Natural-born Grillers (Australian Amateur Sleuth Book 2)

by Morgana Best

  Finally, just as a headache was beginning to throb at my temples, they told me I could go. Detective Henderson escorted me to the waiting room and beckoned Cressida into the corridor.

  “Could you wait for me, Sibyl?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Sure,” I said, as she disappeared.

  Mr. Buttons looked up from polishing the front desk of the police station with a can of furniture polish. “What happened?” he asked. “You were in there for ages.”

  I looked at Constable Andrews before answering. He held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. I took the can of furniture polish from Mr. Buttons and led him back to the green plastic chairs against the wall. “They asked me the same thing over and over again. It was awful,” I said, when we had both taken our seats.

  Mr. Buttons leaned closer to me. “I earlier drew a tarot card,” he said, tapping his pocket, “and it was the Justice card, reversed. That means someone will be falsely accused.”

  Chapter 5

  I was thumbing through my iPhone, looking at Facebook, when Cressida reappeared. Her interview had taken a long time. A wave of relief washed over me. Now I could finally leave the police station.

  I looked up as Cressida walked toward me, her heels clicking loudly on the hard tile. I jumped to my feet and met her halfway. “There you are! I was starting to worry that they’d booked you.” My smile fell as I studied Cressida’s face. “Oh my goodness, I’m sorry, Cressida. What happened? Are you okay?”

  Cressida quickly covered her mouth to stifle a sob.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” I said. “I’ve said the wrong thing.”

  “It’s not you. It’s just…” Cressida pulled away and rummaged in her purse, producing a package of tissues.

  I took her by the shoulders as she tried to clean up, leading her toward the doors.

  Cressida burst into tears. “The poor man,” she said through her sobs. “This was among the worst days of my life. I’ve had about as much as I can take.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” I asked as we turned out onto the sidewalk. The sun was shining, and people were going about their day. It seemed strange how the world carried on as normal when various individuals’ lives were in turmoil.

  “Yes.” Cressida nodded. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, straightening her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Sibyl.”

  “Don’t apologize. Let’s go and have coffee.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to be out in public, but then again, I don’t want to go home if the police are still there. I can’t go through this again, Sibyl. I just can’t!” Cressida dabbed at her eyes again, before bursting into a fresh flood of tears. “My house is a crime scene—again. Who’s going to want to stay in a boarding house where tenants have been poisoned? I can’t do this again!”

  “Hey, everything’s going to be okay.” I patted her shoulder. “Come on; coffee will make you feel better.”

  Cressida sighed in resignation. “Okay. Let’s go to the café that’s down at the south end of town. Not so many locals go there. I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  It only took us minutes to walk there. We nodded and said hello to nine out of every ten people along the street. It seemed to me that Cressida knew everyone. When I had arrived in Little Tatterford, I had been warned not to say anything against anyone in town, as everyone was related or had some friendship in common. It seemed the bush telegraph was working well, too, as three people stopped us to ask Cressida about the police questioning her.

  When we finally reached the café, I guided Cressida to a quiet corner booth, away from the main mob of people chatting away or frowning over their phones. Over in one corner was someone with a table covered with notebooks and folders, tapping away at a keyboard. It was all so normal. I thought again how easily the rest of the world carried on in oblivion when a crisis happened.

  The waitress came at once to take our orders. I indicated that Cressida should order first, but she raked both hands through her hair and doubled over in her seat. I was starving, so I ordered an iced mocha with plenty of whipped cream, and a double espresso for Cressida. She looked like she needed one.

  As for food, I had no idea what Cressida wanted, so I went for the sugar option. “Two blueberry cheesecakes, please.”

  The waitress scribbled the order on her notepad. “Ice cream or cream?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “Both, please,” I said, raising my eyebrows. What kind of place was this?

  Neither of us spoke until the waitress returned. “Here we go!” she said, making Cressida jump in her seat.

  I laughed. “Looks like I made a good call on the double shot of espresso. You were really zoned out.”

  “They found it in the quail and the salad,” Cressida said.

  I was puzzled. “What do you mean?” I spooned a large measure of cream from the top of the iced mocha and popped it into my mouth.

  “They found it in the quail,” Cressida repeated. “The hemlock—it was in the quail.”

  “I see. So someone injected the quail with hemlock.”

  Cressida shook her head so hard that I feared her glasses would fly off. “No, and that’s what makes it worse for me. The quail had been fed hemlock.”

  I set down my spoonful of blueberry cheesecake. “But that makes no sense, Cressida. The quail would’ve died if they’d been poisoned by hemlock.”

  Cressida leaned forward. “That’s just it. The detectives told me that quail aren’t affected by hemlock. Have you ever heard of coturnism?”

  I had to admit that I hadn’t.

  “Coturnism is the illness caused by eating quail that have fed on hemlock,” Cressida said. “See, there’s even a medical term for it! The detectives knew all about it. I suppose that the forensics team had told them. If people eat quail that have fed on hemlock, the people get sick or die, but the quail are okay. Oh, well, apart from the fact that they have been eaten, of course—so they’re not okay because they’re dead, the poor things.”

  I was trying to wrap my head around this. “But why is that worse for you?”

  “Who has access to my quail, Sibyl? I’m the only one who feeds them.”

  “Your quail are free range, Cressida. I wonder if hemlock grows wild?” I tore my eyes way from the lashes of cream, and reached for my iPhone. “I’ll google it to see.”

  Cressida shook her head. “It doesn’t matter! It’s worse than that. The salad I took to Martin Bosworth’s room also had lots of hemlock leaves in it.”

  I gasped. “But didn’t you look at the salad, Cressida? Didn’t you notice the hemlock?”

  “I don’t even know what hemlock looks like, Sibyl. Martin Bosworth always liked his salad soaked in lemon juice overnight, so I always had it premixed for him. Anyone could’ve gotten access to it and slipped in the hemlock. It was a mixed salad, so there were different types of leaves. That’s why I’m the main suspect.”

  I set down my spoon. “Surely not.”

  “Lord Farringdon says that quail are nothing but trouble,” Cressida said. “I should’ve listened to him.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so sipped my drink, and listened to the bustle of the shop. I was glad to see that Cressida managed to eat some cheesecake.

  “Feeling a little better?” I asked, after I had fortified myself with sufficient whipped cream.

  Cressida nodded. “I feel a little less overwhelmed.”

  Her face was pale, a feat considering the layers of make-up, so I decided I should distract her. “I’ve always meant to ask. What’s the story with the boarding house?”

  “My husband and I bought it together before he passed away.” Cressida took a sip of coffee. “He died of a heart attack the year before last.”

  I stirred my straw through my drink. “So you wanted to keep the house, but found it was too big for one person living alone?”

  “Not exactly, he’d run up a lot of debts while he was alive. Too ma
ny debts. I didn’t even know about them.”

  I murmured my sympathy.

  “He didn’t even have insurance policies,” Cressida continued. “Maybe things would’ve turned out differently had he been more honest with me about the whole thing. It was one of the darkest times of my life. One day, he and I were respected in the general community, invited to attend social functions and all that. The next thing I knew, I was alone, deep in debt, and all these so called friends were busy and absent.”

  “Oh, Cressida, that’s awful.” I reached across the table and patted her hand.

  “The job market was terrible at the time. I didn’t have the skill sets needed to get back into the workforce.”

  “So you turned the house into a business.” I was impressed with her strength. “Wow, that was really resourceful of you.”

  Cressida shook her head. “I was desperate rather than clever. It had been a good life, when I didn’t know about the debts and secrets that my husband had been keeping. I’d sincerely thought we were going to make a happy life together. I never expected him to be taken from me like that. I always wonder if his money worries caused his heart attack. Would he still be here if there had been no secrets between us? Was there anything I could’ve done differently? Something I could have said?”

  I rubbed at the bridge of my nose and then fumbled through my purse to search for my aspirin. The headache was now in full swing, beating a dull throbbing rhythm across my forehead. I was overwhelmed with sympathy for Cressida. “You mustn’t think like that.”

  Cressida simply shrugged. “This murder—as sorry as I am for Martin Bosworth, I’m worried it will affect my income. What if I lose all my boarders?” Her voice caught as she said it.

  “Did you say boarders?”

  I jumped, and looked up into the face of one such boarder, Alec Steel.

  “Hello, Alec,” Cressida said, without enthusiasm.

  “May I join you?”

  While I was thinking of a reason why he couldn’t, he pulled out a chair and sat down, much to my dismay. Alec was one of the younger academic philosophers staying at Cressida’s, and he had taken quite a liking to me. I hasten to add that it was not a mutual attraction.

  My mother used to say that you have to kiss a lot of toads to find your prince, which meant that there were more toads than princes. To me, Alec was about as toady as it got. Alec Steel didn’t look all that bad in a physical sense. He was tall and athletically built, with short and well-kept hair, and he always wore obviously over-priced and freshly-pressed collared shirts.

  It was his personality that was slimy. That’s the first word that always came to mind. He had a way of looking at me that made me want to check for a wardrobe malfunction. He made no attempt to hide his attraction to me, nor did he hide the fact that I should be flattered and pleased at his attention. His favorite topic of conversation, apart from Socrates, was how his previous dates had not met his high standards.

  Cressida and I exchanged looks.

  “Imagine that,” he said, after ordering a prune juice, of all things. “Martin Bosworth, world renowned Socratic scholar, murdered by hemlock.” He rubbed his hands together with something akin to glee. “It’s all over town.”

  “It’s hardly anything to smile about,” I said. “A man has been murdered. You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

  Alec shrugged off my remark. “That’s just a social construct. No one liked him. He was highly unpopular. I mean, I’m only a visiting scholar, and I’ve already heard about that from just about everyone. Anyway, it’ll throw the whole Socrates conference into confusion. Who will give his public lecture now? I hope it’s on file, so someone else can read it. The saving grace is that’s only a simple paper, so the unlearned will be attending.” He looked pointedly at me when he said that.

  “I won’t be attending,” I said.

  Alec ignored me and pressed on. “Yes, his paper is for the masses. It’s on the reaction among contemporary Athenians to Socrates. Now, Plato represents the Pythagoreans as looking to Socrates as their most authoritative exponent, but…”

  I cut him off. “Oh, look at the time! Cressida, we must rush. I’m late for an appointment.”

  With that, I ushered a relieved Cressida from the café. We had to catch a taxi back to the boarding house. I had agreed to have another coffee with Cressida, even though I was already buzzing horribly from caffeine overload. She was awfully distraught.

  As we walked from the parking area to the boarding house, we saw Colin Palmer in the lavender garden talking to David Bilderbeck, the gardener, who looked quite stressed.

  I suppressed a chuckle. “Look, Cressida. Colin Palmer has that poor gardener cornered. I bet he’s going on and on about Socrates to him.”

  Colin Palmer’s face was red and he was waving his hands around. “Who cares that Xenophon was banished from Athens in 399 B.C.E. for having participated in Cyrus’s expedition?” he said in a loud voice. “We only have Dio Chrysostom’s word for that! Besides, Xenophon had plenty of opportunity to associate with Socrates before that date.”

  The gardener bent lower over the lavender bushes, clearly not interested in Colin Palmer’s words. Cressida waved to them, but Colin Palmer was too busy telling the gardener about Socrates, and the gardener was doing his best to get away.

  “Poor David Bilderbeck,” Cressida said to me in a stage whisper. “As if he could care less about philosophy. I don’t know why Colin is so intent on speaking to him about it. It’s not like Colin to talk about academic matters to the public.”

  We were met by Lord Farringdon waddling down the pathway. Cressida picked him up and held him to her ear. “What’s that you say?” Cressida turned to me. “Lord Farringdon just said that David Bilderbeck knows more about Socrates than Colin Palmer does. Now, Lord Farringdon, that’s not a very nice thing to say. There’s no need to be catty.”

  I could only shrug at that remark, while Lord Farringdon ran off to chase a bee.

  Chapter 6

  I swallowed hard, trying to think of an excuse. “Uh, well...” I stammered. I felt my face turn beet red.

  Cressida beamed at me. “Come on, Sibyl! You’ll have fun.”

  “Oh, it’s not that, it’s just...” I sighed in defeat. “Oh, okay. What time?”

  “Hooray! It starts at five thirty. You should probably start getting ready now. Don’t be late!” Cressida decreed as she walked away.

  I sighed again and went back inside. Dinner at the boarding house with the philosophers. It sounded about as exciting as watching paint dry, only more pretentious. Still, I didn’t want to leave Cressida or Mr. Buttons to face it alone. Plus it was always hard to turn down free food.

  I did as Cressida suggested and started to get ready. I went out of my way to dress down, reasoning that Alec would probably be there. He was bad enough as it was, and while I’d like to avoid him entirely, I figured that would be impossible.

  Unfortunately for Cressida, I did arrive a little late. As rude as it sounded, I just wanted to arrive, eat, and then leave. I did want to help comfort Cressida, but figured there wasn’t a whole lot I could do at such a public event. The only reason I came at all was because I felt bad saying no to her.

  I was greeted at the door by an older man—I guessed he was sixty, at least—who smiled politely and extended his hand. “Hello,” he said firmly. “My name is Hubert Wellington Millicent Von Chesterfield the Third.”

  I laughed and shook his hand. It didn’t take long for me to realize he was serious, and that was actually his name. I cleared my throat and spoke. “Oh, sorry, just remembering a joke.” I struggled to make eye contact. “My name’s Sibyl. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” He smiled again, apparently believing me. “Are you one of us?”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of his question. This man was polite, but strange. Did he mean a philosopher? I figured the answer would be ‘no’ regardless of what he meant. “I’m afraid not. I’m mostly here t
o see Cressida.”

  “Ah,” Hubert said, and it occurred to me that he seemed a little put out, almost as if he were suddenly less interested in talking to me. “Well, enjoy your night,” he said with a pronounced lack of interest. He gave me a little wave and walked inside. I withheld a sigh, wondering if the rest of the night was going to be like this.

  I was cradling a relatively cheap bottle of wine, but I already wanted to down the entire thing rather than give it to Cressida like I’d planned. I thought about spending big on wine to cheer her up, but figured she wouldn’t be drinking it for taste anyway.

  I stepped inside and wandered about, taking everything in. There were more people here than I’d expected, but I was happy enough to be able to blend into the crowd a little. If they weren’t mostly all older boring men, that is. It didn’t take long to spot Cressida, who looked so out of place it was almost funny.

  “Hello, Cressida.” I approached her and smiled, handing her the wine.

  Cressida smiled broadly at me. “Oh, Sibyl! You didn’t need to bring anything.” I took a moment to consider that her statement would carry more weight if she hadn’t snatched the wine from me and begun to pour a glass.

  “How’s everything going?” I asked earnestly. It seemed like everything was going well, despite being boring and uneventful, but I really just wanted to know how Cressida was holding up.

  “Oh, I’m okay, Sibyl. I’m still quite shocked and upset about it all, but Lord Farringdon cheered me up a little.” She downed the glass of wine and poured herself another one. I thought I should tell her to slow down a bit, but she spoke before I could. “Would you like one, dear? I have some stronger stuff, too.”

  “Wine will be fine, thanks Cressida.”

  She poured me a drink in a new glass and handed it to me. I decided I should drink it a bit more sensibly than she was, as much as I didn’t want to do so.

  “I’d better get back to preparing everything. Find a seat and make yourself comfortable.” Cressida walked away.

  “Do you need a hand with anything?” I called after her. I was happy to help, but I mostly just wanted to avoid sitting with anyone here. Maybe that was rude of me, but it was just the mood I was in.