Mrs. P.’s blue eyes were now bright with frustrated anger, but no one seemed to notice. I could tell the rest of the table was genuinely happy for her. It was only Uncle Dave who was doing his best to needle her. Luckily, Pippa came back at that moment with an envelope.
“Here you go, Mrs. P. Please tell Mr. Naveed thank you for coming to pick up his check tonight.”
Mrs. P. took the envelope, giving the table a stiff but courteous nod of her head. “Enjoy your evening, everyone.”
“David,” Aunt Tilly admonished when Mrs. P. had gone. “You shouldn’t have teased her like that in front of everyone. She’s a woman of a certain age, and probably didn’t want to talk about her love life.”
“What’s this?” Pippa asked, sitting down again. “What happened with Mrs. P.?”
Uncle Dave had swallowed another mouthful of wine and said, “Oh, it was no big deal. I was just asking Mrs. Pollingham about her boyfriend, that’s all, and she got offended. Like she always does when I ask her anything.”
“Oh, Uncle Dave, you didn’t,” Pippa said, despair coloring her voice.
He gestured with his wineglass, becoming defensive. “I mean, who cares if we know? I was trying to be nice. They made a cute couple.”
Pippa pulled her lips in for a moment, as if trying to keep them from cutting her cousin down to size. A waiter came around to refresh everyone’s wineglasses, and she held hers out, looking like she needed it.
I drank, too, but I was feeling queasy. The man both Uncle Dave and Ysenia had referred to as “Mr. H.” wasn’t just a hotel guest, but an accountant who was staying in Austin for work purposes. Could he have been Hugo?
When Pippa was discussing the New Year’s Eve gala with her cousin Ginny, I turned to Uncle Dave and said with as casual a tone as I could, “It is kind of cute—Mr. H. and Mrs. P., both going by the initials of their surnames. What did the ‘H’ stand for?”
Uncle Dave was happy to oblige. “Actually, it was his first name, but I can’t remember exactly what it stood for. Hubert or Hugh, something like that.” He speared his last gnocchi and popped it into his mouth. “Can’t say I ever knew his last name.”
I made myself ask the words. “Would Pippa?”
“Doubt it,” Uncle Dave said. “She was always over here, supervising the renovations. Roselyn would, though. She and I used to rib Mrs. P. about him and their gelato dates all the time. That woman is so damn easy to rile up.”
I realized I’d been holding my breath, and I sipped more wine to cover up my shock. Mr. H. had to be Hugo Markman. But if he had indeed been Mrs. P.’s boyfriend, how come she had acted like she didn’t know him? And for that matter, how come Roselyn had acted like she’d never seen him before, either?
I thought back to the night Hugo had died. Roselyn had stared at his body, horrified, but she’d never actually said she’d never seen him before, had she?
Something was fishy, and I was growing more and more anxious to know what it was. I remembered how Roselyn had stared at Hugo, clutching her pearls as he lay on the ground. And how Mrs. P. had sought to calm her and had removed her from the scene quickly. Did Hugo have something to do with whatever was going on with Roselyn, and was Mrs. P. shielding her? Was that why Mrs. P. had acted like Hugo was a stranger to her?
Then I remembered Hugo Markman wasn’t just any accountant—he was a forensic accountant, skilled in locating accounting fraud within companies.
I glanced at Pippa, anxiousness mounting in me. She was the sole owner of Sutton Inc., and highly educated. Yet at only twenty-four years old, she was still a young and relatively inexperienced business owner.
A potential theory took shape. I thought I might know what was going on with Roselyn and her mysterious absences, and I needed to find out if I was right.
I was about to excuse myself to go in search of Roselyn when the table seemed to remember I was there, and that I was a professional genealogist. Aunt Tilly started off by asking me how long it took me to trace the Sutton family line, and from there, the questions snowballed.
Course after course of delicious food was served, all an homage to Chef Rocky’s talents and tastes, but it was I who’d become the center of attention. Pippa’s cousins were genuinely interested in their family history and how I’d worked to flesh it out. Even Uncle Dave switched to sparkling water and asked me some interesting questions, none of which had anything to do with the cost of any Sutton family heirlooms.
Before I knew it, Chef Rocky’s signature chocolate mint–chocolate chunk gelato was being served along with fresh coffee. It was utterly scrumptious, and we all sent up a toast to Chef Rocky. A half hour later, it was nearly ten o’clock, and the dinner was finally breaking up.
By this time, the past twenty-four hours had come down hard on me. I practically drooped in my chair with tiredness and stress, my jaw hurt from smiling and talking so much, and a tightness had spread up my shoulders and neck that was not helping the dull headache I’d been feeling since the fourth course was served. I looked over to see Pippa drooping as well, one hand massaging the back of her neck.
She leaned in and whispered, “Despite our slow crash, I think I have a bit of whiplash.”
“I do, too,” I said, realizing the tightness in my neck and shoulders was just that. “I’m so tired I can’t even see straight,” I added, and tried to ignore the stab of guilt and worry that came with saying the words. There was no way I’d have the brainpower to delve into multiple copies of The Thirty-Nine Steps to find the remaining key texts for the last three names on Hugo’s list. However, I was clear-headed enough to realize I could use some help when I did.
“Pippa,” I said as we walked out of Eighteen Ninety-Five and made our way to the front foyer. “Would you have time to help me with something tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she said, then added with a laugh, “but as long as it’s tomorrow. I’m absolutely beat.”
I told her I’d be visiting Grandpa in the morning and would bring my project over to her cottage after that. Then I gave her a hug good night. Boomer, who’d been sleeping in the front parlor, jumped up when he heard his human. I was grateful that he would be with her as she went back to her cottage.
Mrs. P.’s little Please Ring Bell for Service sign was up, though any requests at this hour would no doubt be handled by Terrence. Despite my tiredness, I would have liked to ask Mrs. P. a few questions. I was just thinking my talk with Roselyn and Mrs. P. would have to wait until tomorrow when I heard the French doors at the back of the hotel open. I looked around the front desk and saw Roselyn. We both froze.
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Roselyn,” I said, striding toward her. “You and I need to talk.”
She’d stopped level with the back staircase, glancing up at it like she might use the stairs as an escape route. In an instant, her desire to get away from me made all my tiredness and aches disappear.
As I neared her, I saw redness rimming her eyes. Her face, a slightly haughtier version of her daughter’s that weirdly made her slightly more beautiful, was set like stone.
“I’m very tired, Lucy,” she said. “It’s been a long day. Could I schedule some time with you tomorrow?”
I gestured toward the little sitting room. “I’m afraid not, Roselyn, and I think I could pit my long day against yours and come up equal, if not the winner. For that matter, so could Pippa. So can we talk?”
“Pippa?” she said, her full lips turning down. “What’s wrong with Pippa? What happened?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “Other than being worried sick about you.” I held up my phone, showing her my contact for Detective Maurice Dupart. “Now, please. Let’s talk, or I will have to call my detective friend and tell him what I suspect.”
I figured Dupart would laugh at my use of the word “friend,” but I didn’t care if it got Roselyn to talk. She stared at his name for a moment, then turned and walked into the sitting room.
I closed the door behind us, and we faced each othe
r.
“Roselyn, I’m exhausted, so I’m going to get straight to the point,” I said. “Was Hugo Markman investigating you and/or Sutton Inc. for embezzling funds, or for the misuse of funds? Is that why you’ve been acting so squirrely these past weeks, leaving Pippa to constantly take up your slack?” When her lips parted in shock, I decided to add to it. “And did you and Mrs. P. poison Hugo Markman with radium chloride to keep him from discovering what you’d done?”
Her face had gone absolutely white. A part of me felt triumphant. The other part of me was sinking with the horrible knowledge of being right for the wrong reasons.
“How did you recognize him?” she asked, beginning to pace the room. “How did you even know Hugo? You said you’d never seen him before.”
“I hadn’t,” I said simply. “I’ve just found out a few things over the past couple of days.”
She gave me a look of such irritated disgust, I almost felt slapped.
“God, you’re such a perfect little nosy know-it-all,” she said. “I knew you’d be trouble for me the moment Pippa introduced us.”
“There’s no such thing as perfect, Roselyn,” I snapped. “I screw up all the time, and I’ve done things I’m not proud of, too. I make mistakes every day, but at least I try to learn from them.”
I paused, then said, “I am somewhat nosy, though, I admit that. I have more factoids in my brain than I know what to do with sometimes, so I spit them back out at others. However, I don’t apologize for loving learning and information. I’m smart, I’m good at my job, I work hard, and I’m proud of it.” I clasped my hands in front of me. “But if I come off like a know-it-all, then I apologize, and I’ll try to be better about it.”
Roselyn’s face was stony, and I braced for her to go off on me. But she surprised me when she walked to the chair I’d occupied just two nights earlier when Officer Carr had taken my statement and sank down heavily into it.
“I’ve never touched a cent of Pippa’s or the Sutton Inc. money.” She covered her face with her hands, bringing her palms down together to cover her mouth as if in prayer. I sat down in the chair across from her.
“You didn’t?”
Lowering her hands, Roselyn shook her head. “I only … I only misused my own money. Repeatedly.”
She’d said it in just above a whisper, and it took a beat for her words to sink into my tired mind, and for my mind to get the meaning behind them.
“Wait. Are you saying you have a gambling problem?”
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Hugo Markman was investigating another company, but he overheard a conversation I had with … a man … a very bad man … one night at the Sutton Grand. Hugo recognized the signs that I’d gotten in over my head, financially speaking. Mrs. P. and Chef Rocky were the only other people who knew. Mrs. P. found out a couple of years ago when I got in deep. She loaned me some money.” A tear fell and she wiped it away. “When—when Hugo realized what was happening, I told him Mrs. P. knew about my gambling.”
“And Chef Rocky?” I asked.
“He had addiction problems in college, so he understood. He was wonderful and was getting me help. The day he died, Rocky was going to introduce me to a counselor.” Roselyn’s voice broke. “Hugo was such a nice man, too, and was trying to help me as well. He was helping me. He set me up with some people in law enforcement who could use me to get evidence that could put this guy away, and—”
I cut in. “Wait. Roselyn, are you working with the FBI?”
Her eyes went wide. “How did you know?” Then she rolled her eyes, but it was without malice this time. “Don’t answer that. You’re quicker than anyone gives you credit for, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I sat forward in my chair. “Roselyn, if you knew how long it took me to figure that out, you wouldn’t be saying such things.” I shook my head and thought about Ben, feeling even more ashamed now than ever. He hadn’t ghosted me at all, and he wasn’t setting Roselyn up for a sting. They both were part of a sting, and I’d nearly ruined everything today with my snooping at the pub.
Roselyn went to say something, then she was sobbing. I got up and went to the silver urns that would stay filled with hot water and coffee until midnight. Selecting a decaf Earl Grey, I made her some tea in a Burleigh mug in a peacock pattern. While it steeped, I brought her a box of tissues.
“Thank you,” Roselyn mumbled, taking the box from me. She dabbed at her eyes, then looked up imploringly at me. She was ready to talk, and she wanted me to understand.
“When I saw him—Hugo, I mean—dead on our lawn, I thought he was responsible. I thought he’d killed poor Hugo.”
“He … you mean the very bad man?” I asked. I added some honey to the Earl Grey, and handed it to Roselyn.
She nodded, clasping the mug gratefully. “I thought he’d found out that I was getting help and he wouldn’t have power over me anymore. I thought he’d killed Hugo in response.”
I had a surge of hope that her idea might be true. That there was some horrible Very Bad Man who preyed on those with money problems and it was he who’d killed Hugo, and Chef Rocky, too. That Penelope Ohlinger really did die of heart complications. That none of this had anything to do with Grandpa and a set of World War II spies.
“But my contact at the FBI assured me this man had nothing to do with Hugo’s death. In fact, they believe Hugo was so adept at being invisible that he wasn’t even on the man’s radar.”
My hopes popped like a balloon landing on the thorns of a century plant.
“What about Chef Rocky?” I asked. “Did this man kill him?”
Roselyn shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes once more. “I thought he might have. That’s why I freaked out and disappeared after going to Rocky’s house and finding him dead. My contact won’t give me details as to why they’re so sure, though.” Her fist went up to her lips as she tried to keep from crying again. “I still have no idea what happened to Rocky. I was wondering if he had gotten back into the drug world, but there isn’t any evidence of it. My lawyer called me earlier and told me they have other leads, though.”
I wondered if the leads had anything to do with Hugo’s list and the file of names I gave Dupart earlier today, but I’d have to wait until tomorrow to call him.
“What about Pippa?” I said. “When will you tell her all of this?”
Roselyn sipped on her tea, then sighed. “I need a few more days. I’m told we’ve almost convinced this man to take the bait, but the longer Pippa can act confused and worried about me, the more stressed out I am, and the more flighty and scared I seem to him”—she gave a harsh laugh—“and for some reason, the more he trusts me. It’s been horrible acting like this around my daughter, but the FBI assures me this is the best way.”
“Say no more,” I said. “I’ve had a little bit of experience with the FBI. I won’t tell.”
Roselyn nodded, then went to get up.
I stood, too. “You’ll want to fix your eyes,” I said, and handed her another tissue. From my tote, I pulled out a mirror, and she wiped away the signs that she’d been crying.
“Thank you,” she said. She straightened her posture and shook her hair back. “Presentable?” she asked.
“More than,” I said with a smile. “Though may I ask you one other thing?”
From the look on her face, I had a feeling she knew what I was going to ask, but I said the words anyway.
“Why are you so averse to having your genealogy traced?”
She took one last drink of her tea, then set the mug down on the tray, and we walked to the door. She grasped the lock, then turned back to me.
“Lucy, I don’t want my genealogy done because I already know who I am,” she said softly. “I’m the granddaughter of a traitor. Of a German American soldier who tried to sell secrets to the Nazis. He was caught and shot—by the Nazis, in fact. He was double-crossed.”
I thought she was going to cry again, but she reined it in with a deep breath and met m
y eyes once more.
“Pippa comes from heroes and good, hardworking people on her father’s side, and traitors and gambling addicts on her mother’s side,” she said. “I don’t want my daughter to know my side because she’s my hero, and I don’t want her to ever associate with anything other than the heroic side of her family.”
With that, she turned the lock, opened the door, and walked out.
THIRTY-NINE
I intended to be up at dawn to go see Grandpa, but my exhausted body said otherwise. It was nearing nine o’clock by the time I found myself downstairs waiting for my ride-share.
It was December thirtieth, the day before New Year’s Eve. The weather was a relatively balmy fifty-five degrees, but it was due to turn ugly, rainy, and twenty degrees colder before possibly getting cold enough to snow. I was in jeans and booties yet again, but I’d put on a cheerful color-block sweater to hopefully counteract the increasingly gray day.
I settled myself on one of the emerald green sofas with a cup of coffee as Mrs. P. came in from directing teams of men delivering extra chairs, tables, and linens for the gala. In preparation for the weather to turn cold and wet, she was wearing a pair of black, ankle-high rubber boots and a chunky turtleneck sweater in marled gray tones. Her black pants were slimmer than she usually wore and had cargo pockets on the thighs. I watched as she pulled a pen from one of her pockets to check off something on a clipboard.
“I like your work outfit today, Mrs. P.,” I said. “You look like a cute and stylish general.”
Mrs. P. let out an amused snort. “Thank you, dear. I’ve got lots of work to do outside today, so I came prepared.”
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