A Scandal in Scarlet

by Vicki Delany

  Ryan was in the office. I could hear the buzz of conversation in the background and the chug-chug of a cheap desktop printer struggling to spit something out. A man shouted, “Hey, watch out.”

  “I have, and I can tell you pretty much everything I know, which isn’t a whole lot. The case is still open, but not being actively investigated. Edward Dumont was a good sailor. An excellent sailor by all accounts. He was in his seventies, but healthy and in good physical shape. As his body had been in the water for some weeks, the autopsy was inconclusive, but it did rule out a heart attack or aneurism.”

  “Neither of which would have explained why he’d fallen off his boat in any event.”

  “Exactly. The police were interested in Elizabeth Dumont’s activities that day, but she’d been seen around town. Shopping, at the hair dresser, having lunch with friends, and then meeting other friends for drinks in the late afternoon.”

  “Could have been setting up an alibi.”

  “Or having a pleasant day while her husband was enjoying his hobby. Yes, she was in the frame for a while, but nothing came of it. Friends reported that the marriage was going through a difficult patch, and some people at the yacht club told the investigating detective that Edward had been heard to threaten to divorce her.”

  “Difficult in what way?”

  “Elizabeth told her friends Edward accused her of having an affair. She denied it. She claimed he had a jealous streak and was always suspecting her of being up to something. It was of interest to us that Mr. Dumont had taken out a pretty strong prenup, meaning she got almost nothing if they divorced, but his will left everything to her. They had no children.”

  “The police had no case against her?”

  “Nothing but yacht club gossip. He was a wealthy man, and wealthy men often have enemies. Some shady real estate deals, some business acquaintances suspected of having ties to organized crime. Suspicion soon turned from Elizabeth Dumont and a hired killer to the mob. But nothing came up there either. The original detective has since retired and moved to Florida, but the case remains open.”

  “Thanks, Ryan.”

  “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” he asked.

  “I’m going to try and get some of my sorely neglected business accounts done. I might pop into the visitation for Kathy Lamb later and express my condolences.”

  “I’ve got the warrant,” Louise Estrada called.

  “Be right with you,” Ryan said to her.

  “Warrant for what?” I said.

  “Gotta run,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  At twenty-two minutes to four, I opened my mouth.

  “Partners’ meeting. Back in twenty minutes. Got it,” Ashleigh said.

  I closed my mouth. Then I opened it again. “Am I that predictable?”

  “Gemma, I could set my watch by you.”

  “Not today. I’m going out. I might be quite awhile. I’ll call if I don’t plan to be back before your dinner break.”

  “Guess I’d better find another way to set my watch.”

  I went into the tearoom and then into the kitchen. Jocelyn was taking dishes out of the dishwater, and Jayne was taking off her apron. “Be with you in a minute, Gemma,” she said.

  “I can’t make the partners’ meeting,” I said. “I have to go out. Want to come?”

  “Come where?”

  “The visitation for Kathy Lamb.”

  “Is that today?” Jocelyn said. “I thought I might go. Pay my respects. I might have been the last person who saw her alive. Other than her killer,” she added quickly.

  This was news to me. “What do you mean?”

  “I was coming out of the kitchen, ready to start serving, and almost bumped into her. She was carrying that awful painting by Maureen.”

  “Did you see anyone with her?”

  “Nope.”

  “Anyone go down the corridor after her?”

  “Nope. Not when I was there, anyway. The police sent someone around to my house to interview me. I told them that.”

  “If you want to go to the visitation, it’s today from four to six and tomorrow from five to seven thirty at Glenbow Funeral Home.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow after work,” Jocelyn said. “I can get Mom to pick the kids up from summer camp.” She began putting the dishes away.

  “I’ll come with you now, Gemma,” Jayne said. “Jocelyn, can you and Fiona lock up?”

  “Sure.”

  I didn’t usually bring my car to work, but hoping to get to the visitation, I had today. I’d never been inside Glenbow Funeral Home, but every time I drove past, I thought it an unsuitable location unless the owners were heavily into nineteenth-century gothic. The building had begun life in the mid-1800s as an orphanage, and in my rare fanciful moments, I imagined that an aura of despair still hung over the place. It was all sharp angles, rough stonework, narrow-windowed turrets, and cracking gingerbread trim. They could have filmed a Dracula movie in there. All that would be needed was cracks of lightning above and villagers with torches and pitchforks below.

  “I love this old building,” Jayne said as I parked the car.

  “Really?”

  “Look at the detail in the gingerbread trim and the way the sun turns the stone gold.”

  I looked. All I saw was the Bride of Dracula peering out a downstairs window.

  We climbed the wide stone steps. The door opened noiselessly, and the Bride of Dracula stepped back to admit us. On second glance, she wasn’t a vampire bride, just an attractive young woman with long, straight black hair and too much red lipstick, dressed in the severe black suit of her profession. “Good evening,” she said in deep, serious tones.

  “Mrs. Lamb?” I asked.

  She gestured toward the hallway. “Second door on the right.”

  The room was well appointed with solid wooden furniture, a thick red carpet, comfortable sofas and armchairs, dark wallpaper, and paintings of pastoral rural life in previous centuries. Heavy red drapes were pulled back to let the slanting afternoon sun stream in. People milled about, some laughing and chatting as though they were at a cocktail party, others shifting awkwardly from one foot to another. The casket was against a far wall, almost buried under mounds of flowers, whose too-sweet scent overpowered the room. An enlarged head-and-shoulders photo of Kathy Lamb, stern and unsmiling, was propped onto a stand next to the visitors’ book.

  “We should have gone home to change,” Jayne whispered to me. Most of the mourners had come in suit and tie or dresses with stockings and pumps. Jayne was in jeans and a T-shirt, and I wore a cheerful sleeveless dress patterned with giant yellow sunflowers.

  “Can’t be helped now,” I whispered back.

  A young woman broke away from the crowd and approached us. She might have stepped out of the boardroom at a bank, dressed in a well-tailored dark gray skirt-suit, white shirt, pearl necklace and matching earrings, and black shoes with one-inch heels. The pearls appeared to be genuine; the shoes were Ferragamo; and the suit, I estimated, cost about two thousand bucks. Her brown hair with golden highlights fell in a perfect shiny bob to her chin, and her makeup was subdued and tasteful.

  I held out my hand, and she took it in hers. Her grip was light and her palm cool. Her eyes were red, but her makeup showed no sign of tears streaking through it. “I’m sorry for your loss, Crystal,” I said.

  Her smile wavered, and she sorted through her memory banks, searching for my name. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember where we’ve met.”

  We hadn’t. I hadn’t seen a picture of Crystal Lamb in my internet searches, but I recognized the thin line of her mouth and the slight tilt to her eyes as those of her mother, Kathy. “Gemma Doyle,” I said. “This is Jayne Wilson. We knew your mother.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Crystal said. She looked past us, and a genuine smile crossed her face. “Gerald, how lovely of you to come.” She almost pushed me aside in a rush to greet the newcomer.

  Jayne and I wander
ed into the room. I recognized quite a few people I’d last seen at the auction on Saturday, both museum volunteers and guests.

  “Hi,” Sharon Musgrave said. She was suitably dressed for the occasion in a black dress with black buttons down the front and starched white collar and cuffs. “Isn’t this a nice turnout? Kathy would be pleased. She always loved being the center of attention.”

  I thought that a rather unseemly dig to make at the woman’s funeral, but I took the opportunity to dive straight into the subject I was interested in. “It looks like a good number of people from the museum came.”

  “Oh yes. Her death came as such a shock to us all. I hope Robyn will put in an appearance.” Sharon lowered her voice. “If she wants back onto the board, she should. She needs to show that she’s put her differences with Kathy behind her, don’t you agree?”

  “Totally,” I said. “Who will be in charge of the board in the meantime?”

  “Ben Alderson’s the vice chair. He’s over there. Tall guy with gray hair.”

  I recognized him from the tea. He was a good-looking man in his seventies, with excellent bone structure; a tall, lean build; and a still-thick mop of curly gray hair. I headed toward him. Behind me, Jayne said, “Nice talking to you, Sharon.”

  I broke into the circle around Ben. “Good afternoon. Nice to see you again, Mr. Alderson.”

  “Although the circumstances aren’t nice,” Jayne added quickly.

  “Ms. Wilson,” Ben said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to thank you and Ms. Doyle for the tea on behalf of the museum.”

  “Yes, well …” Jayne said.

  “With the auction cancelled, the museum must be scrambling to find the funds to pay for repairs that have already begun,” I said.

  Ben turned to me. His smile was forced. “I don’t think this is the right time.”

  “I’m thinking of helping out,” I said. “Making a donation, I mean. The museum’s important to the town.”

  “In that case, why don’t we set up a lunch meeting?” He pulled his phone out. “I’m free next—”

  “What about overhead? Do you have many paid employees?”

  “We pay a bookkeeper,” the woman next to Ben said. “We’re lucky to get her at an excellent rate because she’s one of our dedicated volunteers. You were talking to her just now. Sharon Musgrave.”

  “So I was,” I said. “Didn’t realize. Nice meeting you all.”

  I walked away. Jayne ran after me. “Geez, Gemma, you could try to be subtle. This is a visitation.”

  “I thought I was being subtle,” I said. “I pretended to be interested in donating to their museum. Although that might have been a mistake. Ben seems nice enough, but I don’t want to get roped into having lunch with him.”

  Jayne shook her head.

  “If I’d been subtle, as you call it, I might not have learned that important piece of information.”

  Jayne let out a long sigh. “Okay, I’ll bite. What important piece of information did you learn?”

  “That Sharon is paid to be their bookkeeper.”

  “We knew that already.”

  “We knew she kept the books—your mother told us that—but she didn’t mention that Sharon’s paid to do so. I assumed it was another part of her volunteer role.” Mentally, I kicked myself. “Never assume. In the words of the Great Detective, ‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’ ”

  “What’s that from?”

  “The Boscombe Valley Mystery. That makes Sharon’s role at the museum even more important to her than just a chance to play dress-up. Her financial situation is uncomfortable, if not desperate, so …”

  “How do you know that? I thought you’d never met her before Saturday.” Jayne glanced over at the woman in question. “That dress she’s wearing looks expensive.”

  “And it was. Many years ago. That she can’t afford to buy anything new for something as important as a visitation for someone significant in her life indicates she’s short of funds but trying to keep up appearances.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have time to go shopping.”

  “Maybe,” I admitted. But it was more than that. Sharon hadn’t put on weight since the outfit was new but what weight she carried had shifted over the years, so the dress hung badly on her frame, clinging in some places and baggy in others. The rim of the collar showed the remains of stains that no longer came out in the wash. A button had been lost and replaced with one that didn’t quite match the others, and a half-inch dip in the hem behind her right knee indicated that she’d sewn it up herself.

  “Don’t gape, Jayne,” I said.

  “I’m trying to see what you see,” she said.

  “What I see at the moment is Dan Lamb sitting alone. Let’s have a word.” I plunged through the crowd. Since we’d entered, more people had been arriving, and the room was rapidly filling up. Coffee, tea, water, and a platter of cheese and crackers had been laid out on the long table.

  Dan Lamb sat in a comfortable armchair under a window overlooking a well-maintained, orderly garden.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Mr. Lamb,” I said.

  He blinked up at me. “Gemma from the bookshop, right?”

  “The very one.”

  He smiled at Jayne. “And Mrs. Hudson herself.”

  My friend smiled in return.

  He glanced around the room. “You know, I think you’re the first one today to call it my loss. It’s a difficult situation I find myself in, ex-husband of the deceased.”

  Notably, Elizabeth Dumont was not present. I decided to take Jayne’s advice and be subtle, and not ask him outright why his wife hadn’t come. Elizabeth might not have liked Kathy, and no doubt the feeling was mutual, but you’d expect Elizabeth to be with Dan to provide a show of support, if not support itself.

  “You were married for a long time,” Jayne said. “Naturally you’re mourning.”

  Another smile. “Thank you for saying that. Some might disagree.”

  What do you know? Subtlety sometimes works. When he’d said “some,” Dan’s smile faded, and he twisted his wedding ring. A clear tell that he was thinking about his second wife, Elizabeth.

  Was Elizabeth jealous of Kathy? Even after death?

  Although Elizabeth was technically his third wife. His first, according to what I’d learned, had died a long time ago, leaving him with a small child.

  “You doing okay here, Dad?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. Ladies, this is my son, Bradley. Brad, Gemma and Jayne own the tearoom in West London.”

  “The infamous tearoom,” Brad Lamb said.

  “I wouldn’t put it like that,” I said.

  “I would,” he replied. “My stepmother died there, didn’t she?” He stared into my face, almost begging me to rise to the bait. I didn’t. Jayne said nothing.

  “Do you still live in West London?” I asked him.

  Brad shrugged. “I don’t live anywhere these days. Nowhere and everywhere.”

  An artist of some sort. Musician, most likely. Guitar player, probably, judging by the calluses on the tips of his fingers. Long past his glory days, if ever he’d had any. Brad wore a well-worn gray T-shirt featuring AC/DC, an Australian hard-rock band. His brown hair was heavily streaked with premature gray and badly needed a wash. It was pulled back from his face in a straggly ponytail with a rubber band. The tips of his fingers were yellow from nicotine, and his teeth were stained. He smelled strongly of tobacco, both stale and fresh, but I didn’t detect traces of anything illegal. He didn’t look much like either his father or his sister, who, I remembered, was his half-sister. Except for the eyes, he must take after his biological mother.

  “Do you sail, Gemma?” Dan asked me, obviously trying to change the subject from his son’s living arrangements and employment opportunities.

  “I’ve done some over the years. My uncle Arthur has taken me out a few times.”

  “Good man, Arthur. How’s he doing?”

  “Well, th
ank you. He’s in the Mediterranean now.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Dan knew my uncle. Arthur Doyle was well known in the Cape Cod boating community.

  “I haven’t been into the store for a while,” Dan said. “Life seems to have gotten busy since I … lately that is.”

  “She keeps you running to her beck and call, you mean,” Brad said.

  Dan gave his son a glare.

  “Kathy had many friends,” Jayne said, trying to cover up the awkward silence. “Lots of people have come today.”

  “If you look around this room,” Dan said, “you’ll see two totally separate groups. Over to our right, sticking close to the refreshments table, is the commodore of the Cape Cod Yacht Club and some of the members. They’re pretending not to notice the group pretending not to notice them. Those are the representatives of the West London Yacht Club. The Cape Cod group has come supposedly to support me, as Elizabeth and I are not only members there, but Elizabeth is heavily involved in just about every special event they put on. Mainly they’re here for the gossip and in the hope of free food. The richer people are, the more they want something for free, I’ve learned. Today, I fear they’re to be sadly disappointed. In the food, if not the gossip. Kathy belonged to the West London Yacht Club for many years, and that group is here to pay their respects to her. They’ll have nothing to do with me.”

  “I met Jock O’Callaghan at the tea,” I said.

  “He was friends with Kathy. Despite the fact that my father was a member of the club before Jock so much as plopped his diaper-clad bottom into a boat, after our divorce and my engagement to Elizabeth, I was informed I was no longer welcome in those august halls.” He shrugged, pretending the eviction hadn’t stung him to the core. “I joined the Cape Cod club, where Elizabeth was already a member.”

  “That’s right,” Brad said. “Elizabeth was thrown out of the WLYC after she murdered her first husband.”

  Jayne sucked in a breath.

  “Brad.” Dan’s voice was low.

  “Or so people said.” Brad looked at me. “If you want to know what I think, I wouldn’t put it past her.” He made a show of searching the crowded room. “Where is my dear second stepmother anyway? Too busy at home counting her money to come?”