Lost and Fondue

by Avery Aames

  I felt honored that she would even consider asking me, but I couldn’t. “We’re a little short-handed this afternoon.”

  “No, you are not.” Pépère popped from the kitchen. “I am here. I could not help overhearing your dilemma.”

  I squelched a smile. He’d probably been leaning against the kitchen wall, straining to hear every word.

  “Go, Charlotte,” he said. “Rebecca and I will see to the customers. Your grandmother needs you.”

  And you need a little time away from the craziness at the theater, I thought. I kissed his cheek.

  Rebecca, who was busy preparing a lacy basket of cheeses, jams, and crackers, winked at me and gave me a signal that she had everything under control.

  I glanced at the office, eager to learn what Bozz had dredged up on Sylvie’s parents, but Grandmère tugged on my sleeve.

  “Please, mon amie, it is life or death.”

  Okay, now she was being a little overdramatic, but who was I to argue?

  When we arrived at the Providence Playhouse, the black-box theater was semi-dark. In the dim light, I made out crew people with paintbrushes and paint cans scurrying along the fringes of the stage, dabbing and fixing. The aroma of turpentine permeated the air.

  Delilah, no longer in her bunny outfit, bristled with manic energy as she and the stout stage manager with the burgundy hair roamed the stage checking light cues.

  “Cue seventy-seven,” the stage manager yelled. “Go.”

  A rose-colored light illuminated the statue of the raven.

  “Excellent,” Delilah said and headed upstage. “Moving on.”

  “Cue seventy-eight,” the stage manager shouted as she wrote a note on a pad.

  Grandmère said, “Sit with the others in the audience, chérie.”

  Five people, whom I recognized as cast members’ family, occupied the last row of the theater.

  “We will start in minutes.” Grandmère handed me a program then sashayed to the stage and clapped her hands. “Everyone, come together. Form a circle. Tout de suite! Delilah, set aside the lights for a moment. It is time for good vibes.” As crew and cast gathered around her, Grandmère grabbed hands with the people on either side of her. Each, in turn, grasped a neighbor’s hand until the circle of good vibes was complete. “Remember,” Grandmère said. “Edgar Allan Poe said, ‘Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.’ We are daydreamers. Never forget.”

  I nestled into one of the loge chairs in the front row and opened the glossy pages of the program. On the left-side page was an explanation of the settings: Massachusetts and Maryland, as well as an explanation of the play. No Exit is about the inscrutable gaze of others and how constant attention restricts one’s freedom. The characters will constantly look for mirrors in order to avoid the judgment of the other characters. Our one-act play will use this template to explore Edgar Allan Poe’s life.

  The right-side page displayed the biographies and photographs of the actors, none of whom were professionals. The piano teacher and the hair stylist had appeared in more than twenty productions between them. Barton Burrell, the local farmer who was playing Poe and was panned by the reviewer for his bucolic performance, had appeared in dozens of plays. In his bio, he thanked his wife and sons for allowing him to pursue his passion at night.

  Something about Barton’s picture struck me as odd. I stared at it for a long moment. It wasn’t the same old picture I’d seen in previous programs. In this one, he wore a baseball cap with his farm logo. I couldn’t blame him for trying to get a little free advertising out of the production. The actors received only a nominal amount of money to perform. Gas money, Grandmère called it. That was typical around the United States for any production that wasn’t run by the Actors’ Equity Association. But it wasn’t Barton’s cap that bothered me, and it wasn’t his nose, which was big and prominent. I tilted my head and realized that his teeth were different. In real life, he had a cavernous gap between the top two teeth. In the photograph, they were smooth and perfect. If he’d added a beard, I wouldn’t have recognized him at all. Vanity wins out, I thought and chuckled. I’d have to give him a little grief. Barton had never come across as narcissistic. Quite the opposite.

  “We’re starting.” Grandmère clapped her hands. “Places.”

  Lights dimmed. Three actors convened on the stage, each taking a seat on a different striped sofa. The lights came up in a gray, tepid hue, and then switched to a bright, burning orange, which I assumed was symbolic for hell.

  Barton, wearing a rumpled shirt, raggedy suit, and unpolished shoes—an outfit that, according to a footnote in the program, Poe had worn on the night of his death—sat hunched on a ruby red sofa. He rubbed his scruffy face and grunted as he rose to his feet. Somberly he approached the statue. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” he began, quoting from Poe’s “The Raven.” “I took a look inside my soul and hated what I saw,” he continued, diverging from the poem. It was the twist that my grandmother had promised. Delilah had used Sartre’s theme without using his words directly.

  Through the opening monologue, the female characters listened with rapt attention, but when Barton finished, they leapt upon him with ferocity. Verbally they tore him to pieces for making a mess of his life.

  Barton—Poe—denied that he had and draped himself on the statue of the raven. “Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, in there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.”

  The women peeled him away from the statue and assailed him with more invectives.

  I glanced at my grandmother, who stood to the right of me, leaning against a wall, her hand cradling her throat. As each character spoke, she mouthed the words. She would know every one by heart.

  As I continued to watch the performance, I pondered what the reviewer had written. Barton wasn’t moaning. He wasn’t even over-emoting. He was delivering an impassioned plea for help. Over the course of the one-act production, Delilah led the characters through conversations of suicide, betrayal, drug addiction, and lost love. No decisive commentary was made about Poe’s death. Delilah had left his mysterious demise open to speculation. But in the end, I decided that Delilah’s playwriting ability would stand the test of an audience.

  Grandmère and Delilah rushed to question me. What did I think? Did I like it? How were the actors?

  I said, “Stop worrying. The play, no matter what the reviewer says, is going to be a success. And you, Delilah, are a talent. The reviewer was mistaken.”

  Delilah blushed.

  “You will write many more plays, my friend,” I assured her.

  “Who said I wouldn’t?”

  Grandmère clucked her tongue.

  “You-u-u-u.” Delilah shook a finger at my grandmother. “You thought I’d give up because of one review? How little you know me.”

  We all laughed.

  “Got time for a soda?” Delilah pinched my elbow, a clue that she needed to talk. Privately.

  “Sure.”

  I kissed my grandmother goodbye. Over her shoulder, I saw Barton, cleaned up, his face scrubbed, his white shirt crisp beneath his overalls. He was talking to his wife, who had been in the audience. I considered razzing him about his photograph in the program but stopped short. Something still bothered me. Not about Barton. About Harker Fontanne’s murder.

  I couldn’t pinpoint the connection.

  CHAPTER 28

  Cheery rock-and-roll music blurred the chatter of tourists and locals in the Country Kitchen. The gloomy skies of earlier had vanished, and the late afternoon sun’s rays blazed through the windows. I sat in a red booth with Delilah, our purses on the banquette between us. She inserted another blue-cheese-smothered French fry into her mouth, having insisted on a snack to carry her through the grueling opening weekend of her play, and I did the same, though I tried to restrain myself. I really did.

  “About the review,” she said, as s
he licked her fingertips.

  “Hold it,” I said. “Are you really upset about it? Did you lie to me back at the theater?”

  “I’m a little upset.” She clicked her tongue. “Okay, I’m a lot upset.”

  “And I thought you wanted to talk about your love life or something. Shoot. I was ready for gossip.” I mock-frowned then leaned forward. “Listen up, all kidding aside. You can’t believe reviews. Good or bad. Remember that one Fromagerie Bessette received last year? You told me to discount it. It was only one person’s opinion. Your reassuring words pulled me out of the doldrums.”

  Delilah believed Prudence Hart had paid the woman to write the ghastly review. Honestly, I couldn’t ever remember the woman visiting The Cheese Shop, and I had a memory, not only for labels and cheeses, but for names and faces as well.

  “I guess I have first-time-playwright jitters,” Delilah said.

  “Well, get over them!”

  “Okay, okay!” She laughed.

  I sipped my cream soda, relishing the thick foamy head and natural vanilla flavor. The Bozzuto Winery, in addition to wine, made natural sodas that tasted like dessert. The Country Kitchen had been the first place to offer them in Holmes County.

  “On another note, what was up with Meredith yesterday?” Delilah asked. “Before rehearsal, I stopped in the diner and saw all of you getting your to-go dinners. Meredith’s face was splotchy. She looked a wreck. Is Sylvie causing more chaos?”

  Sylvie. A notion swirled around in my mind.

  “I never considered her,” I mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  “Could Sylvie have been the stranger on the sidewalk?”

  “What stranger? What sidewalk? When?”

  I glanced at my puzzled friend. “Outside my house.” I remembered the Internet search that was waiting for me at The Cheese Shop. What if Sylvie had lied about her parents’ financial woes? What if there was a link between Harker Fontanne and Sylvie? What if she thought I’d discovered what that link was? “I’ve got to go.” I scrambled out of the booth.

  “Wait!” Delilah caught up with me by the coat rack. “Is someone stalking you like he’s stalking Jacky?”

  “No one’s stalking Jacky.” As I shrugged into my tweed jacket, I gave Delilah a quick recap of Jordan’s explanation for the guy in the fedora.

  “Well, that makes me breathe a little easier,” she said. “Now, what about this stranger outside your window? Why would you think it was Sylvie?”

  I told her my iffy theory.

  Delilah’s head bobbed in rhythm to my words, as if I were making sense. “She knows you eat Hershey’s Kisses. The killer likes leaving little symbolic clues. If Sylvie is the killer, she could have left that wrapper as a warning.”

  Chills cascaded down my back.

  “Are you going to confront her?”

  “Not without proof.” I hugged Delilah goodbye and told her to break a leg.

  As I darted from the diner, I heard her say, “Be careful.”

  When I entered The Cheese Shop, three customers waited in line at the counter. Rebecca was offering tastings of Pace Hill Farm’s Double Cream Gouda. I skirted behind her and headed for the office but stopped when Pépère whistled from the kitchen doorway.

  “Chérie, come here.” His face was flushed with concern. “I’m afraid I have bad news. It’s about Quinn.”

  My pulse was already doing a hop-skip-jump. I skidded to a stop. “Is she hurt?”

  “She has been arrested again. Urso discovered a letter she wrote to Harker about Julianne. In it she wrote that she wished Harker would choke on his inflated ego.”

  Oh, my. How incriminating, seeing as Harker was strangled. And yet I still didn’t believe Quinn was guilty. She couldn’t be. But how could I convince Urso?

  Pépère gestured toward the annex, where Matthew cradled a crying Meredith in his arms.

  At the sight of them, my heart grew as tight as if it had been shrink-wrapped. I had to help Meredith. If I could prove that Sylvie was involved ...

  I kissed my grandfather and started again for the office. Before I’d gone three paces, the front door opened and Prudence Hart marched in.

  “Charlotte, stop this instant!”

  Why should I? I continued toward the office.

  “Charlotte, please stop.”

  The please caught me off guard. I hesitated.

  “I want a word with you.” Raising her left arm overhead, Prudence strode through the shop and behind the counter as if she owned the place. She wore a green charmeuse cocktail dress—totally inappropriate for the temperature. In her hand she clutched something that resembled a torch. The Statue of Liberty couldn’t have looked any more righteous.

  On closer inspection, I could see Prudence’s torch was a sheaf of rolled-up papers. Flyers. The ones she had been posting around town.

  “Truce,” she said.

  My mouth opened. I snapped it shut. Didn’t a truce require two sides being at war? I hadn’t done a thing to counteract her initial assault other than offer not to shop in her store if she stayed out of mine.

  “I do not need your friends saying bad things about me,” she said. “Don’t deny it. They’re insinuating that I’m crazy.”

  “Who?” I sputtered.

  “Tyanne, for one.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Prudence shouldn’t have lambasted Tyanne’s little boy. When challenged, a mother bear always defended her cub. I said, “Anyone else?”

  “That Sylvie Bessette, too.”

  Oooh, interesting. Sylvie had switched allegiances.

  “I want a truce.” Prudence thrust the flyers at me and offered a conciliatory, alligator-with-a-sour-stomach grin.

  Something about her smile made me pause. I gaped at her teeth. They were so straight and smooth. I flashed on the picture of Barton Burrell in the theater program and realized what had bothered me about it. “Prudence, you were in here the other day.”

  “I’m allowed to roam our fair city,” she hissed.

  “Time out.” I formed a T with my hands. “You mentioned how upset you were with the college people visiting the museum.”

  “Riffraff.”

  “You said they were scruffy. Did one have a beard?” I remembered thinking that I wouldn’t have recognized Barton if he’d had a beard in his photograph. Not that I believed Barton was one of the riffraff. I was focused on Sylvie.

  “If that’s what you’d call it.” Prudence instinctively stroked her chin. “It was so thin and sparse it looked fake.”

  “Could one of these so-called riffraff have been a woman?”

  “I guess so.”

  I pictured Sylvie at the black-box theater, on the night of the murder, prancing about the stage dressed as Fagin.

  “The other was shorter, sort of hunched,” Prudence added.

  “You said that they tracked in snow. We don’t have snow right now.”

  “It was during the winter. January, I believe.”

  And Prudence was still upset about it? I let that slide.

  “By the way,” she went on. “Why were they here in January?”

  Why, exactly.

  I recalled the tourist who had come into the shop in January—long hair, scruffy beard, wide nose. At the time, he’d struck me as a little odd, standing hunched over like he was tall and trying to be smaller. He’d snagged a slice of Morbier from the cheese-tasting counter, but he hadn’t purchased anything. Was it one of the riffraff Prudence had seen? Was it the same person who had stood on the sidewalk outside my house? Was it really a man? He hadn’t spoken. He’d loitered and left. Sylvie said that she’d read about Meredith’s intent to convert the winery to a college way back in December. Had she come to town in January and disguised herself as a man to—as Rebecca would say—case the joint? On the night of the winery event, had Harker stumbled upon Sylvie while she was looking for treasure? To cover her tracks, had she strangled him? I still couldn’t fathom a reason for her to buil
d a brick wall, but I pushed that detail from my mind. For all I knew, the bricks could have been filched from Meredith’s by a team of high school hellions and the wall built as a prank.

  I said, “I’ve got work to do, Prudence. Nice talking to you.”

  “What about our truce?”

  Impulsively I pecked her cheek. “Truce, yes, fine. We’ve got a truce.”

  She fanned herself with the flyers.

  Once inside the office, I nudged Rags to the back of the desk chair. He waited until I was settled, then tiptoed around me, nestled into my lap, and yowled his pet me, pet me now sound. Like a well-trained human, I obeyed.

  While stroking him, I hit the return button on the computer keyboard. The monitor came to life. At the top of a series of Internet searches was a London Evening Standard article Bozz had pulled up. Eager to see if Sylvie was in Providence in January, I read it word for word. As it turned out, not only had Sylvie not lied about her parents being broke, but during the entire month of January, she had been by their side in court. There were photographs of her and public statements outlining her deals with creditors. She wouldn’t have had a spare moment to fly across the Atlantic to visit Providence. Despite my dislike of her, I was relieved to learn that the twins’ mother was not a murderer.

  Exhausted and ready to close up shop, knowing my time would be better spent comforting Meredith, I clicked on the X at the upper-right corner of the Internet page. Beneath it were layers of other Internet search pages. I groaned. What was I going to do with Bozz? I hoped I wouldn’t stumble upon any teenage boy searches that might make me blush.

  The first was Bozz’s genealogy project that he was doing with Philby. So were the next two. The Jebbses had come from Derby, England, and the Bozzutos had come from Castelpagano in Italy. There was no possible connection between the two families. Lucky Bozz.

  A few pages later, I came upon Bozz’s discovery about Dane and Edsel’s volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. A photograph of the students involved in the project appeared in the center of the page. Dane and Edsel stood together, each carrying tools and layered with perspiration. I halted, my finger hovering over the X that would close the page as I remembered something Prudence had said. One of the scruffy riffraff who had come to town in January was hunched. Had Edsel Nash and Dane made a trek to Providence together? They were rooming together at Lavender and Lace. They did volunteer work as a team. Edsel said they had been the first two to enroll in the art class.