by Morgana Best
I was half way into my chair when a crisply dressed waiter appeared with a basket of bread rolls and curled butter. He placed it, along with a bottle of ice water, between us, and handed us the menus.
As soon as he left, Basil leaned forward. “You look lovely tonight, Laurel.”
I smiled, probably more widely than would be considered cool. “You do, too.”
I soaked in the romantic ambience. A tea light candle was softly flickering in the center of the table, reflecting from the wine glasses. The music was soft and unobtrusive. The pungent yet delightful fragrance of garlic pervaded the air, making me all warm and fuzzy inside. My toes tingled.
I must have drifted away with my thoughts, because Basil’s voice made me start. “Champagne?”
“I’d love some,” I said. “Did you get my text about Jenny?”
Basil nodded. “Yes, you texted to say you’d called the escort agency, and then again to tell me what she said when you confronted her.”
“That probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do,” I admitted, breaking apart my warm bread roll, and then watching the butter melt into it. “I’ve asked Ernie to keep an eye on her.”
“Well, I found out something interesting today,” Basil said.
I looked up. “What is it?”
“You told me that Frank said he had a girlfriend, and that he said she had nothing to do with his murder?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t think any more of it, until Mandi Major came to see me today.”
I jumped so suddenly that I knocked my fork onto my plate, causing it to make a loud clanging sound. I was embarrassed, given that I could feel eyes on me. “Why did she come to see you?”
“It turns out that Frank Wright was an only child, and had no living relatives. Mandi was his long-term girlfriend, and she stands to inherit everything. She’s going to move to Witch Woods, and live in his house. Rather, it will be her house soon.”
“Isn’t that a bit drastic, moving here?” I asked him. Sure, small country towns had their charms, but they also had snakes, nasty spiders, and busybodies. I could walk down the street in Melbourne wearing something utterly bizarre, and no one would give me a second glance, but here in Witch Woods, every passer by studied me closely.
“They were going to get married, so she was planning to move here, regardless.”
I studied my knife and thought for a moment. “So is that why she came to see you? Because she wants a new accountant?”
Basil nodded. “Her current accountant is retiring at the end of the year, so she wants me to take over. Her business is quite simple.” He addressed the latter remark to himself. I supposed it was an accountant thing.
“Did she say if he’d left her much money? Enough money for her to murder him?”
Basil consumed a whole bread roll at once before speaking. “No, I don’t think money could be the motive. I actually asked her for more details of her inheritance, details I’d need to know for accounting purposes, just so I could find that out. He did very well for himself, but he wasn’t a millionaire. He didn’t have enough money to be murdered for, and besides, they were getting married, anyway.”
“But I suppose it’s all relative,” I said.
Basil all looked puzzled. “What’s relative?”
“The amount of money it would take for somebody to murder someone,” I pointed out. “One person might be prepared to murder for fifty million, while another person might be prepared to murder for five hundred dollars. It all depends on one’s circumstances.”
A man walked past and patted Basil on the shoulder. Basil introduced us, and the man moved on. “We’ll have to question Frank again, and make sure he doesn’t avoid our questions this time.”
I agreed. “Yes, that will certainly be much easier than questioning Mandi Major. Do you think he knows she did it? Do you think he’s trying to protect her?”
Basil filled our champagne glasses before answering. “It did occur to me, but then wouldn’t he move on? I mean, if he was protecting her, that wouldn’t keep him here—he would simply go onto the other side.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” I said. “Yes, I think you’re probably right. Still, he’s obviously keeping something from us.”
Ernie suddenly manifested, sitting in the seat next to Basil.
This time, I jumped so much that I knocked over my champagne glass. To my dismay, champagne ran in little rivulets along the once-pristine white tablecloth. The waiter hurried over and cleaned it up, while I apologized profusely.
“Ernie, please don’t appear like that when I’m trying to have a romantic date with my girlfriend,” Basil said.
My stomach did flip-flops when Basil said the word girlfriend.
Ernie stared at me. “Why are you wearing that stupid grin, Laurel? You look like a love-struck puppy. You’re making my stomach turn.” He shuddered.
I at once changed the expression on my face before Basil saw me.
Ernie pressed on. “I’ve been following Jenny Thorogood, as you asked me. She did indeed speak to the police. In fact, she went there in person, I suppose so that her husband wouldn’t overhear her on the phone.”
“Did you hear anything to make you think that she killed Frank?” I asked him.
Ernie shook his head. “I don’t have an opinion on it either way. I only know what she told the police, and that was that she saw some other client at the escort agency. I forget his name. She said she’d never met Frank. Anyway, the police will soon find out if she’s lying, so I figure she must be telling the truth about that. And by the way, I wasn’t able to get anything out of Frank. He flatly refuses to say a word about his girlfriend.”
I pulled a face. “That’s a nuisance.”
“And if Jenny did know Frank, it would have been outside the escort business,” Basil said. “Ernie, would you mind leaving us now?”
“Do you want to continue with your lovey-dovey, smoochy, romantic evening?” Ernie was clearly disgusted.
Basil nodded. “As a matter of fact, we do.”
Ernie disappeared in a flash.
Basil refilled my champagne glass. “To us!”
I was glad Ernie couldn’t see the expression on my face.
“I’m going to say one more thing about this murder investigation, and then let’s not let it intrude on our evening,” Basil said in a tone that caused tingles to flood my body.
I readily agreed.
“Since Frank won’t say a word about Mandi, we’ll have to question her directly.”
“You have her new address on file,” I said, more thinking out aloud than asking a question.
“Yes, Frank’s address here in Witch Woods. We won’t need to go to her house, though. Mandi mentioned that she was going to the new markets tomorrow.”
I knew what I would be doing the following day.
Chapter 18
Basil and I arrived at the Farmers Market early. The Farmers Market was new to Witch Woods. There had been a bit of a buzz around town about it, but now that I was here, I was rather disappointed. I knew it wouldn’t be as good as the markets I had attended in Melbourne, of course, but there didn’t seem to be many sellers.
The woman at the first tent jumped out in front of me and thrust a plate of lumpy and anemic-looking cookies topped with blueberries directly under my face. “Would you like to try one?”
I sidestepped her. “No thanks.” I smiled, to make up for my refusal.
She blocked my way once more. “You don’t eat cookies?”
“Gluten intolerant.” That was the first thing that came to my mind. I hurried past her, past the rows of potted plants already wilted in the sun, the large display of jars of honey under bright orange awnings, and past huge displays of organic fruit and vegetables.
“What if she doesn’t come, after all?” I said to Basil.
“What was that?” Basil leaned even closer to me.
I repeated myself in a louder voice. Over by a clump
of gum trees, a live band was playing so loudly it was hard to hear myself think. Two young children ran past me, the second one knocking me hard directly behind my knees, causing my knees to buckle. Basil seized my arm and righted me, as the apologetic mother hurried after her children.
I gravitated toward the coffee sellers. “Why don’t I get us some coffee, and you look around for Mandi?” I yelled in Basil’s ear. “If you see her, call me.” I pulled my phone from my tote and pointed to it.
Basil shouted back that it was a good idea.
I lined up behind the people desperate for their morning coffee. The coffee smelled really good, but then again, I suppose any coffee smells good early in the morning. The line was right next to braids of garlic, which didn’t smell so good in the morning.
After I drank some coffee, I felt immeasurably better, and went in search of Basil. “Have you seen her?” I asked him, handing him his coffee.
“No, but many of the stallholders are still setting up. Let’s give it some time before we think about going.”
“I wasn’t thinking about leaving yet,” I said, somewhat puzzled.
“You might change your mind.” Basil moved aside, but before I could see what concerned him, the blueberry seller stepped across my path once more. “Sample a blueberry,” she said to me. “You can eat those, I’m sure.” Without waiting for me to answer, she continued, “We grow them right next to the highway, so they’re not organic. We don’t use chemicals on them, so you could call them organic, but we do spray them with a very strong fungicide. Sure, it’s a very poisonous fungicide, but I do my best not to spray it on the berries.” She thrust the plate of fungicide-riddled blueberries under my nose.
“I’m allergic,” I lied, hurrying past her.
I soon ground to a halt, and ducked under the awning of a jewelry store. Mom and Ian were standing on an upturned crate, waving their arms in the air.
“What are they doing?” I asked Basil in shock. Directly behind me, I heard the blueberry seller arguing loudly with someone about the difference between chemical free and organic.
“They’re telling everyone to repent,” Basil said in dismay. “They’re yelling so they can be heard over the live band.”
“But the live band has just stopped,” I said. As soon as I said it, the live band started up again. Basil simply shrugged.
“I had better keep an eye out for John Jones,” I said. “He likely isn’t far behind the two of them.”
“Perhaps it was a bad idea coming here,” Basil said. “I thought we could have some fun, and also question Mandi, but we can’t have any fun with your mother around.”
I slipped my free arm through his. “Sure, we can have some fun. We just won’t come back anywhere near Mom and Ian.”
We joined the crowd moving en masse away from Mom and Ian. I hoped they didn’t change their position any time soon.
It was fun walking past all the produce, the art work, and home-made jewelry on display. I stopped to look at some handmade soap, and had just bought some when Basil spoke. “Mandi Major’s here now.” I followed him out of the tent.
We both walked past Mandi as if we were just out for a stroll. She spotted Basil and came over. Basil introduced me once more as his girlfriend, which made my stomach do flip-flops.
“Mandi is coming to live in Witch Woods,” Basil said, as if it were the first time he was telling me. “I’m her new accountant.”
I played along. “Welcome to Witch Woods! What brings you to town?”
Mandi stared at the ground before answering. “My boyfriend just died. We were about to get married, so I’m moving to town anyway. I’ve been coming to town on a regular basis, anyway. I’m a beauty therapist.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about your boyfriend,” I said, suddenly painfully aware that her boyfriend died in my mother’s house and that my mother was the prime suspect. I hoped that Mandi did not connect the dots.
Mandi nodded. “Do the police have any idea what happened to him?” Basil asked her.
Mandi shook her head. “If they do, then they haven’t told me. No, they’re following me. It’s bad enough having to deal with Frank’s death, without being harassed by the detectives.”
I looked behind her, and sure enough, Detective Prescott and Detective Wilkinson were lurking in the background. It seemed to me that they were keeping an eye on my mother, rather than Mandi, but I was not about to point that out. I took Basil’s full coffee cup and dumped his and mine in a nearby trash bin, much to Basil’s amazement. “That coffee was disgusting,” I said. “We were about to go and get some nice coffee from that tent over there. Why don’t you join us?”
Mandi hesitated, but then looked back at the detectives, who were now walking in our direction.
“Thanks, that would be good,” she said.
I felt a little mean as my intention was to question her rather than make her feel welcome to the town, but I supposed they weren’t mutually exclusive.
I went to buy the coffee, leaving Basil chatting to Mandi. After all, she knew him.
I returned with a tray of coffee, and placed a polystyrene cup in front of each of them. “I got some chocolate chip cookies, too,” I said, depositing the individually wrapped offerings on the table. “I think my friend Tara has mentioned you. You do her eyebrows.”
Mandi looked a little happier. “Yes, she’s nice. I hope I can build up my business here.”
At that moment, the detectives walked past us. Mandi became visibly nervous. “They questioned me at length, and I don’t know why,” she said in little more than a whisper. “I wasn’t even in town when Frank was murdered.”
“I suppose you have a firm alibi?” I asked her.
She shook her head and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “No, that’s just it. Plus I was silly enough to be honest with them and tell them I had a huge fight with him the night before he died.”
“I’m sure they don’t suspect you,” I said. “What motive could you possibly have? It wasn’t as if he left you a million dollars or anything, did he?”
Mandi shook her head. “He didn’t have a mortgage on his house, and he had very expensive clothes, and he had a lot of investments, but I wouldn’t exactly call him a millionaire. He might have been, if he hadn’t been such a big time spender.”
I muttered my sympathies.
Mandi scrunched the tissue in her hands into a little ball and then turned it over and over. Finally, she spoke. “I suppose you’re wondering why I was going to marry an escort?”
I was taking aback by her frank question, no pun intended.
Luckily, Basil spoke up. “No, not at all, Mandi. I assume you didn’t know?” He said it as a question.
Mandi sniffled into a fresh tissue. “I found out the night before he died. That’s what I told the detectives, too. I thought the fact that I was innocent meant I didn’t have to hide anything, but I was wrong. I’m sure they think I did it.”
I hurried to reassure her once more. “I’m sure they don’t, Mandi. I’m sure that no matter what you told them, it wasn’t anything that would make them suspect you. They’re just covering all angles.”
Mandi sipped her coffee before speaking. “That’s where you’re wrong. I do have a motive, at least in their eyes. The night before he died, I found a second phone. It was definitely hidden, and I challenged him about it. I thought he had another girlfriend.”
“What did he say?” I asked her.
“Well, he just broke down and told me the whole story. He said it paid well, and it wasn’t personal. He said it wasn’t anything like having an affair, that it was purely business.”
“He told you?” I said in disbelief.
Mandi nodded. “He said he had intended to tell me before we were married, but I don’t believe that. He’d been lying to me for years. He always told me he was a day trader working from home. I suppose he got away with it because I only stayed with him every second weekend.”
“So he never went to
work when you were visiting?”
Mandi’s expression changed from sad to angry. “Yes, as a matter of fact, he did, several times. He said he was volunteering at the local mission, and he said I wasn’t to visit him because there were some dangerous types there. And to think I believed him! I feel like such an idiot now. I had a huge, screaming argument with him. I threw my engagement ring at him, and then drove home to the coast. I think I fell out of love with him at that very moment. I don’t even know if it’s possible, but I think I did, when I realized how badly he’d lied to me all that time. Plus he was a terrible flirt. He was always flirting with other women, and that upset me, too. Unfortunately, I told the police all this.”
“Look, the detectives just got coffee and left. They walked straight behind you,” I told her. “They didn’t give you so much as a second glance. I really don’t think they’re keeping an eye on you.” As an afterthought, simply because I was curious, I added, “Who is taking care of his funeral?”
“The brothel,” she spat angrily. “One of them came to his house to tell me that they were. I didn’t care—better them than me. I don’t even plan to attend. It’s going to feel awkward enough living here in his house. I think I’m going to have to see a therapist or something.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. I felt sorry for the woman. She was certainly having a hard time of it, and now she was moving to the very town where it had all happened—her boyfriend’s duplicity, and then his murder. I also wondered why the escort agency hadn’t booked Frank’s funeral at my funeral home. I wondered if they, like the detectives, thought my mother was the murderer.
I looked outside to see people staring in the direction where I had last seen my mother, and then my phone rang.
Chapter 19
“Laurel, you have to help me,” Mom’s voice insisted.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
