Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (42 page)

“Lovely name. Here's to yer health, Fiona Silk,” he said, lifting his glass with a graceful smoothness.

“And this is Josey Thring,” I added.

He bowed in Josey's direction without lowering the glass. “Certainly, you may make the tea, if it will make you happy.”

“It will,” she muttered.

“She'll be a Virgo, I imagine,” Kostas O'Carolan said. “I like to have a Virgo drop in every now and again.”

From the look of the room, no Virgos had dropped in for the past couple of years.

“You must be wondering why we're here,” I said before taking a sip of the whiskey.

“Not at all,” he said. “Visitors are always welcome here at Evening's End. I'll be glad to show yis the sweaters.”

I ignored this strange remark. I was fretting about how to introduce the Benedict situation without mortifying myself. I would have been happier in the kitchen, scouring crockery with Josey.

I finally said, “So, as to the purpose of our visit...”

“And a very pleasant one it is.” He obviously had the opposite reaction to a knock on the door than I had. Here was someone who welcomed the uninvited with open arms and a glass of good whiskey. Excellent. Maybe I could redirect the bulk of my visitors here. I wondered how he felt about phone calls.

“As you know,” I continued, “the poet, Benedict Kelly, who I believe was a good friend of yours, has been killed.”

The twinkle faded behind the glasses. “Indeed. The poor boy's killed. That's tarrible. And he'd won that big prize too. To think I was too under the weather to attend his tiny, pathetic memorial.” He slumped into a chair and took a steadying gulp.

I had a steadying gulp of my own.

“Can you tell me what happened to the lad?” he said.

Someone else didn't own a television or read the papers.

“The police believe he was murdered.” That was it. That was the way to get people thinking and talking. Tell them the truth.

“In cold blood?”

He had me there. Had it been in cold blood? I had no way of knowing. I considered the Krazy Glue. “Yes. Definitely.”

“Dear me. Poor Benedict, murdered in cold blood. And yis have come all the way up here to...”

“Ah, yes. I have been appointed by Benedict's estate...”

“Benedict's estate! Who would have thought our lad would have an estate. Life is full of surprises, isn't it, Ms. Silk?”

It certainly was. “Benedict left some special possessions to certain of his friends. So, in addition to, um, some other tasks, I've been asked to deliver them.” I hoped the bitterness I felt didn't infect my voice.

“I just can't get over our Benedict having an estate.” Kostas O'Carolan peered at me shrewdly over his reading glasses. “Imagine the poor boy knowing he was going to die and leaving instructions about his possessions. Very strange. Do you follow me?”

I did. “I take your point. But...”

Kostas slapped his forehead, without spilling his drink. “Ah, what am I thinking of? Oh course! The prize money.”

Now there was an opening. “Um, no. It's just this package. I'm afraid he never got a chance to get the prize money. He died too soon.” Of course, I was wondering if some other poet might not have made that happen.

“No. Doubly tragic, don't you think?”

I didn't know what to think any more.

He picked up the book and blinked at it, shaking his head.

“
While Weeping for the Wicked
,” he said.

I wondered why he continued to shake his head longer than one might consider absolutely normal.

“It's the latest collection of Benedict's poems.”

“I know, dear lady, I know.” He sipped morosely and fingered the binding of
While Weeping for the Wicked
.

Josey took that moment to re-enter the room with her tea in a cracked but clean mug.

“I imagine it could be worth a lot before long,” I said.

“Pardon me?”

“
While Weeping for the Wicked
. Bridget said only a small number were printed, and with Benedict winning the Flambeau and, um, dying so soon after, they would be, wouldn't they?”

Now there was a thought. Would anybody kill a poet on the off chance his books would instantly accrue in value? No, too weird.

“Excuse me,” said Josey, who'd been quiet for too long.

“My dear?” he twinkled at her.

“Who is doing all of this knitting? Your wife?”

“Certainly not,” he said, sitting straighter and puffing out his already puffy chest. “Ladies, you are gazing at, in the flesh, the proprietor of Evening's End Hand Knit Wool Originals. Kostas O'Carolan, artist-in-wool. Every stitch perfection. Every design unique. Only available in St. Aubaine at La Tricoterie, the best knitting shop in the region. And written up, might I mention, in major shopping guides for tourists. I made the Marci Glickman guide this year.”

“Really?” I said.

“You mean, men can knit?” Josey said.

“Certainly, ladies. The proceeds come in handy.”

“There's money in it?” Josey liked that idea. Kostas puffed up another size.

“If you're good.”

“Isn't that something, Miz Silk?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“I know about these. They're famous sweaters,” Josey said. “Tourists fight over them.”

Kostas blushed. “It's a good cause, my dear ladies. I don't need a lot, but a few extra dollars keeps the books in supply.”

And the Jameson.

He must have read my mind. “My dear lady, let me top that up for you and, since it's stopped raining, will you join me in the garden? You'll see why I choose to live in this lovely spot.”

Josey's eyebrow went up. “I was wondering,” she said.

Stepping through the rear entrance, I averted my eyes from the things that didn't bear close examination in the kitchen.

The river view stretched away for miles. We were near enough to smell the water. Kostas dried off the wooden garden furniture. That was in far better condition than anything inside the cottage.

“When is your birthday, dear girl?” Kostas beamed at Josey.

“September 18th.”

“Ah. Indeed,” he said. “I should have known.”

September 18th? Less than two weeks. None of the Thrings fussed over Josey, even when they weren't in jail. Her mother, who'd stepped out to get a package of cigarettes eleven years earlier and was now widely rumoured to be shacked up somewhere with a biker, didn't even send Josey a package at Christmas.

Everything she owned, from her neat, faded jeans to her equally faded blue
T
-shirt, she earned by cleaning gardens, fixing roofs, selling junk at the flea market and other activities I probably was better off not knowing about. And this was the year she'd missed out on her trip to France. I decided I really should make her fifteenth birthday something special.

Except for some mental arithmetic about how long it takes to metabolize each ounce of Jameson, the most complicated thought I entertained for the rest of the afternoon was what to get Josey for her birthday.

Kostas had no problem with what to give people. By the time we left, Josey had instructions in the basics of knitting, a collection of needles and some wool to practice with.

I had a headache.

“Poor, poor Benedict,” Kostas hiccoughed much later, getting us back to the purpose of our visit as I got ready to leave. “Now tell me, my dear lady, when and where do yis plan to be holding the poor, dear boy's final departure ritual?”

“Um.”

“We have to do it properly.”

“Oh, we will,” Josey said, getting in the spirit. “Miz Silk's in charge of the scattering.”

“Shhh.” I didn't want that getting around.

“Of his ashes,” she clarified.

Kostas shot from his lawn chair without spilling a drop and held his glass high. “To the Successful Scattering of the Ashes of our Friend, the Late Poet, Benedict Kelly.”

Successful? Did scatterings have degrees of success?

“I haven't really given a lot of thought to the details.” I'd thought of the scattering as just another ordeal, like finding out who killed Benedict and finishing my novel. Which reminded me, Kostas was a poet, a backslapper, and he did live in the area. Here was a fine opportunity to make a little progress on another front. I hoped he didn't see the light going on over my head.

I sighed. “I really can't get started until I get my car fixed. It's very unreliable, and I'm pretty well stranded without it.”

He didn't spot any gaps in logic. “Dear lady, you don't have a good mechanic?”

I shook my head.

“Indeed, indeed, ladies. I can recommend a first-rate mechanic. A poet too. Marc-André Paradis. You've heard of him?”

“Naturally.”

So he did exist after all.

“He doesn't take new customers, but he might if I explained the importance and urgency of the matter,” Kostas O'Carolan said.

Bingo.

I struggled to keep my mind on the road and not on the new development. What would I learn from meeting Marc-André Paradis, poet-mechanic, once Kostas vouched for me? It was bound to be better than knocking on his door and asking how he'd felt having the Flambeau snatched by the late lounge lizard, Benedict Kelly.

I was yanked out of deep thought by Josey, who'd been extraordinarily quiet following our longish afternoon with Kostas.

“It's too bad we never did get binoculars.”

“Binoculars? What for?”

“Well, this car's been following us for an awful long time, even when we took those wrong turns and doubled back.”

“Are you sure it's the same one?”

“Sure, I'm sure, Miz Silk. Jeez.”

I checked in the rear-view mirror. All I saw was a long tunnel of green coming to a point in the distance.

“He'll show up again. Just wait,” Josey said.

Over the next hill, I spotted the entrance to a dirt road. I zipped in and angled the car to get the best possible view of whoever was following us. It didn't take long.

A sleek black Acura whipped over the hill and swooped past the spot where we were tucked. I got a good look at the driver's broad cheekbones and black, slightly downward slanted eyes. A face of strong, but not good, character.

“He looks familiar. I know I've seen him before. I wonder where. There's something creepy about him. Josey, could that be the same man you said tried to run me down near the Museum? You got a good look at him, didn't you?”

“Naw, that was a little guy with a baseball cap.”

Hard to believe, but I was the focus of interest for not one but two men who didn't seem to represent the Welcome Wagon.

I was tired and edgy, and my leg still ached. Even worse, I was back in the Britannia Pub after nearly eight years, trying to look like I belonged there. It hadn't been easy shedding Josey, but since the police had a nasty habit of dropping into the Britannia and giving the proprietors a hard time, no one underage slid through the doors. I would have been happy not to slide through the doors either, but it was time to have a chat with the regulars.

First, I checked the surrounding parking areas on the off chance that Benedict's MG was sitting there. It wasn't. My plan was to saunter inside and settle in with the local poets, but for some reason, maybe that dead-in-the-bed thing, I felt bashful enough to want a beer first. Lucky for me, I'd found twenty bucks in the pocket of my camel hair blazer, the seventeenth place I'd checked. Of course, I'd had lots of time to find it. Nobody shows up at the Britannia before nine p.m., when the music usually starts. I had enough cash to do a little overdue snooping. I started with a soft drink in order to conserve my twenty for softening up the poets. Too bad I had forgotten that it's much more expensive to drink soft drinks than beer at the Britannia.

“Never mind,” I said, “make that a Blue.”

I sat by myself at a battered table with a good view of the bar and checked out the scene. I nursed a plate of the Britannia's famous fries. They reminded me of sitting in the same space shoulder to shoulder with Benedict, indulging his passion for fries. Come to think of it, I'd always paid for those fries too.

The regulars were there, and not just the poets. The roundup included dealers, drunks, sluts, college kids, pool players and a variety of underemployed artists and musicians. I spotted among the regulars Cuddily Cuddihy, the world's nastiest stand-up comic. Only the college kids had changed over the years.

Josey's Uncle Mike supported himself with the wall. Three men in jeans and leather jackets sat at the bar, cellphones in easy reach. A fourth man, wearing the jacket to one suit and the pants to another, joined them and sat with his back to me.

In the corner, a pair of twentysomething women in backwards baseball caps defended the pool tables against all comers.

I was distracted from the pool players when the warning buzzer went off in my head. Something about the man in the mismatched suit was disturbingly familiar. I took a look in the bar mirror, and I met his eyes. Goose bumps jitterbugged on my arms.

I was squinting in disbelief when a roar of greeting rose from the assembled poets. If I hadn't turned my head, I would have missed the arrival of a clump of O'Mafia.

I glanced back toward the bar in time to see the mismatched suit heading out the door. I glimpsed enough to confirm my suspicions. No doubt about it, the same distinctive broad cheekbones and dark slanted eyes. The man we'd seen in the Acura.

By the time I'd raced through the door, the tail lights of the black Acura were fishtailing through the rain.

The Skylark, which can be counted on not to be counted on, refused to give chase.

Naturally.

When I returned to the Britannia, rain funnelled down the back of my neck. My table had been cleared. Blue and fries were history.