The Complete Death Du Jour Mystery Collection

by Hillary Avis

  Bethany gasped and backed up a few feet. “I hope that’s not what I think it is?!”

  Ryan grimaced, as though he’d hoped she wouldn’t ask that question. “Well...it’s a tomb, if that’s what you think it is. But I’m sure it could be decorated for the wedding! Flowers or something?”

  No way. Then it’d look like a funeral, not a wedding! She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t think Kimmy wants to get married in front of some old bones. Especially when she doesn’t even know the guy.”

  Ryan’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Let me introduce you. Bethany, this is Bernard LaFontaine. Bernard, Bethany.”

  “Isn’t that the guy you bought the estate from just a few months ago?” Bethany made a face and took another step backward. “That means he must have died recently.”

  He nodded. “The guy my father bought it from. Actually, it was from his son, Simon. Bernard died almost exactly a year ago, so he came with the place.”

  Bethany shuddered, thinking of the body inside the box. “Way too fresh. Plus, I think the building is too small to hold all the wedding guests. It’s only about the size of the Railway Café, and that’s definitely not enough space! Trust me, we measured. This chapel is lovely, but it’s not going to work. Got anywhere else that’ll fit three hundred people, give or take?”

  “The stables?” Ryan asked, grinning when he saw the skeptical look on her face. “Just kidding—we’re using them as a warehouse for all the construction materials, anyway.”

  Her shoulders slumped. Looks like the idea of a grand estate wedding is a bust. Kimmy might be right—the wedding will have to be postponed.

  Ryan nodded, drumming his fingers on the top of the tomb. “It might be crazy, but there is one more place that might work. I don’t want to get your hopes up—”

  Bethany bounced on her toes, eager to hear another option. “Too late! They’re up. Where is it?”

  “Come on, it’s around the side.”

  They headed back the way they came, taking the cobbled walkway from the chapel to the driveway and then the driveway to the graveled paths of the formal gardens. As they walked, the dark clouds above opened up, first in fat, sporadic drops, and then a torrent of chilly, driving rain, made worse by the winds that drove it into their faces as they rounded the south end of the estate. Bethany grabbed Ryan’s arm as they sprinted the last dozen yards to a glass door. Ryan yanked it open and they stumbled inside, panting.

  “A greenhouse?” Bethany shouted above the sound of the pounding rain, wiping the water out of her eyes and wringing out her hair.

  He shook his head, sending drops flying from the ends of his twists. “It’s a conservatory. You know, one of those things crazy Victorians built to show off their plant collections. It’s hard to tell right now with the storm, but the light in here is incredible.”

  Bethany looked up. An enormous glass dome rose above them—actually, three connected domes that were held up by intricate ironwork and elegant columns. One end of the conservatory was connected to the main house with a set of glass doors, and the other end stretched out into the gardens, providing a spectacular 270-degree view of the grounds. Of course, right now the view was of an epic rainstorm, with sheets of water coursing down the glass, but she could tell that when the weather let up she’d be treated to a colorful autumn scene. The perfect backdrop for a perfect wedding.

  That is, if she looked outside. Inside, dusty canvas tarps covered six-foot piles of junk that crowded the space. Only a small path was clear around the edges of the conservatory. She lifted the corner of one tarp and saw it was a stack of bags of road salt.

  “We’ve had to store some things from the basement in here,” Ryan explained. “But I can get the team to move it somewhere else. Maybe we can squeeze it all into the stables now that a lot of the construction materials have been used. I’ll pull them off the work inside to get this moved out right away. And then they can wash all the windows.”

  Bethany reached out a finger and rubbed it on the pane nearest her. It came away gray and gritty, like the conservatory hadn’t been cleaned in a generation. She guessed it would take more than a few hours to get this place sparkling, given the acres of glass. “Won’t that put the museum even more behind schedule, though? Your dad won’t be happy about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ryan said with a little too much bravado. “Six weeks behind schedule or seven weeks...he’ll be angry either way. Might as well get a wedding out of the deal, right?”

  “If you’re offering, I’m not going to argue. I think a wedding here would be spectacular.” Bethany smiled, barely able to contain her excitement. Kimmy would never dream of a venue this amazing! She was going to be so happy...at least, when it was all cleaned up. “Plus it’s criminal to use this beautiful space as a storage unit! What’s the plan for it in the future? Surely you can’t display paintings out here.”

  Ryan returned the grin. “Well, I had another kind of art in mind for it, actually. The kind you make.”

  She blushed and stifled her instinct to protest that she was just a cook, not an artist. Ryan didn’t believe that, and neither should she if she was going to make a career in food. “Oh, a museum café?”

  “Yeah, I’d like to put the tables out here.” He nodded to the entrance to the main house. “The kitchen is just inside the doors. The LaFontaines had it set up as a catering kitchen, so it’s pretty much ready to go. I’m thinking the café will open in six or eight months.”

  “If it’s ready to go, why wait?”

  He gave her a sly smile. “You have enough on your plate getting the Railway Café up and running. Two restaurants at once seemed a bit much.”

  Bethany’s heart squeezed. As a Lazam, he could recruit any chef in town—or in the state for that matter—to open his museum café, and he wanted her. Was he just being nice, because he was kinda sorta her part-time boyfriend? She shook her head. “You don’t have to wait for me. You should do what’s best for the museum.”

  “You’re the best for the museum,” he said firmly. “Your food is exactly right. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” He held her gaze until she blushed and looked away.

  To defuse the tension and hide her embarrassment, she walked a little way around the piles of junk, peeking under more of the tarps to see what else was being stored in the conservatory, as though he hadn’t just poured a little of his heart out.

  Chairs, tables, cardboard boxes full of who-knows-what, old Halloween decorations.

  She giggled. “Hey, it’s a mummy! Too bad this isn’t going to be a theme wedding. This guy looks pretty authentic.”

  Leave it to the LaFontaines to have life-size mummies as holiday décor. The mummy was quite believable, the fabric strips browned with age and wrapped in a careful pattern. It could have passed as real in any Egyptian museum collection Bethany had seen.

  “I didn’t know we stashed anything like that out here.” Ryan frowned and looked over her shoulder at the linen-wrapped figure. “Poor guy is missing a foot, though. Otherwise he’d look great in front of your café!”

  “We can prop him up with a pumpkin. Or maybe I can fix him. Can you scoot him out so I can see the damage better?”

  Ryan nodded and muscled the mummy out from under the tarp. She kneeled and took a closer look at the missing foot. The linen strips looked as though they’d been cut, not torn. The damage wasn’t accidental—someone had chopped the thing off on purpose. And was that...a bone sticking out?

  She gasped. “Ryan!”

  He kneeled down beside her. “What is it?”

  “This mummy—I think it’s real!”

  Chapter 3

  “WHOA—YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT!” Ryan stood and brushed the dust off the knees of his wool trousers, then held a hand out to her to help her up. “It must be some artifact the LaFontaines collected. It probably was left behind in storage accidentally. Let me give the family a call and see what they want us to do with it.”

  He flicked thr
ough the contacts on his phone and selected one. “Hello, Simon? I think I have something of yours...”

  While he explained what they’d found, Bethany found herself staring at the mummy. She shivered. Maybe it was the time of year, or maybe it was the spooky ambiance in the neglected conservatory, but she felt like the mummy could spring to life at any moment. Even though she knew the person inside the wrappings had probably died thousands of years ago, it just felt a little too real. She nervously scanned the rest of the shapeless masses that crowded the room.

  Just how many dead people are hiding in here, anyway?!

  Ryan ended the call and shrugged. “He says it’s not his. His father didn’t collect Egyptian art or artifacts.”

  Bethany furrowed her brow. “How did it get here, then?

  “Probably a previous generation. You know how those Victorians were...they wanted to own a piece of everything. It was probably hidden in some corner of the basement and my guys brought it out here with everything else. What the heck am I going to do with this thing?” He rubbed his forehead as he stared dubiously at the damaged mummy, leaving a smudge of dust across his face. Bethany resisted the urge to wipe it away.

  Who would want a mummy? Nobody Bethany could think of, except maybe...

  “There’s an Egyptian museum in New Haven. Maybe they’d want it?” she asked hopefully.

  Ryan’s face brightened. “Great idea!” He quickly looked up the number on his phone and placed the call. When someone on the other end answered, he launched into an explanation. A few short minutes later, he hung up, smiling broadly. “They’re coming to pick it up right away. I guess they don’t trust us with it for one minute longer.”

  “Excellent. Now I don’t have to break the news to Kimmy that there’s a dead guy hanging out at her new wedding venue.”

  “Or a dead gal. Let’s not make any assumptions.” He grinned.

  “Fair enough. I guess we’ll stick around until they show up? Keep this dude—or dudette—company?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No way. If I have time with you, I’m not spending it here. I’ll let Ernesto know that the museum folks are coming, and then he can pull his guys off the interior and set them to moving all this junk to the stables. I’m taking you to lunch!”

  “I should really get back to the Railway...”

  “Viv has it under control, right? If it makes you feel better, we can talk business and brainstorm ideas for the museum café. But I’m tired of putting off our time together. We’ve both been way too busy!”

  She nodded in agreement, although couldn’t help feeling guilty that she wasn’t ladling soup at Kimmy’s side during the lunch rush. Viv was a trooper about filling in the gaps, though, and once the wedding was over, they’d all settle into a routine at the café.

  He held the door open to the main house and Bethany followed him through a short labyrinth of halls until they ended up back in the ballroom. The electricians and painters were still hard at work, but the estate manager was nowhere to be seen.

  “Anybody know where Ernesto is?” Ryan said.

  “Coffee break,” a portly painter grunted from the top of a ladder. “Must be nice.”

  “Thanks, man. Take a breather if you need one, OK?” Ryan turned to Bethany. “He probably went home. Do you mind swinging by there on our way to lunch? He lives in a cottage here on the grounds.”

  “Sure, fine,” she said absentmindedly, as she pondered just how many buildings and outbuildings made up this property.

  No wonder there are random dead guys in the dark corners of the estate that nobody noticed for a hundred years. The place is practically a whole town.

  She watched Ryan’s retreating back and hurried to catch up. They got into his car and he drove slowly around to the other side of the main house. He motioned to a long, low building on the right as they passed. “The stables. The cottage is just beyond them.”

  He pulled the car up in front of a quaint cottage with a stacked-stone wall surrounding a small front garden. The walk to the front door was lined with cheerful chrysanthemums, and brilliant yellow leaves fluttered on a birch tree’s pale branches. Smoke wound gently from the chimney into the chill autumn air. The cottage just felt warm, like a refuge.

  “Now this is a home,” Bethany blurted out without thinking. Ryan looked at her quizzically. “I mean, I could imagine living here. It’s not like—” she stopped before she finished the sentence, realizing how unkind it might sound. Not like somewhere you would live.

  “Not like a yacht or a grand estate, you mean?”

  She worried for a moment she had offended him, but his expression was sympathetic. Thankfully, he didn’t seem hurt by what she’d said—or what she’d meant. She nodded slowly.

  “I could live here, too, you know. Just because I haven’t lived somewhere like this doesn’t mean I couldn’t.” He put a hand on hers, and she felt a tingle rush straight from her hand to her heart. “I really wish you’d stop coming up with reasons we’re different and start looking for what we have in common, because I swear, Bethany, I see—” He broke off as the door to the cottage opened and Ernesto emerged.

  See what? See what?! But he didn’t finish the thought, instead jumping out of the car and jogging toward Ernesto, who looked surprised to see them, as though they’d interrupted something. She pushed open her door, too, and hurried through the light drizzle after him. When she caught up on the porch, Ryan was already in the middle of telling the story about finding the mummy, and Ernesto’s face was a mixture of annoyance and confusion.

  “So it’s a corpse?” Ernesto frowned. “I don’t want my guys touching it, then. We can’t afford someone getting sick or whatever, not on the timeline we’re on.”

  “They don’t need to touch it,” Ryan explained patiently. “The Egyptian museum is picking it up in about an hour. I just need you to let them into the conservatory when they arrive.”

  “Fine.”

  “And then”—Ryan winced—“I’ll need you to pull everyone off the ballroom and have them move all the stuff out of the conservatory and into the stables.”

  Ernesto’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding. We’re a month behind schedule and you want union trades to shuffle storage? Do you know how expensive that’s going to be?”

  Ryan sighed. “I know, I know. Just get it done, OK? Whatever means necessary. I’ll take the blame when the bill comes in.”

  Bethany’s heart sank. Why was Ryan sacrificing so much for this? It’d be hard to find another wedding venue, but not impossible. “Are you sure about this?” she asked, chewing her lip. “Maybe it’s better to just have the wedding somewhere else.”

  Ernesto looked at her, surprised, as though he’d just noticed she was standing there. “Hmph. First good idea I’ve heard today.”

  Ryan shook his head like he was disappointed in her. “No. I’m going to make this happen. You know as well as I do that Charley and Kimmy deserve it. My dad can rage at me all he wants about the delay, but the conservatory needs to be cleaned out before the grand opening, anyway. Who cares if it happens before the interior renovation is finished? If he’s putting me in charge of the Peregrine Museum, then I’m going to make the decisions about it. He can’t argue with that.” He finished his monologue, his eyes bright. Bethany’s heart was thumping; she’d never seen him so impassioned except when he was working on projects for the homeless shelter.

  He really cares about this—more than he cares about what people think of him. Bethany felt like kissing him.

  Ernesto rolled his eyes. “You’re digging your own grave. And I don’t want to hear about it when it’s Thanksgiving and this place still isn’t ready to open.”

  Ryan patted him on the shoulder. “Good man. I know you’ll make up the time somehow.”

  “I won’t,” Ernesto growled. “I just said...”

  But Ryan was already bounding down the front walk back to the car, reanimated by the conversation. “This is going to be great,” he said ove
r his shoulder to Bethany, who was struggling to keep up. “I can’t wait to see Kimmy’s face when she sees the conservatory all cleaned up.”

  “I can’t wait to see her face when she hears it was once home to an Egyptian mummy!” Bethany laughed, picturing the scene. As adept as Kimmy was at dismembering a chicken or a rack of lamb in the kitchen, she was squeamish about dead bodies. It was something that came up a lot, since Charley’s line of work was investigating murders and other terrible crimes. Charley’d pretty much given up on discussing any cases with Kimmy around because it bothered her so much. “She’ll probably scream when I tell her.”

  Ryan opened the passenger door so Bethany could slide in. “Yeah...maybe don’t mention the dead guy to her until after the wedding.”

  Yeah...now that I think about it, maybe never.

  Chapter 4

  RYAN DROVE THEM NORTH to a winery along the river, and they had a long, leisurely lunch at the restaurant there, brainstorming ideas for the future museum café and enjoying the spectacular fall color of the vineyards. By the time they left, Bethany was buzzed on white wine and overflowing with creativity.

  “I love seeing you like this,” Ryan said on the drive back to town, watching her in his peripheral vision. “This is the real you—no self-doubt, no second-guessing. Taking risks. Not worrying so much.”

  A little bit of enthusiasm seeped out of her at his words. It was easy for him to take risks, but it wasn’t so easy for her. “Worrying is part of who I am, too. That’s how I make sure everything is on track. Some of us have consequences when we fail—we don’t just land on a big pile of our dad’s money.”

  She instantly regretted the words. His hands tightened on the steering wheel and his jaw tensed, and she could tell she’d hit a nerve.

  “I’m sorry—that came out ruder than I intended.” She braced herself for backlash, but when he spoke, it was quietly.