by Morgana Best
I continue to disagree, much to Carl’s chagrin. “Someone didn’t have to be physically present; they simply had to poison the fly agaric chocolates, and if it was The Purr-suader, then he would have done it at my place.”
Carl sighed dramatically. “Oh Narel, you’ve become so precise lately. Who else had access to the chocolates before the event?” Without waiting for me to answer, he said, “Me, you, and The Purr-suader. Of course, Mongrel had access too, but I don’t think we can blame him this time.”
“Okay, so you’re saying that the murder suspects can only consist of the people on the guest list plus The Purr-suader?”
Carl’s eyes lit up. “Exactly! So now all we have to do is get the guest list.”
“How are we going to do that?” I asked him.
“Just ask Miriam for it, of course.”
“Are you going to ask her?” I asked hopefully.
“No, of course not.” Carl pulled a face. “She paid you to make the chocolates, not me.”
I rubbed my temples. “What reason will I give her for asking for the guest list? I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t say that we’re investigating the murder because we think my shop will go broke by the time the police get around to solving it. We can’t tell her that she’s a suspect, and ask her to hand us the guest list so we can add the people on to one of your whiteboards.”
“You’re making it sound worse than it really is,” Carl said. “Just ask for the guest list.”
“I can’t,” I protested. “She’ll ask me what I want it for.”
“We’ll make up something,” Carl said, unhelpfully.
“Yes, let’s both make up something now so we’ll have an excuse to tell her.”
Carl threw himself on the sofa. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “I haven’t thought of anything.”
“Carl, I am definitely not asking her for the guest list, unless you can come up with a solid excuse.”
Carl pouted. “Okay then, but you have to help me.”
“Okay.” For the next few minutes we brainstormed, but still couldn’t come up with anything. “What if I said I wanted the guest list so I could send everyone on it a card of condolences,” I said.
Carl shook his head. “I don’t think that would work.”
“Why not? I think it’s a good idea.”
Carl shook his head again. “I know! How about we say we found a valuable piece of jewellery that had fallen into the chocolate fountain, and when you cleaned out the chocolate fountain, you found it. We need the guest list so we can contact everyone in turn.”
It didn’t sound such a good idea at first, but the more I thought about it, the more attractive it seemed. “Okay, I suppose we haven’t come up with anything better, though I did like the idea of condolence cards.”
“Come on, Narel. Grab your purse and let’s get out of here.”
I stood up. “Where are we going?”
“To get that guest list, of course.”
“But Carl, it’s Saturday afternoon. Miriam won’t be at the office.”
Carl did not seem put out. “No matter. It’s a valuable piece of jewellery, isn’t it?”
“But she’ll be devastated that Stan has just died. We can’t upset her at a time like this.”
“Don’t forget, she could be the murderer. It will give us an opportunity to see if she’s acting or if she is genuinely upset.”
I thought it was a bad idea, a really bad idea, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk Carl out of it. I sighed and followed him to his car. When he didn’t drive off, but just sat there tapping away at his phone, I asked him, “What are you doing?”
“Finding out where she lives, of course.”
Five minutes later, we pulled up outside Miriam’s house. It was a new villa, all white brick and white hardiplank, one of five villas backing onto a bushland reserve. As we walked up to her doorway, I clutched Carl’s arm. “Are you sure we should do this? What if she doesn’t know that Stan is already dead? What if the police haven’t released the information yet?”
“Oh Narel, you worry too much. Leave it to me. I’ll do all the talking.”
That sounded good to me, although I knew Carl wasn’t always tactful. Carl knocked on the door, and it was with mixed feelings that I heard someone approach. Miriam opened the door, and it was clear she had been crying. At once, I figured she couldn’t be the murderer. After all, she didn’t know we were coming, so there was no point faking red eyes—unless, of course, she was the murderer and was overcome with remorse.
She looked quite shocked to see us both standing there. “Narel!”
“Hello.” I waited for Carl to start speaking, but he stood there, speechless, so I elbowed him in the ribs. He still didn’t speak, so I said, “Carl has something to say.”
Carl cleared his throat. “We’re sorry to hear about Stan.”
Miriam’s eyes scrunched and she covered her face with the tissue for a few moments. Carl pushed on. “We need your guest list, the guest list for the party last night.”
Miriam pulled the tissue away from her face and looked surprised. “Whatever for?”
I decided to intervene, given that Carl wasn’t doing a good job. “I’m so terribly sorry to bother you at a time like this,” I began, “but when I was cleaning the chocolate fountain last night, I found a very valuable piece of jewellery that must’ve dropped inside. I mentioned it to the police, but they said they would call me if anyone came forward for it. No one has as yet, and I didn’t want to bother the police at such a terrible time as this, given that, well you know…” My voice trailed away.
Miriam covered her face once more with the tissue. I pushed on. “If you wouldn’t mind giving us the guest list, I can contact each person in turn and find out who owns the jewellery.”
To my great surprise, that seemed to work. Miriam removed the tissue from her face and looked at us hesitantly. “Would you like to come in?”
Carl made to step forward, but I grabbed him by his arm. “No, no, thank you. We’re so terribly sorry to bother you at this time, but we thought that whoever lost it must be quite distraught, and we also wanted to come and say how terribly sorry we were.”
Miriam nodded wordlessly and disappeared. The door was only partially open so we couldn’t see inside her house. It was one of those doors with narrow horizontal glass panels; only the glass panels were frosted. She soon returned and handed me a list. “If anyone tells me that they lost it, can I tell them to contact you directly?”
“Of course, that would be great,” I said, feeling a little guilty about telling such an outrageous lie.
We both murmured our condolences once more and then hightailed it back to Carl’s car.
Unfortunately, we were only halfway to the car when we met the detectives walking up the driveway. “Fancy seeing you two here,” Detective Clyde said with barely veiled disgust. “I hope you’re not interfering in this investigation.”
“We were just coming to say how sorry we were to Miriam,” I said. “She’s a friend of mine, after all.” That was an outrageous exaggeration, but the detectives had no way of knowing that.
“Sorry about what?” Clyde asked pointedly.
“About her boss’s death, of course,” I said.
“That hasn’t been released to the media yet, Miss Myers,” he snapped at me.
I gestured around me. “Bush telegraph,” I said, referring to the Aussie expression about gossip spreading like wildfire in a small country town.
Clyde simply scowled and went on his way, while Detective Rieker afforded Carl a small smile.
When we were safely in the car, Carl laughed. “That went well, didn’t it! Apart from running into those detectives. Of all the timing! Of course, I’m not complaining about running into Detective Rieker.”
“It did go surprisingly well,” I conceded. “I really didn’t think she would give us the guest list. I didn’t think she would believe such an outrageous lie. Actually, I was worried
that she’d ask us what type of jewellery it was.”
“People never ask in situations like that,” Carl said with confidence.
“Whyever not?”
Carl started the engine and pulled onto the road. “If we actually had found a valuable piece of jewellery, we would not describe it to anyone. Only the owner would be able to describe it, and that way, we would know it was them. Make sense?”
I nodded. “I suppose.” I looked through the guest list. “Oh Carl, there are so many people here. How will we go through all of them?”
“One by one,” Carl said. “Do you know, something’s been bothering me. Okay, we know that the murderer poisoned Stan at his house several days ago.”
I interrupted him. “It mightn’t have been at his house. He could have been visiting someone else for dinner.”
Carl waved a hand at me in dismissal. “Yes, yes, whatever. Forget that. My point is, someone poisoned Stan several days ago and in large quantities. Right?”
I agreed.
“And they poisoned him again, according to that doctor, last night, at his office party. Right?”
“Yes, but I don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“Don’t you see, Narel? Anyone could have poisoned him at his house, or wherever, several days ago, but only those people on that list could have poisoned him that night.”
“Or The Purr-suader,” I reminded him.
Carl nodded. “Okay, leaving The Purr-suader aside for a moment, let’s look at what we have so far. Someone poisoned Stan several days ago, possibly over a period of days, but the fact is that the doctor said from that moment on, Stan was going to die and couldn’t be saved. So why did they poison him again last night? What I mean is, anyone could have poisoned him several days ago. For that, there would be way too many suspects and no one could pin it down, but the fact that he was poisoned last night meant it had to be someone who had access to the chocolates. That meant it had to be someone in the room.”
“And The Purr-suader.”
“And The Purr-suader,” Carl said with a laugh. “Narel, has anyone told you that you’re getting more annoying lately?” I gave him a playful slap on the arm. “But you don’t seem to get what I mean. Someone poisoned him several days ago. Given that he didn’t receive medical treatment at the time, he was a ticking time bomb. He couldn’t be saved after that, so why would they poison him again last night? That meant that the murderer had to be someone who was in that room, someone with access to the chocolates. Leaving The Purr-suader aside for the moment, it had to be someone in that room. Why would they do that? That threw the suspicion onto a small amount of people.”
“Are you saying it’s pointing to The Purr-suader, then?”
Carl shrugged. “Perhaps, but not necessarily. I can see two possibilities. One is that it was The Purr-suader, and because he wasn’t at the party, then it would have been a good idea on his part to make it look like it was someone at the party. The second possibility—well, the only other possibility—is that someone at the party poisoned Stan again for a very specific reason, and if we can find out what that reason was, then we will know who the murderer is.”
My head was spinning by this point. I reached into my purse and pulled out some chocolates, which I rapidly consumed.
“Narel, I thought you were trying to get healthy,” Carl admonished me.
“Low blood sugar,” I said, half believing it. “Where do we go from here?”
“I think we should start with The Purr-suader, if only to eliminate him.”
“Carl, I forgot to ask you. Did you call Detective Rieker and tell him what Tom said about Peter Patterson being a possible connection with Stan Wellings?”
Carl nodded. “Yes, I did, but he didn’t say anything. He gave nothing away, and that is why I have invited Peter to your place for dinner tonight.”
Chapter 10
Luckily for me, Carl insisted on helping me prepare dinner for The Purr-suader. “I’m sure he doesn’t want chocolates for the main course,” Carl said.
“What’s wrong with him?” I exclaimed.
“Sometimes I wonder about you, Narel.” Carl strained the pasta in the sink. “I invited him to your place for dinner to pretend to make up for Mongrel attacking him.”
“Yes, you’ve told me that several times already,” I said. “But we’re the clients, remember? We paid him—or rather you paid him—to help Mongrel with his aggression problems. He can’t really charge someone to help with their cat’s aggression problems and then expect sympathy when he’s attacked.”
Carl waved a hand at me. “No matter, it’s all a pretence so we can see if he’s the murderer.”
Something occurred to me. “If he is the murderer, was it a good idea to invite him for dinner? What if he poisons us?”
Carl placed the saucepan on a stand. “If he did kill Stan Wellings, then I’m sure he had a motive for killing him, and him specifically. It’s not as if he’s a serial killer.”
I wasn’t so sure. “If he’s the killer, then he’s gone to a lot of trouble to poison the chocolates at my place. He must have done a lot of research. He must’ve found out that I was preparing the chocolates for the retirement party, and then come here offering to train Mongrel. Besides, doesn’t it work a bit too much in his favour that I have an aggressive cat? That seems like far too much of a coincidence.”
Carl bit his lip. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he isn’t the murderer, but we need to find out if we can exclude him. He’s the only fly in the ointment, so to speak. If we can rule him out, then we’re a lot closer to figuring out who the murderer really was, because as I said earlier, the murderer had a good reason to give Stan a second dose of poison at that time. Oh gosh, is that him already? He’s early. Be on your guard, Narel.”
“You, too.” I walked over to the door, and sure enough, The Purr-suader was standing there, both hands wrapped in bandages. I wondered how he would be able to eat. Maybe we should have made soup and given him a straw. “Lovely to see you, Peter.” I almost went to shake his hand, and then realised that was a bad idea. “Please come in.”
The Purr-suader looked around the door nervously. “Where’s your cat?”
I pointed to the carrier basket. “He was sitting at the kitchen table, but when he heard a knock on the door, he ran into his basket. He’s not very sociable.”
“You’re telling me!” The Purr-suader snapped, but then quickly replaced his expression with what I judged to be a fake smile. “Do you want your money back?”
I hurried to reassure him. “No, no, not at all! I’m so sorry about Mongrel attacking you. We’ve invited you to dinner to try to make up for it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” he said, eyeing Mongrel’s basket nervously. For a famous Cat Whisperer, I didn’t think he was doing very well.
“Please have a seat. Would you like some wine?”
“Yes, please.” He was still staring fixedly at Mongrel’s basket. I had placed lavender scented candles around the room, but perhaps the soothing effect only worked on cats, because it certainly wasn’t working on The Purr-suader.
“Oh you’ll be fine,” I said. “He only reacts to rope.”
Carl sailed into the room. “Which is why we enlisted your services in the first place.” He shot the man a sickly sweet smile after he said it. “Cheese and dip?” He placed a cheese platter on the coffee table in front of Peter.
“I’m sorry, what would you like to drink?” I asked him. “Red, white, or bubbly?”
“Bubbly would be good.”
“Dry? Or I have a bubbly Moscato?”
“Dry, please.” Peter seemed to be starting to relax, and leant back in his seat.
“I’ll get it.” Carl disappeared from the room, and I heard a popping sound. There were two soft armchairs opposite the sofa on which Peter was sitting, and I sat in the one to his right. An awkward silence descended, and I wondered how to start the conversation. “How are your hands?” I asked him
. “Will you be able to eat?”
Peter’s body stiffened. “Yes, I’m left-handed actually, and it’s the right hand that is more affected. The fingers on my left hand are bandaged separately.”
“Oh, so they are!” The atmosphere was decidedly tense now, and I wished I hadn’t asked about his hands. I hoped Carl would get some conversation going when he returned with the bubbly.
Carl sailed into the room, holding three flutes of bubbly. He set them all down on the coffee table. “Drink up!” He sat in the other armchair.
“You have a nice place here, Narel,” Peter said, obviously feeling uncomfortable.
Carl waved his hand at him. “Oh, puh-lease! It’s a dump. Narel is going to sell it soon and buy a better place, isn’t that right, Narel?”
I nodded, wondering how we were going to turn the conversation around to the matter of Stan Wellings’ murder. I thought I might as well get right to it. “Did you hear what happened last night?”
The expression on Peter’s face didn’t change. “No?”
“Remember those chocolates I showed you? I said we were going to an office retirement party last night?”
Peter nodded.
“The man there was murdered.”
Peter’s jaw dropped open. I judged it to be a genuine reaction, but then again, I could be wrong. “You’re kidding!” he said. “Murdered? Right there, in front of everyone?”
“He was poisoned,” Carl said. “You might know the man anyway, Stan Wellings.”
Peter jumped so much that his bubbly spilt and ran down his bandages and onto his leg. I hurried out of the room to fetch something to mop it up. When I returned to the room, Peter was sitting there, his jaw working up and down. All the colour had drained from his face. “Stan Wellings,” he repeated. “Do the police know who did it?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry, Peter, I didn’t realise you knew him. I would have broken the news more gently. You look quite upset. Was he a good friend of yours?” I said.
Peter took the offered kitchen wipe and mopped his leg and his bandaged hand. He then handed it to Carl who all but ran from the room and came back in double quick time. “Yes, I knew him very well years ago. I imagine he has a lot of enemies, so I’m sure it’ll make it hard for the police to discover who murdered him.”
