In Cold Chamomile

by Joy Avon

  Ace turned his head at the honk and saw Iphy coming for him. Judging by his expression as he leaned over to her once she was there, he reprimanded her about her careless way of crossing the street, but Iphy didn’t seem to give him a chance to finish, putting her hand on his arm. Ace led her away from his colleague, who continued to check cars that might not belong there.

  Callie couldn’t resist watching how her great-aunt, a frail figure compared to tall, broad Ace, pleaded with him while he shook his head and seemed to want to calm her down. The sun reflected off his badge as he moved to speak to her with even more emphasis.

  At last, Iphy turned in a jerk and ran back across the street, again barely watching where she went. A blue sedan braked and honked, and Ace stood there shaking his head. He spotted Callie and seemed to want to come over to her, but then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and took a call. He listened intently, said something, and rushed off to his car, which was parked nearby.

  Callie shrugged and carried her tray of dirty dishes inside. Iphy was in the kitchen, filling a three-tiered stand for a tea party coming in at two thirty. She clanked the bonbons onto the china so hard that the toppings almost came off.

  Callie caught her arm. “What?”

  “Falk just doesn’t want to listen to me. I’m sure Delacorte knows more than he’s telling us, and I have the perfect plan to find out just what he knows.”

  “I’m sure Ace went after the leads we gave him. In fact, I saw that he got a call just now and rushed off. He must be getting on with the case.” Callie didn’t know what the call had been about, of course, but her great-aunt was so worked up, she’d say anything to calm her down a bit. She gently ushered Iphy out of the way and finished dressing the stand for her.

  Iphy stood there, breathing hard, and then said, “Oh, well, if nobody wants to listen,” and stomped out of the kitchen. Footfalls on the stairs suggested she was rushing up to her bedroom. Daisy ran after her, barking as if telling her to stop and wait for her.

  Callie shook her head. Her great-aunt would calm down again, she hoped, and see reason. After all, Ace was doing the best he could. He just had a lot on his plate with the sheriff being indisposed and all.

  She heard the floor creak upstairs and raised her head a moment to listen as the footfalls stopped. Had Iphy sat down or maybe even lain down on her bed? Daisy could give her some cuddles and cheer her up. Maybe Iphy even wanted to have a little nap, to gather energy before facing her tea party guests.

  Callie nodded to herself. An excellent idea. She hoped Iphy would fall into a deep, dreamless sleep that would reinvigorate her. If Iphy didn’t come down before two thirty, Callie would receive the tea party and serve them with the other helpers. Iphy needed a bit of a break to regain her usual cool. Over dinner they might have a talk and see if there was any more they could do for Sean Strong.

  * * *

  Just after six, Callie closed up Book Tea and stood, stretching her stiff shoulders. The afternoon had passed in a rush of people coming and going. Especially five ladies dropping in unannounced to have a high tea, which had been a bit of a hassle, but Callie had made everything work out, sending a helper across the street to the general store for fresh raspberries to work into an impromptu trifle topped off with crumbled meringue. The women had laden her with compliments and assured her they’d recommend the tearoom to all of their friends, so Callie had been quite happy with how it had turned out.

  Nevertheless, she was exhausted now and eager for some hot food. But first she would go see her great-aunt, who she assumed was still in bed, with Daisy watching over her. Callie was glad, on the one hand, that Iphy had fallen asleep and was getting some much-needed rest, but on the other hand, it did worry her that she would truly be so exhausted that she had simply slept away the entire afternoon.

  Callie tiptoed up the stairs and listened at her great-aunt’s bedroom door. No sound. She knocked softly and opened the door a crack. “How are you? Want some dinner? I can make pizza, if you like. Maybe some fresh juice to go with it?”

  No reply.

  Callie opened the door wider and looked in. The bed was messy, as if someone had indeed lain down on it, but her great-aunt was nowhere to be seen. Daisy came for Callie, jumping against her and wagging her tail. Callie scooped the dog into her arms and looked about her as if she expected Iphy to materialize. No one.

  Then her eye fell on a note left on the dressing table. She rushed over and picked it up. It read, “I will be back soon. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

  That exact wording got Callie worried. Very worried.

  What had Iphy been up to when she had snuck away? Why had she not simply said where she was going and what she had in mind?

  Callie studied the note with a frown, the images coming back to her of Iphy’s encounter with Ace in the street. What had she discussed with him? Obviously, he hadn’t wanted to agree, whatever it was. Had Iphy then decided to take action on her own? Had she only pretended to go to bed to rest? How long had she been gone anyway?

  With Daisy in her arms, Callie ran back downstairs. In the kitchen, she picked up her phone and called Ace. It rang and rang without answer, then went to voicemail, and she told him to call her back first thing as it was urgent.

  She paced the room, Daisy hard on her heels, waiting for him to call, but nothing happened. She tried his number again. Voicemail. Another message.

  Who cared if he thought she was pushy? This was Iphy they were talking about. Iphy, who seemed to be missing.

  Iphy, who could be … in danger?

  Nonsense, Callie tried to tell herself. Iphy had probably asked Ace for information he wasn’t allowed to give out, and then she decided to go and hire a PI or something. Or talk to Sean Strong’s lawyer. Or some other perfectly normal thing. It didn’t mean she was doing something risky.

  But Callie couldn’t forget how her normally careful great-aunt had almost caused a collision—twice!—rushing across the street without watching where she was going. To catch Ace. Who had not wanted to help her. What if she had then decided she needed to act on her own? After all, she had felt so sorry about involving Callie earlier. At the police station, after seeing Sean Strong, she had even asked Callie for forgiveness for dragging her into it. Had she then decided to continue sleuthing by herself?

  Her phone rang, and Callie almost dropped it. She answered, “Yes?” in a hoarse voice.

  “What is so urgent?” Ace sounded irritated. “I was in an interrogation, and the other deputy told me my phone kept ringing. I thought it might be something to do with Peggy or the boys.”

  “Peggy is fine. I thought she talked to you.”

  “Yes, she’s now thinking of taking a job away from town, all because of that guy Quinn. I wish they had never met.”

  “She’s just changing jobs, not moving away.” Callie felt obliged to stem his annoyance. “And Quinn genuinely cares for her. I’m hoping Peggy will come to see that.” Maybe once she got settled in her new job, she would find out she missed Quinn and their regular lunches, and they’d get together anyway.

  Callie took a deep breath as she realized this wasn’t what Ace wanted to hear right now or what she herself needed to know from him. With a vague hope that Jane Williams could be the killer and Ace had her at the station so she’d pose no danger to Iphy, she asked, “Did you get a chance to speak to Jane Williams and ask her about her presence at the event?”

  “Yes, she admitted she went there to look for her friends and dissuade them from confronting King. But she claims she never saw King himself. I’m checking with a few people who gave fairly detailed witness statements about happenings shortly before King died, to see if they remember seeing a woman of Jane Williams’s physical description around. But I doubt it will turn up much.”

  Callie’s uneasy feeling intensified. If Ace was right about Jane, the killer was still lurking in the shadows. “What did Iphy discuss with you this afternoon.”

  “Didn�
��t she tell you? Sulking because I didn’t agree?” Ace sounded grim. “I’m not risking her safety in some stupid confrontation that won’t bring anything I can work with.”

  “Confrontation?” Callie echoed. Her heart rate sped up, and she supported herself on the back of a chair. Daisy pressed herself against her leg.

  Ace sighed. “Iphy is convinced that the victim’s assistant, this Seth Delacorte, knows more than he’s let on. She wanted to set up a meeting between her and him where she’d get him talking and I’d overhear everything and then arrest him or something. I told her that if he is the killer, he’ll be too smart to let something slip. She wasn’t happy, but hey—I had her best interest in mind.”

  “Did you find out more about Delacorte’s past?” Callie asked, almost breathless.

  “Seems like he told the truth. His father got kicked out of a law firm he worked at, and Delacorte couldn’t finish college and went to work for our victim. His father then died. Of a heart attack—nothing incriminating. No connection with our victim either, at least none I can establish right away. There’s no way of knowing, of course, if he duped Delacorte’s father if the father never filed charges with the police or left evidence of it.”

  Callie’s mind whirled. “If he left some evidence of it, among his private papers, it would have fallen into Delacorte’s hands after his father died. When was that?”

  “Eight months ago.”

  “Might that have made him decide that he would kill his boss?”

  Ace scoffed. “He just happened to start working for the man who then later turned out to have ripped off his father? That would be a gigantic coincidence. I don’t believe it for a moment.”

  It did seem extremely coincidental. But if Delacorte had known about the fraud from the start, why had he waited so long to take revenge?

  And if he had only found out eight months ago, how could he have been working for the man who caused his father’s misery without knowing that himself?

  It didn’t make sense either way.

  Ace said, “Just leave the investigation to me, Callie. And keep an eye on Iphy. She seemed very excitable, and that kind of mood doesn’t lead to smart decisions.”

  “That’s why I am calling you.” Callie swallowed before she could go on. “She isn’t here. She left a note telling me not to worry, that she’d be okay.”

  “What?” Ace sounded like he had shot upright in his chair on hearing this news. “She’s not with you at Book Tea?”

  “No. And I have no idea how long ago she left here.”

  Ace muttered something under his breath. “Do you know where she went? What she intends to do?”

  “No, she didn’t tell me anything—not even what she discussed with you. She was so upset about not getting the help she obviously wanted that she went straight upstairs, and I figured she’d just had it and needed a rest, so I left her alone. I just now found the note, and I’m worried she believed she couldn’t ask me for help as it had only gotten me into trouble before. I did feel bad about the way we kept things from you, and Iphy was really sorry about her actions. But she feels like she can’t let Strong down either.”

  Ace sighed. “I don’t think she would do something, really. She does realize she would be—could be facing—”

  Callie clutched the phone. “Now you suddenly suspect Delacorte?”

  “Not at all, but you never know what people will do when they feel cornered. Private citizens should not go after … well, people they suspect of being involved in crimes.”

  “They might feel like they have to when the police are doing nothing.”

  “You agree with her?”

  “No, but I did observe how you turned her away this afternoon. She didn’t feel like you were taking her seriously.” Callie bit her lip. “You also didn’t tell me to keep an eye on her.” She felt terribly guilty now for having left Iphy to herself in the emotional state she had been in.

  “I got a call about a burglary in progress. I couldn’t just ignore that.” Ace’s voice was sharp. Then he said, “Look, Callie, we can’t argue now about who’s to blame here. We have to find out where she went.”

  Yes, of course. Callie pushed a hand against her face. Her cheek seemed hot, her hand super cold, and she shivered. “What did she tell you exactly? Did she mention a place for this meeting with Delacorte where she would provoke him into revealing something?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Ace sounded doubtful. “I told her right away I didn’t want to do it, so when she started explaining the details to me, I wasn’t really listening all that well anymore. I mean, come on—this has to stop somewhere.”

  Callie closed her eyes. “Where would she think was a good meeting place?”

  “At the hotel? That would be safest, with other people around.”

  Callie tried to focus, but fear churned in her stomach. Why hadn’t she realized just how much Sean Strong meant to Iphy? How the reunion with him had brought back all the memories of falling in love with him in the first place but also of letting him down, choosing the safer option, not wanting to take risks. Iphy was a determined person who wanted to do the right thing. She had judged her earlier actions as those of a coward and obviously felt the need to prove she wasn’t afraid anymore.

  Clenching her free hand into a fist, Callie took a deep breath. Her great-aunt’s behavior had confused and frustrated her, but right now she only knew one thing for certain. She should have offered to help her. Then they might now both be in danger, but that would have been better than her great-aunt trying to do this alone. It could only end in disaster.

  In death even?

  Callie swallowed hard. Focus! The hotel as a meeting place? Can that be it?

  She narrowed her eyes as she zoomed in on details that had previously been just out of her grasp. Delacorte’s hotel room, the bed with the duvet folded away but the sheet covering the mattress undisturbed, the scent in the room and the condensation on the table.

  “He didn’t get out of bed when we came to his door,” she said slowly. “He was up and about. He had sat there drinking. The scent I noticed—sweetness—it was of liquor. He had put the glass away, out of sight, after the receptionist called him and told him that we were coming up to his room. The ring on the table gave away that a glass had stood there. He wasn’t groggy from sleeping off the sedative—that was just an act. He was sitting there, drinking, maybe even toasting himself on his success.”

  “What?” Ace asked.

  Callie’s thoughts were racing. “And at our second meeting, over dinner, he cleverly drew our attention to Paula and Sylvia. His smile when we left the table in a rush to go after those two women wasn’t a knowing little smile, realizing our curiosity, but a satisfied smile that his plan was working. To divert attention, make others look suspicious.”

  She could just kick herself that she hadn’t noticed sooner. But she had sympathized with Delacorte’s position, had felt sorry for the nice, unobtrusive young man who was bullied by his boss. Even now she wasn’t sure they were on the right track. It was so hard to believe that they would have dined with the killer, even thinking that if the murder hadn’t happened, it could have been a pleasant night!

  “Look.” Ace’s voice sounded softer. “I do recall Iphy said something about a vase. Payment, she called it. It didn’t make sense to me, but she said it.”

  “A vase? Payment?” Callie snapped her eyes open. “That must be the vase Mrs. Forrester mentioned to us, the one the dead expert had asked for. A vase from the collection at Haywood Hall.”

  “Okay. So we could go to Haywood Hall and see if she’s there.”

  “We?”

  Ace laughed softly. “I have no illusions I can keep you out of this, Callie. Not with Iphy’s safety at stake. Better to have you with me where I can keep an eye on you.”

  Callie felt a bit annoyed that he expected her to get into trouble, but she had to acknowledge that the panic inside could be coloring her judgment. For Iphy she’d do an
ything. Blindly.

  “I’ll grab my coat and take Daisy to a neighbor. Pick me up as fast as you can.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  They arrived at Haywood Hall and left the police car a bit away from the house as Ace explained to Callie it might be better not to draw attention. “If Delacorte is here for some reason, I don’t want him spooked.”

  They continued on foot, approaching the house as if they were a couple of burglars attempting a break in. Around back they came to the door into the kitchen area and found Mrs. Keats there, making sandwiches. Callie knocked on the window, and the surprised housekeeper dropped the cheese and ham to let them in.

  Callie smiled at her, determined not to create panic in this usually quiet household. “Hello—sorry for barging in like this, but did you see Iphy this afternoon?”

  “Yes, she was here earlier. She needed to look into some books, so she went upstairs. I don’t know if she’s still here.”

  Callie looked at Ace, her emotions swaying between relief and disbelief. Books? Just books? Had her great-aunt believed there was a clue in there somewhere?

  Ace said to Mrs. Keats, “Do you mind if we go see her for a moment? It’s urgent.”

  “Oh. Not at all. I’m making sandwiches for the evening meal. Do you want to eat with us?”

  “Maybe.” Ace smiled at her, but Callie noticed the tension in his posture. He wanted up, up, up to find Iphy. And so did she.

  They left the kitchen and walked through the hallway, up the broad stairs. Callie clung to the railing. If they found her great-aunt there, innocently leafing through books, she’d be so relieved; she felt she could almost shake her and shout at her. But she would tell her later how she had felt.

  Ace opened the door into the library. No one there. Callie felt her hopeful feeling dissipating. Her heart beat fast again, and she just couldn’t bear the tension building.

  Ace tried the nearby study. No one there.

  He looked at her. “She made up an excuse to gain access to the house and find the vase she needed for her meeting with Delacorte. The so-called payment. Which one is it?” He looked about him at the several antiquities on display.