The Cat That Had a Clue

by Fiona Snyckers

  Fay nudged him to keep walking. It felt as though the bottles of passata were going to slide out of her arms.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking. The tourists I spoke to stood in the doorway to Pappa’s reading the menu and deciding whether to go inside. They say no one went in or out during that period.”

  “You are thinking that the person who poisoned the pizza was already sitting in the restaurant,” said Luigi.

  “I think so. I mean, it’s not impossible that someone came in from the outside, opened the pizza box, poisoned the pizza, and walked out again. But it’s not likely - not with my guest and his wife standing there. So, what I need to know is this – can you remember who was in the restaurant that night?”

  Chapter 16

  As they got to the kitchen, Fay lowered the bottles of passata onto the counter and stretched out her aching arms. She really needed to work on her upper body strength.

  Luigi thought hard, trying to answer her question.

  “It’ll come to me,” he kept saying. “Just let me think about it and it will come to me. I need to speak to Vito.”

  Luigi picked up a bowl of finely chopped chilies and went to the front where Vito was pulling a pizza out of the wood-fired oven with a long metal holder.

  “Tuesday night, Vito,” said Luigi. “Can you remember who was in here at about eight-thirty?”

  “Tuesday night? That was my night off, remember? I was reading a book and listening to the radio. How could I possibly …?”

  “No, but listen,” Luigi urged him. “You came into the restaurant sometime in the evening to tell me something. Do you remember? I chased you away because you were wearing your robe and I didn’t want the customers to see you?”

  Vito’s eyes widened. “That’s right. I remember now. I came in to tell you that I couldn’t find any dried oregano in the village and that we must remember to pick some up when we’re in Truro.”

  “That’s it.” Luigi started grating a block of mozzarella. “You must have glanced into the restaurant. You always do.” He turned to Fay. “Vito cannot resist doing a head-count of the house. Every single time. He can’t help himself.”

  “It’s true.” Vito shrugged. “I do that. I like to estimate what the take for the day will be. I remember that Tuesday night was quiet, like it always is. That’s why one of us usually has the night off. We can check our receipts for that night, but I think there were four people in the restaurant.”

  “That’s what I think too,” said Luigi. “Four people at four different tables. All singles, sitting separately.”

  “One of them was definitely Lady Chadwick.”

  “That’s right. I remember telling her to leave that smelly old pug of hers outside. She wanted to bring him in, but we have health and safety rules for a reason. I made her leave him tied up on the sidewalk. I promised to take him a bowl of water and some chicken myself later on.”

  Vito closed his eyes as though he were summoning the past. “Yes, yes. It is coming back to me now. I can see Lady Chadwick sitting at her usual table facing the window, probably to keep an eye on Pebbles. There was someone else in that corner. A man, I believe. Alas, I did not recognize him.

  Fay’s eyes flicked back to Luigi. It was like watching a tennis match to see them reconstructing the scene from Tuesday night.

  “He told me he was staying at the Royal,” said Luigi. “He wanted me to put the bill on his room tab. I had to explain that we don’t have an arrangement like that with them. He paid by credit card. He was quite a pleasant gentleman.”

  Luigi went to the computer and called up the receipts from Tuesday night.

  “That was a Mr. Olesk,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t an English name.”

  “I’ll google it later to confirm, but I think it might be Estonian,” said Fay.

  Vito pressed a finger to his temple. “Another woman. I seem to see another woman in the restaurant.”

  Luigi gave him a prod. “Oh, stop. You’re not a psychic. Although, I do think you are right. There was another woman here – a difficult customer. I’m not sure if I have the right night, but I think it was that elegant lady who is visiting Dr. Dyer. She is staying at the Cozy Nook Inn.”

  “Yes, yes!” Vito was excited. “A very smart, very beautiful lady. I had not seen her before, but this morning I saw her in the high street. She was coming out of that new boutique next to the surf shop.”

  “Did you get her name?” asked Fay.

  “I’m afraid not. She paid cash.”

  Fay winced. She wasn’t looking forward to visiting Dr. Dyer and demanding to know the name of his female companion. He would not be pleased. And he would be even less pleased when he discovered that Fay had been questioning the lady.

  Fay reminded herself that she could stop at any time. This wasn’t her case. It wasn’t even any of her business. But it felt as though it were. The murder had happened at Penrose House, and she was its current custodian. That made it her business.

  “Who else?” she asked Vito and Luigi. “Who else was there that night? We need one more person.”

  “It was a regular,” said Vito. “I remember doing a scan of the room and seeing two strangers and a couple of regulars. The one was Lady Chadwick and the other was a man.”

  “I’ve got it!” Luigi nearly dropped the cheese grater in his enthusiasm. “It was Pol Peters.”

  “Bene!” Vito beamed at him. “You are correct. It was Pol.”

  “That’s great. Thank you. You guys have been amazing. Most people can’t remember what they had for dinner last night, never mind who was in a restaurant two nights ago.”

  “Why do we need to know who was here anyway?” asked Vito.

  “Someone opened the box of takeaway pizza intended for Mr. Caldwell and poisoned it with cyanide. Then Joe picked it up and delivered it to the Cat’s Paw. As far as we know, no one came in or out while the pizza was standing there. That means it was someone who was already in the restaurant. Those four people are either witnesses or suspects.”

  “This is most intriguing, cara,” said Luigi. He turned to slide a pizza into the oven. “I cannot believe that Pol could do something like that. It must be one of the others.”

  “It can’t be Lady Chadwick either,” said Vito. “It must have been one of the strangers.”

  Fay shrugged. She would look at all four of the people who had been in the restaurant that night. She would avoid making snap judgments or jumping to conclusions. The only person she believed to be innocent was Luigi himself. This was somehow related to the phone call that had placed the order for the pizza in the first place. It was also connected to the attempt to run Joe over on his bike and to the significance of the shipwreck hike.

  Fay didn’t know what any of it meant, but she knew that it had nothing to do with Vito and Luigi.

  “Where are you off to now, Fay cara?” asked Luigi.

  “I’m going home. It’s getting too late to do anything else today. Tomorrow morning, I guess it will be my pleasure to pay a visit to Chadwick Manor.”

  Vito and Luigi pulled sympathetic faces.

  “Look out for Pebbles. She bites.”

  “Pebbles and I get along fine. It’s her mistress who seems to have a problem with me.”

  “Ah, now that is because of your nonna. You must understand how things were between them.”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t understand. Depending on who you talk to, my grandmother and Lady Chadwick were either the best of friends or the worst of enemies. I have no idea which it was.”

  “The truth is that they were highly civilized rivals,” said Vito. “It is a rivalry that goes back centuries. The Chadwicks had the title, but the Penroses had been here longer. Also, Penrose House is generally acknowledged to be a finer piece of architecture than Chadwick Manor. I think Lady Chadwick simply sees you as an extension of your nonna.”

  “Sounds like I’m in for a fun chat tomorrow.”

  Fay said goodbye to the husband
s and set off up the hill towards Penrose House.

  She was almost on the outskirts of the village when she saw something that made her pause. Doc Dyer was taking the air outside his surgery, puffing away on his corncob pipe.

  Fay reconsidered her strategy.

  Doc Dyer was more pleasant to deal with than his prickly son. And presumably, he knew the identity of the gorgeous lady who had been in Pappa’s Pizzeria on Tuesday night. It would be easier to wangle her name out of the father than the son.

  “Fay, love!” he hailed her as she came into earshot. “Take pity on an old man and come over for a chat.”

  “With pleasure, but what do you mean old? You’re not even sixty yet.”

  Dr. Dyer beamed at her and tapped his chest. “I turned sixty last month. But there’s some mileage left in this body yet.”

  “How was your day, Doc?”

  “Just dandy, m’dear. Although, if there’s not an epidemic of hand, foot and mouth disease running around the primary school before too long, you can call me a monkey’s uncle.”

  “Sounds medieval.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad. It clears up easily enough, but its horribly infectious while it lasts.”

  “Shouldn’t the parents keep their children at home?”

  “That’s what I always say, but will they listen to me? No, they will not. Their little darlings are ‘bored’ at home, they tell me. So, they send them to school and that’s how epidemics get started.

  Fay made a mental note to walk in the opposite direction if she saw any small children approaching. “Any unusual visitors today?”

  “Not that I can think of. It’s still a novelty to have my boy living here full time, but that’s nothing but a pleasure for me.”

  Fay tried not to look skeptical.

  “I hear you’ve been sharing his attentions with a friend lately?”

  “Oh, you’re talking about the lady from Harvard? She hasn’t been around the surgery much. He tends to meet her in town.”

  “Someone mentioned her name to me, but I’ve already forgotten it.”

  “It’s Laetitia…”

  An angry voice interrupted them.

  “Why are you speaking to my father when I specifically asked you not to?”

  Chapter 17

  Fay was annoyed with herself for jumping. It made her look guilty, which she wasn’t.

  “You ignored my express wishes,” said David Dyer. “I asked you not to involve my father in your snooping. I thought you would do me the courtesy of respecting my wishes. That must have been too much to hope for, because here you …”

  “Enough.”

  They both jumped. Fay had never heard Doc Dyer speak in that tone of voice before. It stopped his son in his tracks.

  “Dad …”

  “Don’t you ‘dad’ me. I won’t have you trying to control who I do and don’t speak to. I’m not a child. While you are living under my roof and working in my practice, you will not try to guard me, shield me, or protect me in any way from anyone.”

  “But I …”

  His father held up a finger. “Not finished. Fay did not come here to speak to me. I accosted her as she walked past and called her over for a chat. I can’t think what possible objection you could have to that.”

  “She’s a civilian, Dad. She is snooping around in police business and trying to draw you into it too.”

  Doc Dyer puffed on his pipe. “You don’t know anything about her, do you?”

  “About who? Miss Penrose? I know enough.”

  “You don’t know that she was a police officer with the NYPD for twelve years, and a homicide detective for eight of those years. She was injured in the line of duty and decorated twice for bravery. Fay knows more about investigating a murder than the rest of us put together.”

  There was a fairly long silence.

  “I didn’t know that,” said Dr. Dyer. “And I apologize to Miss Penrose if I misjudged her. But the truth is that she’s a civilian now and should leave these matters to our police force.”

  Fay’s eyes flicked from one man to the other. How did Doc Dyer know about her injury or her medals? She had never breathed a word to anybody on Bluebell Island about either. She probably had her grandmother to thank for spreading the news.

  “Look, David,” said Doc Dyer. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I’m a proud Bluebell Islander. I believe we can do anything just as well as the mainland and sometimes better. Sergeant Jones and Constable Chegwin are lovely men. There’s no one I’d rather play poker with. But you can’t deny that they are a precious pair of bunglers. Remember that time you lost your wallet and tried to report it at the police station? You came home fuming about their incompetence.”

  Dr. Dyer inclined his head. “You have a point.”

  “Of course I do. Now, where is Dr. Poynter staying?”

  “Laetitia? At the Cozy Nook Inn, why?”

  “I think Fay here wants a word with her.”

  Judging by the storm clouds gathering on Dr. Dyer’s face, it was time for Fay to take her leave.

  “Thanks, Doc. I’ll see you around.” She waved a hand at the two medical men and set off up the road.

  “Don’t go annoying Dr. Poynter with your questions,” David called after her.

  Fay laughed and kept walking.

  The evening passed in a blur of kitten feeding and research.

  All four of the kittens had almost doubled their weight now. Their eyes were still tightly shut, and their ears folded closely against the sides of their heads.

  Their paws kneaded reflexively as they sucked, and they were all sucking strongly. The surrogate moms, Olive and Smudge, were doing an excellent job of keeping them warm, groomed, and stimulated between feeds.

  Fay estimated that they were about five days old now. Dr. Trenowyth could confirm that when he made his house-call the next day. The main thing was that the kittens were thriving.

  Fay put the nesting box in her bedroom near the gas fire while she lay in bed and used her iPad to research the history of shipwreck treasure along the Cornish coast. Smudge and Olive were in the box with the kittens, but Ivan, Whisky and Sprite had arranged themselves on the king-size mattress Fay had bought to replace her grandmother’s sagging double bed.

  It turned out that treasure hunters were just like everyone else. You had your crackpots who believed every conspiracy theory going, and then you had your scientists and historians who went about the business logically and methodically. It was hard to know which category Martin Caldwell had fallen into, if that was what had brought him to Bluebell Island in the first place.

  The fact that he worked in finance made Fay think that he was methodical in his approach. He might advertise himself as a risk-taker, but he would probably do some research, especially if he was looking at investing other people’s money.

  As Fay kept googling, she fell deeper down the rabbit hole of modern-day treasure hunters. It turned out that they took themselves very seriously indeed and devoted an astonishing amount of time and money to their quests.

  They pored over historical records like old diaries, handwritten letters, ships’ manifests, nautical charts, and maps of the stars. Wherever there was a rumor of a ship that had gone down with valuable cargo on board, they researched it in the minutest detail looking for a kernel of truth inside the legend.

  The Cornish coast was unusually fertile ground for treasure hunters. Ships had been running aground in these waters for centuries. The coastline was jagged and rocky, with several invisible outcrops, and unpredictable currents.

  The sea hid its secrets well, but the treasure hunters were determined to uncover them. The wreck of the HMS Coronation had long caused feverish speculation in the treasure hunting community. It was an appealingly romantic tale. There were pirates who had been bested at sea by the crew of a Spanish galleon. There was a battle between Her Majesty’s naval forces and the Spaniards, with whom they had been at war. There was the love affair between Captain C
aulder and his Isabella, and the tragic wreck of the Coronation against a sand bar when it was within sight of its destination.

  Letters from the Bluebell Village public library spoke of the ship having been picked clean by locals as it lay teetering on the sand bar. Villagers risked their lives by rowing out to the unstable ship in search of treasure. Many found trinkets and porcelain and food supplies and hardware, but the fabled treasure was never found. After just a few weeks of balancing on the sand bar, the two halves of the ship toppled over and were swept out to sea. At least three villagers who were clambering over the ship at that moment lost their lives as it was carried out to sea.

  The Royal Navy launched an expedition in the early eighteen-hundreds to look for the wreck of the Coronation. It was a frustrating endeavor. The ship had gone down within sight of the shore. How could it have disappeared completely in the intervening century? In the early nineteen-hundreds, naval divers scoured the area looking for traces of the wreck.

  Modern treasure hunters considered this to be highly significant. His Majesty’s navy would not have bothered with an expedition of that nature just to ascertain the exact location of a wreck. Britain’s coast was littered with wrecks. None of them had attracted the attention of the navy. It seemed to suggest that His Majesty’s officials knew about the possibility of treasure on board and were trying to recover it in the name of the king. This encouraged them to hope that the rumors of treasure might have some basis in fact.

  The years passed, and little occurred to confirm this hope.

  Every time shipwreck fever died down and seemed to be on the verge of disappearing, another gold coin would be found. This would whip the locals into a frenzy again. In the nineteen-thirties, a band of dedicated treasure hunters dug up half the beach on the west side of the island. Eventually, the authorities were called to put a stop to this act of vandalism. The diggers reportedly found nothing.

  In the nineteen-sixties, an eccentric millionaire from Cyprus anchored his sailing yacht off the coast of Bluebell Island and sat on board sipping retsina all day while scuba divers in his employ searched the surrounding waters. Unlike the Royal Navy’s divers of the early nineteen-hundreds, these men were equipped with modern scuba diving equipment. After three weeks of monotonous nothingness, there was great excitement as one of the divers brought up a centuries-old bottle of rum of the sort that visitors to the Caribbean might have brought back. Since it was believed that the Spanish galleon had recently passed through the Caribbean on its way to the West Indies, this find was considered significant.