Clobbered by Camembert (24 page)

As I drew nearer to Urso and Jacky, I could hear passion in Jacky’s tone.

“. . . not your property, understand?” She gave his chest a final slap, then turned on her heel and dashed away.

Was Urso being too territorial? Was that the problem festering between them? Only last year, Jacky had confided that one of the major problems in her marriage had been that her husband had demanded to know where she was at all times. Every relationship needed breathing space.

Pretending I had heard none of their conversation, I put on a game face and nabbed Urso before he could run off. He was still our chief of police, and he had a murder to solve.

“What’s up?” His eyes looked strained, his jaw tight. “I was planning on returning your call.”

I told him about Barton Burrell’s new alibi. “Quigley said Barton was taking Emma to the hospital. It was a regular occurrence. I know she lost more than one child to a miscarriage. Perhaps she was pregnant again and something happened.”

“Why lie?” Urso said.

“Exactly. Something’s up with—”

“Whoa!” A roar and applause exploded from the crowd around Delilah and Luigi.

I glanced over my shoulder. Flames flared from the skillet. The sight triggered something in my mind, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what.

Adjust your thinking,
my grandfather had said, and I tried, but nothing registered.

And then, like a vision, through the flames I caught sight of Barton Burrell hurrying after Emma. I didn’t see their three boys anywhere. Barton grabbed his wife’s arm and spun her around. She mouthed easily understood words—
You lied—
and raised her hand to smack him. He gripped her wrist, then his gaze turned sad. In slow motion, he released her, and as if he was working hard to harness his anger, stormed away.

Emma staggered backward. She looked ready to fall.

I raced to catch her.

CHAPTER

I slung an arm around Emma. The dormant grass between the tents was soggy from melted snow, and moisture would soak through her wool coat and corduroy slacks in seconds, but I didn’t think she could remain standing. She was vibrating with anxiety. I guided her to the ground.

“Wait. Have her sit on this, Charlotte.” Urso removed his jacket and placed it directly beneath Emma. She gave him a look of thanks. He pivoted and eyed the people circling us. “Show’s over, folks. Give the lady room.” As the crowd dispersed, he knelt on one knee beside us. “Do you want some water, Mrs. Burrell?”

She nodded. Urso rose to his feet and strode off.

“What’s going on, Emma?” I said, keeping my tone gentle and unthreatening. “Why did Barton stomp away?”

“Angry.”

Got that.
“Why?” I said.

“Kids,” Emma muttered.

“What about the kids?” Getting one-word answers was frustrating. I stroked her hair. “C’mon, you can talk to me.”

“Girls.”

“You have boys.”

She sucked in a breath. “Almost had girls.”

I took hold of her hand. She gripped my fingers like a vise as her eyes searched mine for something. Support? Redemption?

Urso returned with a bottle of water, uncapped it, and passed it to me.

I pressed it into Emma’s hands. “Drink.” She did, but not enough. I said, “Sip more if you can.”

She drank hungrily, then coughed hard. When the coughing subsided, she whispered, “I started the argument.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “So difficult … Anniversary.”

“It’s your anniversary?”

She shook her head sharply. “A baby. We lost a baby.”

Now I was getting the picture. “You miscarried a year ago.”

“I get so angry. And I”—she covered her mouth with the back of her hand—“I—”

“Urso!” Delilah squealed. “Quick!”

A whoosh split the calm. The throng around the La Bella Ristorante cart screamed.

The Italian flag on the concession cart had caught on fire. Huge licks of flame rose from the skillet. Heat tumbled through the air. A spit of fire flew sideways and fell to the ground.

Urso bolted to the cart. “Back up! Everyone! Delilah, fetch a fire extinguisher.”

Extinguishers were located every fifty to one hundred feet throughout the faire. Ten years ago a fire on Founder’s Day had destroyed a quarter of the tents. No people were hurt, only merchandise, but Grandmère vowed it would never happen again. She had summoned extra city funds to pay for safety precautions.

I turned back to Emma, who looked dazed with fear. The reflection of fire danced in her hazel eyes. “C’mon, Emma, on your feet.”

She resisted and whispered, “Barton lied.”

“On your feet,” I repeated. “It’s not safe here.”

“He lied.”

“I heard you. And I know he lied. You weren’t home that night watching TV. Please get up.”

“Coming through, Charlotte.” Delilah raced past me with a pair of fire extinguishers and gave them to Urso and Luigi.

“That night …” Emma allowed me to hoist her to a stand. She was heavier than she looked. Sturdy bones, my grandmother would say. “ … the night Kaitlyn Clydesdale died, Barton and I were driving.”

Even though the crisis was contained, I struggled to move her away from the commotion to a quieter spot in between a cluster of tents. I said, “You were going to the hospital.”

She shook her head.

“Where were you going?”

“To a rehab clinic.”

I gaped at her. “Do you have an addiction?”

“It’s complicated.”

Earlier, when Barton and his sons had found her, he had removed a soda bottle from her hands. Had it been filled with liquor or laced with pills? Had she separated from them a second time and found another source to nurse her habit, thus reigniting Barton’s wrath?

I said, “You and Barton lied to Chief Urso because you didn’t want people to know you had an addiction.”

“Don’t talk to her, Emma!” Barton hustled toward us, the front of his overcoat flapping open. He reminded me of a hawk ready to descend upon its quarry. He snatched Emma from my grasp and looked down his nose at me. “You have no right to snoop around our lives.”

I faced him. “Why did you lie to Chief Urso?”

“What did you tell her?” he demanded of his wife.

I said, “You went back and forth to a rehab facility with regularity.”

“No,” Emma whispered.

She could deny it, but I knew what she had said.

“That’s a lie,” Barton yelled.

“You thought people in town would suspect Emma had an addiction.” I kept my gaze fixed on him. “You were worried about your reputation.”

“No, Charlotte,” Emma said, this time more firmly. “I don’t have an addiction.”

I shot her a look. “But you said you were at the rehab facility that night.”

“Only that night. Every other week we were going to the hospital for checkups.”

“Useless checkups,” Barton grumbled. His shoulders sagged.

“That night, it was the anniversary of”—Emma sucked back a sob—“of our last baby miscarrying. I couldn’t handle it. I took pills. A lot of pills. I needed my stomach pumped. We went to the rehab facility because we knew they’d keep it private.” She sighed. “Yes, Barton was worried that people would think the worst.” She eyed him. “You did.”

Barton pulled Emma closer and kissed the side of her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

She mouthed:
Me, too.
“Where are the boys?”

“With your mother.” Barton glowered at me. “If you say a word, Charlotte . . .”

“I’m not the nightly news, Barton, but unless you tell Chief Urso the truth, you could be a suspect in Kaitlyn Clydesdale’s death. Watching television with your wife is not a good alibi, no matter what you think. And you need a good alibi. Word is that you didn’t want to sell your property. You wanted out of the contract, but Kaitlyn wouldn’t let you renege.”

“How do you know that?”

“There are also rumors that you were having an affair with her.”

“What? No frigging way!” He released his wife and smacked his gloved hands together. “I’ll bet she started that rumor herself, dang it. Kaitlyn was a horrible woman. She preyed on us. At times I thought of killing her. I imagined ways I would do it.”

“An actor’s mind is a creative sinkhole,” Emma said. “Luckily, he’s a farmer by day.”

“Kaitlyn knew every facet of our lives,” Barton went on.

“Did she blackmail you to coerce you to proceed with the deal?”

“No, she didn’t have to. She knew what we owed. With three boys and medical insurance and the cost of keeping the farm, she knew we were strapped. But I wouldn’t have put it past her to blackmail some of the more stubborn folk who didn’t want to sell. Our property was the lynchpin.”

“For what?”

“I’m not sure. I heard her telling Chip Cooper that she was after Urso’s parents’ property, too.”

I gaped. Could that have been the
property
that Jacky and Urso had been arguing about? Did their argument have nothing to do with their relationship? Perhaps Kaitlyn had wanted to own the entire north section of town. I recalled Lois saying that Kaitlyn owned cattle farms, sheep farms, wineries, and more. It was the
more
that worried me now. Visions of combining lush green landscapes weren’t scudding across my mind; visions of megastores and strip malls popping up on the north side of town were. According to Lois, Kaitlyn hated for things to be
behind the times.
Had she planned to update Providence by destroying the very thing that made Providence a desirable place to raise a family? I wasn’t concerned about competition for The Cheese Shop. A megastore wouldn’t carry many gourmet delights nor offer tastings, but a megastore might carry books and clothing and cause places like All Booked Up and The Spotted Giraffe to lose sales.

Emma said, “And now her CFO is after the properties.”

“Georgia Plachette?”

“She’s evil.”

“Shhh, honey.” Barton wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders again. “We don’t want to malign an innocent.”

“She’s not innocent,” Emma hissed. “She’s a shark. She looks so vulnerable with that curly hair and that pixie smile, but she’s wicked.” She shot an earnest look at me. “She’s been stalking us, Charlotte. Trying to get dirt on us. She said things to my children. To my children! And to my doctor. And my hairdresser. She said we weren’t honorable because we wanted out of our contract. You should question her, Charlotte. I wouldn’t put it past her to have hired someone to off her mother.”

The words hit me like a flat-ironed pan. Had Tyanne been right about that angle?

“If you’re going to question her, do it quickly,” Emma added. “I think she’s getting ready to leave town. I saw her entering Violet’s Victoriana Inn at a clip.”

I thought of Oscar shaking his phone to me in the pub and his look back at Georgia. I could have sworn he had been the frightened one. Was Georgia afraid of Oscar because he could pin a murder on her? Had she hired him to do it?

I raced back to the crepe cart to invite Urso to join me for a chat with Georgia before she hightailed it out of town, but he wasn’t there. I cornered Delilah, whose nose was smudged with soot. She smelled like fire-extinguisher foam.

“Where’s Urso?” I said.

“On an urgent mission.” Delilah smirked. “Starts with a J and ends with a Y—Jacky,” she added, as if I hadn’t guessed. “She stopped by the cart, crooked a finger, and he was off in a flash. Why do you need him?”

I didn’t have time to explain.

CHAPTER

In her brochures, Violet called her Victoriana Inn a state-of-the-art bed-and-breakfast. In my humble opinion, the terms were mutually exclusive. While Lois had decked out the Lavender and Lace B&B in cushy couches, exquisite old carpets, and lace curtains, Violet had streamlined her inn using spartan furniture, no carpeting, and sleek blinds. Lois lured customers with home-cooked meals; Violet’s chef offered spa food that would make even a vegetable-loving rabbit lose weight. From the rear of Lavender and Lace, guests could take long walks into the hills. At the back of Violet’s Victoriana Inn, there was a gym filled with stair steppers, treadmills, and weight machines. If I were on vacation, I would opt for Lavender and Lace every time.

But Violet’s Victoriana Inn didn’t lack for clientele. The parking lot was filled with BMWs, Mercedes, Lexuses, and other high-end automobiles. The great room swarmed with well-dressed people talking about their days’ adventures.

Violet, wearing a white jogging suit that was one size too small for her chunky shape, danced behind the reception desk, keeping time with the jazzy music being piped through the overhead speakers. Her marshmallow-colored pigtails flopped in syncopated rhythm. “Hi, Charlotte. Can’t stop. On a diet.” Violet’s weight swung like a pendulum. Up thirty pounds, down thirty pounds.

“I’m looking for Georgia Plachette.”

“At this time of night?” She huffed and puffed.

“It’s not even nine yet.”

“That’s late in Providence.”

“Please, Violet.”

She grabbed a white towel from beneath the check-in counter and wiped the sheen of perspiration from above her fleshy lips. “It’s so sad what Georgia is going through. Did you know she’s Kaitlyn Clydesdale’s daughter?”

I nodded. I didn’t add that I suspected Georgia might have put a hit on her mother. Too much information. “Is she here?”

“Funny you should ask. I just called her room to say her guests had arrived.” She wiggled her fingers at the elderly woman and gentleman who had been at the pub with Georgia. They sat on a stiff-backed bench that was situated between two perfectly trimmed and potted ficus trees. “Georgia’s packing. She’s heading off with them soon.”

“Are they her grandparents?” I asked, to verify my assessment.

“Sure are. Sweet couple. I hear they’re going back to California to have a burial at sea.” She wrinkled her nose. “Me, I’m all about ritual. A person should have a real funeral service and be buried in a casket in a cemetery. This whole ashes-to-ashes thing gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Cremation didn’t bother me. My parents had specified in their wills that they wanted whoever survived them to bury their remains at the top of Kindred Hill. My grandparents had asked that an oak be planted on top of their ashes. From the center of town, I could see the thirty-year-old oak tree, and I drew strength from it.

I said, “Do you think I could visit Georgia in her room?”

Violet reached for the telephone.

I tapped her wrist. “Please don’t call her. We’re friends. I simply want to make sure she’s got everything she needs before she leaves town. She’s in room …” I let my voice trail off.

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“I’ll help you get a date with the guy who runs Café au Lait.” Only last week, I had noticed Violet making eyes at the guy in The Cheese Shop. She usually liked soft-centered cheeses, but she had inched toward the brick cheese section where he was standing and had started chatting about
terroir
—like she knew anything about how cheese drew its flavors from the earth.

“Room two thirteen,” Violet whispered.

Easy as bringing a cheese to room temperature.

* * *

A minute later, I rapped on Georgia’s door and mumbled, “Peanut butter watermelon,” a trick I had learned from Grandmère when she directed crowd scenes on stage. The words slurred together and sounded like a whole slew of other words.

Georgia, clad in yet another revealing black sheath and clunky five-inch heels, opened the door. The instant she saw me, she slapped a hand on her narrow hip and frowned. “You’re not housekeeping.”

“Didn’t say I was.”

She grumbled. “What do you want at this time of night?”

“May I come in? I thought I would get a chance to chat with you at the pub, but you left so quickly.”

Her gaze darted to the sleek satin bed. A suitcase piled with black clothing lay on top. Pairs of platform shoes were lined up at the foot. Her red briefcase stood on the zebra-striped area rug beside one of the bed’s legs. Files poked from the opening. Something drew my gaze back to the suitcase. A toiletry kit sat on the back flap of the suitcase. An iPhone was perched on top of that. It looked like Chip’s. Had Georgia wrested it away from Oscar?

“Leaving town with your grandparents?” I asked.

“How’d you know who they were?”

“I’m psychic.” I winked, trying to keep things light.

She huffed. “That Violet. She can’t keep a secret.”

“You look like your grandmother. You have the same eyes, the same pretty chin.”

Reflexively, Georgia’s hand moved toward her face. She stopped short and sneezed. Clearly exasperated with me, she traipsed to the bureau, her five-inchers clip-clopping as she reached the hardwood floor, and grabbed a tissue from a box. “Dang cold.” She blew her nose.

Without invitation, I moseyed into the room. My fingers itched to get hold of the cell phone. “I hear you’re returning to California. Violet said you’re planning a burial at sea.”

Georgia muttered, “Violet,” and rasped a series of dry coughs.

“Brandy would soothe your throat.”

“Yeah, like Violet would have something as decadent as brandy in this place. There’s no wine, no beer. Nothing. I can order chamomile tea, but I’m tea’d out. What I need is a good cough syrup.”

I pulled an herbal cough drop from my purse and handed it to her. A peace pipe couldn’t have been more warmly received. She peeled off the paper, slipped the lozenge into her mouth, and murmured her relief.

Treading softly, I said, “I saw you sitting with Oscar Carson at the pub.”

“Oscar.” She sighed as she worked the lozenge to the inside of her cheek. “He didn’t really work for Ipo Ho. He—” She started coughing again.

I patted her back, but she waved me off, raced to the bathroom, and kicked the door closed. I heard the clatter of a glass, followed by water gushing into the sink. I glanced at the cell phone and didn’t hesitate. I needed to learn what Oscar had seen on it. As I reached for it, it rang.

“Drat.” Georgia opened the bathroom door a couple of inches and waved her arm. “Could you hand that to me?”

I picked up the iPhone. The readout read:
Nana
, which meant the phone wasn’t Chip’s. Both of his grandmothers had died years ago. I offered it to Georgia.

Without a thank-you, she closed the door, and I heard her mumble, “Yes, Nana. In a sec, I told you.”

I peeked at the briefcase beside the bed. No time like the present. If Georgia had a clear-cut motive to kill her mother—like a will ceding her a sizeable estate or making her the sole owner of Clydesdale Enterprises—Urso deserved to know about it. I started with the file bearing her full name on the label. In it, I found a contract for employment, which included a starting salary that was measly at best. No language stated that she would receive bonuses for a job well done. In addition, the file included a copy of Georgia’s graduation certificate from the University of Southern California. Post-its had been attached to both documents, with handwritten notes saying Kaitlyn had reviewed and approved them. I didn’t detect a hint of favoritism, as Georgia had implied in our previous meeting at the Clydesdale Enterprises office.

The second file contained a list of the company’s holdings, which included several strip malls across the country. As I feared, a megastore was the anchor at each. Kaitlyn hadn’t been interested in returning to Providence and soaking up the local flavor. She had intended to change the landscape for profit. How many locals had known? How many of those people would have wished Kaitlyn a speedy and not-so-fond farewell?

The third file held plat maps of Providence properties. I flipped through them, looking for a document or will granting Georgia millions buried within them, but found nothing.

As the door handle to the bathroom turned, guilty heat gushed through my veins. I couldn’t let her catch me snooping. As I raced to restore order to the briefcase, Georgia’s cell phone jangled a second time.

From within the bathroom, Georgia said, “Now what?”

Using those few precious seconds, I stuffed the files into her briefcase. I was rising to full height when Georgia stepped out carrying a pair of scissors. She pointed them at me, her face pinched with what could only be described as intense pain.

I gulped. Did she mean to run me through? Where had she left her cell phone? I would have preferred it to the scissors. I raised my hands, palms toward her in a placating gesture. “You’re upset.”

“I’m sick.”

Okay, I could go with that. Twisted, perhaps.

“Are you spying on me?” Brandishing the scissors, she indicated the briefcase.

I cursed silently. One of the files was jutting up—a dead giveaway. Rebecca would be appalled at my shabby sleuthing skills. “Um … I was interested in what Clydesdale Enterprises was up to.”

She edged toward me.

Though my pulse raced, I would lie, lie, lie if it would save my hide. “Rumor has it that your mother was trying to buy parcels along the northern route out of town. I wanted to see which—”

“Buy? Are you kidding me?”

I ogled the scissors. “Um, why don’t you put those down so we can talk?”

Georgia glimpsed at the shears and back at me, then sneezed. The intense expression on her face faded. Had she been trying to hold in the sneeze? Her mouth turned up in a wry smile. She flipped the scissors around in her hand and offered them to me, butt first. “I was hoping you could trim a lock at the back of my head. I can’t reach it.” She spun around and pointed. “See it? Dead center. Curls are tough for even the best hairdressers.”

I felt myself blush with relief. She didn’t want to kill me. She wanted a helping hand. Trying to keep the conversation going, I said, “You seemed surprised when I said your mother wanted to buy property north of town.”

Without looking at me, she said, “It was the word
buy
that got me. She wasn’t trying to buy anything. She was blackmailing people for the parcels.”

“Really?” I said innocently. I could act as dumb as the best of ’em. I snipped off the offending inch-long curl and held it out to her.

Georgia took the lock and strode to the bureau. She checked out the back of her hair in the mirror and nodded with satisfaction. She held out a hand for the return of the scissors. I was a bit reluctant, needless to say, but I granted her wish. She set the scissors on the shiny silver runner that ran the length of the bureau and gazed again at me. “Townsfolk didn’t want to sell,” she said. “Many were savvy to my mother’s wiles. So she resorted to her true nature. She got dirt on people and
voilá
.” Her mouth pursed with distaste.

“I thought you said you liked your mother.”

She sniffed, but this time it wasn’t from her illness. “Truth? I feel like I can trust you.”

I felt a smidge guilty for having raided her files, but not guilty enough to dissuade her from continuing.

“I hated her. No, that’s much too gentle a word. I despised her. She didn’t approve of anything I did. Who I dated. Where I lived.”

I thought of the Post-its in Georgia’s personnel folder. What kind of contempt had she suffered from her mother throughout her lifetime?

“I got over it,” Georgia went on, “because I didn’t approve of her either. I didn’t like the way she did business or of the way she treated people. She was vicious.”

And yet Chip said Georgia had been acting with similar heinous intent. So did the Burrells. She had been stalking them and ruining their reputation. Was she playing me?

“Why did you work for her?” I asked.

“When I graduated college, I needed a job. Nobody was hiring.” She worried her hands together. “I thought I could put in a year and find another job, but I couldn’t. It took fifteen years.” She muttered something about a weak economy. “The day before my mother died, I learned that a realty firm specializing in purchasing hotels wanted to hire me. I asked to quit, but my mother wouldn’t let me.” Georgia tilted her head, eyeing me like an apprehensive puppy. “Please don’t think I would’ve killed her over a contract. Mother was tough, but in time, I could’ve persuaded her to release me.”

“Not everyone could have.”

“True.”

“Like Oscar, for instance.”

“Good old delusional Oscar.” Georgia wrapped a curl around a finger.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Home, I expect, sleeping off a few too many beers.” She released the curl. “Did you see him at the pub prancing around with Chip’s iPhone? Men!”

Did she like him? There was a sparkle in her eye. However, despite her more relaxed demeanor, I couldn’t erase the vision of Oscar looking fearfully at her at the pub. “Why did he want Chip’s cell phone?”