Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “Maggots. Yuck,” Josey said.

  My head reeled. “Benedict always said he wanted to have his ashes scattered over the water, the only place he ever felt truly happy,” Kostas said.

  “Did he?” said Marc-André.

  “Indeed. And this lovely lady will be managing the whole thing, since she was a very, very, very good friend of Benedict’s.”

  Just when I thought my puce blush had subsided, it surged back over my face and neck at this point. I was afraid my ears would catch fire.

  “Actually, I hadn’t seen him for seven or eight...”

  No one paid attention.

  “Tell me, madame, when is this scattering?”

  “Sometime within the next few weeks. When I can get my car fixed and after that whenever we find a...a suitable place. On the water.”

  “And how will everyone find out about the ceremony?”

  “A simple scattering is all it’s supposed to be,” I said. With the exception of bodies in my bed, I probably hate ceremonies more than anything else.

  “It should be on a Saturday so people can come,” Josey said.

  I wasn’t sure we wanted to encourage people to attend. I imagined everyone who knew Benedict would want to be there. That could mean every second woman in West Quebec.

  “Saturday, it is. The twenty-first.” Kostas slapped his plump thighs and bellowed. “And, I know just the spot. Benedict loved it. A bit out of the way, but worth it. I’ll do a map.”

  “I think we need a program,” said Josey, “with music and poetry. Do you know any musicians, Mr. Paradis?”

  “I’ll be in charge of the musicians, my girl,” Kostas said.

  “And I will advise the poets,” Marc-André said.

  By the time we left Marc-André Paradis’ garage, we were well on the way to launching the most spectacular scattering in the history of Western Quebec.

  Marc-André stuck his head in the window of the Skylark as I turned the key. “Can you bring your car by tomorrow afternoon? About three?”

  “Absolutely,” I breathed.

  For the first time since I’d owned it, the Skylark surged forward energetically and bounded towards the 105. I’d been so overwhelmed I’d forgotten all about trying to flog those One-Act Play event tickets to Kostas and Marc-André. But tomorrow at three I’d get another chance. More importantly, I could use the opportunity to find out if the very dishy Marc André Paradis had been consumed with murderous rage over Benedict’s scooping the Flambeau from under his well-shaped nose. Of course, now that I’d met Marc-André, I wasn’t all that crazy about the idea of him as a killer.

  Sixteen

  “That oughta do ya.” Cyril Hemphill wiped his hands, stepped back and admired the new deadbolt on my front door. “Between this big fella and the one on the back door, I guess it’ll keep you safe from just about anything.” He glanced at Josey, indicating some things you can’t be kept safe from.

  “Thank you, Cyril.”

  “I’ll put this on your tab. End of the week’ll be okay.”

  “Boy, you really got hosed on that one,” Josey said in a stage whisper. “I could have done it a lot cheaper.”

  Cyril turned to Josey as he climbed into the car. “Oh, and girlie, say hi to your Uncle Mike. If you see him.”

  Josey hissed.

  I didn’t even want to know what that was about.

  I held my head high and sailed into the Chez Charlie for the first time since Benedict’s death. The Chez, as the locals like to call it, never makes the tourist guides, but it makes my list because they take credit cards. They don’t phone for authorization under fifty bucks either. The perfume of lasagna and barbecued chicken and plats chinois hung heavy in the air, along with the secondhand smoke.

  The Chez is like time travel back to a better age, when cholesterol didn’t exist and music came from jukeboxes.

  As usual, the place was bulging with locals, baseball caps, plaid jackets, scuffed workboots with loose laces. Over the wail of “That’ll Be The Day”, I could hear the soft buzz of gossip. I picked a green vinyl booth with a good view of the Chilean cooks preparing shrimp fried rice under the watchful eye of the Lebanese owner. Pierrette gave me her red-lipstick smile and took my order. I decided on poutine, the fries, cheese curd and gravy combo we go for in a big way in these parts.

  Half of St. Aubaine nudged each other and pointed at me and wiggled their eyebrows salaciously. Through the front window I kept an eye on Tolstoy, hitched to a lamppost outside and working the crowd. A large scruffily dressed man offered him a handful of fries. Fries are right up there with Frisbees in Tolstoy’s opinion.

  Sarrazin lurked in the far booth. He was part of the décor, like the Matinée clock, the naughahyde seats and the orange light fixtures.

  He didn’t notice Pierrette making eyes at him. Probably had that coroner on his mind. Like Liz said, everyone had a sex life but me.

  He caught me staring at him and narrowed his eyes. I gripped my Blue Light. I gripped it even harder when he picked up his plate and his glass and lumbered down the aisle towards me.

  He slid into the other side of my booth. He had poutine too.

  “So,” I thought I could get the upper hand in the conversation. “I guess we won’t have to keep telephone tagging.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I left you a message about a break-in. And you left a message for me and then I left another message for you and then...”

  “Why didn’t you speak to somebody else? Only a break-in.”

  “Because I thought it might have something to do with Benedict’s murder. Nothing was taken. Not even my money, such as it is. But things had been touched, moved. After the murder, you can imagine it’s making me nervous.”

  “Tell you what’s making me nervous. I hear you’re stirring things up,” he said. “Talking to people.”

  I blinked. Talking to people? No more than usual. And only when the answering machine was not on. Did this violate some obscure municipal No Talking ordinance? Oh. Maybe he meant Marc-André. And Mary Morrison. And Kostas. Or Rachel. Maybe Bridget. Even one of the many possibilities at the Britannia.

  “Yes?” I said. “I hear you’ve been talking to people too.”

  “Sure, but that’s all right for me, because this is a police investigation. And I’m the police.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I said.

  “So if you know it, why not keep away from witnesses?”

  “It’s still a free country. I have things to discuss.”

  Sarrazin shot me a dangerous, inky look. “Like what?”

  “The body’s been cremated. We’re scattering the ashes.”

  Sarrazin examined his fingernails as though he’d never seen them before. He wouldn’t relax until he found something wrong with the whole idea of the chief suspect tossing the victim’s ashes to the wind in a No Talking Zone.

  “That Thring girl,” he said. “What’s she got to do with it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why is she going around with you?”

  “I ask myself the same thing.”

  “That girl’s got a lot of problems. Bad family.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Her uncle just jumped bail on a smuggling case. She must be on her own up there. Social Services might start asking questions. Put her in foster care.”

  I didn’t stop the gasp in time, but I didn’t let on I hadn’t known about Uncle Mike’s bail jump, and I didn’t mention seeing him at the Britannia. This Sarrazin already had the advantage of a lot of information. What else did he know that I didn’t?

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Sure I would.” He picked up his poutine and slid out of the booth. “If I had enough trouble in my investigation.”

  I don’t know what I expected to find out by driving all the way to Hull and dropping in on Zoë. Telltale tubes of Krazy Glue protruding from the flower pots?

  I went in spite of Sarrazin’s warning. Or becau
se of it.

  When Zoë opened the door of her apartment, I realized I hadn’t exhaled once from the elevator to apartment 1819.

  Zoë stared down at me from a distance of five inches. A great big beautiful witch, Josey had called her. I tried not to brush against her as I passed.

  She said nothing. If you’re six feet tall, have a waist-length red braid, several pounds of silver jewellery, wear only black and have ropey muscles on your arms, you probably never have to say anything.

  Most people have living rooms. Zoë had a gallery. The 180˚ view of the Ottawa River from the eighteenth floor wasn’t the most striking aspect, trust me. Nor was the wall of serigraphed Benedict faces, Andy Warhol style.

  I saw lots of Benedict, but no furniture.

  Oh, well. Why would you need furniture when you had an entire roomful of Benedicts? Some were papier mâché. Some were metal, reminiscent of Giacometti. Some small, some large. One looked like Plexiglas. Most were marble.

  There wasn’t a place to stand without a fine view of Benedict’s buttocks. Or worse. I must have caught her in the middle of a new project. She had safety goggles, a blowtorch and several chunks of metal on a tarp in the middle of the floor. I hated to think what a therapist would make of that.

  Plenty of naughty bits but no chairs. So I drifted toward the open balcony door and attempted to appear riveted by the view. When I turned around, I met Zoë’s dangerous gaze.

  “You’re probably wondering what brings me here. You see, I’m distributing some of Benedict’s things...”

  She didn’t like that. It looked like a thousand volts shot through her braid.

  “Not that Benedict and I had anything going.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. He wasn’t interested in you.”

  “Absolutely.” I wilted a bit under her sneer. Since it was eighteen stories to the rain-drenched parking pavement, I slithered away from the balcony.

  “...and the estate wanted me to deliver this memento.”

  I attributed this bizarre intention to the anonymoussounding estate. Zoë would never believe it of Bridget.

  “About time,” she said.

  “Well, I’ve been a bit distracted. Anyway, it’s a copy of Benedict’s latest book. He hadn’t had a chance to give them to his friends. Supposed to be the book that won him the Flambeau.” Zoë snatched the book from me and flipped the pages rapidly, stopping to read some of the poems.

  In case that wasn’t dramatic enough, she snapped the book shut, pressed it to her breast and closed her eyes. I couldn’t figure out what she murmured as she stroked the binding, though I would have bet my emergency roll this was the first time Zoë Finestone had seen While Weeping for the Wicked.

  I found her reaction satisfying in a strange way. For one thing, she no longer seemed conscious of my presence. She was back to caressing the cover, with her eyes still closed, as I let myself out of her apartment.

  All the way home, I wondered how much those sculptures weighed and what kind of harm those big hands could do.

  Okay, time to take stock. On the minus side, the urn still lurked on the mantelpiece, Abby Lake refused to answer her phone or her door, and I had to worry about Josey being on her own now that Uncle Mike had jumped bail. As well, Marc-André was too dishy to make a satisfying suspect. On the plus side, Zoë was promisingly suspicious, the nasty pile of bequests was shrinking, and Stella Iannetti was the next on my list. If I had the address figured right, Stella lived in a converted farmhouse on the east side of the Gatineau River about a twenty minute drive out of St. Aubaine.

  Josey knocked on the door just as I was about to leave for Stella’s. I saw no reason not to bring her along.

  If I had my chronology straight, Stella was Benedict’s third flame after me and the one immediately before Zoë’s second turn. She was one of the few ex-girlfriends that Bridget could tolerate. Stella had given our poet the toss once she found out about Bridget, and Bridget had always appreciated that. She’d be a piece of cake compared to the menacing Zoë and the absent, red-nosed Abby.

  Stella was in high school when the late poet was having his slimy way with her. She was still beautiful. Imagine a Botticelli painting of a woman in faded jeans with a dusting of flour across the nose, and you’d have Stella.

  She had moved on to the mommy stage of life. Josey and I were treated to toll-house cookies and s’mores, juice and, in my case, quite a good espresso. Stella asked if we needed to use the facilities and moved six teddy bears to make room on a sofa with shredded arms. She had no problem with Tolstoy, as long as he promised not to eat the cat.

  “But then, that cat did wreck my sofa. So even that would be okay.” She had the kind of warm smile it would be nice for a child to come home to.

  The smell of homemade bread wafted from the kitchen. Squeals and splashes and the occasional boom of a man’s voice drifted from the far end of the bungalow. Bath time.

  Stella took Tolstoy to the kitchen to get a bowl of water. I overheard her say, “Sure, you can drink out of the cat’s dish.”

  Josey breathed in the ambiance. When we are in other people’s houses, she studies the details which might lead to new and profitable sidelines for THE THRING TO DO . But when we find ourselves in a family home, her expression changes.

  In this particular case, she was checking out silver-framed school photos of twins, grinning wide despite missing teeth. Her eyes strayed to a picture of the third child held by a lanky man standing next to Stella. And on to the formal wedding shot.

  Her glance slid to Stella, heading back with Tolstoy. A mother who cherished her home and loved to share it with others. In that cozy spot, I could recognize Josey as the child she still was.

  Stella plunked herself on the sofa, narrowly missing a needle-nosed toy jet. “So. About Benedict. You just had to expect it, didn’t you?”

  I hadn’t expected it. But by now it looked like I was the only one who hadn’t.

  “He was always his own worst enemy,” she added.

  “I guess he had an even worse one,” I said.

  “Sure, but you’ll see, it will have been the result of something he did. I know it’s not fashionable to blame the victim, but I bet he brought this on himself. Then everyone else gets trapped in the mess. Like you. All that hounding by the media can’t be easy.”

  I really liked this woman. “You’re right. It isn’t. And you know, I hadn’t even seen him for seven or eight years.”

  She nodded. “Doesn’t matter. People in St. Aubaine will never forget it.”

  “Oh, God,” I blurted.

  “Trust me,” she said. “I didn’t even go to the memorial service, because I wanted to wipe out that part of my life. But it takes a long time to shake the residue.” She frowned at the small parcel I had placed on the coffee table.

  I took a breath. “So, you haven’t seen him for a long time?”

  “Last Christmas we bumped into him at a party.” Her eyes shifted towards the splash and boom end of the house. “Before that, a couple of years. I did my best to avoid him.”

  Bitterness. You don’t expect that in a Botticelli beauty.

  “I asked you to see us because he left you a little memento. His estate has asked me to deliver it.”

  She shivered. “Creepy. It’s like Benedict reaching from the grave.”

  I nudged the small, white parcel. Stella stiffened and stared at it like it was a litter of gift-wrapped snakes. For several longish minutes all you could hear was Josey munching s’mores.

  I tried distracting Stella. “That was something, wasn’t it? Benedict winning the Flambeau?”

  Another snort. “Right, and I wonder how he pulled that off. Oh well, might as well get this over with.”

  The package contained a framed photo of Benedict and a much younger Stella. She muttered something in Italian. From the sound of it, I figured eternal damnation and the evil eye might have been involved.

  Her expression lifted as two children in teddy bear PJs exploded
into the room followed by a toddler wearing nothing but soap bubbles. All three were being chased by a large damp man, grinding his teeth. Stella slipped the photo under the sofa cushion. She got to her feet. “It’s well worth shaking that residue.”

  Time for us to leave. Stella had a happy, secure home, and here I had contaminated it with a nasty bit of Benedict. We were halfway home before I remembered I hadn’t given Stella her copy of While Weeping for the Wicked.

  Seventeen

  We didn’t discuss the need for Josey to spend the night somewhere else besides her home. That would have meant Josey being disloyal to Uncle Mike. She hadn’t mentioned his disappearing act, and I knew she wasn’t about to. As they say, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives. And whatever you could say about the dissolute old smuggler, he was all Josey had by way of family.

  But in the car, minus the warmth and security of Stella Iannetti’s home, I felt a chill of apprehension. Benedict’s residue surrounded us like a hazardous fog.

  I had trouble adjusting to the idea that I might be at risk myself, but if Benedict-in-the-bed didn’t clue me in, getting hit by the Jetta, being followed by the Acura and having my house broken into did the trick. Then it hit me that if I was a target, so was Josey. If for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Something very, very bad was going on. So it was all well enough for me to go swanning around with parcels, stirring up the old girlfriends, mooning over the mechanic, and annoying the constabulary. Involving Josey was different. If I got popped off, a middle-aged aspiring divorcée with serious writer’s block, who’d give a hoot? But Josey had her whole life ahead of her. We had to make that last.

  On the other hand, if I sent her home alone, I wouldn’t have put it past Sarrazin to have Social Services sniffing around. She was too young to be on her own. Who knew what kind of illegal substances or ill-gotten gains the cops could find in the Thring household.

  “You know,” Josey looked up from a complicated piece of knitting, “we should figure out why this stuff is happening.”