Oliver growled. Emma nudged him with her leg, silently willing him to calm down.
“Yes,” she said to Bert. “I understand.”
“Good.” All Bert’s cheerful urbanity returned as if he’d suddenly thrown a switch. “Then I’ll walk you back.”
With Bert beside her the whole way, Emma walked toward the house. Bert kept a half step behind her, just at the edge of her peripheral vision. Which set her teeth, and her nerves, on edge.
She was pretty sure he knew that.
It was a relief to see her little red Mini. Emma boosted Oliver into the back, climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door.
Bert leaned down and rested both elbows on the doorframe.
“Now,” he said pleasantly, “unless you’re with somebody else from the festival, I don’t want to see you, or that damned dog, on this property again, all right?” He tapped the doorframe twice as he straightened up. “Have a nice day.”
With Bert standing and watching, Emma started the Mini, and backed and turned until she was pointed to the drive and headed toward the main road.
She didn’t look in the rearview. She knew he was still there.
* * *
* * *
Pearl, Angelique and Genny were all in the King’s Rest kitchen when Emma got there. Breakfast service was under way, not to mention the prep for tomorrow’s tea service. Oliver had spotted Fergus the Irish setter in the B&B’s garden, so she opened the gate to let him out to say hello.
“Where’ve you been?” demanded Angelique as Emma hung her bag on the hook beside the door. “We were getting worried.”
Emma collapsed onto the kitchen stool, planted her elbows on the counter and her face on her hands. “I’ve been out making an enormous mistake.”
“You went and bought that car, didn’t you?” said Genny. “I told you . . .”
“That was not the mistake,” mumbled Emma.
“Then what was?” asked Angelique.
Emma looked toward the door. “Are Helen and Daphne down yet?”
Angelique shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Okay. I went up to the grange.”
“On your own?” exclaimed Pearl. “What for?”
Emma sighed. “I thought I’d found the murder weapon.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me!” cried Pearl.
“Or me!” added Genny indignantly.
Angelique poured a mug of tea and put it down in front of Emma.
“Thanks.” Emma took a long swallow. “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure.” Oliver’s not right every time. “And because somebody might have moved it, and because you would have wanted to come with me and you would’ve gotten in trouble too.” And I couldn’t have you around while I needed to talk to Oliver . . .
“Oh, don’t tell me you got caught,” said Pearl.
“By Uncle Bert.” Emma took another swallow of tea.
“Oh . . . sugar.” Genny put a hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah,” agreed Emma. “He threatened to have me arrested for trespassing, and breaking and entering.”
“He can’t,” said Pearl.
“And to accuse me of planting evidence, with DCI Brent’s help.”
“Oh—” began Genny.
“Sugar,” finished Emma. “Yeah. He told me not to come back. At all.”
Pearl leaned back against the counter and shook her head. “I hate to say it, Emma, but that is rather bad.”
“Yeah, I’d noticed.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Angelique.
Emma watched the steam rising from her tea for a long moment. “We’ve got to come up with something else, something convincing that Constance really can take to her boss.”
“And fast,” said Angelique. “If I was Bert, I’d be making sure the evidence is in the bottom of the pond with Marcie’s handbag.”
“Yeah,” said Emma gloomily. “I’ve thought of that.”
“Well, we’ve got a lot,” said Pearl. “We just have to work out how it all fits together.”
“And I know where to start,” announced Genny. “If Emma’s right, somebody’s been selling antiques out of the grange. And that means we need . . .”
“David and Charles!” they all said together.
49
Emma wanted to talk to Daphne and Helen. She wanted to lose herself for a couple of hours in the normalcy of baking scones and doing the other prep work for tomorrow’s tea service. But Bert’s calm, cheerful threats had left her rattled and angry. She was not going to give him any extra time to make trouble, if she could avoid it. So she grabbed her bag, whistled for Oliver and headed out down the street.
The shingle over Vintage Style was painted with a motorcycle with a fedora hanging off the handlebar. It was still well before opening time, but Emma knew the Kemps were always in early. When she pushed on the handle, the door swung open smoothly, ringing the string of bells overhead.
“Mar-ooow!” The shop’s big orange cat, Cream Tangerine, rose to all fours on the wooden counter and glowered at them. Well, at Oliver specifically, as Oliver plunged in ahead of Emma, zipping around like he wanted to be everywhere at once.
Back in the day, the shop had been a dry goods store. It still had the long wooden counter where fabric and ribbons would have been measured and cut. Drawers and cubby- holes lined the wall behind it. Each cubby held a single antique: a glass-shaded lamp, a lacquered jewelry box, a spectacularly tacky canalware pot or a vintage stuffed elephant on wheels. A large sign on the counter read SEE SOMETHING YOU LIKE? JUST ASK FOR ASSISTANCE! WE ARE HERE TO HELP.
“Be right there!” called a man’s voice from the back.
“It’s me, David!” Emma called back.
“Hello, Cat!” Oliver reared onto his hind legs and craned his neck to try to see up to the countertop.
Whatever the cat said in reply made Oliver huff, “Cats.” He dropped back onto all fours and continued his very important investigation of the shop.
“Good morning, Emma!” David strode out from the back office and gave her a warm hug. Oliver, of course, had to come over at once for a pat and a chin rub. David, of course, obliged, and did not seem at all distressed at slightly muddy corgi paws on his neat trousers. “How are you both doing? Charles?” he called back over his shoulder. “Emma’s here!”
“And she’ll understand I’m busy!” came the curt reply.
“Impossible.” David waved dismissively.
David was a stylish little man with sparse white hair and an unapologetically flamboyant manner. Today, he wore a green sports coat and white turtleneck with a white pocket square and baggy tweed trousers. He and his husband, Charles, had become two of Emma’s best friends in Trevena.
“So, is there something I can help you with? Oh, you know, I just found the dearest little Blue Italian pot for your collection . . .”
“Actually, I came to see if I could get some information.”
“Information?” David raised both bushy white eyebrows. “I am intrigued.”
“And, erm, maybe we could go into the office? It’s . . . kind of delicate.”
“I am intrigued.” David crooked two fingers. “Come along.”
The office was tidy in a very old-fashioned kind of way. All the furniture was wooden, including the file cabinets. The decorations on the walls were mostly framed maps, with the exception of one very strange picture. It was a black-and-white photo of a pale man in a skimpy bathing suit, stretched out on his belly on the seat of a vintage motorcycle.
“The fastest man alive,” said Charles, without looking up from his screen.
“Sorry?” Emma blinked.
Charles swiveled his wooden desk chair around. He was a tall man, with a somewhat long and horsey face. Where David might turn on a bit of a flamboyant act for custome
rs, or just because he was feeling puckish, Charles was never anything but his own, slightly dour self.
“You were wondering about the photo.”
“How’d you know?”
“Because everybody does. It’s Rollie Free, setting the world speed record on a Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle, 1948. It made him the fastest man alive.”
Emma peered at the picture. “Oh! The Black Lightning, like on your sign.”
“Got it in one,” said David. “We have a bit of history with that make of motorcycle, Charles and I.”
“Didn’t you tell me once Charles kidnapped you on his motorcycle?”
Charles coughed. He also moved Cream Tangerine off one of the chairs at a round table that took up the corner of the office not occupied by desks or filing cabinets.
“So, Emma, what can we do for you?” David sat in the other chair with Cream Tangerine cradled in his arm. He proceeded to gently stroke her back and ears.
“I’ve married a Bond villain,” Charles muttered.
“And you love me for it,” replied David. “You were saying, Emma?”
Oliver, of course, was not going to be left out of the proceedings. He trotted over and pawed her knees. “Up, Emma? Please.”
The cat yawned.
“Ignore the cat,” said Oliver. “She’s rude.”
“Of course she is,” murmured Emma as she gathered him up onto her lap. “She’s a cat.”
“I’m sorry?” said David.
“Um, nothing. Sorry. Um . . . I guess you know about what’s been going on at the grange?”
Oliver put his chin on the table and twitched his ears at the cat.
Tangerine, very pointedly, looked away.
Husband and husband exchanged a meaningful glance. “Well, there has been a lot of talk,” said David.
“Don’t tell me you’re involved in all that mess, Emma?” asked Charles.
“Just helping Helen and Daphne,” Emma told them. “There’s some question with the accounts, and the inventory.”
David cocked his head skeptically at Emma. “What sorts of questions?”
Oliver stretched his neck out as far as he could, keeping his whole attention on the cat. Tangerine stared at him. Oliver huffed.
“Well, that’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Emma. “Have either of you heard anything about Marcie Cochrane selling off some of the antiques from the grange?”
“Well—” began David.
All at once, Oliver yipped. Tangerine squeaked, and leapt off her owner’s lap.
Oliver pulled his chin back and let his jaw drop open, panting happily.
“Oliver!” scolded Emma. “Now that was rude.”
“I’m sorry, Emma!” Oliver looked up at her with his big brown eyes. “Really!”
Emma sighed. She also kissed his nose. “Sorry,” she said to David. “He’s usually very well behaved, which is good because I’m clearly a terrible disciplinarian.”
“You’re not, Emma!” barked Oliver.
“Oh, no worries, no worries.” David brushed at his shirt. “I’ll give Tangerine some extra chicken at dinner. She’ll get over it.”
“The cat gets chicken, Emma,” said Oliver. “You should listen to your friends about how to feed your . . .”
Emma did put Oliver on the floor. Oliver was about to slip under Emma’s chair, but he clearly got a look at the Tangerine, who had flattened herself under David’s seat, and he decided a strategic retreat might be in order.
Emma folded her hands on the tabletop. “I’m sorry about this, guys. But I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.”
“Well—” began David again.
“Client confidentiality,” snapped Charles.
“No,” said David firmly. “Marcie never did.”
“So if it wasn’t Marcie, then who was it?” asked Emma.
Charles grimaced. “Not very subtle, are we?”
Emma shook her head.
David contemplated her for a long moment, like she was a vintage bit of glassware with just the tiniest little crack in the side. “There’s been a rumor running about that Marcie’s death might not have been a suicide, no matter what Bert’s been telling people.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” said Emma.
The men gazed at each other. Emma could practically feel the thrum of the wordless communication passing between them. Finally, Charles sighed.
“Someone from the grange did come to us,” he said. “And they did ask for help to sell some vintage items, including a magnificent silver tea set. But quietly. We were happy to help, and it looked like everything was going fine, until it came down to the paperwork.”
“How was that a problem?” asked Emma.
“Well, my dear,” said David. “You may not realize this, but some people try to sell us antiques that strictly speaking aren’t theirs.”
Emma laid her hand on her chest. “I’m shocked, sir, shocked!”
“I’m sure,” drawled Charles. “But where it gets especially frustrating is some of them try to use our shop because we’re old friends of the family, and they assume we won’t ask awkward questions.”
David folded his arms across his chest, “But, as it happens, it’s a dangerous game, isn’t it? If it does turn out that those items didn’t belong to the seller, or if the seller didn’t have permission from their family, say, and we don’t have the paperwork to cover our personal backsides, well, it just gets bad for everybody, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I can see that,” agreed Emma. “And I take it this person was not able to provide the paperwork.”
“As it turned out, no. They assured us they would sort it, but they left and never came back.”
“Did they say why they were selling the stuff?”
“Well, it was indicated that the family was having some money difficulties that they wanted to keep quiet.” David narrowed his eyes at her. “You look skeptical.”
Emma sighed. “Well, let’s just say, I’ve done a bit of digging. Yes, the estate was having money problems, but they weren’t the kind that would be solved by selling a few antiques, even for the prices listed. It would have been a stopgap and it would have been messy, and Marcie—”
“Messy was not her style at all,” David finished for her.
“So, who was trying to sell the antiques?” Emma asked.
“Emma.” Charles looked down his long nose at her. “Do you really need to know?”
“Yes, I do. And so do the police. And please don’t tell anybody that last bit. It could get . . . people into a lot of trouble.”
“Right, well. Not to put too fine a point on it . . .” began David.
“It was Frank,” said Charles.
50
“Dad!” cried Daphne.
They were in Helen’s room at the King’s Rest. It was a simple, neat room, a little small, maybe, but the big window with its view of the beach and the sea kept it from feeling claustrophobic.
Helen sat on the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Daphne couldn’t seem to make herself sit down. She just leaned on the back of the desk chair.
Emma understood how Helen felt. Her own nerves still hadn’t settled down from this morning. She couldn’t escape the feeling that they were running out of time to find out what had happened. Every member of the Cochrane family knew now that they might be in danger, and Emma was sure every one of them would be looking for their own way out.
“Why would Frank need money?” said Helen. “Marcie gave him everything he wanted.”
“He came to the shop to ask them directly,” Emma told her. “There’s no way they could have made a mistake. He tried to offer them the silver tea set for sale, but when they asked for a provenance, he went away and did not come back.”
“I don’t
. . . why?” Helen threw up her hands.
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe Aunt Marcie threatened to cut him off,” said Daphne. “He had to find an alternate supply.”
“I suppose it’s possible. Oh, lord.” Helen pressed both hands to her cheeks. “And I was halfway to believing he’d really changed.”
Daphne plopped down next to her mother and put her arm around her shoulders. “Not your fault, Mum.”
Helen patted her hand.
“But that doesn’t mean Frank’s the one who killed Marcie,” said Helen. “I mean, whatever his reasons for doing it, Marcie was keeping quiet about it, wasn’t she?”
“Keeping family secrets. That was part of the job,” growled Daphne.
“I’m really sorry about this,” Emma told them both.
“Not your fault,” said Helen.
“You were just . . . you were trying to do me a favor,” said Daphne. “If anybody’s sorry, it should be me.”
“You need to get back to work and we need to talk.”
“Yeah. Come down when you’re ready, all right? I know . . . whatever you decide, if you need anything, we’ll help however we can.”
“Thank you.”
Emma closed the door softly on her way out and trotted downstairs.
“Emma?” Oliver had waited down in the great room for her. “You look sad, Emma.”
She was sad, and tired, and nervous. But more than that, she was restless. She should be ready to prep ingredients for finger sandwiches and check off varieties of cake slices. Instead, her thoughts kept circling around everything that had happened just today.
Something was nagging at Emma, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It was like two ideas were trying to drift toward each other, but she couldn’t clearly see either one yet.
Emma made it to the kitchen on autopilot.
“Listen, I need to run home,” she said to Angelique and Genny. “I’ve left all the ledgers and bank statements from the grange up there. I need them.”
Murder Always Barks Twice Page 29
