Clobbered by Camembert (8 page)

CHAPTER

“You what?” Urso stood on the stoop of Rebecca’s cottage and glowered at me. His broad-brimmed hat cast a shadow over his face and made his eyes look especially ominous. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

Rebecca and Ipo stood at the Dutch door, the top half open once again. Light haloed their heads as they strained to hear our conversation. The crowd had dispersed.

“You are going to be the death of me, Charlotte Bessette,” Urso said, sounding like an old coot. “What were you thinking, chasing after him?”

“Can’t you get past that?” I said. “He corroborated that Rebecca and Ipo were in the park.”

“They told me they were outside. I assumed the yard.”

Rebecca shouted, “Outside in the park. You never let me finish, Chief.”

Urso cut a steely look at her and then an even steelier one at me. “I’ll question Oscar Carson, and we’ll see what he says when he’s not under duress.”

“Oh, yeah, like I could influence him,” I said, knowing I had. I had held him in place with my toe. Having Jordan looming beside me hadn’t hurt, either.

Rebecca applauded.

“Hush, Miss Zook.” Urso eyed me. “Did you at least leave him in one piece?”

“He’s willing and able. No bruises.”

“Where will I find him?”

I bit back a smile of triumph. “I imagine he went home.”

“You didn’t bind him up?”

“I’m not that dastardly.”

A twinkle crept into Urso’s gaze. He quickly erased it and whirled around on Rebecca and Ipo. “You two stay put, you hear? Not a peep to reporters or to townsfolk. I’ll return.”

“Do either of them need a lawyer?” I asked.

Urso stabbed a finger at me. I threw my hands up in mock-defense. He didn’t say a word and marched away.

* * *

The next morning started with a bang. Literally. Even though I heard something akin to a poltergeist in my kitchen, I dared to enter. I found Amy raging from cupboard to cupboard, slamming indiscriminately while muttering, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Sometimes she was so like my grandmother it was scary. Negative energy zinged out of her.

Our poor Briard pup, his eyes as wide as saucers, scooted beneath the kitchen dining table and sought shelter by Clair’s legs. Rags, who was used to Amy’s occasional outbursts, nestled into his rattan bed and placed a paw over his exposed ear.

I glanced at Clair, who was working on a needlepoint project for art class, and said, “What’s wrong with your sister?”

Clair tucked her hair behind her ears. “She’s mad at Tommy for not paying attention to her last night.”

“Thomas,” Amy cried. “I call him Thomas now. He told me I had to. And, oh, he paid attention, all right,” she went on, her voice squeaky with outrage. “He squirted me with ice-cold water.”

Clair stifled a laugh. “It could have been worse. He could have pelted you with ice chips.”

I knew better than to get into this argument. I opened the refrigerator and retrieved gluten-free pancake mix. I had made it at midnight to settle my nerves. “Will flapjacks with crème fraîche and chocolate chips help your mood?”

Amy scowled at me. “Nothing will help me today. Nothing. He’s so … so . . .”

“Stupid,” Clair said.

Amy whirled on her. “He’s not stupid.”

“Last night you swore you would never like him again.”

“And I won’t.” Amy sizzled with anger. “Never.” She stormed from the kitchen and stomped up the stairs. The door to her bedroom slammed with a thwack.

* * *

An hour later, when I arrived at The Cheese Shop, I found Rebecca in a similar mood, for entirely different, more grown-up reasons.

She charged me like a freight train with no brakes. “You’ve got to do something.” She tugged on the cuff of my red turtleneck sweater. “Something!”

“Where’s Matthew?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s downstairs admiring the framing in the cellar. Please, do something.”

“About what?”

The shop was empty of customers. I allowed her to pull me into the kitchen at the rear of the shop where she was preparing a gift basket. An assortment of cheeses sat on the granite counter, including a bloomy rind Brillat-Savarin, a washed-rind Taleggio, and a Mimolette, which was a perfect cheese for grating, with a unique tangerine color and heavenly hazelnut flavor. The basket already contained a jar of Ipo’s Quail Ridge Honey, a box of gourmet crackers, and a bag of dried cranberries. Wheels of ribbon and a pair of scissors lay to the side.

Rebecca released me. “Urso went to Ipo’s after he met with that horrible Oscar Carson.”

“O-ka-a-ay.” I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater and started wrapping the cheese selections in our special paper.

“He wanted to see those luau sticks that he’d asked Ipo about, but Ipo couldn’t find the sticks. They weren’t where he stored them in his house. Somebody stole them.”

“Why would someone steal them?” To each selection of cheese, I added an identifying sticker that informed the customer of the name of the cheese, its country of origin, and the type of milk used:
cow, sheep, goat.

“I don’t know. Neither does Ipo.” Rebecca worried her hands in front of her. “Please, please help him.”

“What can I do?”

“Find the real killer. You’re the smartest person I know. You can do it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

I shot her a concerned look. Usually she gave me a play-by-play of the steps I needed to take to solve a crime—steps she had gleaned from TV repeats of
NCIS
,
Murder, She Wrote
, and
Law & Order
. “How long were you at Cherry Orchard Park?” I asked, deciding that the first step in any investigation was establishing a timetable of events—not that I would be investigating, but I liked to be prepared.

“At least forty-five minutes.” Rebecca picked up the scissors and a strand of ribbon and curled the heck out of it.

“Did you know Kaitlyn was coming over to talk to Ipo?”

“We didn’t have a clue.” Rebecca started in on another unsuspecting strand of ribbon. Curl, curl, curl. She ended up with the tightest corkscrew twist I had ever seen.

“So whoever killed her was impulsive,” I said. “He—”

“—or she,” Rebecca cut in.

“—or
she
couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t be there. Maybe he … or she … simply wanted to chat with Kaitlyn, but things got out of hand.”

“What about Barton Burrell?” Rebecca shook the scissors at me. “What if he didn’t want to sell his farm?”

I calmly removed the scissors from her hand and set them at the far end of the counter. “Then he would have opted out of his contract.”

She crossed her arms and tucked her hands beneath her armpits. “What if he couldn’t?”

“Any contract can be broken. It might have cost him, but he could have broken it. Besides, I saw Barton at Lois’s Lavender and Lace doing chores right before Kaitlyn died.”

“No, you didn’t. You went to yoga class. There was plenty of time for Barton to have gone to the pub and overheard where Kaitlyn was headed. He could have run to my place, seen Ipo and me leave, and realized his opportunity. He waited for her inside, argued with her, and wham.” She slammed a fist into her palm and begged me with her eyes to conjure up a better scenario.

“Charlotte?” Matthew called. He strode past the kitchen, reading from a sheaf of papers. Seconds later, he reappeared and peeked in. “Aha, there you are.”

“I thought you were in the cellar,” I said.

“A while ago. Hey, Tyanne came in looking for you.”

I tensed. Did she want to discuss the destruction of her husband’s ice sculpture? Thomas and Amy’s budding friendship? What would I say?

“You hired her, remember?”

Of course, I did. The last twenty-four hours had sped by in a blur.

“I sent her to our Winter Wonderland tent to help Pépère,” Matthew went on. “Hope that’s all right. Do you have a sec to review some vendor contracts?”

“Sure, I—”

“Matthew.” Rebecca pushed me aside and made a beeline for my cousin. “You’re brilliant. Don’t you think Barton Burrell could have killed Kaitlyn Clydesdale?”

So much for me being the smartest person she knew.

Rebecca explained her theory.

“Nah, Barton is harmless,” Matthew said. “In fact, he might be one of the nicest guys in town.”

“Nice guys commit murder,” Rebecca said.

“Not usually.”

Rebecca poked me. “Charlotte, you told me once that Barton loves his cattle farm more than life itself.” She had a mind like a steel trap. “If he were going to lose it …” She looked to Matthew for support.

Matthew tubed the sheaf of papers and slipped them under his arm. “Sure, Barton loves his farm. Why shouldn’t he? It belonged to three generations of Burrells. But I promise you, he would never hurt a fly. Back in school, he didn’t go out for any contact sports. Ride a horse? You bet. Rope a steer? He won contests. But kill somebody?” Matthew shook his head. “Barton did not do this.”

“Neither did Ipo,” Rebecca said.

“I didn’t say he did.” Matthew stepped into the kitchen and put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “Hang in there. Justice will prevail.” He plucked the papers from under his arm and waved them at me. “When you’ve got time.”

As he left, Rebecca stamped her foot, clearly frustrated. “What about that Oscar Carson? He could have killed Miss Clydesdale.”

“He’s your alibi,” I said.

“But what if he’s actually establishing us as
his
alibi? What if Oscar didn’t hear us giggling? What if he made up overhearing us to give himself an alibi?”

I hadn’t considered that because I was so delighted that his testimony would help Rebecca and Ipo.

“You didn’t grill him that hard,” Rebecca went on. “What if Oscar broke into Ipo’s and stole those kala’au rods? I’ll bet he knew about them. He lives on the property. He could have gone in and out in a flash.” She darted out of the kitchen. “He was an actor, right?” she said, calling over her shoulder. “Is Oscar Carson his real name or is it a stage name?”

“Where are you going?”

“The office. I want to do a Google search.”

I started to chuckle but bit my lip. This was not a laughing matter. My eager assistant was serious. I hurried after her, taking a quick moment to peek around the shop. No customers.

The office was toasty. The fax machine, copier, and computer were all switched on, adding to the warmth.

“What if he has a criminal record?” Rebecca asked as she nudged Rags out of the office chair and plunked herself onto the seat. After opening a Google search page, she tap-danced her fingers across the computer keyboard.

“Hold on there, Nancy Drew.” I gripped her upper arm.

She wrenched free and continued typing. “He’s an actor. An actor could fake every bit of what he said.”

She had a point. Oscar admitted that he wanted to quit working for Clydesdale Enterprises. Maybe Kaitlyn wouldn’t let him out of his contract. Maybe he became so incensed that he slugged her. But where had he gotten one of Ipo’s kala’au rods? Ipo said they were stowed at his house. No, something didn’t jibe with the scenario I was fashioning. The killer had brought the weapon to the cottage. That indicated premeditated murder.

Rebecca’s search revealed hundreds of Oscar Carsons from which to choose. She inserted a plus sign and the word
actor
on the search line. The listings narrowed to three. Each Oscar had a different middle initial, which I assumed the actors’ union required to distinguish one actor from the other. There couldn’t be three George Clooneys, right? Rebecca clicked on the first entry. A picture of an ancient-looking man materialized. “Rats, not ours,” she muttered. She opened the second Oscar Carson record, the one with an
I
as its middle initial. The actor looked like a hoot of a character, with a big bulbous nose and thick black glasses and a sloppy grin. “Not this one either.”

Upon opening the third listing, a movie database site came into view.

“Gotcha.” Rebecca zoomed in. Oscar stared out from his headshot photograph with intense, soul-searching eyes. “Zowie, get a load of him. Who’d have guessed a hunk lived beneath all the baggy clothing and scruffy beard?” Accompanying photos showed Oscar escorting at least a dozen beautiful women to events. Each photo blazed with flashbulb glare. “Phooey. No criminal record for him that I can see.” Rebecca closed the window and swiveled to face me. “What about Creep Chef?”

“What about him?”

“Maybe he killed Kaitlyn.”

“Why?” I sputtered.

“I don’t know. What if he has a criminal record?” She started to type his name into the search field.

“Uh-uh. No way.” I pinned her wrists and hitched my head toward the door. “Back to work.”

She wriggled free. “C’mon, Charlotte.”

“No. We’re done in here. You are not going to bring up Chip’s history on the Internet, got me?” I had no desire to see how many beautiful women Chip had escorted in France—not that he had—but knowing how much Chip loved the limelight, his living a glamorous nightlife was not beyond possibility. “Besides, he had every reason to keep Kaitlyn alive. She was going to make his dreams come true.” As much as I wanted Chip out of my life, I couldn’t forget his delight when he had told me about the restaurant he would one day own.