by Avery Aames
Not eager to rehash my life’s decisions, I closed up the tent, described the petty thief to security so they could be on the alert, and hustled back to The Cheese Shop. I turned on lights as I went, first to the kitchen for a snack and then to the office.
Rags leaped from the office chair and bounded to my side. He nudged my calves with his head and did a little samba.
“No, I didn’t forget you, fella. I’d planned to get here earlier, but life came at me fast.” I sighed and recited a line from a Robert Burns’ poem. “‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.’”
Rags meowed, as if in agreement.
I set my plate of green apple slices and Pace Hill Farm Gouda—a tribute to the task at hand—on the desk, nestled into the office chair, and patted my thigh. “Up!”
Rags hunkered down and sprang into my lap. Before he settled in, he stared at the Gouda. I broke off a teensy corner. He licked it from my fingers, padded in a circle until he found the right spot, and tucked himself into a coil.
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” After pairing a piece of cheese with apple and popping it into my mouth, I woke up my computer with a quick press of a key and clacked the keyboard with my fingertips. Using Google, I searched for Jeremy Montgomery, middle initial K for Kenneth. There were more than two hundred thousand possibilities, and none on the first page looked to be a perfect match. I moaned, wishing mysteries were easier to solve.
Jeremy Kostura was a ditch digger from Montgomery County. Jeremy L. Montgomery was an attorney at law. Duncan K. Montgomery had served in the Civil War. Jeremy G. Montgomery was a player on the K (for Kansas University) football squad.
Go team.
I added Britain to my search and the word cheese, but only the deceased Jeremy Montgomery’s name came up. No sons were mentioned.
A heavy feeling of foreboding engulfed me. Was Jordan lying to protect me? His sister had been married to a bad man. What if Jordan had been associated with a bad man? He said Jacky’s husband would never find her. Was that because he was dead? How else could Jordan be sure that the man wouldn’t come calling?
I banged my hand on the desktop. “Rats, rats, rats!”
Rags’s head popped to attention.
“Sorry, fella. Not you.” I sighed. How could I explain to my sweet pet that the words rats and Rags were not the same? I scruffed his ears to help him fall back to sleep and tried one more search, only this time I entered: Kenneth Montgomery, thinking perhaps this elusive cheese maker didn’t use his first name.
As before, lots of possibilities emerged. An entry halfway down the third page of results caught my eye. J. Kenneth Montgomery was the name of a protagonist in a novel. Montgomery’s occupation: international spy.
I leaned back in my chair, ideas exploding in my brain like fireworks. Had Jordan expected me to stumble upon this name? Was he trying to reveal that he was a spy?
Oh, please, Charlotte, be realistic. Jordan is no Jason Bourne. He’s a cheese farmer. An affineur. A spy doesn’t learn the art of affinage. There’s got to be some other explanation.
But I couldn’t fathom what it was.
* * *
The next morning, while I stood behind the cheese counter and laid out a selection of cheeses for the afternoon tasting class, I sorted through my feelings about last night’s discovery. If Jordan was a spy, could I live with that? What if he had killed someone in the line of duty?
I called him on the telephone, but he didn’t answer. He was probably making his morning rounds on the farm. There was always so much to do: milk the cows, check the temperatures on the cheese caves, and ensure that the apparatuses used to rotate the cheeses were in good operating order. I left a message for him to return my call and hung up.
To quell the pent-up anxiety peppering my system, I went looking for my cousin. I needed someone sane to talk to, but Matthew wasn’t in the wine annex. I glanced at Rebecca in the kitchen, who was hovering beside her boyfriend, Ipo, as he unloaded jars of honey from a box. Now was not the time to burden her with my troubles. But it was time to get to work.
“Rebecca, let’s get a move on,” I said.
She blew Ipo a kiss and joined me at the cheese counter. Standing together, we looked like a team—she in her ivory shawl-necked sweater and slim black trousers, I in my ecru V-neck and slate chinos.
“Perhaps we should start checking with each other regarding our wardrobe,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to think we have a uniform policy.”
“Just good taste,” she quipped.
“Grab that marble tray with the silver handles,” I said. “Lay out a wedge of Tilsiter on it.” The soft yellow, semi-hard cow’s cheese with Prussian origins would look good against the black. “Let’s add the Brebirousse D’Argental.”
She cocked her head, not following.
“You know, the sheep’s cheese with the orange rind and milky goodness. And add that Alabama Fromagerie Belle goat’s cheese. Then let’s set out a jar of raspberry jam and lay a couple of jewel-handled spreaders in the middle.” I glanced behind me. “Do we have any of the Providence Patisserie sourdough bread?”
“Yes.” She fetched a baguette.
“Perfect. Slice it thin and toss the slices into this basket.” I placed a gold napkin into a shallow, square basket and flipped the corners of the napkin over the edges. Easy but elegant. “When the tasting is over, we’re off to the tent. Tyanne is already there.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for—” Rebecca gasped and pointed. “What’s he doing here?”
Urso lumbered into the shop, a deep crease forged between his eyebrows. He said, “Where’s Ipo Ho?”
I looked toward the kitchen. Urso didn’t wait for an invitation. He strode between the display barrels, around the cheese counter, toward the rear of the shop, and into the kitchen.
Rebecca said, “Oh, no. He’s going to arrest Ipo.” She scuttled after him. I followed.
“Ipo Ho.” Urso advanced.
Ipo backed into the doublewide refrigerator. If he wasn’t guilty, he sure looked it.
Undaunted, Rebecca wiggled herself between the man she loved and the man who wanted to incarcerate him and tilted her chin upward. “Why are you here, Chief? What are you doing about Arlo MacMillan? Have you investigated him? Is he guilty?”
“Miss Zook, please step aside.”
“I asked you a question.”
“No, you asked me four.”
“Getting technical, are we?”
Urso jammed his hands into his pockets, trying to look as casual as he could, but he didn’t fool me. He was on to something. “I’m investigating everyone I think has motive at this point, okay? Arlo, included.”
“Then why are you here?” Rebecca demanded. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, and you’ve already asked Ipo everything but his suit size.”
“I have one more question for him.”
“Like what?”
Urso prodded Rebecca to one side and addressed Ipo. “Where are your pu’ili sticks, Mr. Ho?”
“His what?” Rebecca looked blank.
Ipo gazed to the right, toward the kitchen’s exit. Was he thinking about bolting? Don’t be a fool, I silently urged him. As if picking up my message, he settled his shoulders and raised his head proudly. His guilty mien melted away. “Pu’ili sticks,” he said to Rebecca. “They’re luau instruments, too, about twenty inches long with one end uncut and the rest split into thin strips. They make a shaking-rattling sound when slapped against the body.”
“I’ve seen those,” Rebecca said.
Urso said, “You have?”
“In an episode of Hawaii Five-O. They were having this party, and—”
“Miss Zook, please be quiet. Where are they, Mr. Ho?”
Rebecca looked to me for help.
I moved closer. “Chief, I thought you said a kala’au rod was the weapon used to knock down Kaitlyn Clydesdale.”
“We’ve changed our minds.”
“You a
nd who, the coroner?”
Urso gave a curt nod. “He found bamboo fibers lodged in Miss Clydesdale’s neck. Bamboo fibers like those found in pu’ili sticks.”
“A pu’ili stick is hardly strong enough to use as a weapon,” I said.
Urso focused the brunt of his gaze on me. “Ipo could have had the stick in his hand and struck her with one end.” He showed us the swift move. “Miss Clydesdale would have stumbled backward and hit her head.” He eyed Ipo. “Is that what happened? Were you serenading Miss Zook?”
“No!” Rebecca mewled like a wounded cat.
Ipo wrapped his arm around her. “Shhh. It’s all right.” He addressed Urso. “Chief, you know I didn’t do this, but if you want to see the sticks, I can show you. They should be in a storage box in my attic.”
“You already showed me—”
“Not that storage box,” Ipo said, his voice steady. “Another one. Half of the instruments belonged to my father’s family. The other half to my mother’s. Theirs was not an approved marriage. In their honor, I have never mixed any of their heritage. I have two separate storage boxes. My mother’s—”
“Let’s go.” Urso headed out of the shop.
Ipo offered a supportive glance to Rebecca and followed Urso.
A thick silence hung in the air after their departure.
“C’mon,” I said to Rebecca. “Back to work.” I strode to the cheese counter and did a mental inventory of what I needed to reorder.
Rebecca trotted after me. “Charlotte.” She clutched her hands in front of herself, begging with more sincerity than any penitent. “Do something. He’s not guilty.”
“Charlotte!” Sylvie barged into the shop.
Prudence Hart hurried in behind her. Both wore horrid thigh-length coats, neither of which went well with the women’s skin tone. Prudence’s was speckled orange, Sylvie’s oxblood red. How they ever convinced themselves that they were fashionistas was beyond me.
Sylvie said, “Wait’ll you hear—”
“Don’t listen to her, Charlotte,” Prudence said.
“Charlotte,” Rebecca whispered.
I petted her cheek. “Get back to work on the platters. I’ll follow up with Urso. Promise. We’ll figure this out.”
Prudence stomped her foot. “She’s been telling everybody that Georgia Plachette said Kaitlyn Clydesdale was not a nice person.”
“But Georgia is telling people that,” Sylvie said. “I heard her with my own ears.”
I moaned. I had felt stretched as thin as taffy before, but now I felt like a frayed rubber band ready to snap. I whirled on Sylvie and Prudence and jabbed my finger. “Stop it. Both of you.” I weaved past them to the cheese counter and resumed my slicing.
“Kaitlyn was a wonderful woman,” Prudence said, heedless of my warning.
“You’re only saying that because she came through with a donation to the historical museum.” Sylvie folded her arms across her ample chest. “Money, money, money. Is that all you ever think about?”
I looked at her askance. Like she didn’t?
“But Kaitlyn didn’t come through.” Prudence’s face turned sour.
“She didn’t?” I said.
“No, not for the museum or for the theater.”
“Ha!” Sylvie spread her arms wide. “You see? She wasn’t a nice woman.”
“She died too soon,” Prudence snapped.
“Oh, please. Why are you defending her?” Sylvie rubbed her thumb and forefinger together like a moneylender. “Now you’ll have to wheedle your precious cash from Georgia Plachette, and don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon, love. She’s as tight as the Queen Mother.”
“Psst.” Rebecca tapped my forearm with the flat blade of her carving knife and leaned in for a private conversation. “Maybe we should check out Georgia. Maybe she’ll benefit from Kaitlyn’s death. You know, the CFO takes over or manages the estate or something like that? It could be worth a lot of money to her. Remember how cagey she was when you were questioning her the other day?”
“But how would she have known about Ipo’s pu’ili sticks?” I sighed, wishing Kaitlyn Clydesdale had never come to town and life could return to normal, but then I mentally kicked myself for having such a selfish thought. The woman was dead. No matter how mean she had been, she hadn’t deserved that fate.
“Please, Charlotte, question her.” Rebecca’s voice cracked. “Please.”
CHAPTER
I found Georgia at Clydesdale Enterprises’ temporary offices, located above the Café au Lait Coffee Shop. Kaitlyn hadn’t gone to any expense to decorate the place. She had provided a couple of hardback chairs, a glass-top desk, and a file cabinet. Shelving on one wall held legal-sized boxes, a historical guide to Holmes County, and a feeble looking silk plant. A photograph naming Kaitlyn the Do-Gooder Woman of the Year hung on the opposite wall.
Georgia sat at the desk, typing on a laptop computer. She looked up when I entered and adjusted the shawl swaddling her shoulders. “May I help you?” Her face was puffy, her nose redder than before. Had she been crying? That was a bad combo with a cold.
“I wanted to see how you were feeling.” I removed my scarf and gloves but kept on my winterberry red blazer. The temperature in the office was warm, but not warm enough to shed a layer.
“I’m fine.” She sneezed three times in a row and reached for a pile of wadded-up tissues beside a to-go cup from Café au Lait. Her hand stopped short. Her gaze flitted to a stack of papers on the other side of the computer. In a flash, she scooped the papers off the table, slipped them into a file folder, inserted the folder into a red briefcase beneath the desk, then snatched a tissue. A magician ripping the tablecloth from a table couldn’t have been more deft.
The fleetness of her actions piqued my curiosity. Was she simply being organized or was she trying to keep me from seeing the papers, which in a brief glance looked like court documents? Was it a document ceding control of Clydesdale Enterprises to the CFO, as Rebecca had suggested?
Whoa, Charlotte. I reined myself in. Who was I to jump to conclusions? Except I did want a close-up and personal look at the papers she had hidden. ASAP.
Georgia dabbed her nose. “Why are you here?”
To snoop was probably not the best answer. Neither was I’m the town’s appointed savior, didn’t you hear?
“To check in on you.” I stared at her coffee cup. “Want a refill?”
She sneezed again and quickly blew her nose. “No, that’s okay.” She sounded whiny and even more miserable than when we had first met, but why wouldn’t she? Her boss had died. She had to be devastated. Unless, of course, she killed the boss.
“My treat,” I said. “Drinking plenty of liquids while you’re sick is important.”
She offered a weak smile. “Okay, sure. It’s orange oolong tea.”
I set my scarf and gloves on the desk, hustled downstairs, and returned with two teas and six packets of honey. Georgia looked like she could use extra sweetness in her life. I handed her the goods and settled on a hardback chair with my cup of tea. Steam rose through the tiny sipping hole and glazed my face with moisture.
“So how are you doing?” I asked.
“Horrible. All the journalists calling. All the police questions.” She sipped her tea and let out a teensy hum of enjoyment.
I allowed a comfortable silence to settle between us as if we were girlfriends sharing a cuppa. After a long moment, I said, “I didn’t know Kaitlyn well, but people say she was a wonderful woman.”
Georgia hesitated. She glanced at the commemorative Do-Gooder photograph and back at me. “She gave her all to everything.”
“My grandmother adored her.”
“Kaitlyn spoke highly of your grandmother, too.”
I gazed through the glass-top desk, but I couldn’t get a clear view of the briefcase below. Georgia’s slouch ankle boots, which were as saggy as a Shar-Pei’s skin, blocked my line of sight. I craned my head to spy beyond the leather, but I couldn’t ma
ke out the words on the file folder. “How long had you known Kaitlyn?”
“A long time.”
Again she had hesitated. What was up with that?
“Tell me about you.” I set my cup of tea on the desk, rose a tad from my chair, and overemphasized tucking the tail of my blazer under my rear. While I did, I scooched my chair an inch to the left so I could get a better angle on the file folder. Squinting, I could read the word Plachette on the tab. There were two more words but I couldn’t make them out. If only I had Supergirl’s vision. “When did you first start working for Clydesdale Enterprises?”
“Five years ago.”
“When did you become CFO?”
“Right away.”
“You can’t be much older than thirty.”
She blushed. “Actually, I’m thirty-eight.”
“No way.” I scooched some more. She had to be thinking I had ants in my pants, but I didn’t care. I had no shame. “I want the name of the skin products you use.”
She bit back a hint of a smile, reminding me of somebody, but I couldn’t put my finger on whom.
I eyed the file folder tab again. Plachette: Georgia … something. I needed to stare, but she would catch me if I did. I reached for my cup of tea and accidentally knocked my gloves and scarf to the floor. “Clumsy me,” I said. As my fingers grazed the cashmere, I got a clear view of the file folder tab. Plachette: Georgia Clydesdale.
Color me stupid. That was why she looked familiar. That was why she had hesitated when I had asked how long she had known Kaitlyn. She was Kaitlyn’s daughter.
Snagging my things, I returned to a sitting position and studied Georgia. She had Kaitlyn’s eyes and the same haughty cheekbones, but she was at least ten inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter. And her dark curly hair was a stark contrast to Kaitlyn’s blonde straight coif. Did she dye and perm it?
“What’s wrong?” Georgia said. “You’re staring at me.”
“You’re Kaitlyn Clydesdale’s daughter.”
“I—” She pursed her lips.
