“Wow,” Oliver said. “I feel like a fourteen-year-old Hilary Duff might appear at any second.”
I winced. “Should we ditch the balloons before anyone gets here?”
“Well, isn’t this lovely?” a woman’s voice asked.
I turned and saw it was Frances. Her face didn’t display any anger. She looked genuinely pleased with what she was seeing.
“Is this what you had in mind?”
She nodded. “Yes, absolutely. It’s a celebration of life. Celebrations have balloons. It reminds me of when Cliff and I went to prom together.”
“Oh, for cripe’s sake,” Karen said as she entered the pub. “What is all this nonsense?”
“I’ll have the servers start bringing out the food,” I said and gestured to Oliver to follow me. I didn’t need to hear more bickering between the mother and daughter.
“I hope they have lobster rolls out,” Oliver said.
Mourners, or celebrators, I wasn’t sure which at this point (for reasons having nothing to do with my decor), started to trickle in. I was heading to the kitchen to check on the food situation when Brandy came out from the back with a charcuterie tray. Obviously the staff already had everything under control. I felt a little superfluous. Then again, why would they need me? They’d been running the restaurant before my arrival and I knew nothing about food service.
That made me feel momentarily defeated, but then I saw Hannah with an older woman. I went over to her and said hello. She looked awkward in black jeans and a black T-shirt, as if she’d been told she had to wear black and that was all she had. She looked like she should be on a stage crew instead of in a pub filled with older people.
“I’m Sophie,” I said to the woman Hannah was with.
I’d lost Oliver at the cheese tray.
The woman stuck her hand out. “I’m June Martin, Sunny’s best friend.” Her voice was gruff but her eyes filled with tears. “I really miss that old gal. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I would have come around sooner but Cliff chose now to go legs up.”
That was certainly one way to put it. “It’s so nice to meet you too. It seems like my grandmother had a really great circle of friends here.”
“She was a special lady. The only one not taken in by this old fool’s nonsense.”
“Which old fool?” I asked, not following her.
She waved her arms around. “Cliff.”
It occurred to me that in spite of being in her sixties, June was a strong woman. She was nearly six feet tall, and had thick muscular arms that had seen their fair share of physical labor. It wasn’t difficult to imagine her having the strength to bash Cliff over the head, though I had no idea if her calling him an “old fool” was affection or actual disdain.
“My grandmother didn’t have a crush on Cliff?” That made me like her even more.
Hannah snorted. “That’s so gross.”
June glared at her. “My granddaughter Hannah was never fond of Cliff.”
“Oh, Hannah is your granddaughter? She’s helping me out with Jack, which is so helpful to me. I’m new to llama ownership.” I turned to Hannah. “Cliff wasn’t your favorite?”
“No. I was glad when he dumped Grandma.” She crossed her arms over her chest defensively, like she knew she was about to get yelled at but didn’t care. “He was a user.”
June didn’t correct her. “Sophie doesn’t want to hear about my romantic stupidity.” But then she turned to me and kept speaking. “It’s true. Cliff was great at profiting from his relationships. We all thought he was a dog but somehow it would be different with us. Sunny never fell for his crap. They had a brother-and-sister type relationship and he was a great help with her llamas.”
That would all explain how Hannah had come to be friends with Jack Kerouac.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and Cliff.” Was that a reason for her to kill him?
“My bank account is safer this way, trust me. I thought I was immune to his charms but I fell for the old con just like half a dozen before me.” June nudged Hannah. “Come on, we need to make the rounds so we can get out of here. I’m only here so I don’t look like a horrible person.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Sophie,” Hannah said to me with a wave.
“For sure, thanks. Nice to meet you, June.”
She just nodded, but then she looked me up and down. “You do have the look of her. Though black isn’t your color. Washes you out.”
With that insult, she walked away. I frowned and walked over to Oliver. “There are a lot of angry women in this place for a town called Friendship Harbor.”
“Devious ones, too. I just saw some woman pouring vodka into the punch. I called her out on it but she just laughed and said it was all in fun.” Oliver held up his plate. “They do have lobster rolls. You should taste this.”
I was too distracted to think about a lobster roll. “What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. Honestly I was very busy checking out the food. Have you ever had a whoopie pie?”
I ignored him. Oliver was food obsessed.
“Did you tell Dean we need more punch?”
Oliver looked at me blankly. “No. Was I supposed to?”
“That was supposed to be for the non-drinkers. If someone wants alcohol, they can order from the bar.” I turned to the beverage table, a bit panicked. “You didn’t leave the spiked punch out, did you?” There were several women and men standing around ladling the beverage into their cups.
“Whoops. That did not occur to me, I have to admit. I did taste it to confirm though. Definitely vodka.”
Wonderful. “Seriously?” I shook my head and made my way over to the punch. “Excuse me, um, can I just get in here and take that? It needs to be refilled.” It was only halfway empty but I needed to say something. I muscled my way into the group and picked up the bowl.
“Best damn punch I’ve ever had,” Mac said, tossing a whole cupful back.
Yikes.
“I agree,” Millie said. “It’s very refreshing. This is my third cup.”
Double yikes. Time to fess up.
“I would take it easy on the punch if I were you,” I told her. “It’s come to my attention that someone thought it would be entertaining to spice it up with vodka.”
Mac gave a loud snort of a laugh. “If that don’t beat the Dutch. No wonder I like it so much.”
“Oh, dear,” Millie said, even as she took another sip. She was still wearing her veil and she lifted it slightly to fully get the cup to her mouth. “I’m not much of a drinker.”
“Who was the rascal who spiked it?” Mac asked. “I want to shake his hand.”
His casual attitude surprised me. It really was like a middle school dance. What was next? We were going to have a photo backdrop fall and we’d see someone making out?
I sincerely hoped not.
I didn’t want to accuse anyone without proof, so I just said, “It was a woman, but I am not sure who.”
I probably shouldn’t have even given that much information. Instantly, Mac started speculating. “It had to be June. That’s her MO.”
The no-nonsense woman I had just met did not seem like a mischief maker.
“Is it odd that I can’t feel my lips?” Millie asked.
I didn’t respond to either of them. I just tried to carefully walk into the kitchen with the punch sloshing in the bowl. It was like trying to carry a fish tank. Some of the red liquid splashed up onto my cleavage.
In the kitchen I elbowed past Dave and dumped the whole thing into the sink. He eyed me like I was nuts, but fortunately Dave was not a big talker. He didn’t say a word.
Brandy was a different story. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Did someone sneeze in that or something?”
“My friend Oliver saw someone pouring vodka into it. He tested it and confirmed. Unfortunately, Millie and Mac both drank it and who knows who else.”
Her mouth fell open. “Someone put alcohol in it? Who would
do that? This is a funeral!”
Reassuring to know she thought it was odd and not some small-town standard. “I think we should just walk around and offer a tray of water glasses to guests so we don’t have a repeat of this.”
“Good idea.” She nodded approvingly. “I’ll get Janelle on it. How many people are out there?”
“About thirty at quick guess.” I needed to get back out and mingle and eavesdrop, though maybe with more skill than I had earlier.
The first person I spotted when I came back out was the sheriff. I gave him a smile. “Hi, Sheriff.”
“Hi, Sophie. And please, call me Justin. I’m off duty.” The smile he gave me in return was warm enough to make me take notice.
Huh. Interesting.
He was in a dark slim-fitting suit that was clearly new and following the modern trend of not having a man drown in a boxy jacket and pleated pants. Like his uniform, it revealed a man who was in shape. No doughnuts for this sheriff.
“Did you know Cliff personally?” I asked, seeing an opportunity to press for more information.
But Justin Pelletier was staring at my cleavage. “Sheriff?” I asked, dryly.
His head snapped up and he had the decency to look sheepish. “You’ve, uh, got something there.” He pointed at my chest. “It looks…sticky.”
Startled, I glanced down. There was a red trickle of punch down my chest. “Oh!” I looked around for a napkin. “It’s punch.”
He was holding a plate of appetizers and he had a napkin underneath, which he pulled out. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” I mopped my cleavage and tried to remember what the heck I had been about to say. While I fished around for polite conversation I glanced around the room, still swiping at my chest. I felt responsible for the success of this event, not wanting to be the woman who arrived from California and failed. But by all indications everyone was having a good time. There was actually a lot of laughter.
Then my gaze landed on Jessica and June. They were not laughing. In fact, they both appeared to be talking quite heatedly.. June gestured to something at Jessica’s side, although I couldn’t make out what. June grabbed up a punch cup from the bar and strolled away as if she’d made her point and was done. Jessica watched her go, then walked away as well. Great, with all this spiked punch flowing, there was bound to be a barroom brawl by the end of the night.
Then I spotted Oliver. He was bent over the table with the display of photos of Cliff and was writing on something. He handed it to a woman in her twenties with a flourish. Was he signing autographs?
“To answer your question, yes, I knew Cliff personally. He was buddies with my grandfather. He also owned a lot of property around town and frequently had disputes with his next-door neighbor. A couple of times I got called out there to find him brandishing a shotgun in his neighbor’s face. Cliff was what people around here call a character.”
“Where did Cliff live? Close to here? It seems he was around my grandmother’s house a lot.”
“That’s because he liked to drink.” A dry voice spoke behind me.
I turned and saw Dean. “Is that so?”
“Yep,” he said, hands in his pockets. He was wearing black jeans and a button-up shirt. “Sheriff.” He gave Justin a nod.
“Dean.”
Okay. No love lost there, clearly. They looked like they were about to challenge each other to pistols at sundown.
“Cliff lived on Maple,” Justin said, picking up the thread of our conversation.
“So right by where he was found, then?” I almost said “murdered” but stopped myself in the nick of time.
“A few blocks away, yes.”
“And was his neighbor around? The one he hated?”
“Excuse me?” Justin’s eyebrows went up. “Why?”
Dean looked amused. “Subtle,” he murmured under his breath.
“What are you talking about?” Justin asked Dean.
“Sophie thinks Cliff might have been the victim of foul play, versus death by llama.”
I glared at him. I wasn’t sure why it had to be a secret from the sheriff but it certainly felt like Dean had prematurely tipped my hand. “I never said that.” Well, not exactly. I had thought it. I’d just never said it to anyone but Oliver.
It seemed super rude to suggest the sheriff didn’t know what he was doing in his career so I was going to deny it.
“You know, since Sophie is an amateur detective,” Dean said. “Or played one on TV.”
“Well, Karen Robichaud requested an autopsy be done, so I’ll guess we’ll have the answer to that sooner than later. The report should be in today actually.”
I blinked. “Karen requested an autopsy? But I thought she was completely convinced I let a killer llama on the loose.”
Justin shrugged. “I guess she wants to make sure she’s directing her anger at the right culprit whether it’s an animal or a human.”
That basically eliminated Karen as a suspect, didn’t it? She would want to discourage medical probing and closer police examination. She would ride the llama story hard. Which she had been the day Cliff had died. Had something changed her mind? Or someone?
Without warning there was a high-pitched shrill cry. “No, Mother, I won’t calm down and I’m not a stupid woman!”
We all turned to see who the voice belonged to.
It was a very clearly intoxicated Millie leaning heavily on a high-top table and waving her plump arm around.
Her mother was perched precariously on a stool at the table, looking like she might topple off at any given second. She spoke to her daughter, but we couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Just then a disembodied voice came over a loudspeaker, announcing to the whole room, “Welcome to Wednesday night trivia.”
I shot a furious glare toward Dean. “Really? You didn’t reschedule trivia night?”
Dean shrugged helplessly. “I told you the people in this town take their trivia very seriously.”
A man near us turned on his barstool. “I’m here for the trivia.”
I blinked. How had this memorial gone so far off the rails?
“Alright, are all our teams ready to go?” the disembodied voice said. “Here is your first question… What famous Italian was reputed to have slept with over one hundred and thirty women?”
“Cliff wasn’t Italian, was he?” I overheard a woman say to her friend as they passed us clearly looking for the now missing punch bowl.
“This is literally the best funeral I’ve ever been to,” Oliver said, appearing by my side. He had yet another plate of lobster rolls. “It’s like a reality show.”
He sounded way more gleeful than was appropriate for the occasion. I shot him a look, which he ignored.
“What would you know about love?” Millie continued. “You’ve never loved anything or anyone in your entire life, including me!”
People were gawking and murmuring behind their hands. The whole situation was getting awkward.
Justin shoved his plate at Dean. “Take this, will you? I should go talk to Millie.”
Dean took the plate and frowned at it.
I opened my mouth to chastise Dean for basically making fun of me in front of the sheriff. I still hadn’t decided if his teasing was good-natured or mean-spirited. The jury was still out on Dean.
“And the answer is Casanova. It looks like all the teams got that one right. And on to the next question. What is a flock of crows called?”
I gaped around feeling like things were going downhill at a very rapid pace. I was pretty sure this was going to be the pub’s one and only celebration of life event.
Justin had positioned himself between Millie and her mother, but it didn’t appear the portly woman liquored up on vodka and fruit punch was calming down. I shifted closer to them so I could hear the conversation.
“You have no idea how much I have tolerated because of that woman,” Millie said, poking Justin in the chest to punctuate her words.
“Oh for God’s sake, Millie, try to get some control over yourself,” June said, picking up a glass from the table and polishing the whole contents off in one swallow. Great, another old lady getting sloshed on the liquored up punch. “It wasn’t like Cliff didn’t dupe half the women here into thinking he loved them.”
Millie turned her drunken outrage toward June. “You don’t know anything about me and Cliff.”
So, Millie had known Cliff much better than she had initially said. I tried to catch Oliver’s eye, but he was too busy eating another lobster roll like it was popcorn and he was watching a particularly exciting movie. Just beyond him, I noticed Jessica Grace watching the scene with the same entertained expression.
“Oh, believe me, Millie, I know a lot about old Cliff and just about all of his women,” June said. And with that, she grabbed her granddaughter’s arm and left the pub.
The room was silent.
“Okay, it looks like most of the teams got this one right,” the disembodied voice said. “A flock of crows is called a murder.”
Millie burst into tears, and Frances moved forward to put an arm around her. “Why don’t you let Mac take you and your mother home.”
Millie nodded, looking as if all her drunken anger had left her totally deflated. Mac obediently moved to help Eleanor Hall to her feet. For once, the ancient woman didn’t say a word, which I already got the impression was rare for her.
“I can take the ladies home,” Justin said.
“I’ve got it. I think I’ve had enough celebrating for the night myself,” Mac said, his tone filled with sarcasm.
Justin nodded, although he still looked like he thought he should handle seeing the old women home. Frances continued to hug Millie as the foursome walked slowly toward the pub door.
But before they could exit, Hannah came running in, screaming. “Help! Someone please help me! My grammy just passed out.”
Murder Drama With Your Llama (Friendship Harbor Mysteries Book 1) Page 11
