A Grave Gala (Sugar Martin Vintage Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Shéa MacLeod

  “Yes. Toni invited him, but he played escort for me and Tippy. Very nice of him.”

  Pregnant pause. “Er, rather.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, so I chose to ignore it. “I assume you took the job.”

  “Of course,” he assured me.

  “How would you like me to proceed?” It wasn’t like I could go undercover. Everyone already knew who I was.

  “The usual. Ask questions. Poke about. Obviously you are limited since those involved know you work for me and that you’re a detective, but do what you can.”

  Detective? There was a wash of giddy pleasure at the thought that Mr. Woodward considered me a detective. How exciting! “Will do, sir.”

  “And do be careful, Miss Martin. I’d hate to have to face your mother should anything happen to you.”

  That was a sobering thought. My mother was a woman to be reckoned with. And she knew how to wield a rolling pin. “Of course, Mr. Woodward. I’ll be cautious.”

  “See that you do.”

  “Oh, Mr. Woodward, I was going to ask... do you know anything about Lord Winstead’s younger brother, Dicky? I thought he might know something, but Toni said he’s in Brazil.”

  “Yes, for some months now. I’ll double check his alibi. Jack will be around if you need him.” And he hung up without even a goodbye.

  I replaced the receiver slowly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jack being around. On the one hand, it was irritating to think Mr. Woodward thought I needed a babysitter. On the other, it was comforting to think I’d have someone there to watch my back. Not to mention Jack wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes.

  Tippy padded into the kitchen and checked his bowl, which was empty.

  “Well, Tippy,” I said, sinking into one of the rickety chairs, “it’s official. We’re on the case. What do you think about that?”

  Tippy gave me a look, then wandered over to the refrigerator. Clearly what he thought was that it was time for a treat. Oh, for the simple life of a dog.

  I got up and dug around until I came up with a bit of raw liver. I’d never been a fan of any sort of liver, raw or otherwise, but Tippy seemed to think it was dynamite.

  As for myself, I dug around in the cupboards and came up with a box of Weston Wagon Wheels. The package was yellow and had a picture of an old Conestoga wagon on the front. I doubted any of my ancestors had ever had such biscuits in their lives. According to Penny, they were a brand-new treat on the market. Personally, they reminded me of s’mores, which Penny claimed to have never heard of. Two biscuits with marshmallow filling sandwiched between them and then the whole thing covered in a chocolate-flavored coating. They were deliciously decadent, and I’d have to be careful or I’d go broke buying them. Not to mention bust out of all my new dresses.

  “You know, Tippy,” I said as I munched on a Wagon Wheel, “I think we ought to go talk to Mrs. Johnson.”

  Tippy perked up and let out a happy whine. Tippy was fond of Mrs. Johnson. She was always feeding him homemade dog biscuits.

  “She knows things,” I told him. “Maybe she’ll know something about Jerry Miles or Lord Peter Winstead. Maybe she’ll know something about the murder.”

  Tippy didn’t seem so sure about her knowledge of murder, but he was all for a visit.

  “And maybe while we’re there, we’ll see Jack. He did say he was staying down at the Sullen Oyster.”

  Tippy gave me a look that was a little too sly for a canine.

  THE POST OFFICE WAS just a half block from the sea front in a little stone cottage with a red door and shutters and window boxes overflowing with petunias. The counter sat at the back of the dim, low-ceilinged room, while the front was taken over as a sort of convenience shop with shelves crammed full of sweets, biscuits, tins of something called golden syrup, tea, fizzy drinks (What any self-respecting Portland girl would call pop, but that word got a lot of blank stares), Birds Custard Powder (surprisingly delicious when reconstituted and poured on cake), toilet paper, and sundry other items. A rack against one wall held postcards, newspapers, and magazines.

  One of the most interesting and perhaps unusual things about the Post Office was the small bookshelf full of dogeared paperbacks tucked in a corner behind the door. This was Meres Reach’s version of a library. Anyone could borrow a book as long as they returned it, and anyone could donate books simply by sticking them on the shelves for others to find. I myself had left a couple of mysteries I’d already read.

  Tippy let out a happy “woof” the minute he spotted Mrs. Johnson at her perch behind the counter. She glanced up from the book she was reading. It was a well-worn copy of Vera Caspary’s Laura. I hadn’t read it, though I’d heard good things, and there’d been that movie starring Gene Tierney.

  “If it isn’t himself. I’ve got a treat for you.” Mrs. Johnson reached under the counter and pulled out one of her dog biscuits. She fed it to Tippy, a smile wreathing her broad face.

  “You spoil him.”

  Mrs. Johnson grinned at me, flashing the slight gap in her front teeth. “Hard not to. Now, what can I do for you, young miss? Mailing another letter?”

  “Not today,” I said. “I thought perhaps you could help me with a little project.”

  She gave me a knowing look. “One of your special projects?”

  “What do you mean?” I should have known playing dumb was useless.

  She cackled and pulled a tin of peppermint sweets out of the pocket of her dress. I took the one she offered me before she popped one into her own mouth. She sucked on it a moment. “Everyone ‘round here knows about your work with Mr. Woodward. Now don’t worry.” She waved off my rising panic. “Ain’t none who would speak of it. Not to outsiders, mind.”

  It was still surprising to me that I wasn’t considered an outsider. That was probably Penny’s doing. Her and Mrs. Johnson. They made sure that not only did everyone in the village know who I was, but that they considered me “good people.” It meant that while they may occasionally refer to me as “that foreign woman” or “the American,” instead of being an outsider, I was merely one of the villagers—and an eccentric one at that. Which was pretty hilarious, considering.

  “Okay, then, yes. It’s one of my jobs for Mr. Woodward. You heard about what happened up at Endmere?”

  She clucked, somehow managing to avoid spitting out the boiled sweet. “Poor man. Shot through the heart with an arrow. Heard they never did find the weapon.” She eyed me closely.

  I knew my role. I leaned on the counter, closing the space between us. In a low voice I said, “No, indeed. Although Cobblepot had his men out searching the grounds for hours.”

  “But you found something,” she said.

  The woman was either a witch or a psychic. Or maybe she’d got Penny to blab.

  “Actually, it was Tippy,” I admitted. “He found a bit of...” What was that Penny called it? “Fletching.”

  “Ah! Colors?”

  “Red and green.”

  She frowned. “Don’t know that one.”

  “You mean the colors mean something besides just a matching set?” I asked.

  “’Course they do. Surprised Penny didn’t tell you, her uncle being a fletcher and all. See, each archer has his, or her, own colors. Generally speaking. Up the manor house, his lordship always had bright yellow tipped with orange. Said it made ‘em easier to spot.”

  She must be referring to Lord Chasterly. “How interesting.”

  “Aye. But the grounds man, he has plain white with brown. Natural color of the bird.”

  “So you could tell who shot the arrow based on the color of the feathers. I mean fletching.”

  “Indeed. Or leastwise, who owned the arrow, which might narrow things down some. Red and green though.” She shook her head. “That I can’t help you with. Jonas might.”

  “Jonas?”

  “Jonas Fletcher. Penny’s uncle. Lives out in the woods base of the cliff. Old Tom can take you. Bit of a way to walk.”

  O
ld Tom being the village’s excuse for a cabbie. He was a jovial man, but a terrible driver. “Thanks very much. I’ll ask him. Did you know Lord Peter Winstead?”

  “He’s the one got himself killed, right? Can’t say I ever met the man. Name’s familiar, like maybe I saw him in the paper, but I don’t believe he was from around here.”

  Which begged the question, why would someone come here to kill him? Why not just kill him in London or wherever he was from?

  “What about Jerry Miles?”

  She frowned and handed Tippy another biscuit, which he happily gobbled down. “Now that’s a name I know. He’s that race car driver. Very handsome.” She waggled her eyebrows. “But handsome is as handsome does.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Before she could answer, the bell above the shop door jingled and in came Margaret. No last name. Well, I was pretty sure she had one, but I didn’t know it, and now we’d spoken several times at the Post Office and out on the street, I felt like a prize idiot asking.

  Margaret was middle-aged like Mrs. Johnson. Perhaps forty-five or so. But where Mrs. Johnson was plump and cheery, Margaret was lean and gaunt and wore faded clothes that bagged on her figure as if they’d been made for a larger woman. Maybe they had, for the navy shirtwaist dress she wore had clearly been made during the war with its plain lines and bias cut, meant to take up less fabric.

  “Hello, Mags,” Mrs. Johnson said cheerfully. “Lovely day.”

  “Betsy,” Margaret said pleasantly, if a little stiffly. “Miss Martin.”

  I nodded, avoiding the impolite usage of her given name. Although I’d asked Margaret to call me Sugar, she’d refused, which meant I had to call her by her proper form of address, too. So I simply avoided calling her anything.

  Mrs. Johnson offered Margaret a boiled sweet.

  Margaret refused the peppermint candy. “Thank you, but no. Got to watch my figure.”

  Mrs. Johnson rolled her eyes. “We were just talking about the excitement up at the manor.”

  That piqued Margaret’s interest. “Really?” Then she caught herself. “Father Thorne says we oughtn’t gossip.”

  Father Thorne was the vicar of the C of E—Church of England—parish church in the village. I had it on good authority—Mrs. Johnson’s—that Father Thorne was actually very fond of gossip.

  “Ain’t gossip if you were there,” Mrs. Johnson said stoutly. “And Miss Martin was.”

  Tippy let out a slight huff as if to remind Mrs. Johnson that he was there, too. Mrs. Johnson, knowing her place, handed him another treat. If I didn’t watch her, his belly would droop lower than his legs.

  “You were there?” Margaret’s eyes widened. “How ghastly for you.”

  “It was a bit,” I admitted. “Quite a shock, I’ll admit. And now that Cobblepot is constantly popping up with strange questions.”

  “Strange questions?” Margaret was hooked.

  “Yes. Like he wanted to know how I knew everyone. Then he wouldn’t believe me when I said I didn’t. Well, I know a couple of them, but take Jerry Miles for instance. Never met the man before. Wouldn’t know him from Adam.”

  “He’s that devilishly handsome race car driver,” Mrs. Johnson offered. “Whizzes through the village in that little red coupe.”

  “Isn’t he the one that nearly ran over Mrs. Potts’s prized chicken?” Margaret asked.

  “The same,” Mrs. Johnson said.

  “I thought Tommy Tilbury stole Mrs. Potts’s prized chicken,” I said, trying to keep up.

  “Oh, he did,” Mrs. Johnson said, “but that was months ago. Davy Swell—that’s the local constable—made him give the chicken back and let him off with a severe warning.”

  “Tommy’s mother made him help Father Thorne,” Margaret said. “Cleaning the church and the like. The boy could use a good lesson in proper behavior.”

  “At least Mrs. Potts got her chicken back,” I said lamely.

  “In time it nearly got run over by that hooligan race car driver,” Margaret said tartly. “Handsome is as handsome does.”

  “Mrs. Johnson said that, too,” I murmured. “What do you mean by it?”

  “Only that rumor has it he got a young village girl in the family way,” Mrs. Johnson said. “Not our village of course, but one down the way... St. Cyres Bay. He spent a bit of time there at the rest home recovering from one of his crashes. He does that a lot, apparently. Crash.”

  If Jerry Miles had got a girl pregnant, that might explain why someone would want to kill him, but not why they’d kill Peter Winstead.

  “Didn’t he have a fiancé?” I blurted. “Jerry Miles, I mean.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Margaret said a little snootily.

  “But of course!” Mrs. Johnson declared. “Don’t you remember, Margaret? It was in all the papers. She was ever so pretty, and such a romantic story.”

  “Really?” I prodded.

  Tippy, realizing we were in it for the long haul, heaved a sigh and flopped on the floor in front of the counter. Margaret looked askance at him while Mrs. Johnson fed him another biscuit.

  “Way I heard it,” Mrs. Johnson said, brushing crumbs from her fingers, “she was some society lady from France. Very hoity toity. He nearly ran her over with his car one day on the streets of Paris.”

  “Ghastly place,” Margaret murmured.

  We ignored her.

  “Apparently,” Mrs. Johnson continued, “he pulled over to make sure she was all right and they fell in love right then and there. So romantic.”

  “I didn’t see her at the party,” I said, playing dumb.

  “That’s because, not six months later, she dumped him for Lord Peter Winstead!” Mrs. Johnson seemed to savor that juicy piece of gossip. “That’s where I knew that name!”

  “Served him right, you ask me,” Margaret muttered darkly. “Got his just desserts.”

  “Maybe so,” Mrs. Johnson agreed. “But so did she. Winstead ditched her not a month later. Of course, Miles wouldn’t take her back, so off she went back to France.”

  Margaret shuddered. “Horrible.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking about Jerry’s Miles’s ex-fiancé or France in general. “It sounds like a real mess.”

  “Oh, it was, and an exciting one, too. You don’t suppose Jerry Miles offed Lord Peter Winstead because of that woman, do you?” Mrs. Johnson appeared intrigued by the idea.

  “Who knows?” I gave her a vague smile. “Could be. Or there could be another reason.” Although such a reason escaped me at the moment. “His younger brother inherits everything, which makes for a really good motive, but he wasn’t at the party.”

  “Who else was at the party?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

  I listed off the rest of the guests, but she unfortunately didn’t have much on any of them, except for Lil and Alex who’d both been to the village during the previous kerfuffle. I guess the rest of them didn’t make it into the gossip columns much.

  Since I could get nothing more out of them, Tippy and I bid our goodbyes and headed out into the unseasonably warm day. Tippy did not approve. His tongue lolled out and he gave me a dirty look.

  “Sorry,” I said. “If I’d have known it would be this hot today, I’d... well, never mind. I don’t have a car, so we’d still have had to walk. And it’s no good saying we could have stayed home. We’ve a job to do, you and I.”

  Tippy scowled in a way that made it clear he didn’t have a job and this whole thing was beneath him. Which maybe it was, but I couldn’t just leave him shut up in the cottage all day. That wouldn’t be nice. And Jack would have my hide for being a bad dog guardian.

  “Walking is good for you,” I said lamely.

  Tippy snorted.

  We were halfway back to the cottage when a little red car tore out of a side street, nearly plowing us over. If it hadn’t been for Tippy suddenly surging toward the open door of the butcher, I’d have been killed for sure. Or at least badly injured.

  “
You alright, Miss?” the butcher asked, having obviously seen the whole thing.

  “Fine,” I managed to gasp, but one thing was clear in my mind.

  Jerry Miles had just tried to run me over.

  Chapter 6

  I stormed into my cottage and thwacked my purse onto the couch. Tippy whined, clearly upset by my fury.

  “Sorry, Tips,” I said, “but that man... oh, I’m steamed! You know what? We’re going to go up there and confront him.”

  Tippy let out a satisfied grunt as if he thought it was a brilliant idea.

  I considered calling Toni first. Seemed the polite thing to do, but then she might mention it to Jerry. I didn’t want him prepared. I wanted to catch him off guard.

  It was nearly five in the evening, which meant cocktail hour up at Endmere. In Toni’s world, cocktail hour was any time after breakfast. By the time dinner was served at eight, they’d all be three sheets to the wind, so now would be a good time. They might still be sober enough to talk.

  Jerking open the wardrobe doors, I perused the offerings inside. My favorite blue taffeta A-line was just the ticket. It had a snug bodice which flared at the waist into a fuller skirt. The little cap sleeves and square neckline were flattering. I paired it with the gold plate jewelry Mr. Woodward had purchased for my first mission and a pair of strappy gold sandals with low heels. Last thing I needed was to break my ankle walking up hill.

  Tippy and I started out at a brisk march, but it was still warm, and the air was thick and soupy. It wasn’t long until I felt damp and wilted. Fortunately, at just that moment a horn tooted from behind me as Old Tom came rumbling up the cobblestone street in his ancient green pickup. The window was down, and he leaned out as the vehicle slowed.

  “Want a ride?”

  “Thank you. You’re a life saver.” Our meeting was fortuitous as I wanted him to take me out to see Penny’s uncle. I hoisted Tippy into the cab before climbing in myself.

  Old Tom put the truck in gear, and it lurched forward, rattling over the cobblestones until we hit the main road, which was paved. He swung through the gate and past the groundskeeper’s cottage before hitting every pothole along Toni’s drive. I made a note to remind her to fix it. Somebody was bound to break an axel.