Encounters and Enemies

by Diana Xarissa

  Fenella let herself into her apartment and shut the door. Without turning on any lights, she crossed the room and sank down on the couch. It was getting dark outside. She watched people strolling up and down the promenade, but she couldn’t be sure which ones were Shelly and Gordon.

  “Are you okay?” Mona asked softly.

  “I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed,” Fenella admitted. “And a little bit scared that you might be right.”

  “Tell Daniel everything,” Mona suggested.

  “If I do that, I’ll have to tell him about you.”

  The phone began to ring before Mona could reply.

  9

  “Hello?”

  “Fenella, are you okay?” Daniel asked.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, settling back on the couch and switching the phone to speaker mode. That way, Mona could hear the conversation, too.

  “Mark said that two different people with plans to visit you have died in the past three days.”

  “That’s about right,” Fenella said with a sigh. “Although I didn’t know the first woman was planning to visit me. She didn’t tell me she was coming.”

  “If there was any way I could, I’d come back for the weekend.” Daniel sounded frustrated. “But we’re all going to Edinburgh this weekend to tour some of their crime lab facilities. I can’t get away.”

  “It’s fine. Really it is,” Fenella said, working hard to sound like she meant it. “Inspector Hammersmith is sure that both deaths were accidents and that my involvement is purely coincidental.”

  Daniel sighed. “Would you mind starting at the beginning? Pretend I know nothing and walk me through everything that’s happened in the past week or so.”

  “I’ll start with last Saturday evening,” Fenella said. “That’s where I met Anne Marie Smathers.” Feeling very conscious that she hadn’t given Mark the same full accounting of her conversation with the dead woman, Fenella started slowly.

  “I’ll start when we arrived at the party, and tell you everything that I can remember,” she said. She wanted to tell him about her conversation with Phillipa Clucas, but she didn’t want to make it obvious that she thought it might be relevant. By the time she’d finished recounting her evening at the charity auction, she needed a drink.

  “When you spoke to Mrs. Smathers, did you get the feeling that she was planning on seeing you again?” Daniel asked as Fenella filled a glass from her tap.

  “No, not at all. I didn’t like the woman. If I’d thought she was planning to see me again, I probably would have tried to discourage her.”

  “So what happened next?”

  Fenella told him all about tea the next day with Paulette and Paul, and then hearing the news that Anne Marie had died. “Someone told me that the car she was driving was the same model as the one that her husband crashed sixty years ago,” she added.

  “Yes, apparently she enjoyed driving it but didn’t use it very often. As I understand it, she took very good care of it and only drove it on special occasions.”

  “It seems macabre, having the same car as the one that crashed and killed your husband,” Fenella said.

  “People are odd,” Daniel said.

  Fenella chuckled. “They are, at that.”

  “So what happened next? How did you happen to make plans to see Mrs. Dolek?”

  “I met her at the Tynwald Day fair,” Fenella explained.

  “I was sorry to miss that. Maybe we can go together next year and you can explain everything to me.”

  “I’d like that.” Fenella frowned at Mona, who’d made a face. Mona was always telling her to keep the men in her life guessing as to how she felt, but Fenella wasn’t good at playing those kinds of games. She really liked Daniel, and his suggestion that they might spend time together in the distant future had lifted her spirits immensely.

  “So tell me all about Tynwald Day,” he said. “Not the actual event, but who you spoke to and what was said.”

  Fenella did her best to comply. She glossed over most of the day and focused on the conversation with Phillipa and her children and the later chat with Margaret and Hannah. When she was done, she felt sad again.

  “She seemed like a nice woman,” she told Daniel. “And I was looking forward to talking with her about Mona.”

  “So you were planning for tea today but she never arrived?”

  “Inspector Hammersmith turned up instead. At least he ate some of the food that I’d prepared. Otherwise it would have gone to waste.”

  “Mark was kind enough to email me copies of his reports. It really does look, at least at this initial stage, as if both deaths were accidental. What do you think?”

  “I think if the experts think they were accidents, they were accidents,” Fenella said firmly. “It’s just a little odd that I met both women the day before they died.”

  “But I’m sure you met a great many people at the party and also at Tynwald Day,” Daniel pointed out.

  “Tell him your theory about Phillipa,” Mona hissed.

  Fenella rolled her eyes. She didn’t have a theory about Phillipa. That was all Mona’s idea. “I am a little worried about Phillipa Clucas,” she said slowly. “Her finding out that her husband cheated is the only thing that I can possibly imagine would give anyone a motive to kill those two women.”

  “If they were murdered, I might agree,” Daniel said. “Mark made a note that you mentioned that very thing to him. How can you be sure that both women had affairs with the man?”

  Fenella frowned. “Anne Marie told me as much,” she said. “And I’m sure someone said something about Margaret, as well.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Daniel reminded her. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but Mark talked to Phillipa and Paulette. Neither of them mentioned any memoirs.”

  “What excuse did they give for Phillipa shouting at me at the party, then?” Fenella demanded.

  “According to Paulette, her mother got upset when you mentioned Mona’s name because they were such good friends many years ago. She gave Mark an account of your conversation over tea as well. In it she never once mentioned her father, except in passing.”

  “She’s lying, which must mean she had something to do with the two deaths,” Mona said.

  “Why would she lie?” Fenella asked.

  “How much did you drink at the charity auction?”

  Fenella stared at the phone for a minute before answering. “I had a few glasses of wine, but I only drank tea the next day, which is when Paulette told me about her father’s memoirs,” she said. “And I only went to tea with Paulette because she insisted that she needed to apologize for her mother’s behavior.”

  Daniel sighed. “As both deaths appear to have been accidents, I don’t think it matters whose memory is more accurate,” he said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you at all, except, well, after your recent track record, I can’t help but worry when you’re involved in any deaths, accidental or not.”

  “When will you know for sure if the two deaths were accidents?”

  “I don’t know that we will ever be certain,” he replied. “Anne Marie’s car is still being inspected and the lab is still testing samples to see if she had any drugs in her system, but even if we find something wrong with the car or drugs in her system, that won’t necessarily prove anything.”

  “And Margaret?”

  “Again, they are looking for evidence that she might have been drugged, but that may or may not prove anything.”

  “Is there a chance that the carpet was torn up on purpose?”

  “That seems quite a stretch,” Daniel said. “Are you suggesting that someone broke into Mrs. Dolek’s house and tore up a patch of carpet, hoping that the woman would then trip over it and fall to her death?”

  “When you put it like that, it sounds crazy,” Fenella admitted. “But what if someone pushed her down the stairs and then tore up the carpeting to make it look like an accident?”

  “People do crazy things, but again, th
at’s something of a stretch,” Daniel replied. “I have suggested to Mark that he talk to a few of her friends to see if he can find out how long the carpet has been like that. It won’t prove anything, but it’s another piece of the puzzle.”

  “I know you have a lot going on there,” Fenella said. “I’m sorry that you’ve been dragged into this as well.”

  “You should have rung me when Anne Marie Smathers died,” Daniel said. “Or at least sent me a text. I was caught by surprised when Mark rang.”

  “I told you so,” Mona hissed.

  “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Fenella said defensively. “Inspector Hammersmith said it was an accident.”

  “And both deaths probably were, but when my friends are mixed up in unexpected deaths, I like to hear about it, preferably from them directly.”

  “If anyone else dies, I’ll ring you,” Fenella promised.

  “If anyone else dies, Mark will ring me, and I suspect he’ll also have a very long conversation with you.”

  “None of this has anything to do with me,” Fenella exclaimed.

  “I have to go,” Daniel said. “There’s a late lecture on body decomposition that I can’t miss.”

  “That sounds like such fun,” Fenella said sarcastically.

  Daniel chuckled. “Yes, I’d rather be at the Tale and Tail with you and Shelly, but that isn’t an option right now. This training course is costing the Isle of Man Constabulary a lot of money. I owe it to them to go to every single class.”

  “Well, I hope you learn lots of interesting things. And I hope what you learn doesn’t interfere with your sleep.”

  “Oh, I don’t have any trouble sleeping,” Daniel said. “I hope you sleep well, too.”

  He disconnected and Fenella sat back, feeling oddly like crying.

  “You’re already growing too attached to that man,” Mona said sharply.

  “He’s very kind,” Fenella countered. “And gorgeous.”

  Mona nodded. “He is both of those things, but he’s also the settling-down type. If you get serious, he’s going to want to get married.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Yawn,” Mona said, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to tie yourself down to just one man for any length of time. Not when there are so many lovely men out there vying for your affections.”

  “Yes, well, we’ll see,” Fenella said. “He isn’t even going to be back on the island for over a month. Maybe I’ll be in love with Donald by the time Daniel gets back.”

  Mona laughed. “Is Daniel really insisting that the deaths were accidents?” she asked after a moment.

  “He is, but he did say that he’d let me know if they found any evidence to suggest otherwise.”

  “Whoever is behind the killings is very clever,” Mona said. “So maybe it isn’t Phillipa. She’s never seemed overly clever to me.”

  “Paulette didn’t seem particularly bright when we spoke,” Fenella said. “But maybe she has hidden depths.”

  “She’s always been a rather odd girl. I often wondered if there was something slightly wrong about her, too, some sort of genetic flaw that runs in the family. Obviously it was worse for Paula, but that doesn’t mean that Paulette doesn’t have her own issues.”

  “She didn’t seem that odd to me, just rather sad,” Fenella argued.

  “And then there’s Paul, Junior,” Mona said. “He was always somewhat strange, as well. Neither he nor his sister ever married. I wonder why.”

  “Perhaps they simply share your opinion on the matter,” Fenella suggested.

  “I hardly think Paulette has had many men to choose from over the years,” Mona said. “I don’t think she’s ever so much as looked at a man, though. She was thoroughly devoted to her parents and idolized her father. Perhaps no one else ever measured up.”

  “Which is why she’s so upset to find out that he cheated on her mother.”

  “Yes, but is she upset enough to start killing the women who were involved?” Mona asked.

  “I certainly hope not.” Fenella yawned and then got to her feet.

  “Of course, I’m fairly sure that Paul didn’t have an affair with Margaret. We need to get a look at those notes. If he claimed he’d slept with me, he probably made up all sorts of lies about many different women.”

  “It’s horrible to think that someone killed Margaret because they thought she’d had an affair that she never actually had,” Fenella exclaimed.

  “I suppose I should be glad I’m already dead,” Mona said.

  Fenella shook her head. “I’m worn out. I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow I’m having lunch with Hannah. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about you.”

  “Just remember to ask her about the carpet at the top of Margaret’s stairs,” Mona told her. “And warn her that she might be next on the killer’s hit list.”

  “I’ll try to find a way to work both of those things into the conversation. In the meantime, I think you should start trying to work out whether anyone else had a motive for killing either or both women,” Fenella instructed her aunt. “You knew both of them for a long time. What other secrets were they hiding?”

  Mona looked thoughtful. “I shall give the idea some thought while you are sleeping,” she said, as Fenella refilled Katie’s bowls. “Maybe there’s something I’ve overlooked.”

  When Fenella went into the master bedroom a short while later, Mona was sitting on one of the couches staring out at the sea. Fenella’s “good night” went unanswered.

  Katie had Fenella up at seven yet again. She gave the kitten breakfast before making her own. Mona was still sitting on the same couch, staring at the sea.

  “Are you okay?” Fenella asked.

  “I’m fine,” Mona replied. “It’s difficult thinking about the past. I didn’t like Paul Clucas and I didn’t approve of his behavior, but I also don’t think that anyone deserves to die because of it.” She sighed. “I’ve been thinking about how badly we all behaved in those days. We felt young and wild and carefree, but not everyone was able to enjoy life the way that we did. I wish I’d made more of an effort to befriend Phillipa. At the time I was barely aware of her existence, but she had a difficult life.”

  “Have you thought of any other reason why anyone might have wanted to kill Anne Marie and Margaret?” Fenella asked.

  Mona shook her head. “There could have been something in either of their husbands’ businesses that was an issue, but I don’t recall hearing anything. Not that I would have, necessarily. Men didn’t discuss business with me, unless it was to brag about how successful a deal had been. I doubt they discussed it with their wives, either, though, so I can’t see why anyone would want to take revenge on them.”

  The pair chatted for a while longer, but it was clear that Mona was distracted. Fenella cleared away her breakfast dishes and then did some more reading and note-taking for her book, while Mona continued to sit and stare out the window for much of the morning. When Fenella started getting ready for lunch, Mona finally stirred.

  “Enough of this woolgathering,” she said. “I’m going to treat myself to something special. Maybe it’s time for a new look. Maybe I should try being ten or twelve for a change.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” Fenella exclaimed. It was strange enough sharing her apartment with the woman; she couldn’t imagine how odd it would be having a young child living with her.

  “I didn’t really enjoy childhood, anyway,” Mona told her. “Your mother was always so much better behaved than I was. I gave up trying to be good by the time I reached my teens. I could never compete with my younger sister.”

  “Mum would be very sad to hear you say that,” Fenella said.

  “I know. That’s part of what was so annoying. She was always good, but she didn’t even have to work at it. After she fell in love with your father, she never so much as looked at another man. All that time when they were apart, she stayed faithful and was confident that it would
all work out in the end.”

  “And she was right.”

  “She was always right,” Mona snapped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m out of sorts and I’m taking it out on you,” she added quickly. “I’ve spent too much time thinking about my past and some of the unpleasant things I lived through. Maybe I need to go and visit Max. That would cheer me up, I’m sure.”

  “If you can go and visit people whenever you want, you should go and visit Margaret and Anne Marie and ask them both whether they were murdered or not,” Fenella suggested.

  “It isn’t that simple,” Mona told her. “I haven’t any idea where to look for either of them, but Max is here.”

  “Here?”

  “In the building,” Mona explained. “He usually spends his time in the back, in what used to be the ballroom. It’s just offices now, but I’m not sure Max sees it that way. Anyway, I’ll see you later. I’ll want to hear all about your lunch with Hannah when I get back.”

  Fenella watched as the woman faded from view. She wasn’t sure if Mona was telling the truth about visiting Max or not, but for her aunt’s sake, she hoped it was true. She liked the idea of Mona being able to visit old and dear friends who were also dead.

  She changed into a dress and low heels and then took a taxi to the restaurant that Hannah had suggested. There were only a handful of people scattered around the room when Fenella arrived. Her heart sank when she realized that Hannah wasn’t one of them.

  “Just you today, love?” the middle-aged woman who was waiting tables called as Fenella hesitated in the doorway.

  “I’m meeting a friend,” she replied.

  “Oh, aye? Is it a blind date? Will he recognize you or did you send him a doctored photo?”

  Fenella flushed. “I’m meeting a female friend who I will certainly recognize,” she said firmly.

  The woman shrugged. “Sorry, but we get a lot of blind dates out here. We’re just far enough away from Douglas city center so that people think they can meet here and no one will know. This Internet dating thing has been good for my business, I can tell you that.”