by Avery Aames
Itchy to be rid of my customers so I could call our chief of police with yet another theory, I quickly fetched a quiche from the refrigerator, set it into a cake box, and tied it with gold ribbon. “Is that all, Felicia?”
“Oh, no, I’ve got an extensive list.”
Great.
“Pssst.” Prudence, who hadn’t moved from her spot, spanked the granite with her palm and beckoned me closer. “Felicia is very upset, though she wouldn’t let you know. Ed actually withdrew his offer to donate at the last minute. Can you believe it?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Why do you think?” Prudence rolled her eyes suggestively.
I gaped. Had Ed made the stipulation that, in order for him to give money to the museum, Felicia had to have an affair with him? Had she turned him down? They had looked pretty chummy at The Cheese Shop’s reopening.
“Charlotte,” Felicia called from the front of the store. “Let’s throw in a couple of these jars of honey, too. I know how you suggest adorning cheese with yummy concoctions.”
“Will do,” I said in a light, airy tone, though my mind was churning with new theories.
“By the by, how’s Bernadette?” Felicia went on. “I truly can’t believe what everyone is saying that she’s, you know . . .” She tapped her head with her finger.
My grandmother was nowhere near crazy. “She’s holding up well.”
“I saw her wandering the yard in her robe,” Felicia said.
Prudence clucked her tongue. “Leave it to Bernadette.” “She’s taking advantage of a well-deserved vacation,” I countered. That was the pat answer that Pépère and I had come up with, to counteract any rumors that townsfolk might start.
“And losing votes in the process,” Prudence said. “The election is days away. She can’t afford to look like a loony bird.”
I bit my tongue. Prudence’s pal Kristine wasn’t looking all that sane lately either.
Felicia drew up to the counter, her arm loaded with jars. “Kristine’s bound to win now.”
I stiffened. Could Kristine have killed Ed and thrown suspicion on Grandmère simply to win an election, as Vivian and Rebecca had intimated?
“I wonder if she’ll have time to do it all.” Felicia set the jars by the cash register. “The dress boutique, being mayor, handling all the real estate deals. Ed hooked up with a new developer, did you hear? New blood is what the developer wants.” She pulled a credit card from her vintage gold-filigree Lucite handbag but didn’t hand it to me. She brandished it in the air as she made her point. “Ed was getting ready to evict your grandparents. The scuttlebutt is that Bernadette was so furious when she heard the news, she lost it.”
My fingers formed tight fists. These women were never going to believe my grandmother was innocent until she was proven above suspicion. Eager to be rid of them before I punched each in the nose, I carved off wedges of cheese, bundled them, and placed them in one of our gold bags. Then I thrust them at Felicia.
“Oh, no, no, no, dear.” She stopped me with her palm raised high. “I’d like you to deliver the order, on platters, just like you did for Vivian.”
I resented her tone. I had taken Vivian’s order to her as a favor to a friend. Felicia was business. I lifted my chin and said, “I’ll have Rebecca deliver it.”
“Fine. Whatever. You can add a tip to the charge, of course. Don’t make a face.”
I didn’t know that I had. So much for thinking I was the model of discretion. But Felicia had a way of making a person feel like a servant. I wondered if people like her and Kristine simply couldn’t help themselves. Even if they couldn’t, that was no excuse for being rude.
“Pretty it up,” she went on. “You know, add the fruits and things, like you did at your gala. Presentation is so important. I aim to impress.”
“That’ll cost extra.”
She winced but recovered quickly, fluttered her fingers, and said, “Of course. You know, I really don’t know what happened between your grandmother and Ed.” She handed me a credit card. “Bernadette seemed fine when we parted ways that night. I mean, after the blowup with Kristine over that niece of yours.”
“My grandmother did not kill Ed Woodhouse,” I snapped as I punched in the appropriate numbers on the keypad to close out the transaction.
“But who else would have, dear?”
Kristine, or you, for that matter, I wanted to say, but I was smart enough to know a blatant indictment would make Felicia clam up. And how was I supposed to get answers unless I listened and scraped together information?
I said, “Prudence, I heard you and Kristine and Tyanne went to the Country Kitchen after the fracas.”
“Mm-hmm,” Prudence said, her face as unreadable as a marble statue’s.
“And, Felicia, you went where?”
“To the museum, as I always do at the end of the day. Why do you ask?”
“I was hoping one or both of you might have seen my grandmother at the clock tower.”
“Sad to say, I didn’t.” Prudence slipped off her chair and clip-clopped toward a display table. She bent near a three-pound wheel of Brie, inhaled, then said, “Heavenly.”
I knew for a fact that she couldn’t smell a thing. I had recently refaced and rewrapped it.
“You and Tyanne stayed at the Country Kitchen for how long?” I asked.
“We listened to Kristine gripe for a minute or two, and then we headed home.” Prudence snickered. “We didn’t even buy a cup of coffee. Delilah Swain wasn’t happy about that.”
“And Kristine went to Tyanne’s house to pick up her daughter?” I asked.
Prudence and Felicia nodded in unison.
They all lived in different directions, which meant only two had alibis for the time of the murder, if the alibis were to be believed.
“What about you, Felicia?” I said.
“Me?”
“See anybody on your way to the museum?”
She tilted her head, the feathers on her hat flopping to one side, and stared at me, reminding me of a chicken who thought a rival hen was interested in stealing her seed. “Why, I stopped and chatted with my sister, Lois, at her place.”
A tingling of hope shot through me. Lois was Felicia’s alibi? Felicia couldn’t have picked a worse person for corroboration. Lois was known to drink a little too much after five P.M.
CHAPTER 11
The instant the ladies were gone, I called the police department. A clerk said Chief Urso was out and couldn’t be reached for the evening. I left a quick message about Felicia’s flimsy alibi, closed the shop, and walked with Rebecca to our girls’ night out.
As usual, Timothy O’Shea’s Irish Pub smelled of rich, foamy Guinness and warm bodies. Locals and tourists stood two-thick at the antique bar, a beautifully hand-carved stretch of wood that Tim had purchased in Ireland. Most of the folks craned their necks so they could watch one of the televisions hanging beyond the bar, three of which displayed different sporting events. A fourth TV aired the latest episode of Vintage Today, a regional cable show starring a hunk of a guy who taught people how to update the interiors of their homes with new fixtures and appliances. All of the televisions had the sound turned off and the closed-captioning option turned on. If no sporting events were major battles, then Tim preferred to promote conversation, laughter, and rollicking Irish music. A trio—two on electric violins, one on an ancient drum—played in the far corner. I patted my thigh in rhythm and thought about taking up Irish clog dancing. The nearest class was in Columbus.
Rebecca nudged me. “Go that way.”
Like a woman on a mission, she steered me across the hardwood floor, through the round claw-footed oak tables, to one of the rustic booths lining the far wall. The backs of the booths reached to the ceiling, ensuring a small degree of privacy.
“By the way . . .” Rebecca scooted onto the bench opposite me and pulled an appetizer menu from the holder on the table. “Delilah can’t join us. She’s got rehearsal.”
Rebecca rapped the table with her knuckles. “Yoo-hoo. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I didn’t like talking about my fears. Especially at night. After my parents died in the crash, I took to crawling under the covers of my bed with a flashlight and a book, and I would sink into utter silence. Grandmère never pressed me. Creep Chef once told me that, like a porcupine, I stuck my needles out to guard myself from hurt. I wanted to convince myself that Meredith was simply avoiding me because she had so much end-of-the-year stuff going on at school that she didn’t have an ounce of time, but I wasn’t that cavalier. And she’d lied about the parent/teacher conferences. To my face.
A waitress toting a tray filled with drinks paused at the end of our booth. “The usual?”
Rebecca nodded. A Cosmo for her, a glass of Guinness for me. Tim’s boasted sixty beers on his menu, both domestic and foreign. I’d made it a quest to try every one at least once. I was up to twenty-two. Guiness was still my favorite. When the waitress left, I asked Rebecca if she would like to have dinner with me and my grandparents, but she declined, saying she actually had a date.
“With whom?”
Her face flushed bright pink. She had shown interest in a couple of local farmers, but I didn’t think any had found the courage to ask her out yet, she being Amish and, in their minds, possibly too prim for them.
“C’mon, who?”
“A reporter.”
“Oh, no.” The first reporter that came to mind was the weasel with the bug-eyed glasses who had grilled me the day after my grandmother’s arrest.
“Oh, yes, and Charlotte, he’s very cute. He says he’ll tell me everything he’s learned about being an investigative reporter and how to get a good scoop and, well, everything. He said he’ll show me his notes.”
I’d bet he wanted to show her a lot more than his notes. I said, “Reporters don’t divulge secrets.”
“I know.” She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “I’m not naïve.”
“Look, Rebecca—”
“Please, don’t talk me out of it. Back home, I wouldn’t get a choice of whom I got to date, you know? My marriage would be . . . arranged. I’d really like to—”
“I get it.” A spurt of anxiety rushed through me. Rebecca reminded me of a young colt, growing up so fast, believing she was ready for wide-open pastures. I wanted her to slow down, be wary, but I feared anything I said would fall on deaf ears. Wary wasn’t exciting. She wanted exciting.
“What about you?” Rebecca said. “Who are you interested in?”
She couldn’t tell? Hooray for me. Perhaps I was subtler than I gave myself credit.
“Come on, there has to be someone,” she prodded.
“Why does there have to be someone?” For the past few years, prior to meeting Jordan, I had been perfectly happy being single. Sure, I’d had an occasional date, but Creep Chef had done such a number on my confidence, constantly making me feel insignificant for wanting to become a cheesemonger, that when he split, I assured myself that if I ended up single for the rest of my life, I would be happy to fill the days with the things I loved. Work, cheese, good food, family, and travel. I yearned to travel—when the shop was a super success and the budget allowed.
“Charlotte, c’mon, spill.”
“Oh, look, there’s Freckles.” I wiggled my fingers, eager to get the subject off me. “And Felicia.”
Rebecca looked where I pointed. “Ewww. She’s with that Prudence. The woman never smiles!” she added, her tone tart, judgmental. “Oh, and isn’t that the Délicieux r eporter?”
Zinnia, wearing yet another flower-decorated blouse, sat at a table with the stocky man who ran the farmer’s market. Her tape recorder stood on the table. Was she interviewing him? Had she forgotten about me? Perhaps Délicieux had warned her off the Bessette family for now. Too much conflict. Except wasn’t any publicity good publicity? My shoulders sagged. Perhaps not.
“Say, isn’t that gal at the bar the one from the Cleveland wine tour?” Rebecca pointed.
Unable to see much of the bar from where I sat, I peered around the corner of the booth. The bleached blonde woman—her tight brown tour T-shirt replaced with an even tighter pink one, her jeans so snug they looked painted on—sat with her legs crossed and one arm slung over the back of the bar stool. A jaunty man in a loose-fitting suit joined her. A pencil wove through the shaggy hair above his ear. He looked to be at least ten years her junior.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no.” Rebecca covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s . . . it’s . . .” Tears sprang into her eyes.
I could only surmise. “Your date?”
She nodded. “Quigley.” She sniffled, then shrugged in a worldly way, well beyond her years. “Oh, what do I care?” She wiped tears away with her pinky. “He didn’t like any of the cheeses I offered him. He has no taste.”
A good measure of a man, I thought, flashing briefly on Jordan and how much he enjoyed cheese and a hearty glass of wine. And cooking. And Ohio. And, well, everything I liked.
Our waitress set our drinks on the table.
Rebecca took a big gulp of her Cosmo, then ran her tongue along her lips. “Say, do you think the tour lady might have killed Ed? I mean, the one night she’s in town, and he dies. Some coincidence, huh?”
“Lots of people visit here,” I said. “Just because someone dies doesn’t make a happenstance visitor a suspect. Heck, if that were the case, then Zinnia could be a suspect.”
“But the tour guide was flirting with Ed. Don’t you remember how he fed her and she licked the oil off his fingers?”
How could I forget? At The Cheese Shop opening, Ed’s blatant disdain for Kristine had bothered me. Grandmère said she had seen Ed visiting the tour guide at Lois’s B&B. Were they having an affair? Had she killed him in a crime passionnel?
“Or better yet,” Rebecca went on. “What if my date is actually the guide’s husband or her boyfriend, and he got super jealous and he offed Ed?” She shuddered and shook her hands as if trying to get sticky leaves off of them. “Ew. That’s just too creepy to contemplate. He’s a killer and I could have gone on a date with him. Let’s go find out.” She started to rise.
I pinned her arm to the table and prevented her from leaving. “Are you nuts?”
“Please? We’ll find out if she knew Ed, you know, for a long time. Like maybe they were lovers before Kristine married him. They were only married nine years. Ed could have been with a lot of women.”
My mouth dropped open. Rebecca was learning way too much from TV and the Internet.
“Oh, look, there’s Jordan,” Rebecca said.
Instantly I released Rebecca and my hands went to my hair to primp. Rebecca took the opportunity to bolt off the bench.
“Ha! Fooled you,” she said with glee.
Guess I wasn’t as subtle as I thought. Rats.
Rebecca hurried toward the tour guide. I wasn’t certain which was more important to her, getting the scoop on the tour guide or snubbing her erstwhile date, but before she could embarrass herself, I raced to her, slipped my arm around her waist, and steered her into a U-turn.
“But they have motive and opportunity,” Rebecca protested.
“That’s enough, my little flatfoot.” She had watched entirely too many reruns of Law & Order and NCIS and who knew what else. “Trust me, you’ll thank me,” I said. Once we were seated back at our table, I said, “By the way, I need your help tomorrow putting together Felicia Hassleton’s garden party order.”
Rebecca looked chagrined. “Yeah, okay, I heard you talking before we left. You know, it’s possible that when Ed Woodhouse pul
led out of donating to the museum, Miss Hassleton got so angry that she killed him.” She drank another sip of her Cosmo. “Maybe we should tell Chief Urso to go to her house and search for evidence. I mean, if she killed him, the flowery dress she wore that night would be all bloody. Garbage collection hasn’t come this week.”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one clever enough to think of these things. No wonder Urso had bridled when I’d strutted into his office. I cringed at the thought of how he would react when he heard the message I left earlier. I was more of a novice than Rebecca, it appeared.
“Hey, maybe we should look in her garbage for ourselves,” Rebecca said, her eyes bright with zeal. “Or better yet . . .”
I felt a panic rising in my stomach.
“. . . we should scour through the museum’s garbage. If I killed somebody, that’s where I’d put it. In that big Dumpster out back.” Rebecca hitched a thumb, which thwacked the back of the booth. “Ow.” She rubbed and snickered. “Clumsy me.” She wasn’t snockered, but one Cosmo was her limit. “We could go now, on our way to dinner with your grandparents. I’m re-inviting myself, if that’s okay.”
“It’s fine.” Grandmère and Pépère would welcome her with open arms. “But Rebecca, the museum is out of the way.”
“C’mon. Don’t be a ninny. Felicia won’t do her walk-around until nine. It’s only seven.” She slapped cash on the table to pay for our drinks, eyed the front door, then leaned forward and whispered, “We won’t go inside. We’ll just take a peak. Deal?”
Maybe one beer was my limit, as well, because I wasn’t seeing any harm in her plan. After all, garbage was public property.
CHAPTER 12
“Isn’t there a ladder on the darned thing?” Rebecca left her lookout point at the end of the alley behind the historical museum and its neighboring homes and stole to my side.
