by Vicki Delany
Which led me to the logical conclusion that if Colin Kent was that desperate, one little murder wouldn’t stand in his way. Even two.
“Are you okay?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re a thousand miles away,” Grant said. “I asked if you miss England. I do, sometimes. I was lucky to be able to live in Oxford for a while and study at the world’s most famous university. Although the people at Cambridge might dispute that.” He smiled. He did have a very charming smile. “I loved the history of the place most of all. Centuries of architecture and learning everywhere I turned. Not to mention the warmth of a good sixteenth-century pub on a frosty winter night or a rainy spring day, the fire blazing, a pint in hand, dogs curled up under the tables. The smell of wet dog, damp wool, and burning wood.”
“You paint a wonderful picture. So wonderful it makes me confess that I do miss it sometimes. Not on a beautiful evening like this though.” It was fully dark now, and the clouds had moved in to cover the moon and stars. “As long as that rain holds off, anyway.”
Grant lifted up his arms to indicate the entirety of our surroundings. “I think I’m going to like living in West London. And this restaurant’s going to be one of the highlights.” He glanced around him.
Instinctively, I followed his gaze.
Ryan Ashburton and two men I recognized as West London cops, now dressed in ordinary clothes, were making their way across the floor to a table. As he always did, Ryan was studying his surroundings, checking all the faces in all the corners. He saw me and the slightest smile pulled at his mouth. Then he saw who I was with, a handsome man, and where, a table for two tucked into a private corner. The natural smile died to be replaced by a forced one. He gave me a nod so abrupt it was almost curt and hurried after his companions.
“The cops,” Grant said. “When I called that guy earlier, he told me he wasn’t handling the Longton investigation anymore, and I was to speak to the other detective. I figured something more important had come up to take him off a murder case, but he doesn’t look all that busy, does he?”
“Everyone has to eat,” I said. “Even the police.”
Our appetizers were plunked down in front of us, and we dug in. My clam chowder was full of the taste of New England: thick and rich and absolutely delicious. Grant had the shrimp cocktail.
The storm held off, the meal was marvelous, the wine crisp and fruity, the view stunning, and the company excellent, but all I could think of was Ryan Ashburton’s solid back presented toward me.
Chapter 13
My beautifully romantic evening with Grant Thompson did not come to its natural conclusion, which was just as well, as I wasn’t entirely sure what my feelings were toward him. He was handsome, charming, funny, and clever—and we could talk about favorite pubs in Oxford or attending plays at the Globe Theater in London. But when I searched deep within myself for a spark, I didn’t find anything.
We lingered over our meal and coffee for a long time, until Andy himself arrived to say “hi” and incidentally let it drop that they had people waiting for tables. As I stood up, I stole a glance at Ryan, drinking beer, eating wings and nachos, and laughing with his friends. He did not turn around. On the way out, Grant and I passed a packed foyer and a line stretching to the street.
We went for ice cream—French vanilla for me and chocolate chip cookie dough for him—and licked our cones while strolling along the boardwalk, watching all the other people eating ice-cream cones while strolling along the boardwalk and watching their fellow ice-cream-eating strollers.
He walked me home, and we stood together at the front door. An orange cat slipped out of the shrubbery and disappeared around the house. A flash of lightening lit up the sky to the east and the low roll of thunder answered.
“This house must have some history,” Grant said. “Or is it a reproduction?”
“The real thing, built in 1756. You’d be disappointed in the interior though. It’s all very modern inside.” I hesitated. Was that my opening to invite him in for a “nightcap”?
He noticed my hesitation and lightly brushed my cheek with his lips. He smelled of ice cream and musky aftershave. “Thanks for a lovely evening, Gemma. I hope we can do it again soon.”
“That would be nice.”
He stepped away, and I unlocked the door to let myself in. Violet ran to greet me, and we stood in the doorway, watching him make his way down the street.
The storm arrived a few minutes later, and I hoped Grant had reached shelter in time. The wind howled around the house, causing every old plank and joint to creak. Branches scratched at the windows, and rain pounded on the roof while lightning flashed and thunder rolled.
I love a storm. As long as I’m safe and warm inside.
It was not a night for a walk, so I shoved a reluctant Violet into the yard.
Before heading off to bed, I checked the news and Twitter, but nothing new was being reported regarding the Kent murder. Sapphire had collapsed and been admitted to a hospital for a “rest.”
The storm raged all night, but as I slept, my mind was full of the green fields of England and the dreaming spires of Oxford and Cambridge.
* * *
The following morning, I’d barely flipped the sign on the shop door to “Open” when Estrada marched through it. Officer Johnson wasn’t with her today, but I had not the slightest doubt about the occupation of the man who was. He was large and beefy, with beady black eyes, and nose and cheeks so lined with red veins, you could draw a road map of New England on them. His broad shoulders and the bulge of solidly muscled biceps barely contained under his summer-weight jacket meant a lot of time spent in the gym. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut almost to the scalp, and I suspected his mouth had long ago forgotten how to turn up into a smile. He might as well have had “cop” tattooed in capital letters on his forehead.
The weather had turned, and despite the forecast, the day was cool, dark, and gloomy. Water dripped from every tree, and puddles filled the streets. The police tracked mud across my clean shop floors.
“This is Detective O’Malley,” Estrada said. “He’s from the Boston PD and is investigating the Kent killing.”
I held out my hand, and it disappeared into his massive paw. When I got it back, I refrained from shaking the pain out.
“Interesting place you have here,” he said.
“Sherlock Holmes fan, are you?” I asked.
“No,” he replied.
People today move around a lot more than they did in the Great Detective’s day, so it isn’t as easy to tell where someone comes from by the way they talk. After all, I scarcely sound like I live on Cape Cod. But if O’Malley wasn’t from Boston and the offspring of a family that went back generations, I’d challenge him to an arm-wrestling match.
Ruby wasn’t in yet, so I had to flip the sign back to “Closed.” I’d already opened the door leading to the tea room, and the hiss of the espresso machine, the clatter of dishes, and chatter of people exchanging news over their morning coffee break drifted into the Emporium.
“Private?” grunted O’Malley. A man of few words.
“We can go upstairs to my office,” I replied. “Detective Estrada knows where it is.”
I slid the tea room door closed. At that moment, Jayne came out of the kitchen with a tray of muffins. She threw me a questioning look. I mouthed “cops” and jerked my head toward my office. I twisted the lock.
Moriarty jumped off a shelf and led the way upstairs, his tail high.
This time Estrada stood so O’Malley could take the visitor’s chair. I took that to be an indication of rank. Moriarty leapt lightly onto the Boston cop’s massive lap and rolled onto his back, allowing O’Malley to scratch his belly with fingers the size of German sausages. “Don’t usually care much for cats,” he said. “But this seems like a nice fellow.”
Moriarty threw me an upside down smirk. I swear he stuck out his tongue on purpose.
“Detective O’Malley,” Es
trada said, “is investigating the murder of Elaine Kent.”
“Is that so?” I folded my hands neatly in my lap.
“You discovered the body?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
“You fled the scene.”
“I was . . . confused . . . frightened. We were trespassing you see, and I wanted to get away. I . . . I’m sorry.”
“Understandable,” he said.
Estrada interrupted. “Don’t give us that, Gemma. I doubt you’ve been confused one moment in your life.”
Moriarty rubbed his front paws together.
“There you go, little buddy,” O’Malley gently put the cat on the floor. Moriarty took a seat on a high shelf to watch the drama. “Detective Estrada tells me you were also the first on the scene of a homicide here in West London, earlier this week. Coincidence?”
“Not at all. Have you been told about the rare and valuable magazine that was hidden in my shop on Tuesday?” He said nothing, but his face told me he knew all about it. “In attempting to return the magazine to the woman who’d left it behind, I came across Mary Ellen Longton’s body. Yesterday, I went to Boston intending to speak to Mrs. Kent about the same magazine.”
“Attempting to return the magazine?” Estrada spoke to O’Malley. “I’ve been wondering about that. Gemma didn’t have the magazine with her at Longton’s hotel. She had, in fact, locked it into a safe in her house. It occurs to me that her intention in going to the hotel hadn’t been to return it, but to convince Mrs. Longton to let her keep it. One way or another.”
I sighed.
“Interesting,” O’Malley said. “The guard at the Kent home told you Mrs. Kent wasn’t having visitors, but you broke in anyway. Why would you do that?”
“Sneaked in is the better word. I climbed through a hole in the fence. I didn’t think that so-called guard was at all competent. I suspected he’d had no such orders, but he couldn’t be bothered to let me in. That would have been work.” I deliberately used the word “I” instead of “we” and said nothing about Jayne.
O’Malley’s eyes flicked. Yup, I’d guessed right about the reputation of Boston Home Protection Services.
Although, as I have pointed out on many occasions, I never guess.
“You just happened to stumble across two murder victims in less than a week,” Estrada said. “You’ll forgive me if I’m less than convinced you’re an innocent bystander.”
“I’d never as much as set eyes on Mary Ellen Longton before Tuesday.” My temper started to rise. I forced myself to calm down. “She came into my shop, which is a public place, and in the time she was here, we exchanged not a single word. Same for Elaine Kent.”
“Okay,” O’Malley said, and I relaxed slightly. “It wasn’t anything personal. I get that. But what about this magazine I’ve been hearing so much about? Did you kill them for the magazine?” Relaxing was clearly a mistake. He might look like a boxer who’d gone too many rounds in the ring, but I’d underestimate him at my peril. I glanced at Estrada. A trace of a smile touched her lips as she noticed my discomfort. “I’ve seen some strange things in my day,” he went on. “But even for me, a magazine worth more than half a million bucks pretty much takes the cake.”
“Estimated worth. And that’s only if everything about it is perfect and a buyer can be found.” I’d been speaking in my haughtiest English accent, hoping to intimidate O’Malley. I didn’t exactly switch outright to American, but I gradually let some of the vowels harden. “If, as you seem to be suggesting, I killed Mrs. Longton for the magazine, I wouldn’t have turned around and handed it over to the police as soon as they asked.”
“Scared you maybe,” he said. “When you’d seen what you’d done.”
From his lair on the shelf, Moriarty nodded.
“And then, once you’d had time to regret acting in haste, you paid a call on Mrs. Kent to see what other trinkets she might have. When she ordered you off the property, did you get angry? Lash out? Act impulsively once again?”
I bit back a retort: I never act impulsively.
He glanced around the office. Boxes of books, some spilling onto the floor, invoices, publishers’ catalogues. A collection of coffee mugs, a new Christopher Lee bust to replace the one recently sold, which I hadn’t had time to put on the shelf. Nothing worth much more than fifty bucks. “Do a lot of trading on the side do you, Gemma?”
I didn’t like the way he addressed me by my first name. He was trying to come across as my friend. You can tell me, it’ll be just between us friends. “None. I own a bookstore and gift shop. Everything I sell sits on the shelf for anyone to buy. I only deal in retail.”
“Jayne Wilson,” he said.
“Who?”
“You seem very protective of Ms. Wilson,” Estrada said. “Is there a reason for that?”
“No.”
“Knows things about you, does she?” she said.
“Now you’re really fishing. There’s nothing to know about me. My life is as you see it. I live on Cape Cod. I own a bookstore. I live a simple, quiet life. I even pay my taxes early.”
“That’s not what I understand. You’ve been brought to the attention of the police before. Why did you leave England so abruptly?”
“Abruptly? I didn’t leave England abruptly. I left . . . for reasons that are absolutely none of your business, police or not.”
“Tell me about you and Ryan Ashburton.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
She turned to O’Malley. “Ashburton is the senior detective in West London. The chief removed him from the Longton case because he has reason to believe Gemma exerts undue influence on him.”
I got to my feet. “If you’re going to be throwing around accusations, Detective Estrada, I am terminating this interview pending the arrival of my lawyers.” I think lawyers, plural, sounds much more foreboding than the singular. Not that I have any lawyer, singular or plural.
“If that’s the way you want to play it,” she said.
“Hold on here,” O’Malley said. “No one’s accusing anyone. I’m just asking a few simple questions. I’ve no interest in Ms. Doyle’s past, nor in when she files her taxes. Sit down, please.”
Estrada and I glared at each other for a minute, and then I slowly sat down.
“Now,” O’Malley said. “I’ve been informed that your friend was with you yesterday when you went to Boston, as well as at the West London Hotel on Tuesday. Every question I have about you, I have about her as well.”
I wasn’t sure if Estrada and O’Malley had decided ahead of time to play good cop/bad cop, but it didn’t really matter. Estrada didn’t like me, and I had better be very careful where I put my feet. And my tongue.
“Jayne’s a baker,” I said. “And a good one. My great uncle and I own half of her tea room business and she owns the other half. She has no interest, financial or otherwise, in Sherlock Holmes collectables other than the occasional teapot or tea set for use in the restaurant. Her customers like that sort of whimsy. We’re friends. We do things together, like friends do. Do you have any friends, Detective?” I bit my tongue. He was good, I’ll give Detective O’Malley that. He got me to say the stupidest things. Next thing you knew, I’d be confessing all, just to make him happy.
He grinned at me. “Yeah, I have friends.” He lumbered to his feet. “I’ll talk to this baker now, Detective. I know you’ve been told, Gemma, but let me remind you that you’re not to leave West London. I’ll be in touch.”
They left. I scurried after them, tripping over Moriarty in my haste. “Let me show you the way.”
“We can find the bakery on our own,” Estrada said. “I’ll thank you to get back to your business and not interfere.”
They went out the front door and around to the tea room using the sidewalk. I watched under the pretext of opening the adjoining door. Estrada spoke to Fiona, who looked past her at me. I nodded. Estrada half-turned and saw me watching. The look she gave me sent an icy chill down my spine.
Directed by Fiona, Estrada and O’Malley went through the swinging doors to the heart of the bakery.
Everyone in the tea room had stopped whatever they were doing to watch the police. Coffee mugs were lifted halfway to lips, croissants and muffins frozen in the act of chewing, conversations cut off midsentence. A baby, unaccustomed to the sudden silence, began to wail.
Jocelyn, obviously told to make herself scarce, came out of the kitchen at a rapid trot and spoke to Fiona. I crossed the room. “Keep working,” I whispered. Then I raised my voice. “Nothing’s happening. The police have routine questions about the bus tour here the other day.”
The customers turned to each other.
“Routine questions.”
“Just checking.”
“They talk to absolutely everyone, you know.”
“I was here on Tuesday. I must have left moments before the soon-to-be-dead woman came in. I wonder if they’ll want to talk to me,” an elderly woman said hopefully.
I went back to the Emporium and opened up. I stood in the door to the street for a while, watching the traffic. Cars splashed their way down the streets, and pedestrians were keeping their umbrellas close. The sun was hidden by a bank of black clouds and more rain threatened. I was about to turn and go back into the store when my attention was caught by a man coming out of 221 Baker Street.
Roy Longton.
He glanced across the street, saw me watching, lowered his head into the collar of his jacket, and scurried away. I could reasonably assume Roy had not been in Beach Fine Arts to purchase a memento of his visit. What was he up to?
Maureen came out of her shop and stood in the doorway. She glared at me as cars passed between us.
So that was what Roy’d been up to. Asking questions about me. Searching for a weakness or some way of convincing me to hand over Beeton’s Christmas Annual (which I did not have and had no expectation of ever having).
