

  In between stuffing mushrooms, blowing up balloons and making myself look fabulous, I had followed up the last few links this afternoon. Twentieth century girl? I’m new Millennium all the way, baby.

  It sounded like the Romance Writers Guild had all but declared war on our McTavish, decrying him wildly in as many pixels as they could muster. Still, the deeper I got into the forums, the more comments I found that suggested that Stewart and Diana had known each other while he was living in Melbourne.

  It didn’t entirely fit together. There was a mystery here, and apparently that was my thing these days.

  Finally, in an obscure little lit gossip blog that never quoted anyone’s names, I found the final piece of the puzzle. A blurry snapshot suggested that Diana Glass and Stewart McTavish had once—before a certain Vogue article—been a serious item.

  I could see why Bishop had jumped to the conclusion that Stewart was an outrageously bad ex-boyfriend. But in light of the last few days, I was thinking in an entirely different direction.

  And what I was thinking was: publicity stunt.

  ‘Are those stuffed mushrooms?’ Ceege whooped from the kitchen.

  ‘Hands off! They’re not even grilled yet.’

  It was nearly time for the Red Carpet special, and that meant our guests would be arriving any moment. Also, it was time to grill the mushrooms, assuming Ceege hadn’t eaten them all raw. Before I finished up on the computer, I clicked on the Sandstone City bookmark.

  random_scotsman’s latest blog entry was at the top of the page—and I made a little meep of surprise.

  Julian Morris filled the screen.

  Hardly surprising I hadn’t recognised him dead, as he’d done some growing up since I saw him last. He smouldered lopsidedly out of the picture, one arm looped around the neck of a woman I recognised as Claudina the flatmate. His dark, curly hair tumbled around his shoulders.

  Hell, if I’d known he was going to turn out like that, I might not have dumped him so quickly back at college.

  Ew, Tabitha. Try to restrain yourself from perving on dead people.

  * * *

  IS THIS THE FACE OF A DRUG ADDICT? screamed the article header.

  Julian Morris (26) was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a Central Hobart apartment last Thursday. Police have indicated that the death may have been an accidental overdose, but Morris’s family and friends claim differently.

  ‘It’s bullshit,’ was the candid response of Morris’s sister Angela, speaking exclusively to Sandstone City. ‘All the police’s questions suggest they think he was some kind of junkie, but he never used drugs.’

  ‘I shared a flat with him for two years, and never even saw him smoke pot,’ claimed Morris’s flatmate and close friend, Claudina Wells. ‘He was diabetic and super health-conscious. He never injected anything but insulin.’

  These women have embarked upon a public awareness campaign, along with many of Morris’s friends, family members and ex-girlfriends, to spread their belief that Morris is being misrepresented by Tasmania Police. The campaign involves posters, distributed around local businesses in Hobart, and an electronic petition addressed to the Chief Superintendent. The Twitter hashtag #cleanmorris has been trending in Australia for the past forty-eight hours, and is gaining international support.

  To sign the petition, click here.

  To read a scan of the flyer, click here.

  Tweet this story #sandstonecity #cleanmorris

  Comment!

  * * *

  ‘Bishop’s going to kill me,’ I moaned.

  What the hell was Stewart thinking? The police were going to be furious about this. I scrolled down to the bottom of the article, and found a group of gorgeous red-haired women, holding armfuls of Clean Morris posters and flyers, and looking pleased with themselves.

  Never mind Bishop killing me. I was going to kill Stewart. Not only had he gathered this gang of harpies together to push their agenda, he’d done it in my bloody café. Love shack, my satin-sheathed arse.

  ‘Zip assistance, please!’ Ceege demanded from the kitchen. I came out to find him smashing ice for margaritas, dressed in a devastatingly accurate copy of an ill-fitting pink Ralph Lauren ballgown that Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the Oscars a million years ago. He’d matched it with a scary straight blonde wig, and gel tears studded down his cheeks.

  ‘That’s hideous,’ I said. ‘Well done.’

  He looked proud, and smashed more ice. ‘I know it’s a period piece.’

  ‘That’s what makes it awesome. Frocking it old skool.’ I lifted two cocktail glasses out of the freezer. ‘Make mine pink.’

  ‘Don’t I always?’

  The doorbell rang, and I trip-trapped down the hallway to answer it.

  Stewart stood on my doorstep with a bottle of tequila. I stared at him. There’s something about black tie on a halfway decent looking man that … wow. More to the point, it was raining outside and his hair was forming damp ringlets around his neck. I was a little dizzy for a moment. When I felt safe to speak, I said, ‘I was mostly
kidding about the tuxedo.’

  ‘I guessed,’ he said. ‘But I had this lying around…’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I wasn’t going to ask. I really wasn’t. But it didn’t look like a secondhand treasure, or a squeaky-clean rental. The boy had depths. Then I remembered some of his depths, and hit him quite hard on the shoulder. ‘I’m not talking to you.’

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘If you intend to keep quiet about your nefarious activities in my café, you might want to not blog about them.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I did work on the mural today. As well.’

  ‘And interviewed a gang of redheads, and photographed them in my café. Bishop’s going to blame me for this. He already suspects me of messing with the investigation.’

  ‘I didnae think of that,’ Stewart said, looking alarmed. ‘There was more room there than in our office, and the light was perfect for the picture … sorry, Tabitha.’

  I scowled at him. ‘I want you to know, I’m only letting you into this party at all because you look hot.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, somewhere between baffled and afraid. ‘Good to know.’

  I snatched the bottle from under his arm, and headed back in. ‘Tequila’s here, Ceege!’

  ‘Excellent!’ he yelled from the kitchen. ‘Almost killed this bottle.’

  ‘The insulin thing isn’t news to Bishop, by the way,’ Stewart said in a low voice. ‘Claudina told the police Morris was diabetic when she and Ange first identified the body. They have all the information we do—more, probably.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said. ‘You know, the police only told the papers that Julian Morris died of a suspected overdose. They didn’t say what it was an overdose of. They didn’t officially call him a junkie, either, whatever his precious flatmate screeches about.’ Gary had called him that, but not exactly on the record, and he wasn’t as involved in the case as Bishop was.’

  Stewart looked interested. ‘Ye think it was an insulin overdose?’

  ‘I think a lot of things. Some of them are possibilities.’ I had a wow of a thought. ‘Ceege, is it too late to invite Quinn over for tonight?’ I knew a few people in police forensics, but only one who would react positively to a party like this.