Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (38 page)

Deep sadness backlit her smile. And it crossed my mind that Bridget loved Benedict even more dead than she had when he was alive. No wonder. Dead Benedict didn't provide on-going irritations in the way of unpaid bills, brushes with authority and the tendency to leave socks and young women lying around. So I figured Bridget might not like to hear that disposing of Benedict's ashes in
exactly the way he wanted
wasn't such a big deal. Even allowing for the prospect of everlasting life, Benedict would be too busy dealing with the heat wave to worry about the ashes-to-ashes part.

I played my last card. “I have a deadline for my new romance novel. That's my job. A big project would throw me off.”

A stubborn little crease appeared between Bridget's eyebrows. I could see why she was a success in the competitive world of retail. “It won't take long. Then you can concentrate.”

I hardly got any work done when things were going well. Imagine the phone calls a scattering would generate. Ducky, just ducky. Panicky thoughts danced in my brain as I searched for one last excuse. The panic must have seeped onto my face.

Bridget drew a conclusion. “Oh, Fiona, Fiona, don't worry about the cost. Benedict's estate will reimburse you.”

“What estate, for God's sake? Benedict didn't have an estate. He was up to his ears in debt all the time, and we both know it. You'll be lucky if you don't get stuck with a lot of loans you foolishly co-signed instead of having the cash to have a big party with a...”

“With an urn. And quite a nice one.” Bridget smiled the smile she probably reserved for bankers about the overdraft. “There's enough money.”

“Come on, Bridget. Pull the other one.”

“It's true. Benedict had an old term insurance policy. And I'm the beneficiary, since I've been paying the premiums for fifteen years, mainly so I wouldn't get stuck with those debts you mentioned I'd foolishly co-signed for. I wasn't born yesterday.”

“Oh.”

“The point is, after the loans and things are paid, I have enough to send him off in style. With a party. So select your date and make your arrangements.”

I cast around for more objections. Bridget reached into the green bag and produced a squarish object in a burgundy velvet bag. Behind the successful businesswoman exterior, I sensed Bridget's emotional protection crumbling. She slipped the velvet bag off the object which I had already figured contained Benedict's ashes. She ran her fingers over the sleek mahogany box containing the urn. A couple of tears dripped onto it.

Fine. I know when I'm beaten. “I guess I could do it.”

Bridget stood up and hobbled toward the fireplace. She got her balance long enough to place the urn in the centre of the mantel. “Thank you. You know, I came to ask you to do these things, but the thing is, I really wanted to talk to someone who knew and appreciated him.”

I bit my tongue.

She talked. And appreciated. Two hours later, I decided to call Cyril Hemphill to pour Bridget home.

The urn remained.

Now I couldn't even look at my fireplace.

Another trip to the village. No way to avoid it. I was out of dog biscuits again and, trust me, life wasn't worth living without them.

Plus Phillip had called twice (Los Angeles and Denver). Even Tolstoy didn't care for the increasingly hostile tone of his messages, which was another reason to get out of the house, but the real problem was that I couldn't take my mind off this scattering thing. How the hell was I ever going to reclaim my home with that miserable urn squatting on the mantelpiece?

On the bright side, the microscopic cheque I found in my mailbox meant a little of the green stuff to spread around.

It was raining too hard to walk. The Skylark responded with a click of the key in the ignition, the engine turned over and went back to bed. The good news was that at least I'd paid my Canadian Automobile Association premium, and it still had a month to run. For once, it was a slow day for Remorquage Bye-Bye. Tolstoy and I dashed through the downpour as the tow-truck pulled up.

“Can you take it to Marc-André Paradis' garage?”

“Where's that?”

“Up Highway 105, um, somewhere.” Water dripped off my nose.

“Never heard of it. You want to pay me to drive around and look for it? Extra eighty bucks an hour.”

Everybody's an entrepreneur. The guy probably had a sex life too. “No thanks. Just haul it to Tom and Jerry's.”

Tolstoy and I spent the next hour sulking to the tune of the “Water Music”. But sulk or no sulk, I needed to get around. I bit my lip for a long time before I called Cyril Hemphill. At least Cyril was happy about it. He and Tolstoy grinned dopily at each other in the front seat. I sat in the back enveloped in fog and bad feelings.

Cyril twisted right around to chat with me. “Don't you worry, Miz Silk, I'm setting people straight about that murder.”

Tolstoy regarded Cyril with admiration.

“Yep, I told them no way a woman like you could beat a man to death. Leastways, not when you were...”

“Watch the road, please,” I said.

Cyril swivelled. “...shit-faced, ma'am, pardon my French.”

Something must have told Cyril this might be a good time to change the topic. “So they finally nailed old Mike Thring, eh?”

“Mike Thring? Who nailed him? For what?”

“St. Aubaine cops caught him dealing smuggled cigarettes. He's supposed to be back in court today. I might head on over to the Palais de Justice in Hull to catch that show. That Mike Thring cuts quite the figure whenever he gets in front of a judge.”

I was stunned. I'd always thought Josey's Uncle Mike was a harmless drunk. It had never occurred to me he could stand steady long enough to commit an actual crime.

Poor Josey. How embarrassing for her. On the other hand, maybe she'd feel good that Uncle Mike had been sober enough to pull off a creative bit of smuggling. You could never tell how Josey would react to things. Then I remembered her mood the day before when she'd stomped out of my house. Clearly, she hadn't felt good about Uncle Mike's latest hijinks.

“I hadn't realized he was in jail again.”

“Jail nothing. Got to hand it to the old geezer. He got out on bail right away.” Like all St. Aubaineers, Cyril had a high tolerance for anything that deprived the government of revenue.

“On bail? You must be kidding.” Where on earth would Mike Thring get bail money?

First thing, Tolstoy and I ambled off to the Caisse Populaire to deposit the cheque. Maybe I just imagined the raised eyebrows and the nudges and the nods around me.

Gisèle beamed from behind the counter. She likes to see me deposit money. She didn't know about the repairs to the Skylark yet. I smiled back. A joyful moment. Tolstoy barked and wagged his tail. Gisèle and I craned to see what he'd barked at.

Josey Thring struggled along through the downpour holding the leashes of not one but four dogs. I had forgotten about that. Dog walking was another lucrative sideline for THE THRING TO DO.

“At this rate,” I said to Gisèle, “the GNP of France should rise nicely after her visit.”

Gisèle leaned forward and whispered, “Oh, dear, I guess you haven't heard yet.”

“Heard what?”

Gisèle lowered her voice more. I strained to hear. “She took out all her savings to bail out that drunk old uncle of hers.”

Poor Josey. I was glad to find out about her problem before I put my foot in it again, and equally glad to learn you couldn't trust Gisèle with any secrets.

Tolstoy and I took our second last fifty dollars from the Caisse and hit the road.

Next stop, L'Épicerie. You could hear the zing of spinning heads as I raced for the back.

Woody was in the storeroom rolling a joint. He found the whole situation most amusing. He twirled in his wheelchair, chortling. Tolstoy barked in approval.

Visiting Woody was even more of a pain than usual. By now, I regretted sticking my nose out of my burrow to forage for food and car repairs. I leaned against a stack of whole wheat flour bags and waited him out. I tried not to acknowledge that Woody had updated the front pages featuring my own personal story on three of the four walls. I averted my eyes, but not before I caught the headlines.

WHEN RHYME TURNS TO CRIME
was the easy one.
THE FATAL FOUR
-
POSTER
had a certain flair. Not to mention:
LAUGH
?
I THOUGHT I'D DIE
:
NAKED POET FOUND WEARING KRAZY GLUE
SMILE
.

“Just gets better,” Woody said. “It's like money in the bank. You ask me, you should get in touch with your agent.” He took a long drag.

My agent was already leaving strangled gasps on my machine. I helped myself to a Diet Coke from Woody's private stock. “No wonder people's heads are spinning,” I whined. “I didn't think the police would give out information like that.”

Woody had to exhale before he could comment. “Time to grow up, kiddo.”

“You haven't heard the latest. Now I have to arrange to scatter Benedict's ashes.”

“Oh now, that is rich. How'd that happen?”

“Bridget begged me, and I felt too guilty to say no.”

“You? Scattering the ashes?” He put down the joint, but only so he could rub his hands together. “So when will it be? At midnight?”

Midnight? “Of course not. Why would it be at midnight?”

He spun. “Sort of fits in with some of the local theories.”

I refused to ask.

Woody doesn't need to be asked. “Specifically, the ones about moonlit occult rituals and the late Mr. Kelly's part in them.”

“Unhuh. I can see where it would fit nicely, Woody, but I'm afraid it will be garden variety daytime ash-tossing. Very ho hum.”

“Too bad. Because the midnight thing would go well with the Satanism theory. You're the talk of the town, kiddo.”

I drained my Diet Coke and remembered pressing business elsewhere. As I reached the front door, Woody careened down the aisle waving a container of organic peanut butter and a tin of maple syrup. He thrust the containers at me.

I tried to thrust them back. “Can't. I'm broke.”

“On the house. Half the village has been in here, hoping to get a peek. You're a boost for business. I gotta love ya, kiddo.”

I imagine everyone in L'Épicerie got a good long gawk as I made a run for it.

I had a seriously furtive look about me as I spotted Sarrazin heading into the Bistro Bijou shoulder to shoulder with coroner Lise Duhamel. Very cozy. She looked at him like a kid looks at an unattended rack of KitKat bars. He looked at me like I already had bars in front of my face. The other kind.

Even though Tom and Jerry are usually pretty gentle with their charges, the new battery for the Skylark made another dent in my credit card. But at least I was mobile again without Cyril and his meter. Forty-five minutes later, I tracked down Josey, dogless by now but drenched, outside McDonald's. I offered to buy lunch.

“So what's new?” I said to Josey, who sat on the other side of the booth, slumping. It was not like Josey to slump. Especially not when she had a large
McPoulet
plus a
grande
frite
plus a
lait frappé chocolat
. I saved my
frites
for Tolstoy.

I had to pretend not to know about Uncle Mike's bail money.

“Nothing.” Her eyes were flat and grey.

“Right. It turns out, I have a bit of a problem. My garden really does need cleaning out. If the ground's not too soggy.”

She shrugged to let me know she wouldn't do cartwheels. Josey has her pride. But I spotted a bit of the old sparkle in her eyes.

“Is that special still on?”

“The wet weather garden clean-up special? Fifty bucks.”

I could have managed that before lunch. “Make it forty.”

The eyes got flatter and grayer.

“What is it, Josey?” I said.

I'd chewed up all Tolstoy's fries before she let it out. “I'm not going to France.”

“But you've been saving...”

“I had to put up bail money for my Uncle Mike.”

“Oh, Josey, did you have to?” I blurted.

“I can't believe you'd say that, Miz Silk. Uncle Mike's my family. I can't let him rot in jail.”

Why not? Maybe it would teach him not to smuggle. Of course, it's easy to talk tough when it's someone else's relatives. “But don't tell me his bail took all your money?”

“Not all, but most of it. I don't have time to raise enough. I have to get the ticket next week.”

“How much are you short?”

“Seven hundred and ten.
After
your garden.”

I was near the bottom of the barrel. My credit cards were already stretching their limits. Even my emergency roll wouldn't do the trick. I decided to kick it in if she got within fifty dollars of the seven hundred. You never know with Josey.

“Any chance he'll be...whatever they are, released or whatever, in time for you to get your money back for the trip?”

“I don't think so. I'll get the money back, but too late for the ticket deadline. If I can't get the difference together, I'm going to have to pull out of the trip before I lose my deposit.”

What could I say? “But you'll have other trips.”

“Yeah. Right. Whatever.”

“I'm sure we can find some fascinating things to do here.” Visions of educational experiences danced in my head. “Remember when Dr. Prentiss was talking about all the wonderful things right in this area?”

“I know everything there is to know about St. Aubaine.”

“No doubt you do, but the National Capital Region's not that far. We could visit the Museum of Civilization in Hull...”

I babbled out promises. Anything to take her mind off the lost trip to France and to take mine off the urn on my mantelpiece.