Book Clubbed (9 page)

“That was only so I could get some information out of her after Stan Berry's death. She must have blabbed it to Betsy. But it isn't true. Not in the least. I have no more feeling for Christopher than I'd have for a dead trout.”

Angelica raised an eyebrow. “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”

“Give it a rest,” Tricia grated.

Angelica scrolled back up to the list of Chamber member names. “Do you see who's missing from the list?” She passed the mouse back to Tricia, who went through the list of names much more slowly.

“Bob Kelly.”

“Which says to me that he asked Betsy to put this list together.” Angelica reached for the last piece of baguette on the plate and polished it off. “I don't want to kick you out . . . but I have things to do and the night isn't getting any younger.”

“I'm sorry. It must be a drag to have me over here nearly every night mooching dinner from you.”

“On the contrary, it's almost always the highlight of my day.”

Tricia stared down at the keyboard, embarrassed but pleased. “I'm not juggling two businesses and a writing career, so I've got more free time than you. Why don't you e-mail the files to me? I can study them and let you know if I come up with anything else.”

“Great idea,” Angelica said and rose from her seat. Sarge stood, too, looking hopeful. “I've got to take Sarge out anyway, so I'll walk you back to your place.”

The three of them bundled up (Sarge wore his jaunty tartan coat—all he needed was a deerstalker hat and a pipe to complete his Sherlock Holmes impersonation) and headed down the stairs for the Cookery. Once outside, they paused to look skyward. The clouds had disappeared, revealing the beautiful starry sky.

“Just lovely,” Angelica said, “but cold. Let's move on; Sarge has a date with a fire hydrant.”

“Go on ahead. I'll be fine,” Tricia said.

“See you tomorrow,” Angelica said, giving Tricia an air kiss, and she and Sarge headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Tricia kicked at the snow on the sidewalk as she walked the ten or so feet to her storefront. Again she looked up to see if she was being watched. She wasn't. Taking out her keys, she let herself into her store, part of her wondering if Christopher was reading or watching TV . . . and the other part wondering why he hadn't been looking to catch a glimpse of her.

*   *   *

Miss Marple
demanded to be made a fuss over, and Tricia gladly obliged. But soon the cat tired of basking in Tricia's unbridled affection and retreated to the couch for a much-needed nap. Tricia then booted up her laptop and clicked on her e-mail program. She hadn't accessed it in a couple of days and found her in-box was nearly full. Half an hour later, she'd deleted most of it (after all, she didn't need Viagra or a Russian bride, or expect to collect money from a distant relative in Nigeria), and finally opened Angelica's e-mail and downloaded the Chamber of Commerce files, opening the one called MEMBER REPORT.

She felt vaguely sick as she read through the slurs and despicable character assassinations. Was it possible Betsy had used the information she'd gathered for blackmail purposes? Was that how she'd padded her bank account? If so, that was certainly a motive for murder, although Tricia couldn't imagine any of her fellow Chamber members squashing Betsy. The memory of Betsy lying in Angelica's storeroom, her lips bloodied—terminally crushed—caused Tricia to shudder once again.

To distract herself from the unpleasant recollection, Tricia scrolled through and found what Betsy had written about Ginny.
A slut whose former lover was a murderer, and whose current love (UPDATE: now her husband) is an opportunist with a shady (unverifiable) background. (See Antonio Barbero.) Wilson and Barbero worked to rob Elizabeth Crane of the opportunity to purchase the Happy Domestic just days after the death of its owner, Crane's daughter, Deborah Black.

Tricia closed the file. Ideally she would have liked to have deleted it but thought she might need it in the future—why, she wasn't quite sure. Instead, she opened a spreadsheet that chronicled the Chamber's income and expenditures. Tricia looked at the list of numbers and did a rough bit of math in her head. Something didn't quite add up. She clicked onto a cell and examined the formula. Tricia was no expert, but it seemed like Betsy's long and complicated formulas were faulty. She clicked on a free cell, typed in a simple formula to add cells two through sixty-five and pressed enter. Sure enough, the new total was much higher than the total from Betsy's formula. It didn't take much expertise to figure out that Betsy had been skimming the Chamber's accounts.

On impulse, Tricia picked up her cell phone and punched in the number of the only financial consultant in Stoneham.

“You have reached Christopher Benson Financials. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Tricia decided to go for it. “Christopher, it's Tricia. I've been looking at the Chamber of Commerce's books and they look funny to me, except I'm not laughing. Would you have time to—”
Beep!

Tricia set her phone aside. Oh, well. Perhaps what she should have done was call Angelica—not her ex-husband.

She picked up her cell phone once more, prepared to call her sister, when the ringtone sounded. She answered it. “Hello?”

“It's Christopher. You rang?”

“I'm surprised you didn't pounce on it when you heard or saw it was me calling.”

“Better a minute late than never. What were you saying, that someone cooked the Chamber's books?”

“I'm no expert, but that's what it looks like to me. I don't suppose you have a few minutes to take a look in the next couple of days.”

“Hey, I'm free right now. Are you in your apartment?”

“Yes, but I can run down the stairs to wait for you.”

“Be over in a minute,” he said and ended the call.

By the time Tricia trundled down the stairs and crossed the length of the store, Christopher stood huddled in his unzipped jacket, waiting for her to open the door. Had he risked life and limb and run across the slick street to get there so fast?

“Thank you for coming over,” she said.

“I've been dying to see where you and Miss Marple live.”

“I'm sure Miss Marple will be pleased to see you. Follow me.”

Christopher seemed to clomp up the three flights of stairs, which Tricia thought might frighten her cat, but apparently Miss Marple could sense who had come to visit. As soon as Christopher entered the kitchen, she was purring like a motorboat and winding around his legs in adoration.

“Hey, Miss Marple, will you let me pick you up?” The cat practically leapt into Christopher's arms. She rubbed her face against his chin and her purring went into overdrive. “I can see I'm going to have to come and visit you more often.”

Please, no!
Tricia thought. “The computer is in the living room.”

Christopher ruffled the cat's ears, set her back on the floor, and wriggled out of his jacket, setting it on one of the stools. “That cat always did have good taste in men.”

Tricia ignored the comment and ushered Christopher to take her seat in front of the computer. He did, snatched up the mouse, and started clicking through the spreadsheet. Next he checked the other work pages in the document before he leaned back in the chair. “So, who do you think doctored the books? Betsy Dittmeyer?”

Tricia nodded. “Angelica would never stoop to petty theft, and I'm pretty sure Bob Kelly wouldn't, either.”

“I wouldn't call this petty theft. It looks more like she'd been skimming the Chamber's income for a couple of years now. Did the former president ever have the Chamber's books audited? This kind of tampering would be evident to anyone with half a semester of Accounting 101.”

“I don't think so. What do we do next?”

Christopher shrugged. “If you want the money back, there's only one thing to do: sue Mrs. Dittmeyer's estate.”

“How long is that likely to take?”

“It could take years,” he admitted. “But I also know that the estate has enough to repay the embezzled funds. Hell, I helped her invest a large chunk of that money.”

“But you said she'd left the bulk of her estate to charity.”

“The Chamber will want to be at the top of the list of creditors who'll all want to be reimbursed.”

“Could you take on the case for the Chamber?”

He shook his head. “It might be construed as a conflict of interest.”

“Can you direct us to someone we can trust?”

“I've only been in the area for a few months, but the least I can do is find you someone with similar credentials.”

“Thank you.”
Okay, you can now leave,
Tricia thought, but Christopher didn't seem like he was in a hurry to go.

“Nice place you've got here, Trish.” He let his gaze travel around the room until it came to rest on the open door to Tricia's bedroom.

“Can I offer you a cup of coffee or perhaps some cocoa to warm you up before you head for home?” she asked in hopes of distracting him.

He turned to face her. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Not at all. I just figured we've both worked a long day and that you might want to turn in early.”
And not with me!

He mulled over the invitation. “I haven't had cocoa in ages. Do you have any marshmallows?” Tricia shook her head. “Whipped cream in a can?” Again she shook her head. “Plain is fine,” he said with what sounded like defeat, and got up from the chair to follow Tricia and Miss Marple back to the kitchen.

Tricia put the kettle on, took out two mugs, two packets of cocoa mix, and two spoons, just as she'd done with Ginny the day before.

Miss Marple immediately jumped up on the stool where Christopher had dropped his jacket, folded her legs under her, closed her eyes, and began to purr louder than ever.

Traitor!
Tricia thought. She stepped away from the island and leaned against the counter, waiting for the water to heat. She couldn't think of anything to say to Christopher. They'd said it all several years before.

“Nice loft,” Christopher said, taking in the exposed brick and the custom cabinetry.

“Thank you.”

“It's nothing like what we had in the city.”

“I made a conscious decision to avoid reminders of the past,” Tricia said.

“So I see.”

“How are you getting on in Stoneham?” she asked, more out of politeness than curiosity, or at least she wanted to believe it.

“Well. Very well, in fact. It's not too crowded. It's actually just what I've been looking for.”

“In a couple of months the town will explode with tourists. They'll be pounding the streets from ten until seven. Maybe even longer now that the Dog-Eared Page is open. You might wish you'd never come back East.”

“I don't think so. I was here at Christmas. How much more crowded can it get than that? And the soundproofing in the building is terrific. I never hear the music that's playing down below.”

Tricia nodded and turned away, wishing she hadn't asked. Instead she concentrated on emptying the cocoa packets into the mugs.

Christopher cleared his throat before speaking again. “The word circulating around the village is that the girl who runs the Patisserie is pregnant.”

“She's a woman in her thirties, not a girl,” Tricia admonished.

“So she is,” he said, nodding.

“And she's not the only one around here who's having a baby.”

“Do I know the other girl—er, woman?”

“I've been asked not to talk about it until after she's had a chance to tell her family.” That was mostly true.

Christopher smiled. “The fact that you even mentioned it means you must trust me implicitly.”

“I wouldn't go that far.” The kettle began to whistle, so Tricia unplugged it and poured hot water into the mugs and then stirred them.

“Do you ever wish we'd had a child?” Christopher asked.

Tricia sighed, resigned. This was not a conversation she wanted to have, but ignoring the question might just force him to ask again. And yet, she decided to keep her back to him when she answered. “It wasn't going to happen. Not the way we lived. I had my career and you had yours, although when I lost my job at the nonprofit I thought we might talk about it. But at nearly forty, the odds weren't in our favor, and then . . . well, you made the announcement that you were leaving me.” She sighed yet again, but decided it was time to let him know just how much she'd suffered because of his selfishness. She faced him, looking him straight in the eye. “Rehashing what might have been isn't a productive use of time. And it's heartbreaking, too. I'm sorry, Christopher, but I've had more than enough heartache for one lifetime.”

“No, Trish, I'm sorry. I was a fool. I—”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Don't flatter yourself. You broke my heart, but you weren't the only one, and even though I sometimes have to fight the urge to weaken, I will not allow it to happen again.” At least she hoped that last part was true.

Christopher looked crestfallen. “Does that mean you've given up on love?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. But I refuse to rush into any relationship ever again. Angelica tells people that this is her time in life to do as she pleases. I've decided to adopt the same philosophy.”

“And what will that entail?”

She shrugged. “I'm not sure. Yet.”
But not you.
She felt a pang of something . . . regret?
Most likely.

Tricia picked up one of the cocoa mugs and plopped it in front of Christopher. “Careful. It's very hot.”

He lifted it and blew on it to cool it. “You know, we would have been great parents,” he said at last.