Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (3 page)

“I love my home. I believe I have mentioned that before. I am sure that my wiring is fine. And if it's not, it can be fixed. I'll never find another place like that.”

“Well, it's a beautiful spot, and a lot of waterfront property for sure. But it's not the only nice place in the area. Everyone
knows you are broke. I could make it worth your while to sell.”

“No,” I said, a bit louder than I intended.

The stocky redhead with the towering heels had been lingering by her idling car, maybe counting her cash or even just waiting for someone. She checked her watch conspicuously and scowled in our direction. I was pretty sure that Jean-Claude was the focus of her attention.

Jean-Claude seemed to be totally unconscious of her presence as he turned his back on her. I wondered about that, since he does nothing without a good business reason. He didn't even glance when a couple of giggling teenagers bumped into her. She dropped her purse, scattering the contents. She knew some interesting words, for sure. Everyone around got an earful as she jammed her belongings into an oversized red bag with
En feu!
written on it. Still swearing, she climbed back into the giant vehicle, squealed off down the road, turned sharply and roared up the hill to the old Wallingford Estate, now known officially as Le Domaine Wallingford.

I couldn't help but watch her, but Jean-Claude didn't take his
eyes
off me. “You could get something a bit more modern, lots of places with nice views a few miles north. Perkins, Kazabazua, Rupert.”

“I like the view I have now.”

“Continue to think about it,” he said. “I will be very fair to you. You'd have money to buy a new place and enough left over to pay things off. Relax a bit. Get some clothes, perhaps travel.”

I turned back to Jean-Claude. “Not a chance,” I said with a tight smile that hurt my mouth.

Jean-Claude had pressured my late aunt Kit in her final years. She'd left me the little house on the two wooded acres near the water. It came with all the memories of the happy summers I'd spent there as a child. I'd promised her I'd never
let him get his manicured mitts on it.

“You wouldn't have to worry about money any more.”

“Not happening.”

“And you could use a new car as well.”

I turned to cross the street.

“Well, give it some more thought and get back to me,” he called after me.

When you talk to Jean-Claude, it's as though nothing you say registers. But this time, he seemed even more confident and arrogant than usual. Did he have some way of knowing that I was already worrying about my overdue tax bill? Jean-Claude had a finger in every pie in town. Everyone owes him something, except me, and he's related to half the town. He probably knew the state of my bank account and how little time I had to settle my tax bill before the municipality could take my property.

I kept my head high and didn't notice an object on the ground until I stumbled over it. I bent and picked up a leather wallet with a leopard print design. The red-headed woman must have dropped it.

I opened the wallet and checked for a name. Harriet Crowder would notice the loss of her
ID
, credit cards and five hundred dollars pretty quickly, I thought. I couldn't find a telephone number. Maybe the people at CeeCeeCuisine would know how to contact her.

The sight of all that cash reminded me that I didn't have a sou. I pulled out my cell phone and called Philip again. This time I didn't even get Irene.

Across the road near CeeCeeCuisine, a huge sign said:
Rafaël et Marietta seront ici!!!
What did that mean? Who were they? Some people with a big budget were getting married? I wasn't the only one who was asking. A small, excited clutch of people were pointing at the sign. Apparently, it was big news.
Not big enough to take my mind off the horrible accident I'd seen, the fact that Marc-André was languishing in the rehab centre, while Phil was stonewalling, my bank account sat below zero, and Jean-Claude was scheming to get my property.

I had hit rock bottom.

That made me crave food with an equal measure of fat, starch and salt. The kind of stuff that you find in small-town greasy spoons. Stuff like poutine. I had just enough change to manage it. I made my way to Chez Fred, my favourite greasy spoon. The Chez has air conditioning, and air conditioning trumps everything. Plus the greasier the spoon, the better the poutine.

I glanced down the street and spotted a rickety bicycle hurtling toward me. The bike squealed to a halt, and fifteen-year-old Josey Thring hopped off and propped it against the wall. She angled it carefully so the homemade sign for her handygirl operation,
THE THRING TO DO
, showed to advantage. Josey's freckles stood out against her pale skin, and her cowlicks were on full alert.

“Hey, Miz Silk, I've been hoping to run into you.” Josey likes to get business out of the way early in a conversation. “You must need a lot of stuff done in your garden. I'll come by and cut your grass. Heat wave like this, you must be up to your neck in weeds. Dust too, I suppose.”

“Don't worry about it, Josey.”

“It's a pretty hot day. You're looking kind of cooked. I could walk Tolstoy for you.”

“Thanks, but it's too hot for Tolstoy to walk right now. He's hiding out in the basement, sound asleep. I'll have to wait until it cools down.”

“Oh sure, I can come by later.”

With Josey, you have to fight fire with fire. “Shouldn't you be studying tonight? You must have your exams coming up.”

“I had a study day today. I guess I should check your gutters too.”

“And what exactly were you studying?”

Who was I kidding? Josey never studied for a minute, and as far as I could tell, she rarely went to school. On the other hand, she passed with excellent marks every year, and I did need my grass cut. It wasn't even summer yet, and I'd already given up the war against the weeds. And for all I knew, my gutters did need cleaning. I was a bit unclear on that detail. Josey could provide any kind of house maintenance service you needed. She was clear on details and finer points. Plus she was one of those people who are born knowing how to do things. Too bad I was not one of those people born knowing how to earn enough money to have things done.

“Trouble is, I'm pretty broke, Josey.”

“What about your divorce settlement?”

“Still dragging on. That's one of the problems with divorcing a fast-talking lawyer who doesn't plan to remarry any time soon.”

“Yeah right, who'd marry him anyway?”

“I did.”

Josey shook her head. “Doesn't count. You were young and probably really foolish. Maybe even drunk.”

“I wasn't drunk! And I wasn't young enough to fully explain my foolishness. He had a certain attraction, big man on campus, that kind of thing. Good-looking, smart, ambitious. Somehow, over the twenty-five years, it faded.”

“Maybe because he expected you to iron his socks.”

“I never actually ironed his socks, Josey.”

“Of course not, but face facts, Miz Silk, he's a real jerk. Anyway, you're free now, so you have to make sure he doesn't take advantage of you. You need a good lawyer.”

“I have an excellent lawyer. Marie-France Sauvé. Unfortunately for me, she works on her own. No back-up. Right now she's on her honeymoon, and she's out of communication range. When Marie-France gets back, she'll fix Philip's wagon but good.”

“Get another lawyer and take him to court, Miz Silk.”

“That's one of the problems. Philip's really plugged in to the legal community. He made sure I'd have trouble finding a lawyer in West Quebec. Marie-France came up against him in some case and didn't like his tactics. I was lucky to get her.”

I wasn't so sure I should take legal or relationship advice from Josey, given that she hadn't quite hit sixteen and her mother had headed out for a pack of smokes some five years earlier and hadn't been seen since. I knew nothing about her father. So maybe her perspective was skewed. On the other hand, my own strategies had been spectacularly useless.

“How about your book writing, Miz Silk? That must make you some...”

I shook my head. “Not going well. I'm hoping something will come up soon, but for now I'm really strapped.” I didn't have the heart to mention negative royalty statements to Josey.

“Don't worry about the money, Miz Silk. Your credit's good. You can run a tab. Wouldn't be the first time. Things will get better for you soon. I'll swing by later this afternoon and get started.”

“No,” I said, firmly. But of course, resistance was futile.

Josey added, “I'm really glad to get this extra work, because I'm saving for my driver's licence. I'm turning sixteen in September.”

Of course, I knew that well enough.

“And I need money to take the Drivers Ed,” she continued. “If I take it, I can get my licence in eight months; otherwise, I got to wait for a year. They call it your 365, ‘cause of the number of days. So you get the idea why I don't want to wait.”

Absolutely. Josey lives in the back of beyond in a ramshackle cabin with her Uncle Mike, when he's not in the slammer. It's a long, rickety bike ride from anywhere, and Uncle Mike is usually too drunk to stand, let alone drive. Still, I knew better than to badmouth him in front of Josey.

“It's seven hundred bucks for the course,” she said. “That's a lot. My dog walking business already goes to pay for my cell phone, and I got other expenses too, you know.”

“Um.”

“I'll come by later then. You getting poutine, Miz Silk?”

I mentally calculated the money in my purse to see if I had enough to manage a pair of poutines. I didn't want to sit there bathed in guilt while Josey chewed through her savings for her beginner's licence. If I used the parking change in my car, I had just enough for two orders of poutine and a tip. And it would be an early dinner too.

“My treat,” I said. “But first I have to check in CeeCeeCuisine to see if they know how to reach the woman who dropped this wallet. Hold on.”

“Are you kidding? I love that place. They got such great stuff. I bet they're making a fortune. I'm coming with you.”

Josey is never one to miss an opportunity to see someone with a good business model. CeeCee's sure had that. The aisles were jammed. Who were all these people? I tried to get the attention of one of the frazzled clerks. She was coping with some highly focused customers. Maybe there's something about expensive kitchen gear that brings out the beast in us. Not even the soft scent of lavender calmed that crowd.

“Can't help you right now,” she said. “If you can come back later, I'll check the credit card slips for a telephone number.”

“I'll be at Chez Fred for the next while if she comes in looking for it. I'd be pretty worried if I were her.”

I slipped the clerk a piece of paper with my name and telephone number.

“Will do,” she said, turning back to the pushiest customer. One less problem to worry about.

The Chez was jammed too, but then it always is. No matter how many wonderful trendy restaurants open in the village, we locals still hang out at the Chez. There are times when roasted rosemary and exotic salads are not what we need.

As preferred customers, Josey and I bypassed those who were waiting and scored a window booth. We ordered two poutines, which would be prepared in the kitchen, along with the Chinese take-out by the Chilean cook under the watchful eyes of the Lebanese owner.

“What's going on in town?” I said, avoiding eye contact with resentful folks who'd been there first. “Who are all these people?”

“They're here for
Hot Stuff,
” Josey said. “I bet that woman who lost the wallet has something to do with it too. It doesn't sound like she's from around here.”

“She's definitely not from the village. I saw some banners for this
En feu! hot
whatever. What is that anyway?”

“It's
En feu
if you're French.
Hot Stuff
for us. They're here for the television show. It's the big thing, Miz Silk. The Cooking Channel.”

“There's a cooking channel?”

“Sure. On satellite
TV
. Everyone gets it. You don't know about the cooking channel, Miz Silk? What about reality television?”

I said evenly, “I
can
read, so I do know about reality television. But what does all that have to do with St. Aubaine? We don't even have a television station. Our population is two
thousand, including stray dogs. Not exactly New York or LA.”

“You really need to get satellite, Miz Silk. How do you think I keep up with what's happening in the world? Trends and everything. Do you know there are even business report channels?”

I shuddered.

Josey wasn't letting go of this idea. “But, you'll have to buy a new
TV
set first. I can find you one pretty cheap. Uncle Mike knows a guy...”

“No thanks,” I said quickly.

“And I can pick you up a dish and receiver at a garage sale. People are always upgrading. Uncle Mike can get you the cheat card, and you'll get hundreds of channels, just like that. Everyone does it. Even if they trace your signal, the worst they'll do is fry your receiver.”

I blinked.

She beamed at me. “Easy as pie, Miz Silk. Then you can move into the twenty-first century.”

“I don't think so, Josey.” Of course, I might have been one or two centuries behind, but I wasn't foolish enough to believe I had heard the last on the satellite issue.

She chattered on. “Anyway, the reason all these people are here...”

I smiled. Josey really cares a lot about Marc-André. She'd be happy to hear that he'd been awake and talking that afternoon. “It's okay. Here's our poutine. And I have good news today. You know what...Josey?”