For Cheddar or Worse (9 page)

“Can you do those, too?”

“Yep.”

Victor kidded that he would have guessed Ryan was the kind of guy who would jump through hoops.

Ryan shot him a nasty look. “You're the jerk who seems to vault from one romance to another.”

Victor sat taller. “Did you just call me a jerk?” He muttered something rude in French.

Ryan's lip curled up.

Jordan gazed at me. “I'm sensing tension between those two guys.”

Erin slipped past us and whispered, “Surprise! Ryan's youngest sister dated Victor for a nanosecond.”

“Small world,” I said.

“From what I hear,” Erin went on, “he made a play for her after making a deal to sell her Udderly Delicious Manchego.”

“Hold on a sec,” I said. “Why would he want to peddle that cheese? It's American.”

Erin giggled. “Yep. Victor might not like to buy American, but he has customers who do. He only buys artisanal. Emerald Pasture Farm's cheeses are included in his selections. Nothing large-scale.”

Kandice's cell phone rang. She pressed
SEND
and mouthed to everyone:
Sorry
. “Hey, what's up? Are you kidding? Swell. When it rains it pours. Yes, all right, see you soon.” She ended the call and rose from the table. “Everyone, listen up. The shuttle from Lavender and Lace broke down.” Her
voice quavered; her
joie de vivre
seemed to be missing in action. “That was Quigley Pressman. He said they'll be an hour late and to start without them.”

How horrible for Kandice,
I thought. It is difficult enough to run an event under the best of circumstances. After last night's fiasco with Lara and now this snafu, she had to feel miserable.

While the waitresses served a feast of scrambled eggs, sausage, and pancakes, I whispered to Jordan, “I don't see Lara. Do you think she's too ashamed of her boorish behavior to show her face?”

“I doubt it. She probably overslept.”

“Should we check on her? Maybe she needs something for that headache.”

“Who are you channeling today?” He winked. “Florence Nightingale?”

“C'mon.”

We excused ourselves and climbed to the third floor. Rooms ten and fourteen flanked Lara's room, number twelve.

I rapped on the door. “Lara? Are you awake?” She didn't respond. “Miss Berry,” I said, opting to go with the more formal address. “It's Charlotte. We've started breakfast. Are you hungry?”

Still no answer. I didn't hear anyone moving about. The bedsprings didn't squeak. No water was running in the adjoining bathroom. Jordan tried the doorknob. It didn't budge. Locked.

I rapped again. “Lara, we're all sorry about last night.” I hoped to appeal to her egotistical side.
We
were sorry;
she
needn't be. “C'mon. Open up. Join the party.”

Deadly quiet.

“Jordan,” I whispered with more urgency. “We've got to get inside. What if she's hurt? What if she went to the restroom and fell, and she hit her head and . . .” I gulped, unable to utter any more
what if
s. I had
snafus
on the brain. And
willies
at the pit of my stomach. “Break down the door.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Open it. Something's wrong.”

CHAPTER

Jordan kicked the door next to the handle. Four powerful kicks later, the door gave way. He lunged into the room and whirled to prop the door, which was hanging on one hinge against the wall.

I rushed past him. “Lara?”

She lay on top of the bedspread, eyes closed, arms at her sides. She was dressed in a slip and the blouse she had worn last night. Her skirt and her robe, sans belt, lay on the duvet. Her shoes were positioned on the area rug at the foot of the bed. A pair of white sleeping pillows and half a dozen decorative pillows, similar to the ones in our room, were strewn on the floor.

“Lara?” I repeated and drew near. I halted when I noticed the blue tinge in her lips, the ashen color of her skin. There was no rise and fall in her chest. “Jordan, she's not breathing.”

He darted to the bed and nudged me to the side. He touched her neck with two fingers. His eyes widened. He took
hold of her wrist for a second and released it. He shook his head. “She's dead.”

A small moan escaped my lips. I pressed the back of my knuckles to my mouth.

A cavalry of footsteps pounded the stairs. I spun around. Ryan stood near the doorway. He jutted his arm to prevent Victor and Erin from entering.

“What happened?” Ryan yelled.

Erin wouldn't be deterred. She ducked beneath his arm and darted into the room. “Charlotte, you screamed.” I guess my moan wasn't as small as I'd thought. “Is everything—” Erin glanced beyond me. “Lara!” She tried to get past me.

I clasped her by the shoulders. “No!”

“Is she . . . Did she—”

“Die? Yes,” I said. A bitter sadness filled my mouth.

Erin moaned. “How horrible.” She wriggled out of my grasp and dashed to the others who had clustered into the room.

Kandice was now in attendance as well, but not Shayna. Where was she? The others looked horrified. The words
She's dead
and
She must have died in her sleep
circulated among them. Snowball slinked past Kandice's ankles, his eyes as wide as saucers.

Erin spun around. “Charlotte, do you know what happened?”

“No.”

I scanned the room. The door to the bathroom was ajar. The doors of the hand-painted armoire were hanging open. My gaze landed on the bedside table, upon which sat a sliver of cheese on a napkin and an empty wineglass—the glass Lara must have taken from the dinner table. The tray of fruit and cheese she had whisked off the table rested on an ornate escritoire across the room, as did the bottle of cabernet—empty.

Jordan pulled his cell phone from his pocket and stabbed in a number. “Chief,” he said. “It's me. Can you come to Emerald Pastures Farms?” He listened. “A woman is dead.
Lara Berry. Yes,
that
Lara Berry. In the inn. Third floor.” Jordan worked his tongue around his mouth. “No idea. I'll leave that up to you.” He ended the call.

“What will you leave up to him?” I whispered.

“Evidence.”

Kandice gasped. “Do you think she was murdered?”

“I didn't say that,” Jordan said.

“Then why will he need to collect evidence?” she demanded.

“Because all deaths are suspicious until proven otherwise,” Jordan said as if by rote. Sadly, from experience, we both knew the next few steps in an investigation.

Jordan asked everyone to back out of the room. I didn't obey. I couldn't bear to leave Lara alone. In death she looked so vulnerable and meek, nothing like the terror that had stormed out of the dining room last night.

Erin grasped my hand and stood with me just inside the door. “Poor Lara. Do you think she had a heart attack?”

“I can't hazard a guess,” I said. Our charming chief of police had at least taught me to reserve judgment. On the other hand, I wondered whether Lara might have committed suicide. I didn't see anything remotely like a bottle of pills, and yet something felt wrong about the scene.

Erin wove her hands together. “Someone should alert Lara's family.”

“She has family?” I said.

“Everyone does at one time or another.” Erin was speaking out of the side of her mouth, her gaze riveted on Lara.

“On a talk show last year,” I said, “Lara told the hostess that her parents had passed away, and she doesn't have kids. She never married.”

“True,” Erin said. “But she mentioned a sister in the acknowledgment of her book.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “Yes, I read her book. Front to cover. It was good. Informed.” Erin hesitated, as if she wanted to say something else.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You mentioned that you'd met Lara before.”

“Mm-hm. Once.”

“Where?”

“At a conference. In Cleveland. She was sharing her views on how to age cheese, and I approached her afterward.”

“Did you talk?”

“Sort of. She was brusque, like a rock star who doesn't have time for fans.”

Apparently, that had been Lara's modus operandi.

“When she arrived here,” I said, “did she remember meeting you?”

Erin blurted out a sharp laugh. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry, that was rude of me. No. My farm is way too small a concern for her.”

“Don't say that.”

“It is. It's puny.” Erin grimaced. “Anyway, that wasn't the only time she was dismissive. When I was showing her to her room, she carped the entire time. ‘I have to walk up three floors? To a room in the attic?'” Erin did a good imitation of Lara's abrupt speaking style. “Next, when she saw the number twelve on the door to her room, she cried, ‘Why not give me room thirteen and be done with it?' I told her not to be superstitious. All of the rooms at the inn are even numbers. She asked why. I told her Andrew likes even numbers. He—”

A siren wailed outside and grew louder. Doors slammed. The front door to the inn squeaked open.

Jordan yelled, “Up here!” He edged closer to me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded even though my insides were in knots.

Chief of Police Umberto Urso, a linebacker-sized man with penetrating eyes and an easy calm, tramped into the room. Deputy Devon O'Shea, a hunky guy with an unruly hank of hair that unfailingly found his forehead, even when his broad-brimmed hat was in place, followed him inside.

“You arrived fast, Chief,” Jordan said.

“I was just up the road, visiting my folks.” Urso's parents owned Two Plug Nickels Farm, one of the local participants in the cheese competition. “The deputy was nearby as well.”

“U-ey,” I started and quickly revised. “Chief Urso.” U-ey is the nickname that many call him, a result of the pair of
U
s in his name. I try not to use U-ey when he is serving in an official capacity.

“In a minute, Charlotte. Let me get my bearings.”

Urso and I had grown up together. For as long as I'd known him, he had dedicated himself to service. Eagle Scout. High school class president. At one point, I believed he might leave Providence and enter national politics, but he stayed. He loved Providence as much as I did.

He donned latex gloves and strode to the bed. He checked Lara's pulse, not that he didn't believe us, but he had to determine for himself that she was dead. He slid his hand beneath her armpit. A few moments later, he said, “She's not in complete rigor mortis, but she's been dead a number of hours. She's cool.”

“The room is cool,” I mumbled.

“True.” Urso pulled a paper and pen from the breast pocket of his brown uniform. “First impressions, please.” He regarded Jordan and me.

I recounted why we had come to Lara's room, how we had found her dead, and how the others had followed to check on us after I screamed. When I concluded, Urso asked everyone to step outside. Jordan, Erin, and I shuffled toward the door, but we didn't exit the room. Not because we meant to be disobedient; I don't think any of us wanted to leave Lara.

My throat grew thick as Urso toured the room. I couldn't seem to swallow away the grief. His focus rotated from Lara lying on the bed, to her shoes, to the wine and the cheese platter. In three long strides, he crossed to the bathroom and entered. I heard cabinets opening and closing. He returned to the room and strode to the bed. He crouched down and inspected the pillows and shams on the floor. He glanced upward at the skylight and downward at the green-toned area rug. Then he rose and stood in the center of the room, hands fisted on his hips.

“Chief Urso. Sir.” Deputy O'Shea had also donned latex
gloves. “Look at this.” He was standing by the exterior window. He ran his fingertip along the edges.

Urso joined him.

“It's painted shut,” O'Shea said. “No cracking. It hasn't been opened.”

Erin edged in front of me. “All the windows on this floor are that way. I've renovated and upgraded the windows on the first floor and am halfway through the second floor. I haven't been able to do everything yet because—”

Urso held up his hand. “Thank you, Miss Emerald, I'll talk to you in a moment.”

I gulped. He had called her
Miss Emerald
, not
Erin
. He was reverting to his impersonal cop mode. Uh-oh.

Urso returned to Lara and assessed her from head to bare toes. He bent close to her face and inhaled. Using two fingers, he pried open one of Lara's eyes then released it. The abruptness of his action made me gasp.

“What is he doing?” I whispered to Jordan.

“I'm not sure.”

I cleared my throat. “Chief, do you think Lara died of a heart attack?”

He pivoted to face me. “No.”

“An overdose? Did you find pills in the bathroom?”

“Nope.”

“A gas leak?” I suggested, although the carbon monoxide detectors hadn't sounded.

Urso shook his head. “She was smothered.”

I whispered, “As in murdered?”

His mouth twitched. “She didn't do it to herself.”

“Are you sure?”

“There's lipstick on the pillowcase.”

“I get lipstick on my pillowcase if I don't wash my face before bed.” I mimed the motion.

“A smudge, perhaps,” he said. “But a perfect print? Two full lips? I don't think so. And if suffocation or smothering has taken place, the eyes of the deceased will be bloodshot, which Miss Berry's are. This is definitely murder.”

I shivered.
Not again
.
Not another body
. A sob burst
from deep within me. “How?” I asked. “If the door was locked and the windows were painted shut?”

The crowd outside the room started to murmur. I heard a handful of questions: “What?” “How?” “What did Charlotte say?” “What was the chief's answer?”

I swiveled to look at them—Kandice, Victor, Ryan—and I couldn't help wondering whether one of them had killed Lara. Yes, she had been imperious and frosty, and she had verbally abused each and every one of them last night. On the other hand, just because she was a miserable soul didn't mean she deserved an untimely death.

Shayna materialized on Kandice's right. Kandice said something to her, and Shayna's mouth dropped open. Tears sprang to her eyes. Was her reaction genuine? Why hadn't she arrived earlier? Surely she'd heard me scream and seen the police's arrival. What had taken her so long to make it to the third floor? Could she have killed Lara out of spite? The termination of their partnership not only hurt her income, it had to have hurt her feelings.

I surveyed the room again and wondered, for a second time, how the killer entered if the door was locked and the windows sealed shut? How did he . . . or she . . . escape? Even I knew that to carry out most second-story-type crimes, the perpetrator came in through the window and exited through a window or door. Was there a secret entry like a hidden staircase behind the armoire or beneath the area rug?

Urso was standing beside the bed, speaking to the coroner on his cell phone. Deputy O'Shea was taking photographs: of the wine, the cheese platter, the window, the bed, the pillows on the floor, Lara's shoes—their toes turned away from the bed. Was that significant? O'Shea inspected something on the bedspread more closely. With gloved hands, he picked up a hair: red. Lara had red hair. Then he picked up another one: white. The cat's, I imagined. The deputy tucked them into evidence bags.

Erin tapped my arm. “Charlotte, this will ruin Emerald
Pastures for sure. I know it's wrong of me to be thinking of something like that because . . .” She slurped back a sob. “What am I going to do?”

I wrapped an arm around her. I had felt the same way when our landlord was found murdered in front of the shop. Years had passed, but the memory was still fresh: his body; my grandmother holding on to the knife that was used to kill him; the murmurs in the crowd wondering whether Grandmère was guilty and whether Fromagerie Bessette would survive the bad publicity.

“Don't worry, Erin,” I said. It was a weak response, but what else could I say?