A Familiar Tail

by Delia James

  Yes, okay, I was hiding. I admit it. But hearing the official police version of my little attempt at amateur investigation had seriously shaken my confidence.

  I did write Laurie a letter, and send flowers. I called Nadia to let her know what had happened. She was sympathetic. She said Laurie should call her when she was ready.

  I also spent a lot of time at Frank’s apartment going through Dorothy’s personal records. Like he’d said, Frank had kept them, and after our disturbing interview with Pete Simmons, he was more than willing to bring the boxes out of storage and pile them in his already crowded living room.

  “What is it you’re really hoping for?” Frank asked as we cut through the packing tape on yet another cardboard box.

  I still hadn’t figured out how to tell Frank about Elizabeth’s blackmail accusations, so I went with Plan B. “Online accounts.”

  “Sorry?”

  I pulled out a stack of manila folders. I was truly beginning to hate that shade of beige. “I’ve been thinking about documents and copies.” Thinking about them, talking about them, making myself a little crazy about them while wondering what Ellis Maitland was telling the police about them. Kenisha had pretty much stopped talking to me. “I thought, Who keeps paper around anymore?” Frank held up his handful of papers and eyed me. “I mean paper that isn’t absolutely necessary,” I said. “Maybe Dorothy made computer copies of whatever it was she got hold of with Brad and put them up in an online storage space. That way, it wouldn’t matter who got hold of her computer or got into her house.”

  Frank nodded. “Not a bad idea. I mean, she did have a UrSpace account, but I’ve been in it, and there was nothing . . . serious. Photos, some music and videos, that kind of thing. Nothing worth . . .”

  Killing over. Neither one of us said it, but I’m sure he thought it as quickly as I did.

  • • •

  DOROTHY, AS IT turned out, believed in keeping the regulation seven years’ worth of receipts, bills and checks, which made an astounding amount of paper. Frank and I sorted and stacked and read, and reread and shuffled, working side by side, mostly in silence. Colonel Kitty helped by jumping in and out of the boxes and chasing papers across the floor. We all ate tuna noodle casserole until it was gone, and then we sent out for Chinese. I couldn’t face an order of Indian food.

  There were no signs of any sudden infusions of income, and no bank accounts or bills that Frank didn’t recognize. Not even anything convenient like a receipt for a safe-deposit box or a wall safe. Julia came over once and helped us sort checks, scanning them for the name Dorothy Gale or any other alias. Val came over with sandwiches and helped sort phone bills, looking for calls to the Maitlands or the Thompsons.

  At long last, we got to the bottom of the last box. Colonel Kitty jumped into it to make sure all was clear.

  I sat back on my heels and looked up at Frank.

  “Nothing here,” he said bitterly.

  “Nothing,” I agreed. “What do we do now? We know there is still something that could incriminate the murderer out there.”

  “Unless that something was Brad,” said Frank quietly. “In which case . . .”

  “No,” I snapped. “I don’t accept that. There is something and we will find it.”

  Frank folded his arms and stared out at the chestnut tree. The leaves rustled in the summer breeze, filling the apartment with a sound like the ocean. “If there’s something, it must be back at the house,” he said. “It’s been about that house from beginning to end.”

  I stared at the boxes, deep frustration burning in my brain. In the time since Brad had died, I’d been over the house with a fine-toothed comb, and so had the rest of Dorothy’s coven. Julia had turned the dachshunds loose in it, much to Alistair’s annoyance, but they’d come up empty. Val and Didi had helped me go through the Books of Shadow yet again, and still nothing.

  I was about to tell Frank all this, but in the depths of my purse, my phone rang. I pulled it out and checked the number. It was Martine.

  “Martine!” I said as I walked over by the open window. Kitty followed and jumped up on the sill. “What’s up?”

  “Colin Thompson’s come in to work.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I know you’re still trying to find out about Brad and Dorothy. So, if you come on over, I can maybe help you . . .”

  “I’ll be right there.” I hung up and turned to Frank. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “Not yet. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  He did not like this, but he just sighed. “Okay. And thanks again.”

  I left him there, but it wasn’t easy.

  • • •

  THE PALE ALE’S kitchen was in full swing when Martine walked me in. The restaurant shut down between three p.m. and five-thirty so they could switch over from lunch to dinner. Chefs hollered and chopped, line cooks hollered and sautéed, waitstaff came and went and hollered. The only people who weren’t hollering were the dishwashers, and I wasn’t sure about them, because I couldn’t really hear them over the sounds of the spray and the clattering pans.

  “Chef on deck!” hollered somebody.

  “Thompson!” bellowed Martine.

  “Yes, Chef!” Colin turned away from the soup pot he’d been stirring. I hadn’t been able to tell him apart from the other white-coated young men, despite the fact that he was wearing a blue bandanna over his hair instead of the omnipresent baseball caps.

  He saw me standing next to his boss, and he went white. Then he went red. For a minute I thought he was going to run.

  “Alvarez, take over. Thompson, with me.”

  “Yes, Chef!” they both said. Colin fell into step behind us. I could feel the resentment rising off him in waves as he followed us into Martine’s cramped office. She closed the door and motioned us to chairs. I sat. Colin didn’t. He just folded his arms.

  “Am I in trouble, Chef?”

  “Not that I know of.” Martine sat down behind a desk piled high with folders, papers and multicolored invoices. Here was the glamorous life of the executive chef in a nutshell. “However, it would be a favor to me if you would answer some questions for Miss Britton.”

  No one can sneer like a teenage boy, and Colin turned his up to eleven. “Oh, yes, Chef. I’d be delighted to help out Miss Britton. Yahsureyoubetcha. It’s not like I’ve spent the past week talking nonstop to the police or anything.” Now he did drop into the chair, kicking out his ankles as far as he could. Not that there was a lot of room. “Maybe she wants to hear about the TV crews camped out on my mother’s lawn, or how we’ve had to unplug the phone because it won’t stop ringing because the media ghouls want to know what drove my father . . .” His voice broke and he didn’t finish the sentence. “Maybe she wants to hear how I had to take away my little sister’s laptop so she wouldn’t see all the crud on HeyLook and Pointr, or how my mother hasn’t stopped crying for three days and how the insurance a . . . jerks are saying they’re not going to pay out on Dad’s policy because it might have been suicide and we’re still inside some kind of time window on the stupid crap policy and . . . !”

  “I know it’s a nightmare, Colin . . . ,” I began.

  “You don’t know jack!” he shouted. Martine leaned forward.

  “Tone it down, Thompson.”

  “Oh, yes, Chef. That I will, Chef.”

  I swallowed and tried again. “You said the other day, you thought Dorothy was responsible for your dad’s problems.”

  “Oh, look!” drawled Colin. “Somebody else here to defend the sacred memory of Dorothy Hawthorne. What a surprise!”

  “No. If she was . . . if there was something wrong, you might be the only person who knows, and I want to hear about it.”

  “Why? It’s all too effing late. What could you do?”

 
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “And I won’t know until I hear what you’ve got to say.”

  Colin’s narrowed eyes shifted from me to Martine. He yanked off his bandanna and ran his hand through his long hair. He looked like what he was, a high school kid who already knew too much about adult life, but hadn’t known until now how much worse it could get.

  Then he lifted his head and the anger slid right back into place.

  “You want to know what Dorothy was doing? She was effing hounding my dad. She was always calling him, at home, at work, everywhere. He kept going over to her house and sitting with her for hours.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw them,” he said. “Mom had found out Dad wasn’t in the office a couple of nights when he said he was. I was worried. I thought maybe . . .” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I was worried and I followed him and I saw him go into her house. They were locked in there a couple hours before he finally came out and went home.”

  “Did you tell the police this?”

  “Did you think about minding your own business?” he shot back.

  “I wish I could,” I said. “But your dad was involved in some kind of real estate fraud,” I told him, and I hated myself for doing it. “So was Dorothy Hawthorne. And you knew it.”

  Colin climbed to his feet, both hands clenched in white-knuckled fists at his sides. “You watch your mouth, lady.”

  “Thompson,” said Martine quietly. “Back it down. Your mom doesn’t need any more trouble right now.”

  Colin dropped back into the chair and slumped backward. It was an attitude of total defeat.

  “We don’t know he was committing the fraud, Colin,” said Martine. “He might have been trying to expose it.”

  Colin’s head snapped around. “What?”

  “It’s possible,” I agreed. “But if we’re going to prove it, I need you to tell me about these meetings with Dorothy.”

  “I . . . I . . .” He was shaking; his face had gone dead white. “I don’t know anything,” he whispered.

  “Colin . . . ,” I began.

  “I don’t know anything!” he shouted, and dug both hands into his hair, like he was trying to literally hold himself together. “I only thought . . . I . . .” A tear ran down his cheek, ignored, and dripped off his jawline. “I’m outta here,” he muttered and got to his feet.

  “Colin . . . ,” began Martine, but Colin had already slammed out the door and bellowed something into the chaos of the kitchen. I sat back in my chair. I watched my friend circle her desk and consider calling him back, but she stopped. Grim and silent, she returned to her crowded desk. There hadn’t been a lot of times I’d seen Martine look diminished, but this was one of them.

  “That could have gone better,” she said.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked her. “He didn’t know anything?”

  “I think he’s a smart kid who has been helping take care of his family for a long time now. He probably picked up on way more than anybody wanted him to, but not quite enough to figure out the truth.”

  “Laurie should talk to a lawyer about the insurance money,” I said. “There must be something that can be done.”

  “Maybe.” Martine tapped her pen on the edge of her desk and stared at her piles of papers and folders. I watched the calculations running back and forth behind her eyes. “I’ll talk to Gravesend, see if we can work something out.” I must have been looking at her funny. “What? Colin’s one of mine. I do not leave my people out in the cold.” I wasn’t surprised. Martine might not have had kids of her own, but that didn’t stop her from being one of the biggest mother hens out there. But there was something I had to say. Not that I wanted to.

  “Martine, what if it turns out Brad Thompson’s death really was a suicide? Or even just an accident while he was drunk? What if . . .” I stopped and started again. “Pete Simmons said he thought maybe Brad had found out something he couldn’t live with anymore.”

  Martine picked up her phone. “Then, the family’s really gonna need that lawyer.” Her hand hovered over the buttons. “If there is anything, and I mean anything, you can do about this, Anna Britton, you do it fast.”

  I nodded and I got out of there, making a beeline through the kitchen. All I could think about was getting to my Jeep and getting home. Martine was right. I had to figure this out and figure it out fast.

  Because what this little interview had done was raised another real, terrible, possibility. There was somebody, besides Frank, besides the Maitlands, who was visibly upset with both Dorothy and Brad; upset enough and protective enough to act in anger.

  And who had all but told us he might have been in the vicinity the night Dorothy died.

  Colin Thompson.

  40

  EXACTLY HOW I would figure out the truth surrounding Dorothy’s and Brad’s deaths when all my sleuthing and magicking had failed so far was a mystery. It remained a mystery all the way out the door and across the parking lot, and during all the swearing and muttering while I dug down into the very bottom of my purse trying to find my keys.

  When I finally looked up, it was to see a man’s hand pressed against the Wrangler’s door. Young Sean McNally had walked right up next to me and I hadn’t even noticed.

  “You,” he said. “Are in no shape to be driving.”

  “Your bartender sense tingling?” I muttered.

  He folded his arms and leaned one hip against the car door, all casual-like. “That, and I saw you walking across the dining room, but I don’t think you saw me. Or the dining room.”

  “I wasn’t drinking.” He wasn’t moving, I noticed.

  “I didn’t say you were, but you’re scared and you’re angry about whatever the heck it was you and Chef heard from Colin.” He held out his hand. “And that’s no way to be behind the wheel. So, I’m driving you home.”

  “No. Thanks. I’m fine. Really.”

  Somehow, this cogent argument entirely failed to convince him to step away from my car.

  “You’re not fine,” he said. “There’s been a death and it’s close enough to you that you were interrogating the dead man’s really unhappy kid with his boss. If you don’t want me driving you, fine. Take a cab. Come back for the car tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to cool down.”

  I fixed my best glare on him. I’m not in Martine’s league, but I do okay. “You better not be accusing me of being hysterical.”

  “I’m accusing you of being a feeling human being. Which is it going to be? Me or the taxi?”

  “You won’t make it back before you open for dinner and you’ll get in trouble with Martine.”

  “For getting one of her best friends home okay? I don’t think so.”

  He wasn’t moving, and apparently neither was I until I gave in. “All right, all right,” I muttered. “Can you drive a stick?”

  Sean grinned. “Watch me.”

  I climbed into the passenger seat, folded my arms and in general attempted to silently signal my disagreement with his utterly unreasonable assessment of my mental state and driving capacity. Unfortunately, Sean turned out to be not only a first-rate bartender, but very good at ignoring grumpy people. He adjusted the seat, turned the key, smoothly shifted into reverse and eased the car onto Bow Street.

  It was not a long drive. I spent most of it staring stubbornly out the window. Sean didn’t seem to mind. I might not feel like admitting it, but he was a comfortable person to be around. He didn’t push to know what Martine and I had been talking about, or how I liked Portsmouth or what I thought about Brad’s death. After all those days of doing nothing but wonder and worry, it felt terrific to be with someone and just relax, even if it was only for about fifteen minutes.

  Sean pulled into the driveway and shut the engine off.

  “Thanks,” I said as he handed me back the key. �
��For everything.”

  “Anytime,” he answered. He also peered through the window at the cottage. “I’m glad somebody’s living here,” he said. “A house like this should be lived in.”

  “Did you know her?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Everybody knew Dorothy. She was more Dad’s friend than mine, but we both did some odd jobs for her sometimes, when Frank was busy or out of town. Or she knew Dad needed some extra. Bartending’s not the steadiest job in the world.” I smiled. That sounded like her. “So, he’d do roof repairs, tree trimming, things like that. I helped her set up her Wi-Fi and UrCloud accounts.”

  “Really?” I laid my hand on my purse, right over the wand. Tell me more, Sean. Please. If you want to, I added silently.

  My fingers tingled. Sean wasn’t looking at me. He was still looking up at the house.

  “It was kind of weird, you know? Setting up high tech in the witch’s cottage. Man, she loved to play the part.” He chuckled. “You should have seen her at Halloween. She’d be out in the yard with a cauldron, broom, pointy hat, the whole thing. And man, that laugh and the whole ‘I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!’” He hooked his fingers and clawed the air. “It was great.”

  “Yeah, I’d heard about that, and . . .”

  And I stopped. And I backtracked. “Accounts?” I said.

  “Sorry?”

  I stared at Sean. “You said you helped Dorothy set up online accounts. Plural. Did she have more than one?”

  “Yeah, she had a couple. She said she wanted an extra for privacy and emergencies.” He frowned. “Made some joke about Frank’s naked baby pictures . . .”

  My heart was pounding. My thumbs were pricking. “What was the name? On the other account?”

  Sean was frowning. “I’m not sure . . .”

  But I was. “It was Dorothy Gale, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted slowly. “But don’t ask me the password, because I don’t . . .”