Cloche and Dagger

by Jenn McKinlay

  “Um.” I sipped my punch. “When I say ‘could have been’ . . .”

  “You mean you lied to them to get them to come over—why?”

  “I thought it would be good for the business if people saw or heard that Lady Ellis’s friends were still coming into the shop, and there did happen to be several reporters lurking about,” I said. It sounded so coldhearted. I did feel ashamed, truly.

  “Shrewd,” Harrison said. “And incredibly stupid.”

  “Stupid?”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that one of them might be the killer?” he asked. “That you were putting yourself and Fee in terrible danger by inviting them to the shop when it was closed?”

  I raised my glass and held it in between us as a buffer to keep him from looming over me, which it looked like he was about to do.

  “No, it did not,” I said, which was a big fat fib. I remembered all too clearly hearing her friends talk about her and thinking any one of them could have murdered her. “I mean honestly, these are her childhood friends, why would they—”

  “Scarlett Parker?” a voice called from behind Harrison.

  My eyes went wide and so did Harrison’s. I peered over his shoulder and saw Marianne standing there with Chelsea and Susie.

  “And look at that, there they are,” I muttered to Harrison.

  All three were dressed in dark-hued dresses that accentuated their figures and were appropriately somber for the funeral of their friend. Susie’s mascara had run, giving her a bit of a Goth look, and Chelsea’s nose was bright red. Marianne looked even paler than usual, which was the only evidence of her grief.

  “Scarlett, why, it’s so nice of you to attend the wake for Vicks,” Susie said. She gave me a nice air kiss and the heavy floral scent of her perfume hit me like two fingers in the eyes.

  “Yes, so thoughtful,” Chelsea muttered with an air kiss for my other cheek.

  Marianne just looked at me with an eyebrow raised. She was not the air-kiss type, for which I was grateful. I blinked furiously to keep the tears back from the perfume assault, but I figured if one did escape at least I would fit in with the mourners.

  “She was a loyal customer,” I said. “And I wanted to be sure to pay our respects.”

  Marianne gave me a doubtful look, but then turned to take in Harrison, from head to toe, in a very thorough perusal. I found I wanted to stand in front of him and protect him, but I resisted.

  “May I introduce our business manager, Harrison Wentworth,” I said.

  Susie gasped, Chelsea’s eyes went wide and Marianne cocked her head to the side, “Not the Harrison Wentworth, the wizard of the Financial Times?”

  Harrison gave her a charming smile. “Afraid so.”

  “And he’s your business manager?” Marianne persisted.

  I gave her a bewildered shrug, because I’m quick on my feet like that. Then I glanced at Harrison. Obviously, he was a bigger deal than I realized, and he never mentioned to me his revered status as a financial wizard. Huh. Was that why I’d always gotten the feeling he was keeping something from me? Interesting.

  “Our families go way back,” Harrison said. “My family has always managed the finances of Scarlett’s family.”

  “Well, any friend of Scarlett’s is a friend of mine,” Marianne said. She looped her arm through his and before I was quite sure what had happened, she’d walked off with him.

  “She always does that,” Chelsea whined.

  “Only because Vicks is dead,” Susie said. “She’d have made off with him before we even knew who he was.”

  “Made off with who?” a voice inquired from behind me.

  I turned to see that Elise had joined us. She was looking picture-perfect in a knee-length navy dress with cap sleeves and a cute ruffle at the waist. Like Marianne she seemed pale and her eyes were puffy as if she’d just recently recovered from a crying jag.

  “Marianne just took off with Scarlett’s date,” Chelsea said.

  “He’s not my—” I protested but no one was listening.

  They all turned to watch Marianne with her head pressed close to Harrison’s. I felt a flutter of annoyance. Marianne was the one I had liked the most, so I really didn’t appreciate her making off with my escort.

  “You see, girls, this is what happens when one chooses to be smart and decides to have a career instead of marrying a nice eligible man when she’s in her prime. She is reduced to hitting on men at funerals.” Elise said it loud enough for Marianne to hear her.

  Marianne gave her a dark look and then took Harrison’s arm and led him back to me as if he were a pet poodle she had taken out for a stroll but found wanting.

  “Excuse me,” a low voice broke into our little group. “Don’t I know you?”

  I turned to find a short chubby man with sweat stains under his armpits, staring at me. He had unkempt, black wiry hair on his head and face, more on his face than his head to be truthful, and he looked as radiant as if he’d just found a winning lottery ticket.

  Before I could open my mouth to utter a word, he wrestled a small camera out of his pocket and was holding it up to my face. Then I recognized him. He was the reporter that Harrison had tossed out of the shop the other day.

  “The party crasher here at Lady Ellis’s funeral,” he chortled. “This is going to make me, Bernie Lutz, a fortune. Hey, love, any chance I can get you to throw some cake?”

  Harrison jumped in front of me and held open the sides of his jacket shielding me from any shots from the icky man’s camera.

  “Time to go,” he said, and he ushered me away from the group.

  “Hey, you told me she’d be okay with this,” the man whined.

  “I guess I was wrong,” a voice answered.

  It was Elise’s voice. Why would Elise tell him I was okay with having my photo taken and at a funeral, no less? I barely knew the woman but it hurt me that she judged me to be such a media hog. Is that how people saw me? Was fleeing my home country not enough proof that I was not into being the viral flavor of the month?

  We were hurrying out of the funeral home with the photographer hot on our backsides when I saw him. He wore a dark suit and he stood at the back of the room, leaning against the wall as if he didn’t have the strength to stand on his own two feet. I stopped when I saw him, and Harrison stumbled into my back.

  I met the gaze of the man I had believed to be Lord Ellis and all I could think was that he no longer looked smarmy and condescending but rather, he looked shrunken, as if the weight of his grief diminished him.

  “Ginger, we have to go.” Harrison prodded me forward a few steps into the crowd. When I looked back the man was gone.

  Not so the photographer. We lapped the reception hall once in our effort to lose him. I kept an eye out for the man who’d been with Lady Ellis when she picked up her hat, but I didn’t see him again. The photographer, however, kept popping up until Harrison surprised him by doubling back through a door we’d just gone through. The door caught the photographer on the chin and knocked him out cold.

  Harrison took the opportunity to hustle me outside to the valet. He pushed me into the shadow of a large yew shrub. I don’t know what he said to the valet but the boy took off at a run and was back with the car in moments. Harrison pulled me out from the bush and assisted me into the car. We zipped out of the parking lot as if the hounds of hell were chasing us.

  We were silent for most of the ride, not relaxing until we were near Portobello Road and the shop.

  “I’m pretty sure you lost him,” I said.

  I turned from looking out the back window to glance at Harrison. His gaze kept flitting up to the rearview mirror, checking to verify that the photographer was nothing but a memory.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said.

  “At least he didn’t get a picture,” I said with a shudder. “That would have been a nightmare.”

  “Is that what it was like afterwards?” he asked.

  “Somewhat,” I said. �
�There was one photographer who climbed onto my balcony, but other than that it was just the phone calls from television and radio stations who wanted to interview me and lawyers who wanted to represent me. I unplugged my phone and didn’t leave my apartment for three days.”

  “Probably a good strategy. You don’t deserve to be treated like that,” he said. He glanced at me when he said it, and I could see the sincerity in his eyes. For some reason, it made my throat get tight.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  My voice was raspy with emotion and I realized I was choked up because it mattered to me what Harrison thought of me, and I was glad he didn’t think I deserved what had happened to me, even though I had treated him pretty badly when we were kids. I probably didn’t deserve to have him as my friend now but, oh, I was so glad he was.

  “So, Marianne, vampire?” he asked.

  The laugh that burst out of me short-circuited the tears that had threatened, which I suspected was Harrison’s purpose.

  “Worse,” I said. “She’s a psychiatrist.”

  “Oh, eek,” he said with mock alarm.

  He parked the car a few spots down from the shop. He got out and before I found the latch on the unfamiliar car, he opened it for me and gave me a hand out.

  “She trotted off with you before I could even try to save you,” I said as we walked toward the shop.

  “I felt like the prize bull at an auction,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked. “I pictured it as more of a poodle-snatching.”

  “Hey!” he protested, but he was laughing, which made me laugh in return.

  It felt good, cathartic even, since I had spent most of the evening on the verge of tears for one reason or another.

  His arm slid around my waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world and we were still chuckling as we approached the shop.

  “Harrison!” a voice shouted.

  I glanced up and saw a woman, dressed in a retro, pale pink dress with a fitted bodice and a skirt that flared out at her waist and stopped at her knees. On top of her head, she wore a matching pillbox pink hat with a big, white lily on it.

  The woman broke into a run and Harrison dropped his arm from about my waist and opened his arms wide as if this was a familiar greeting for him. The woman launched herself into his arms and he spun her about two times before he gave her a fierce hug, a quick kiss on the lips and gently put her down. Then he yelled at her.

  “Where the hell have you been, Viv?” he asked.

  Chapter 37

  It was only then that I recognized my cousin.

  “Vivian!” I gasped.

  She spun to face me.

  “Scarlett!” she cried in return and snatched me close.

  I was not as prepared as Harrison and was crushed by my cousin’s enthusiastic greeting.

  “It’s you!” she cried as she jumped back and grabbed me by the shoulders. “I can’t believe it. You’re finally here.”

  “Finally?” I asked, feeling a flash of irritation. “I’ve been here for a week.”

  “Really? Has it been a whole week?” She looked to Harrison for confirmation.

  “Yes,” he said. “A very long week.”

  What the heck did that mean? I felt my irritation double as Viv had no idea what she had put us all through and Harrison sounded as if he’d been tortured during her absence by my stay.

  “I figured something must have happened,” she said. “I’ve been sitting out here for an hour, afraid to go in.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She pointed to the small sign the alarm company had put in the window.

  “You’re here a few days and we have an alarm system?” she asked. “Don’t tell me the horrible paparazzi followed you from the States?”

  “No, it’s worse than that, I’m afraid,” I said.

  Harrison opened the door to the shop and we each grabbed one of the suitcases Viv had left by the door. She led the way with her big rolling bag.

  “I’ll get these,” Harrison said. He turned to reset the alarm and lock the door behind us. “You two go ahead upstairs.”

  “You’re going to check the perimeter, aren’t you?” I asked with a smile.

  “Isn’t that what pet poodles do?” he teased, returning my smile.

  Viv looked between us as if she was missing something, and I immediately felt as if I had overstepped my bounds.

  “Come on, let’s get you something to eat,” I said.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.” Viv squeezed me tightly to her side.

  Abruptly, all of the worry and irritation I’d felt toward her fled and I was really glad I was here, too, with her in our shop.

  “Me, too,” I said. But then I scowled. “You still have a lot of explaining to do. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  We entered the flat and Viv pulled her hat off and shook out the long blond corkscrew curls that I had envied since childhood.

  “I know, I know, and I’m so sorry,” she said. “But I was on a hero’s, well, a heroine’s quest and I couldn’t turn back.”

  “Quest for what?” I asked.

  “It’s better if I show you,” she said.

  Harrison came banging up the stairs, carrying the three bags as if they were nothing. Show-off! I had broken into a sweat just lugging the one bag into the shop.

  Viv hurried over to the mid-sized of the three vivid floral bags. She placed it onto its side on the floor and unzipped the top. Her face glowed. I’d seen this look before when she was caught up in a creative episode.

  I peered over her shoulder, disappointed to find nothing but clothes, but then I noticed that there was another compartment and then another.

  “Clever bag,” I said.

  “I like to keep my treasures to myself,” she said.

  Harrison gave her a look, and I wondered if there had been some issues with Viv’s expeditions before.

  She pulled out a cloth case that was tied shut and then closed the lid on her bag. She carefully pulled the ties open and unrolled the cloth. Then she folded back another plain cloth. Nestled between the two fabrics was an array of feathers that were breathtaking in color and iridescence.

  “Oh, my,” I breathed.

  “Are those real?” Harrison asked. “They’re stunning. What bird did they come off of?”

  “Believe it or not,” Viv said. “I had to track my way through the jungle to a rare feather ranch.”

  We both looked at her.

  “I swear on it,” she said. “It exists, but it is tucked deep in the cloud forest in Africa, which is why I had such spotty mobile service.”

  “What do you mean, a rare feather ranch?” I asked.

  “A friend of mine from Dubai told me about it,” she said. “There’s a ranch owned by a retired Hollywood actor. He quit movies and devoted his life to trying to save several endangered species of bird. He raises money by auctioning the exotic feathers that the birds lose. No plucking allowed. Believe me, I saw what happened to one of my fellow bidders when he was caught trying to encourage a feather off of a Seychelles Paradise-Flycatcher.”

  She shuddered and I stared at her as if she’d gone mental.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you disappeared for a week, to go chase feathers?” I asked. “You knew I was coming—you couldn’t have waited?”

  “The auction was happening at the end of the week,” she said. “I had to get there immediately.”

  “See?” Harrison asked. “No impulse control.”

  I glared at him. I really didn’t want to hear it right now.

  “What?” Viv asked. “Surely you knew I’d be back as soon as I could.”

  “You left me no information,” I said. I could feel my temper beginning to heat. “You couldn’t have told me where you were going and why?”

  “No,” Viv said. “You know what this business is like. I couldn’t risk another milliner scooping me. I mean look at these feathers. They’re a treasure. This one alone cost fifty po
unds.”

  She pointed to a gorgeous blue feather that flashed with green and gold when the light hit it just right.

  “It’s lovely,” I said. “But still—”

  “Oh, come on,” Viv cajoled. “It couldn’t have been that bad with me gone. You had Fee, who is wonderful, and Harrison, who is wonderful in a completely different way.”

  They exchanged a smile, and I couldn’t believe he wasn’t more irritated with her. He seemed indulgent with her disappearing act but the more I thought about it the madder I got. One week, no word and I’d discovered a dead body, almost been suffocated in my bed and the shop had been ransacked, not to mention being worried about Viv, and here she was just fine after a wonderful quest off in Africa.

  I stepped away from the sofa for fear I might snatch up one of the pillows and clobber her with it.

  “Well, I’m so delighted that your week went so well,” I said. My voice dripped sarcasm and Viv gave me a wide-eyed look of surprise. “Because here it’s just been coming up roses, or more accurately, a dead body wearing your hat.”

  “Scarlett, are you feeling all right, love?” Viv asked. “Because that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

  “You tell her,” I growled at Harrison.

  “Tell me what?” she asked.

  “Viv, Lady Ellis was found murdered,” he said.

  “Victoria Ellis? Rupert’s wife?” she asked with a note of disbelief.

  “Yes,” Harrison confirmed.

  “What? Why? I don’t understand,” she said. She turned and frowned at me as if I could help her make sense of it all.

  “It gets worse,” I said. Seeing her bewilderment, my anger was doused. I sat on the floor beside her. “When I went over to her house—”

  “Why would you go to her house?” Viv asked.

  “Photo shoot,” I said.

  “Photo shoot of that cow?” she asked.

  “Well, when I couldn’t find the hat she ordered,” I said, “I had to come up with some way to appease her vanity and luckily, Andre was willing—”

  “Who the hell is Andre?” Viv squawked.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “Longer if you keep interrupting me.”

  “Luckily, I have plenty of time,” she said.