Fools of Fortune

by CJ Love

  “Leave it,” came a scary voice from across the room.

  Thomi and Delia turned round eyes on Eddie.

  He stood with hands on his hips. A pulse beat on the side of his jaw. His nostrils flared with his scorched emotions.

  Delia sprang upright and flew into the hallway.

  Thomi came out right behind her and softly shut the door.

  Sanya had already flown back to her cave, so Delia faced her friend. “He’s so scary. You’ve got to break up with him.”

  “He’s grieving,” Thomi said, sticking her purse strap on her shoulder. “He’ll be better soon.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, yes. Everything is fine,” Thomi said, nodding her dark curls. “Everything is fine. But, go home and lock your door.”

  Delia stiffened. She faced her friend and touched the girl’s arm. “I have to pass Sanya’s apartment.”

  Shrugging, Thomi said, “Take the fire escape.”

  “Who are you?” she asked, leaning in. “You know I can’t take the fire escape.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She straightened her shoulders and wagged her head. “Anybody who can talk about bricks and killing faces ought to be able to climb a fire escape.”

  Delia shrunk herself inward. Literally. Her shoulders rolled forward, and she lowered her head. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Well, neither do I. I swear I don’t know what gets into you sometimes.”

  “Me neither,” she said, teetering a laugh.

  “I hope you’re not investigating Jeanette’s death, Delia, because I won’t help you. I’m not jumping into trash bins again or getting sick with worry because you’re breaking into cars and following killers around.” She tilted her head to the side. “I’ve had this awful thought recently that Dad wouldn’t be in the shape he is now if you hadn’t been questioning everyone about Alfie and Reg.”

  A heavy blanket of guilt fell over Delia’s shoulders, pressing them down.

  It was my fault.

  Thomi’s eyes softened. “I’m not blaming you, Delia. You have been my best friend since elementary school. I know your heart and your anxieties…” She shook her head. “I just can’t do this with you. I think I’m in love with Eddie, and I can’t follow you around and keep you out of trouble.”

  Delia’s eyes burned. She nodded or did something like a nod. It was more of a jerky motion. “I understand.”

  “So, please, please stay out of trouble,” Thomi said, her eyes falling to Delia’s shoulders. After a couple of seconds, she said, “I should go check on my dad.”

  “He’s asking for you. I stopped by before coming up here.”

  “Right.” She met Delia’s eyes again, taking steps toward the stairs. “I’ll go see what he wants.” Turning, she moved downstairs fast and then was out of sight.

  Chapter 7

  “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

  Her chest muscles squeezed her lungs so tightly. Delia took the stairs, too, but upward, and it was a little difficult to breathe with the mantle of guilt still draped on her shoulders. She’d sort of forgotten how Louie was blind because of her actions. No, not forgotten. It was always in the back of her mind.

  She concentrated on climbing the stairs.

  I will learn from my mistakes. A mistake doesn’t make me a bad person.

  Are you sure about that, Delia?

  I am NOT a bad person! The circumstances had been complex.

  On the top floor, she paused before passing Sanya’s apartment. Had the woman come back this way or torn off into the woods somewhere to howl and tear her hair out?

  Delia was even with the apartment door when a loud thump came from the other side of it.

  It was like a cattle prod to her heart, and Delia bolted toward her attic sanctuary.

  Clawdius shot out the door before Delia shut it all the way.

  “Behold Clawdius,” she said to his tail.

  Setting her purse on the counter, she walked toward the loveseat and fell onto it.

  What’s going on? Why am I not face down in an ice cream buffet?

  She’d left all the interior doors open today and wasn’t worried about Mate being inside. She would’ve seen him —thus was the size of the apartment.

  Delia gazed around the room, still catching her breath. She’d done what she could to decorate, using everyday items. For example, she’d adorned the kitchen walls with shelves made from a pallet someone left by the dumpster. Disassembled, sanded, and mounted, the shelves held bottles of molasses, honey, and vanilla bean paste. Inexpensive twinkle lights winked at her from the hood vent.

  Not that she was a pauper. The Da Vincis paid her well, but there was the matter of the money it took to put her dad in Mountain Ash. His estate had taken over the payments, but she was still down many thousands of dollars. Someday she’d be able to afford a larger apartment.

  Getting off the loveseat, she made her way into the kitchen. Without the thawed chicken, she had nothing for dinner —except the cheese for the Cheddar Baked Chicken she’d planned. Pulling a pan from the wall rack, she coated it with cooking spray and poured out the cheese shreds.

  Don’t mind if I do.

  She stuck it in the oven, turned the dial, and then searched for crackers. She ate three Keebler’s while waiting for the baked gooeyness. Which made her think of Sanya.

  Now there was some baked gooeyness.

  Why had Sanya screamed at Eddie like that? And why had she been so angry that she’d glared at him so disapprovingly?

  Cause she’s thick. She be absolutely cray-cray.

  All that frantic energy. It’d been like watching an episode of Release the Hounds. “I must scry, or I’ll DIE,” Sanya seemed to say.

  And I love that!

  Delia understood, too. There’d been numerous times in her life when she’d been bombarded with more feelings than she knew what to do with.

  I will probably never SCRY in my life, but I relate to the emotional fervency that prompted it.

  All of the drama had something to do with Jeanette’s murder, of course, it did. Except Eddie was the only one showing grief.

  Be it overworked.

  Perhaps Sanya knew what a fake he was; she knew Eddie had killed Jeanette.

  But Eddie lost it too, shouting for them all to SHUT UP. Holy moly. Do killers usually crack like that afterward?

  I thought they smoked cigars.

  Delia pulled open the oven door and retrieved the pan of cheese. With a dishcloth beneath it, she placed it on the coffee table, along with more crackers. She sat on the loveseat and leaned forward to eat.

  Why would Eddie kill Jeanette?

  It certainly wasn’t for money, since Jeanette was worried about that very thing. The house wasn’t paid for, and neither was the car.

  Wait…

  Delia paused, a cracker halfway to her lips.

  How did Jeanette die, anyway?

  There’d been no blood, so she hadn’t been shot or knifed. Likewise, there hadn’t been marks on her neck as though she’d been strangled.

  Blueberry juice…

  Delia pictured Jeanette’s face in her mind again and the blue liquid staining her white face.

  Poison.

  Mate!

  Mate had poisoned Reg before pushing him out a window. Alfie had been poisoned right before his car wreck. Louie had been beaten and poisoned.

  Were the blueberries laced with methanol?

  How would Delia go about finding out that information? Wait, that sounded as though she was investigating, and she kept telling everyone she wasn’t going to do that.

  Delia ran her tongue across her top teeth, feeling for lodged crackers. Her mind drifted back to…

  Poison.

  If the blueberries had been poisoned, then Jeanette was a casualty and nothing more. They probably hadn’t been meant for her but targeted toward the bakery customers, or one of the workers. That would lead the police to Becca.
She’d handled the berries last and placed them in the refrigerator.

  And, Becca had come early to the bakery yesterday. Why? She wasn’t due to arrive for several hours, yet she’d shown up to bake blueberry muffin bread. Delia had thought about using the fruit in mini mousse cakes with mirror glaze.

  Delia stared at the mostly eaten cheese beneath her nose. It looked like depression on a quarter-sheet pan.

  “Oh, come off it,” Delia told the bakeware. “Becca didn’t poison the blueberries. How could she have, when she was in the bakery the entire day? Did she go to the car for rat poison on her break?”

  The cheese had no answers for her.

  “Well, I don’t believe it.” She leaned back on the loveseat and stared at the ceiling. “It was Mate … or Eddie.” Then, after another second, she said, “Or Sanya.” Delia sat forward and picked up the pan and the cracker package. “Or it was … Sam, her husband.”

  And why isn’t Clawdius here so that I’m not talking to myself?

  Nobody could hear Delia talking anyway. The windows were shut. And, even if they listened in, what would they say?

  She’s nuts.

  So are you!

  Setting the pan in the sink, Delia grabbed a spatula and scraped at the cheese stuck to the metal. Then Delia quoted something she remembered her father always said. “We’re all victims of fate, Fools of Fortune. We’ve all gone mad.”

  Especially Mate. Who’d thought it was a good idea to bail him out?

  She stopped the spatula.

  Who indeed? Who’d bailed Mate out of jail? Nicolo knew and had probably checked with that person to see if Mate was with them.

  It really was the first order of business, if anyone asked her. And that wasn’t Delia getting involved, no. It’d just been a logical thought. Because chances were, if they found Mate, they found Jeanette’s killer.

  I’m not investigating. I’m just curious. And, I’d really like to know where Mate is so I can stop throwing lighters in the bathroom.

  * * *

  It was after six o’clock when Delia’s cell phone rang. Clawdius was back in the apartment and sitting on it, so it took a few seconds to find it. “Why?” she asked the cat. She mashed the display button just as the cat wanted the phone back. He put his claws on the rubbery part of the phone cover and pulled it out of Delia’s hand.

  It clattered to the floor.

  “Sorry,” Delia shouted to the caller.

  The phone shot beneath the coffee table.

  “Sorry. Hold on, I’m going to save you,” she shouted at the phone, getting on her knees, bending forward with her butt sandwiched between the loveseat and table. “Ow, ouch, owww … hello?”

  “Delia, it’s Detective Montague,” he said in a flat tone. Oh, she could just imagine how far he rolled his eyes back in his head.

  Turning toward Clawdius, she mouthed, “You’re getting a bath tonight over this.” And then, “Hello Nicolo. Do you have a headache now that you’ve been dropped on your head?”

  I say the stupidest things to him.

  Turning, she sat on her keister.

  Ow.

  “You can go back into your bakery tomorrow. The forensics team has finished. You may need to clean up before you open.”

  “That’s fine. Who posted bail for Mate? Oh, wait. Am I allowed to know that?”

  Papers shuffled on the other end of the line. “It’s public record.” The paper shuffling stopped. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just curious. Do you remember the lady I told you about, a couple of months ago? I kept calling her Knee-Sock Lady because I couldn’t remember her name.”

  “Yes. Chu-Hua Xui.”

  “Choo How She Ew?”

  “Right,” he said in the same monotone.

  “Are you making that up?” she asked, trying to loosen him up a little. “I mean are you just reading it off a piece of paper and decided that’s the way to say it?”

  Ha. Ha.

  “I interviewed her and that’s how she said her name.”

  “Oh.” Delia cleared her throat and shook her fist at Clawdius, too. “I saw her at the bakery. I wondered if she was the one who bailed Mate out of jail and maybe he’s staying with her. You are still looking for him, or has he turned up?”

  It sounded like his chair squeaked.

  Something squeaked.

  Perhaps he’d sat forward in his squeaky chair and was now rubbing his forehead with his elbow on his desk. “We are still looking for Matthew Oswald.”

  “Remember I told you that Eddie said he saw Mate.” Why do I feel as though I’m tattling? “He said he saw him at Tipsy Louie’s with Isaac Kent.”

  After a pause, Nicolo asked, “Did you?”

  “Yep. And I saw…” I’ve already forgotten her name! “How Ew She at the bakery. Do you think they’re on the move?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “I don’t know either,” she admitted. “So, I can go back to work tomorrow? Was there anything else, Nicolo?”

  Because I really need to stop talking.

  Delia heard his heavy intake of breath. “Yes. I want to know, why are you looking for Matthew?”

  “Oh, I’m not. I’m just curious.”

  Oh, if he could see my red cheeks now.

  “I’m just a curious person and, anxious, you know? I was hoping you’d caught up to him by now.”

  “I will let you know when that happens.” After another pause, he said, “I’m not switching you to the desk sergeant. You’ll need to call back. Goodbye.”

  Delia stared at the display on her phone. He’s mad. He thinks I’m investigating, that I broke my word. Delia looked at Clawdius. “How is wondering what’s going on investigating anything?”

  The cat licked his paw.

  “I know, I mentioned Knee-Sock Lady. But, as a detective, he should know that, shouldn’t he? I didn’t go looking for the woman. She came looking for me. I think.”

  Her stomach felt as though it had a tennis ball in it. A hard little ball … or maybe it was the baked cheese coagulating there. To get off the floor was an acrobatic feat. Once she was up, Delia group-called Becca and Bogart. “Cleaning tomorrow and then we’ll open on Wednesday,” she announced, and then they gossiped about who’d killed Jeanette for another hour.

  * * *

  The place wasn’t in as bad of shape as Delia imagined when she arrived at King Lears the next morning. The walk-in refrigerator was the worst. After all, death had taken place inside a food storage area.

  There’s not enough Dawn detergent in the world to clean it up.

  Bogart snaked in a hose from the alley and sprayed the entire floor before bleaching it many times. Delia had thought about bringing in a professional cleaning service just for murder scenes, but she really didn’t want to advertise that someone died inside the bakery.

  I’d be a little off-put if I was a customer.

  They’d left the back door open, sending the bleach fumes outside, and were putting items back onto the wire shelves when someone knocked on the metal table in the middle of the room.

  Delia spun around. “Daniel?”

  Indeed it was Daniel Curran from the Stove and Keg pub, standing in the middle of the room, looking very cute in a leather jacket and jeans. He wore a black fedora on his brown curls. His pale brown eyes skimmed over her blue jeans. “I saw you’d finally opened the bakery. I stopped by the other day, but you’d already closed.”

  Suddenly Delia was immeasurably pleased.

  Wait. I’m not pleased. Daniel was with Chu Hua the other day.

  She said, “You must’ve come by after two o’clock. We’re closing early until we can judge how many customers we will have in the evenings.”

  “Or how many you can kill?”

  Delia lost her smile.

  “Sorry, it was just a joke.” He gazed at Becca and Bogart standing behind Delia.

  Delia glanced over her shoulder. The two seemed frozen in the refrigerator do
orway, Becca in her orange sweater and blue jeans and Bogart in his white pants and white t-shirt. He’d said if he got bleach on his outfit, no one would know.

  She turned back around. “Um…”

  Daniel shrugged, making his leather jacket squeak. “I walked past on Sunday, and a couple of guys were carrying out a body on a stretcher.”

  “One of our employees passed away. I hope you’re not…”

  “Telling everyone?” he leaned forward with his brows raised beneath his curly bangs. “I don’t need to do that. It’s already going around.”

  Delia nodded. “Great.”

  Daniel glanced around the room, at the stock, and the pots and pans. “Is it safe in here again?”

  Her chest muscles tightened a notch with every question he asked. “Of course it is.”

  “The blueberries?” he asked, turning his eyes back to Delia.

  She caught her breath.

  How does he know about the blueberries in Jeanette’s mouth?

  He waved his hand in the air as if shooing away her apparent anxiety. “An officer stopped by the pub and asked if we were using blueberries, so I put two and two together.”

  She’d never noticed how smarmy Daniel Curran acted. And now that he was hooked up with one of Mate’s friends, he was wholly unlikeable. “You know, while you’re here,” she said, placing her hand on the metal table and pretending to be just as smarmy and confident as him. “I saw you with someone the other day.”

  “Following me around, huh?”

  “Huh-uh. But, I think I know the woman. She’s Asian, wearing a red sweater; you met her in the parking lot.”

  “Chu-Hua?”

  “Yes, Chu-Hua Xia.”

  Oh, good for me, I remembered her name!

  He nodded, be it cautiously.

  “How do you know her?”

  She felt both Becca and Bogart move closer to her.

  I hope they don’t think I can save them if Mr. Curran goes berserk suddenly.

  “She’s my brother’s girlfriend.” Daniel’s eyes moved to Becca and Bogart. “Hey, Bogart.”

  Delia’s stomach dropped. “You’re Matt Oswald’s brother?”