“Oui. He was most generous to us all. We came to your party as ze favor to heem, and now we are all stuck here!” she yelled, rising to a rigid sitting position, as though being here was a fate worse than death. “It ees reediculous!”
“Stevie. Let this go. We have other, far more important things to deal with.”
Nuh-uh. Now I had ze eye of ze tiger. “How was he generous?”
Her face softened a little as apparently a memory flooded her. “I deed not speak ze language very well when I come to zis country. He saved me from zis man with many hands when I work as ze cocktail waitress, even though I am ze trained ballerina. Zis man’s hands, zey were all over me, and Win rescued me. He found me zis job with ze troupe. I am forever in his debt.”
Aha. “That Win. Always a hero, huh?”
“Yes!” she cheered. “He ees always my hero.”
I had to wonder how Miranda felt about that. “So was he your boyfriend?”
“Stevie Cartwright, stop forcing the woman to kiss and tell and get on with it!” Win demanded.
But the woman shook her head, thrusting her shoulder forward as she smiled a secret smile. “No-no. Eet was not like that. Though, he was deelicious to my eyes and I would have liked it to be so.”
“That’s Win. Yummy-yummy,” I agreed, rubbing my stomach.
“Stop. You’re making me blush,” Win joked.
But the small woman just frowned at me, signaling I’d overstayed my welcome. I thanked her before turning back to find CC and T still behind me.
Blowing out a breath, I gave CC an earnest look. “Is there anything else you can tell me about that night? Anything unusual happen that you witnessed?”
CC shook her head, the tight bun at the back of her head unmoving. “No. I already told ze police everything I know. I told them about what zat peeg said to me, and I told zem about zee other man who argued with heem.”
“The other man? You mean Hardy? About so high.” I held up my arm to indicate Hardy’s height. “Nice head of hair, ruddy complexion? He’s our postman here in Ebenezer Falls.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. Zat was not heem. I saw zis man deliver ze mail today. Zer was someone else much shorter zan zee postman. Someone ze peeg had ze angry words weeth. I could not see zis man he was arguing weeth very well, but I remember he was very pale and short. He was in ze shadows and zey were yelling.” She rolled her neck and emphasized the word yelling.
Another man? “Are you sure it wasn’t Hardy?” I prodded.
CC used a graceful finger to point at her eyes with flourish. “I have zee eyes. Eet was a different man!”
“Ding-ding-ding! New suspect alert!” Win cheered.
Chapter 11
Instead of pressing CC for more information, I offered her more apologies for Bart’s bad behavior. “CC, won’t you let me make this up to you? I’d be happy to. I’m sorry Bart was so rude to you. I’m quite embarrassed.” A gift card maybe. A lifetime’s worth of kale and water?
But CC flapped a tiny hand at me like a butterfly wing. “Merci. That ees not necessary. It ees really not your fault. I do not wish to cause more pain to you or your mama. Now, I must go stretch. Please excuse me.” She lifted her chin and sauntered off into the small crowd of acrobats.
I turned to leave, a little deflated. As I walked past all these graceful creatures who moved so fluidly, I felt like Godzilla with my big work boots, crushing all the humans in town as I made my way off the terrace—only to run into Officer Nelson.
I stopped under a big oak on the front lawn of the inn the moment he saw me and winked. “Aw, look, Officer Dana Nelson, as I live and breathe.”
He gave me the typical, “Oh God, is there any getting rid of this pest?” look and we proceeded as per usual. “Miss Cartwright. Snooping, I assume?”
I didn’t even try to hide what I was doing. “I am. I mean, after all, it is my stepfather who was murdered. There’s a sense of urgency to that, don’t you think?”
He peered down at me, his gaze ever intense. “Only for you, Miss Cartwright.”
“So listen. Let’s get this out of the way, okay? This murder is personal. I realize Madam Zoltar and Tito were really none of my business—”
“As if that would have stopped you?” he said on a raised eyebrow.
“You’re right. It wouldn’t have stopped me. I’ve solved two murders in this town now—”
“Let’s be fair. You stumbled onto two killers—”
“That I’d already figured out were the killers. How I got myself into jams with them and how they presented themselves to me is neither here nor there.” Right?
“If that’s the way you see it,” he drawled.
I smiled facetiously. “That’s the way I see it. So, seeing as I’m doing the work of an entire police force, virtually alone, let me have this one, would you please?”
“The entire police force, Miss Cartwright? My, we’re full of ourselves this afternoon.”
“Okay, so maybe not the entire police department, but certainly worthy of at least three good men. So, in light of the fact that I like to snoop and my stepfather is dead, how about I call in my ‘you owe me’?”
“You mean the one from when you saved my life?”
“Yep. That’s the one. Remember? I do. Like it was yesterday. Reminisce with me, won’t you? You, me, the killer I stumbled upon, a tree, a scary gun, you tripping and losing your gun, me falling on top of the killer I stumbled upon and saving your life because I took a leap of faith…”
He lifted his square jaw and made a show of pretending to recall that night. “Hmmm. It’s vague.”
I planted a hand on my hip. “I’m happy to provide details. Especially the one where you told me you owed me. So in light of the fact that I saved your life, maybe you could let me slip through the cracks on this one? Turn a blind eye, whatever. Just let me snoop.”
Crossing his arms over his broad chest, Officer Nelson of the dark hair and chiseled face—Dana, to his friends—looked at me long and hard. At first, his unwavering gaze had always left me nervous, as though I’d done something bad and he knew about it. But over the course of these last few months, I’d grown used to this tactic, and I served him up some of my own by staring right back.
He broke first, his eyes flashing with the smallest of glimmers. “Okay. But I’m warning you, Stephania Cartwright, you’re not exactly invisible.”
“Did you just call me fat?” I teased.
“I most certainly did not. What I’m saying is, you don’t hide your snooping very well. You’re everywhere. I can only be blind for so long before someone questions why I’m not questioning it. So carry on, and just this once, I’ll leave you alone. But that’s your one-time-only pass.”
“Fair enough. Now, any news on the ruling for Bart’s death?”
“None.”
“Any new suspects besides the obvious ones like CC and Hardy?”
“Wow. You move quickly. Maybe you should join law enforcement?”
“And stand next to you? I’d be proud, but nah. You have too many rules.”
“Rules are what keep order.”
“And keep me from snooping. They don’t mix. So, any new suspects?”
“I can’t comment on any new information, but rest assured, you’ve covered most of it.”
“Any calls coming into the police station about Bart’s killer after my mother’s television debut? Any tips? Good tips?”
He rocked back on the heels of his spit-shined shoes. “Ah, yes. Your mother. We now have people working in shifts because of her generous offer.”
“You want to kill her, don’t you? It’s okay. I get it. She’s a lot.”
He rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. That meant he was thinking over his words in order to use caution. “Kill is a strong word. Take her phone away is more like it.”
“That’s more than one word.”
Officer Nelson sighed. “Miss Cartwright, are we done here? I have work
to do.”
“Almost. What’cha workin’ on?”
“Picking up my date for an early dinner.”
I think my eyes bulged. “You have a date?”
“I know you find this hard to believe, but I do have a personal life.”
“I do find it hard to believe. I thought you slept in your uniform and ate nails for breakfast.”
“Well, you were wrong. About the uniform, anyway,” he offered with a smirk.
I barked a laugh, my head tipping back on my shoulders. “Anything else of importance you want to share with me?”
His lips went thin, the sure sign he was clamming up. “Can’t think of a thing.”
I could never read Officer Nelson. He was aces at being stoic and keeping his secrets, and nowhere near as easy to trip up as Sandwich, but he always had the good information, making him worth a try.
So I patted him on the arm. “Good talk. Okay, so this is the part where I go snoop until my eyes roll back in my head, and you go away. Nice seeing you, Officer Nelson.”
He tipped an imaginary hat as he moved around me and headed up the walkway to the front door of the Sunshine. “And you, Miss Cartwright.”
I skipped down the sidewalk, the sun beating down on my head as I walked to my car.
“Well done back there, Dove. I’m impressed at how far you’ve come when it’s time to cash in favors and ask questions. You handled the acrobats well, not to mention our fair Officer Nelson, with nary a bump in the road,” Win praised.
I curtsied before I got in the car. “He owed me one. I’m not sure we can chalk that up to my finesse.”
“Still, you cashed it in with clear and concise demands. Accept my praise and like it.”
My cheeks turned red. “So home now, I guess? I called Petula, who said she could squeeze me in later tonight so I could ask her some questions about the other employees she hired. We really need a list of all the waiters and waitresses, the chef’s staff, etcetera. But it’s getting close to dinner and we don’t have a whole lot else to go on right now. Except for that mystery man CC mentioned.”
“Yes, a pale short one. Remember anyone fitting that description?”
As I started the car, I shook my head. “The whole party was such a blur, I can hardly remember any of it until Bart was killed.”
Win tsked me with a cluck of his tongue. “I’m sorry, Dove. I so wanted that night to be special for you.”
“It’s okay. I told you, I’m a Cheese Whiz and crackers kind of girl. We could have broken a bottle of cheap dollar-store peach wine on the porch beam and I’d have been just as happy.” That was the truth. The finer things in life were great, but they weren’t as important to me as Win and Bel and Whiskey.
“I’m determined to teach you to love caviar and champagne and graduate your palate from kindergarten.”
“Newsflash. I’m never, not ever, going to love stinky fish eggs. It’s Cadbury or nothing.”
“Someday I’ll show you myself what you’ve been missing out on.”
I clammed up. That was never going to happen. Not ever. Not even as much as I wished it could happen. Rather than address his comment, I drove, letting the peaceful ride back to the house with the tall pines and boats on the Puget soothe me.
I pulled into the driveway, again silently thanking the pavement gods I didn’t have to rappel up the side of my lawn to get to the steps, and pressed the garage door button.
Yep. I even had a garage now. One that led into the laundry/mudroom with shiny silver appliances, shelves galore and a big sink. No more wet grocery shopping for me.
Whiskey greeted me in the mudroom, his tail furiously wagging, his favorite tennis ball in his mouth. I knelt down and scratched his big head, kissing his muzzle. “After dinner, I promise we’ll play, okay?”
He licked my face in agreement, trotting off to the kitchen to sit in his favorite spot where the sun shone in from the tall windows by the kitchen table.
And that was when I saw the mess—everywhere.
My mother’s clothes were strewn from one end of the kitchen to the other. The beautiful white cabinet doors of the upper row were flung carelessly open, while the complementing steel-blue of the bottom rows were just ajar.
The fire alarm beeped at regular intervals, its annoying chirp going right through me. There was black soot on the hardwood floors with pieces of charred material in it.
Glasses were piled high in the sink, discarded bottles of my mom’s favorite Perrier scattered over the vast landscape of our Italian creamy-white and blue-veined countertops.
Bel was on one of those counters, a tiny bandana on his head, made out of one of my old Carolina Herrera scarves I’d found at a bargain-basement price, as Com pushed at a can of powdered cleanser and yelled, “Timber!” Letting the substance puff out onto the countertop.
Wom sat atop a sponge, twisting his tiny body to cleanse the counter surface. Even Uncle Ding was in on the action. Using a toothbrush held in his mouth, he was disjointedly scrubbing the shiny copper faucet of the vegetable sink.
Bat Dad stood beside them and oversaw the process of whatever it was they were doing. “She’ll be back any minute, boys. We’ve got to clean this up!”
“Too late, boys,” Deloris called, her wings flapping wildly as she hovered over the countertops.
“Ma!” Belfry cried. “You were supposed to be our lookout!”
“What is going on?” I yelped.
Bel was the first to react. He launched himself into the air, flying straight for me to position himself in front of my face. “It was just a little accident. We’ll clean it up, Boss, promise. No big deal.”
“Yeah,” Uncle Ding grunted, spitting out the toothbrush. “Some accident, leavin’ us here to clean up her mess while she goes off to take a long hot bath and a nap. I’ve never been treated so bad in my life!”
“Belfry? Explain,” I ordered.
“I got this, Nephew,” Uncle Ding groused. He kicked the toothbrush into the gorgeous copper sink and strutted to the edge of the countertop, his little hands on his very round body. “Your mother’s a slob. She spent all day complaining about how bored she was while she changed her clothes like a runway model, then she had a little lunch in every room in the house and decided she wanted to iron her dress for tonight. Well, she forgot the iron was on while she was taking that long hot soak I mentioned, almost setting the house on fire, and now she’s napping. Nice, right?”
“Stevie, I caution you. Murder is wrong. Murder is wrong. Murder is wrong. And it’s punishable by death in some states,” Win warned.
“She left you guys to clean up for her?” I squealed in disbelief.
“Well, she didn’t ask. She just left it here,” Bel admitted, his face sheepish. “I couldn’t stand the idea you were gonna have to come home to this, so I gathered the crew and thought we’d try and handle it on our own.”
“Did she not get my call telling her Sandwich was coming over to collect more evidence?”
Com nodded on a tired sigh. “Aw, yeah. She got it, all right. Ignored it. But that guy Enzo—who was workin’ on the touch-up paint in the bathroom—let the cop and his team in. They did another sweep of the parlor and took whatever you told them about and left. She never even woke up from…what was it, guys, her second nap of the day?”
“Two, three, they’re all a blur,” Uncle Ding groused.
“Stephania?” my mother called from the staircase.
Ah, the woman of the hour. “Mother? Please come in here,” I seethed, clenching my fists.
“Murder is wrong, murder is wrong, murder is wrong!” everyone chanted in unison.
I snapped my fingers at the peanut gallery. “Can it, all of you! Mother, come in here!”
Dita breezed in looking fresh as a daisy. She had one of my cute maxi dresses on—cinched tightly at her neck because we weren’t even close to the same size—a chunky gold bracelet, and she smelled suspiciously like my favorite pear perfume.
As sh
e stopped in the doorway and looked at me as though she didn’t see the mess all around her, I reminded myself. Murder is wrong, Stevie.
“What do you want, Stephania? I’m very busy.”
Murder is wrong, Stevie. “Oh, reeeally? Too busy I guess to clean up the mess you made? Mom, have you no respect for someone else’s things? Look at this!” I spread my arms wide to encompass the “this” I was talking about.
Mom just shrugged her slender shoulders and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “You have a maid, don’t you?”
“No!” I bellowed so loud, Whisky whined. “I don’t have a maid, Mother! And even if I did, I wouldn’t treat her this way. But you don’t have a maid either. Know why you don’t have a maid? Because you have no money!”
Her bored look of disinterest only served to further infuriate me. “Are you done with your rant now? May I carry on with my evening?”
I might have passed out in disbelief if this wasn’t my mother’s typical MO. I don’t think she ever mopped a floor as I was growing up, or even cleaned a toilet. “No. No you may not. You’re going to roll up your sleeves, or in this case, my dress, and help us clean this up!”
She didn’t look at all concerned. Trashing our beautiful house was of no consequence to someone like Diva Dita Cartwright.
“But I have a—”
The doorbell clanged then, interrupting my internal plan to map out a way to smother her in her sleep.
“That will be for me,” she said cheerfully, turning to answer the front door.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I yelled, running after her to grab her arm and swing her around.
The expression she gave me was mortified. “Stephania, let go! That’s my date Raul, and I don’t want to be late. It would be rude.”
“Your what with Ra-who?” I squeaked, gripping her arm tighter.
“Rrraul, Dove. Nice name. If you roll the R it’s very dark and seductive, yes?” Win offered.
“Win, shut it.”
Dita smiled her cat-like smile. I knew it well. Raul was the mouse and she had her kitten heels on. “Raul, Cupcake. He’s that shipping magnate I told you about.”
Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) Page 13
