Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle

by Mary Jane Maffini

  I wrote down Get ice cream from freezer.

  Even though Hélène trusted Josey to get the ice cream, she clearly thought that scooping appropriate scoops was a higher level job. I had to admit that Hélène did that as well as everything else she put her hand to. That is to say perfectly.

  Josey lit the candles instead.

  Hélène poured the rum over the bananas and swirled it around the pan. I was pretty sure I could have done that too. She took a barbecue lighter from a drawer and flicked it. Nothing happened. At last, something that Hélène didn’t get right the first time. Three more attempts and still nothing.

  “Oh là là. They are supposed to be child-proof. What does that make me?”

  “I’m really good at that, Miz Lamontagne! Let me.” Josey reached for the lighter and relieved Hélène of it. “There’s a trick to it. You hold it here and then you press this, and presto.”

  “Et voilà!” Hélène said.

  Josey leant forward to light the rum mixture. The sauce and bananas caught and flamed beautifully. “Wow!” she said. “This is cool!” She held the flaming pan in her hand.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  I jumped from my perch at the sound of Jean-Claude’s booming voice. Josey leapt sideways. Her arm hit one of the martini glasses, which toppled the next one. That crashed into the third. I raced across the floor as I saw the domino effect about to happen. Splintered martini glasses one, two, three.

  Hélène stood still, her eyes wide, her hand over her mouth.

  Josey hung onto the handle of the pan with the still-flaming mixture.

  As I sprinted toward the tray, the third glass hit the first candle and knocked it over. The candle tipped, in slow motion it seemed. The gauzy fabric ignited in a whoosh. Flames snaked across the granite counter. Others shot up, licking at the cupboard doors. One leapt and caught Josey’s sleeve. She yelped and dropped the pan. Sauce, bananas and flames rippled across the floor.

  Hélène shrieked.

  I grabbed a pair of decorative dish towels and smothered the flames on Josey’s sleeve. There were tears in her saucer-sized blue eyes. I slapped the towel at the rest of the flames, which were leaping up the cupboard surfaces. I shouted. “Where’s your fire extinguisher? And someone call 911.”

  Jean-Claude reached under one of the many sinks and extracted an extinguisher. He sprayed foam on every surface in reach. Josey grabbed the phone and dialed 911, gasping out where we were and what was happening.

  Hélène still stood, hands still on her mouth, burgundy nail polish stark against her ashen face.

  Jean-Claude hadn’t lost his command of the situation. “What the hell are you doing? Trying to destroy my kitchen? Well, you are damn well not going to get away with it. Tabernac. ”

  Hélène gasped. If you add up all the swear words in the English language, they might equal tabernac in shock value. But probably not.

  I said. “We are trying to stop Josey from being burned alive.”

  “Exactly,” Josey said. Her eyes were still a bit teary, which told me that the burn on her arm must hurt like hell.

  “Well, you had no damn business being in my house in the first place.”

  I reached deep into my small store of courage. “Get a grip. We were all having fun here, and an accident happened. I’m sorry about the damage. We’ll be leaving now. Josey should see a doctor.”

  “You are not going anywhere until the police get here.”

  “Wrong,” I said. “She needs medical attention fast.”

  He sneered. “Let’s let the police decide who needs what.”

  “But Miz Silk. Maybe we should have stayed. You heard his lordship. He’s going to press charges because we left the scene of the crime. What if he uses that against you to get your house?”

  I gripped the steering wheel of the Skylark as we rocketed along Chemin des cèdres toward the village. “It’s all right, Josey. There was no crime. And you need medical help. Please don’t make any snippy remarks to Liz. We’re lucky she’s back in the office after her move.”

  “What happened to your eyebrows?” Liz said as we bypassed the patients in her waiting room and hustled in. “You look—”

  “Nothing. We’re here about Josey. You have to check her arm. Josey, climb up on the table please. I’ll help you,” I said. “It’s a bad burn. I thought about the emergency department at the St. Aubaine hospital, but I figured you’d be faster.”

  “Hard to be slower. But seriously, Fiona. What happened to your eyebrows?”

  “Miz Silk got singed putting out a fire. It was all my fault.”

  Liz snorted. “Why does neither of those things surprise me in the slightest? You know what? There are easier ways of shaping your eyebrows.”

  I bit my tongue. After all, we had jumped the queue in the office. “It was not her fault. It was an accident. No more arguments, Josey.”

  Liz said, “I despair of both of you. Looks like she has second degree burns. That’s a lot better than third degree. Essentially, there’s not much we can do except to keep the wounds covered and apply antibacterial ointment to prevent infection. Fiona, you’ll have to watch out that it doesn’t get infected. If it does, then you get her in to me pronto for antibiotics. Josey, you listen to this. If you ignore the signs of infection, you can end up needing IV antibiotics, probably in the emergency department. The same goes for you, Fiona. I’ll give you antibacterial ointment too. Use it and watch for infection. Keep your hair off your forehead.”

  Josey said, “We’ll watch out for each other. Thanks, Dr. Prentiss.”

  Liz loaded us up with antibiotic cream samples. “Stay out of trouble. Just this once,” she said as we left.

  The impatient patients in the waiting room probably got a thrill when they saw the local cops show up looking for the two people who had elbowed their way ahead of them. I heard one woman mutter something that translated roughly into “pushy English people getting what they deserve.”

  Sgt. Sarrazin regarded us with a frown. “Are you really that surprised to see me, madame?”

  I was, actually. In fact, the whole day so far seemed like a weird variation on Groundhog Day in that Josey, Sarrazin, Liz and Hélène just kept turning up and nothing ever got any better.

  Josey said. “We’ve been expecting you. It’s just that Miz Silk’s eyebrows got a bit singed.”

  “Josey has a bad burn,” I said. “Anyone else but Jean-Claude would have driven her for medical help rather than calling you.”

  “That explains it,” he said, whipping out his little white notebook.

  “It was an accident,” I said.

  “My fault,” Josey said.

  “Let’s start at the beginning. Is there a place here we can talk?”

  Liz had stuck her head out the door to see what the discussion was about. She said, “Not here, there isn’t. Not enough chairs for the walking wounded as it is.”

  I shot Liz a look. “I don’t think Josey’s in any shape to go to the Sûreté. Anyway, she hasn’t done anything. I can go with you.”

  “Neither of you has to go to the Sûreté,” Sarrazin said. “I just need to ask you some questions about the fire.”

  Josey leaned over and whispered. “They always say things like that, Miz Silk. Then when they get you behind bars, watch out.”

  Sarrazin sighed. “Now that the secret’s out, I guess I won’t get to work you both over with my rubber hose.”

  Josey raised her chin. “I want my lawyer.”

  “Get lawyered up if you want. Or just tell me what happened.” He glanced at Liz scowling in the doorway. She was probably his doctor too, so maybe that was a factor in his decision. “We can go to the Chez.”

  “We’re broke,” Josey said.

  “The Chez will be great,” I said at the same time.

  “I’ll try to minimize the brutality,” Sarrazin countered. “I’ll even buy the fries.”

  “How about poutine? Miz Silk really likes poutine.�
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  “Don’t push your luck.”

  As the door swung closed behind us, I pictured everyone in the waiting room yanking out cell phones to spread the latest news.

  The Chez was great, if you didn’t mind having two dozen witnesses to your police grilling. Lucette, everyone’s favourite server, zoomed right in. Sarrazin ordered three large fries and three Pepsis, without consultation. It’s hard for a normal person to polish off the towering plates that they serve at the Chez. But Tolstoy adores fries, so I’d be popular when I finally crawled home and enticed him out of the basement with the leftovers.

  “Make mine with gravy,” Josey called after Lucette.

  “Let’s talk about the fire,” Sarrazin said.

  “Do we have to?” I said.

  “It is why we’re here. We’re only here because you both are obviously injured. So let’s get started. I am puzzled about why you would be at the Lamontagne residence. Everyone knows that you and Jean-Claude don’t get along.”

  “Hélène is my friend. I don’t have to get along with Jean-Claude. Usually, I avoid him.”

  “It was the cookbook. Miz Silk has to write one because of her taxes, and it has to be,” she glanced at Sarrazin, “romantic. Otherwise Jean-Claude will get his filthy mitts on her house.”

  “I’ve already explained about the cookbook, Josey,” I said, not wishing to discuss it in detail with Sarrazin.

  He rumbled, “And I’m not sure how it connects to the fire at the Lamontagnes’ house.”

  “Miz Lamontagne was showing how to make a flambé. I guess his lordship likes them. We were testing it in her kitchen, because Miz Silk’s stove isn’t working too good. It’s completely my fault,” Josey said.

  I interrupted. “It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident. If you had to blame it on a person, it would be Jean-Claude himself. Hélène and Josey were just flaming the rum when he showed up without warning and started shouting. A candle was knocked over. The decorative fabric just ignited. Whoosh! A tower of fire.”

  Josey said, “In the future, we might want to change how we make that recipe.”

  Sarrazin rubbed his forehead. “M. Jean-Claude Lamontagne seems to believe there was malice aforethought.”

  “Malice aforethought?” Josey snapped. “What exactly did his lordship say happened?”

  “He implied it was done deliberately to damage his recently upgraded kitchen.”

  “Deliberately?” I squeaked.

  “He claims the damage is over fifty thousand dollars.”

  Josey inhaled. “That’s crazy. Jeez, it was just a small fire. He put it out with the extinguisher.”

  When I caught my breath, I said, “And it can’t possibly be that amount. They’re cupboards, not the Sistine Chapel.”

  “What did Miz Lamontagne say about it?”

  “Not much. She was very quiet. I think she might have been in shock about the whole thing.”

  Josey narrowed her eyes. “I bet she’s afraid of him. Everyone else in town is. He’s a real bully.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “For sure. And somebody in the tax office must be working with him, because why else are they trying to take Miz Silk’s house for unpaid taxes?

  One inch-thick eyebrow rose. “That’s interesting too,” Sarrazin said.

  I said, “Jean-Claude does want my property for the new development, but I don’t think he’d actually....” On the other hand, maybe I did. “Josey listened to Jean-Claude accuse us of something that simply wasn’t true at all. She’s had a bad fright, and these burns really hurt. And then the police show up.”

  He said, “Yeah, and buy her fries and soft drinks. Make sure you add that to the list of brutal tactics.”

  “It’s just unfair. We’re not criminals.”

  Sarrazin cleared his throat. “Back to what happened in the kitchen. Lamontagne says at the very least it was careless and negligent use of fire.”

  I shrugged. I might have caught it from him. “You can choose to believe me, or you can choose to believe Jean-Claude.” I shot Josey a look intended to stifle a snort.

  He said, “You know what I think? I think we’d be laughed out of court if we tried to prosecute you for this.”

  Josey said, “I knew that.”

  I felt a wave of relief. “And that’s the end of it?”

  Sarrazin picked up a fry. “The end of it, as far as I’m concerned. But you might want to keep your eye on—”

  Josey narrowed her eyes. “His lordship, right?”

  Sarrazin said. “I’d be asking myself why a man who could have a perfectly good insurance claim for an accidental kitchen fire would make such a big deal over it and jeopardize his insurance claim by accusing you of deliberately damaging his home.”

  I stared at him. “Could he come after me in court? That’s just ducky. I can’t afford to fight him on this.”

  Sarrazin gave one of us famous shrugs. “If I were you, madame, I’d be careful.”

  I was feeling vague and distressed. The best antidote for that is to take my dog for an amble. I waited until just before sunset. I brought along Aunt Kit’s walking stick for fun, and we moseyed from the house through the woods to the water’s edge. You could just see the water from the cottage. Since it was built in the 1930s, the trees have grown and blocked some of the view. That’s okay with me. I love the walk to the shoreline. I never fail to be astounded at the power of the river to move me. If I could see it from my window, I’d never get anything done.

  The shore is rocky. It’s also shallow enough to dip your feet in. That suited me too, after a long and sticky day. I was wearing my waterproof sport sandals. Tolstoy keeps his distance from water, but there was plenty to interest him in the woods.

  The last of the evening sun glittered off the little waves. The river is wide and powerful at this curve, flanked by green hills. Just the occasional rooftop can be seen peeking through the cedars or maples on both sides of the bank. It’s pretty much unchanged since the days when logging fueled the local economy. You can almost feel the brawling spirit of the French and Irish loggers who settled the area.

  For me, every tree had a memory attached to it. There was the maple where Liz and I had our first tiff. Liz had stomped off in a snit and smacked her head on an oak branch, knocking herself out. I still felt a bit of guilt about that. She was not above bringing up the subject when she wanted something. Then there was the cedar where I used to smooch with Phil, just out of Aunt Kit’s sight.

  We’d spent our prom night on that beach, with bare feet in the water, drinking Blue out of the bottle and discovering that cigarettes were not really for us. Liz’s boyfriend from that time was long gone, and eventually Philip would be too. But Liz and I still had a lifetime attached to that shoreline. We’d had our issues from time to time, but they always passed. I shivered at the thought of giant homes hunkered on treeless lawns that stretched to the shore, where huge docks would jut into the river.

  I turned as a branch cracked behind me. Josey emerged. Tolstoy bounded toward her, tail waving with joy.

  “Oh, boy, Miz Silk. You can’t let his lordship take this away from you.”

  I nodded, a lump in my throat.

  “This is where I first met you. Remember?”

  “Who could forget?”

  Josey had been selling lemonade during a heat wave. Or maybe it was selling lawn mowing services. Or possibly dog walking. Whatever it was, it hadn’t taken her long to become part of our lives.

  Tolstoy leaned forward to get his ears scratched.

  “How can he do it, Miz Silk? It will ruin this whole stretch of the river. Doesn’t he value anything?”

  He values money, I thought. And power. And making people bend to his will. “I don’t know.”

  “There must be some way to stop him.”

  “I’m sure there is a way, Josey,” I said, staring out over the glittering water, “but I don’t know what it is.”

  “Yet,” she said.

&
nbsp; I spotted the quiver in her lower lip and averted my eyes. Josey is nothing if not proud.

  “Yet,” I echoed.

  Fig Salad

  Contributed by Marc-André Paradis

  2 figs

  2 thin slices of imported Italian prosciutto

  2 ounces fresh mozzarella

  Crusty baguettes

  Honey lemon dressing

  2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

  1 tablespoon lemon juice

  1 teaspoon honey,

  Salt and pepper

  Split the fresh figs at the top with a cross, cutting less than halfway down the fig. Now pinch at the base to force the fig flesh through the split skin. Put the figs, ham and sliced mozzarella on a plate.

  Whip dressing ingredients together until they thicken.

  Drizzle the dressing over split figs, mozzarella and ham. Serve with sliced baguette and wine.

  Ten

  Despite everything that had happened over the past three days, I was smiling as I hurried into Marc-Andre’s room. Once I was there, my trouble seemed to melt away: wiring, taxes, insurance, divorce, disaster. At least there was one thing getting better in my life. Someone with no price tag attached. Someone with much bigger problems than I had, even if he didn’t know it. Someone unwavering, even if he didn’t remember why.

  The smile that flashed across his face made everything that was bad in my life recede further.

  “Madame! How are you?” He recognized me! His smile vanished. “But what happened to your face. You look...”

  “Ah, yes, well, I lost my eyebrows in a dessert-related accident.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why don’t we talk about you instead? You’re sitting up. That’s terrific.”

  “And I am glad to see you, even without your eyebrows. You still have your smile. Of course, that is the best part of Fiona Silk.”

  “You remember my name!”

  “The specialist was in today. He says I am recovering well, and now I am starting to remember. These last few days were a setback, but I am getting better. He told me not to worry too much about these setbacks.” He leaned a bit forward. “But there is something else wrong, isn’t there?”