by Lora Roberts
Scarlatti and Daly walked away to talk together, probably debating that very point. Scarlatti came back and stood for a moment, examining us all. Kim, in the chair next to our sofa, and Don, sitting on the arm of her chair, looked back blankly. Hannah was at her haughtiest. Richard Kendall sat next to her, looking resigned.
“We have decided to continue talking to you in a group, because more of the pieces seem to come out this way. However, we may come to a point where we need to separate you. Until then, I’d like to pursue a couple of threads. Hannah, you said that Naomi blackmailed you into giving her your half of the take-out business you’d started together.”
“Take-out and catering,” Hannah corrected. “It had become quite a valuable business. Our overhead was lower than a restaurant, and the catering brought in a very nice income.”
“So why did you turn it over?”
Hannah hesitated, and Mr. Kendall said, “You don’t have to answer these questions. They haven’t charged you. In fact, it’s doubtful they have a case. Ms. Matthews may have died a natural death.”
“No.” Inspector Daly spoke up. “She was poisoned. The medical examiner is certain of it. They won’t know what specifically caused her death until the toxicology testing is done—”
“And that will be a few weeks,” Scarlatti put in.
“But because of certain signs, we are sure that her death was not a natural one. At this point, we are looking for the agent of death, the means by which the poison was administered. And of course, at who had opportunity, and who benefits.”
“I have no objection to talking,” Hannah said, disregarding her attorney’s exasperated sigh. “I did nothing wrong. I have nothing to fear. And although there were times when I, well, when I hated Naomi, she was my business associate and closest friend for many years. I want to know who killed her.” Her voice broke. “I miss her.” She looked at us all defiantly. “It’s true she did awful things, but I could understand why. And she was … important to me.”
She took out a hankie—my hankie, I saw—and dabbed her eyes.
“So please tell us, if you don’t mind,” Scarlatti said, her voice polite, “about handing over your share of the profitable business you’d built together.”
Hannah put away the hankie and took a deep breath. “She was really very naughty about that. You see, we’d been in college together, and I had once done something to make ends meet that would not really—” She paused, and looked helplessly at me.
“Enhance your legend.”
Scarlatti frowned, but Hannah pounced on the phrase. “Exactly. It is not something I will discuss in a room full of people, but I will be glad to tell you separately if you wish.”
The inspectors exchanged glances. “We’ll come back to it later,” Scarlatti said. “At any rate, Naomi knew this thing you’d done. I presume it wasn’t something illegal?”
“Not in the least,” Hannah said, looking down her nose. “But I wasn’t proud of doing it, and wouldn’t have if there’d been any other way to earn enough to stay in college.”
“So what happened?” Inspector Daly’s quiet voice led her on. It occurred to me that he seemed content to take a backseat to Inspector Scarlatti’s more flamboyant personality, but he managed to keep things moving in the right direction.
“I started to be very successful about ten years ago. That was when Hannah Cooks for a Crowd came out. I was approached for the TV show, and asked to write a syndicated column. Naomi resented my success. The fact is, she was never that creative. She could execute, but she had no vision. Kim knows that, don’t you, Kim?”
Kim looked confused at being thus applied to. “I—I guess.
Hannah smiled at her approvingly. “It was plain to be seen. I gave Naomi a position of great responsibility in my new production company, but that didn’t content her. Everything that came to me just made her angrier. Finally she said I should give her my half of the ownership in Beaned in Boston. That she had earned it, because I was too busy to take care of it anymore. Truly,” Hannah said, sniffing, “she didn’t do that much herself, because her brother Tony was very good at managing it and needed little guidance.”
“So when she said that, what did you do?”
“I protested, of course.” Hannah looked surprised. “After all, it was as much mine as hers in the first place—more, because my recipes were the basis of our business to begin with. However, I had begun to think that I would give it to her, that it was only fair, as I was growing away from it. I felt it didn’t quite fit in with my other interests anymore.”
“So where did the blackmail come in?” Inspector Scarlatti was impatient.
“Before I could say that I agreed with her, she sprung this scheme on me, that I would give her the company, or she would tell the world about my … indiscretion.” Hannah realized that she had clenched her hands, and let them relax. “I told her I had already decided to let her have it, but that she would make me change my mind by her ridiculous demand. However, I knew she meant it.”
She twisted one of her rings, not looking at us. “Well, I gave it to her. It wasn’t worth the fight. But I’m afraid it set up a dangerous precedent. She assumed she had power over me. And in a way, she did. Because no one would care if I’d told the world that Naomi Matthews had had an illegitimate child with a married man.”
Don made an inarticulate sound, and Hannah had the grace to look a little ashamed. “I’m sorry, Don. I will be glad to tell you everything I know about it later, if you want to know. Truthfully, I only met your father once. Naomi knew I didn’t approve of her seeing a married man, so she kept him to herself.”
“But what Naomi had done wouldn’t be blackmail material?” Inspector Daly prodded gently.
“Who would care?” Hannah’s shrug was eloquent. “But if she had dropped her little bombshell about me, it would have been the kind of news people love to dig up about celebrities. I would have weathered it, but it would have been unpleasant. So Naomi started to trade on that. When she wanted something from me, she would send me bits of her autobiography, in which everything she knew about me, and she knew a lot, was presented in the most unflattering terms.”
“She did this recently?”
“She sent a section to the hotel, which I got when I arrived. And she left a few pages on the seat of the limo after the TV show. She wanted me to give her full credit for the crepe maker, to name it after her in the catalog, if you can imagine. How would that sell the product? The Naomi Matthews crepe maker.” Hannah sounded scornful. “And besides, she had very little to do with its inception. Her one good idea was only part of the overall package.”
“But she did think of part of it. I remember her saying so.” Kim’s forehead wrinkled.
“A very small part,” Hannah said dismissively. “I had arranged a royalty for her, based on her participation in the product. It’s the standard agreement with all my employees who contribute ideas to my line of products. They sign a contract. Naomi signed too. They agree that these products will be marketed under my name, that I have creative control. After all, they do much better that way than if they tried to take something to the marketplace without my name to sell it.” Hannah was matter-of-fact about this, but I found myself wondering just how much of the stuff in her famous catalog was actually her own work.
“She wouldn’t settle for this?” Scarlatti looked interested. “She thought you were cheating her?”
“She made it plain that she thought so. It put my back up, and I decided to teach her she couldn’t blackmail me like this.” She looked around at all of us defiantly. “Last night, while she was sleeping off her drunk, I found her famous autobiography and I burned it.”
Chapter 19
The inspectors exchanged glances. Beside me, Drake stirred restively, and I knew he wanted to ask his own questions. But he behaved, so I did too.
“And what was her response?”
“I don’t think she’d noticed yet,” Hannah said reflectively. “She
was still unpleasantly triumphant this morning, like she really had me over the proverbial barrel.”
“But you didn’t feel threatened by that?” Scarlatti kept an eye on Richard Kendall when she made that statement, but Hannah went right on talking.
“Not in the least. I figured I would just destroy any other copies she might have, and make it clear to her I was preparing to pursue legal action if she published unflattering things about me. I decided I could discredit her if she actually went through with publishing something.”
“Even though if she did publish a book, it would hold you up to ridicule in a very public way.” Scarlatti managed to sound understanding and disbelieving at the same time.
“There are risks to any public life,” Hannah said, shrugging. “You have to move on, or you’re paralyzed.”
“So what was the significance of the ivy and forget-me-nots?” Scarlatti asked the question casually, conversationally, as if it wasn’t important.
Hannah’s reaction made it clear that it was important. She looked at Richard Kendall for the first time.
“My client is under no obligation to answer,” he began obediently.
“I thought you were going to be so frank and open,” Scarlatti said, speaking directly to Hannah. “What is it about those flowers that makes you rethink that? Something that might incriminate you?”
“Bianca,” Inspector Daly said. His voice was expressionless.
Scarlatti looked at him, her lips pressed together. Then she turned back to Hannah. “We’re ready to take you into the other room, if you don’t feel comfortable in this situation.”
Hannah took a deep breath. “Why bother,” she said bitterly. “No doubt this will all come out anyway. The flowers, Inspector,” and she gave the title a sarcastic emphasis, “have a very personal meaning for me. My husband, Morton, used to send me such an arrangement on our anniversary every year. He was quite sentimental. He said the ivy was our love, entwining each of us, and the forget-me-nots were a pledge that we would always be together.” She pressed her lips tightly, and brought out the hankie again. “He was a very good, very dear man.”
“So is he still sending you flowers?” Scarlatti didn’t seem impressed by the hankie and the speech Hannah gave.
“He died almost two years ago.” Hannah managed to infuse quiet outrage into her voice.
“So the flowers weren’t from him. Who sent them, and why?”
“Naomi, of course.” Hannah spoke sharply. “That was her new threat. She would make people think I had killed my husband if I didn’t fall into line. If she had ever married, maybe that’s the kind of thing she would do, bump off her husband at the drop of a hat. But I had a wonderful relationship with my husband, Inspector. He was the love of my life.”
“How did he die?” Scarlatti sounded interested.
“He was on a business trip in the Far East. I had given him strict instructions about what he could eat, but he was … easily tempted.”
“Slipped the leash, did he?”
“Really, Inspector!”
“Bianca—”
“I must insist,” Richard Kendall said, “that you treat my client’s feelings with more respect.”
“Sorry.” Scarlatti didn’t look sorry. “Please continue.”
“He was ill when he got home, and he wouldn’t go to the hospital until it was too late.” Hannah looked troubled. “In a way, I blame myself. I was busy with the launch of our Web site, and didn’t insist that he take care of himself soon enough. If I had only been home more—if I had only just put him right into the car and taken him over to his internist, perhaps he would still be alive.” She plied the hankie again. “He would certainly be horrified to know that Naomi used his death as another stick to beat me with.”
“So why did she think you had killed him, if he died from food poisoning?” Inspector Daly asked the question in his quiet way.
“She didn’t think so, really. She just wanted me to see how the most innocent things could be turned into nasty gossip.” Hannah’s mouth twisted. “All that about poison mushrooms. It was ridiculous, and she knew it. Morton didn’t even like mushrooms. He wouldn’t have eaten them under any circumstances. He died in the hospital, with doctors in attendance. They raised no questions whatsoever about his death. Unless Naomi knew something I didn’t know, there was nothing in his death but a personal tragedy for me.”
We were silent for a moment. “Bianca?” Inspector Daly stood, and walked across the room with his colleague.
Bruno and Drake looked at each other across me. I was longing to know what they thought of the unorthodox methods Inspector Scarlatti was employing, but guessed they wouldn’t say anything until we headed back to Palo Alto.
At least it didn’t appear that I was at the top of the suspect list anymore. It seemed to me that they were drawing a net around Hannah, one she might find it difficult to wriggle out of, even with Richard Kendall’s help.
He thought so too. He spoke to his client in a low voice, but we could hear.
“You shouldn’t be volunteering all this information,” he exhorted her. “Let them do their own discovery. No use handing them motive after motive on a silver platter.”
“Nonsense,” Hannah said firmly. She didn’t bother to lower her voice more than a notch. “I’ve given them nothing that everyone else here didn’t know something about.” She caught my eye. “Although it appears Liz was surprisingly restrained in her talk with them. Thank you, Liz.”
Drake gave me a cold stare. “We don’t think your restraint was so admirable.”
“Hannah told us those things in confidence. I couldn’t reveal them. In fact, I bet Bridget didn’t blab in her statement either, did she?”
He ignored that. He had always had a soft spot for Bridget, and wasn’t nearly so rigorous in his demands on her. “And if they’d arrested you?”
“That would have been a different story. I’d have thrown her to the wolves without a second thought.”
Hannah actually laughed. “As I’ve decided to make a clean breast of it all, your discretion no longer matters. But I thank you. I am not used to finding so much”—she hesitated over the word—”loyalty in someone who is not even my own employee. If you lived on the East Coast, I would offer you a job.”
“That’s generous.” I thought I would exercise some of my little-used tact and not mention that nothing short of absolute penury would induce me to work for her.
The inspectors came back. “We’re going to continue for the moment,” Scarlatti said. “I’m sorry this is taking so long. Perhaps we can wrap it up soon.” She smiled at Drake and Bruno. “I’m sure you’re getting hungry.”
As soon as she said the word “hungry,” my stomach growled. It was nearly seven; lunch had been skimpy, and dinner looked like it wouldn’t happen at all.
“Perhaps we could have some food sent up,” Hannah suggested.
“I couldn’t eat,” Kim said. “It’s too upsetting.” She nearly sobbed on the last word. Don stroked her hair absently, as if he didn’t realize what an intimate gesture that was.
Scarlatti shook her head at Hannah’s suggestion. “If you don’t mind waiting a little longer,” she said, smiling nicely, “I’d like to just get on with it.”
I didn’t know what to make of her sudden politeness. Perhaps Inspector Daly had told her that she’d catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. He, I noticed, was no longer in the room. I could hear crunching, and realized he was in the kitchen. He must have been phoning; we could just barely hear his voice.
“To continue,” Scarlatti said, turning her attention to Kim. “You were going to tell us about your uncle’s death.”
“Can’t you just get that from the Boston police?” Hannah evidently wasn’t charmed by Scarlatti’s new leaf.
“We have requested the paperwork,” Scarlatti said. “But since you were the one who made this accusation, perhaps you could start by telling us why?”
“Why?”
/> “Why you accused Naomi of having caused her brother’s death.”
“Well,” Hannah said, stalling. “It wasn’t a particularly nice thing to say. I didn’t really think so, you understand. I just wanted Naomi to see what it felt like to have someone make stuff up about you.”
“And how did she react? You were in your dressing room at the TV station, is that right?” Scarlatti consulted her notebook.
“Yes. After the show. She was helping me take off that awful makeup.” Hannah frowned. “Actually, I was surprised. I had expected her to dismiss it, to tell me it was just as true that she’d poisoned her brother as that I had killed poor Morton. But she didn’t say that. She flew into an even greater rage, if you want the truth.”
Scarlatti made a note. Then she turned back to Kim. “The day before your uncle’s death, he and your aunt had a terrible fight, you said. Tell me about that.”
Kim took a deep breath. “I was out front, setting up the salad case. We weren’t open yet. Aunt Naomi had come in about ten minutes earlier, and she and my uncle had gone back to the office in the back of the shop. He was smiling, and I thought she was finally there to talk about him assuming ownership. Then we heard all this yelling. My grandmother was Italian,” Kim added, glancing uncertainly at Scarlatti. “Yelling wasn’t that unusual.”
“I’m Italian, and I know what you mean.” Scarlatti smiled.
“But—you’re blond.” Kim stopped. “I’m sorry—”
“There are blond Italians too,” Scarlatti said lightly. “So go on with your story. Some heavy-duty Italian yelling was going on. Could you tell what about?”
“Yes,” Kim said ingenuously, “because we all went back and stood in the hall.”
“All? How many people?”
“Me and Roxanne and Karen. Karen is my uncle Tony’s oldest,” Kim said, with a glance at Don. “She goes to BU and only helps in the shop part-time.”
