by Vicki Delany
“Yes.”
“Then you can be reasonably confident your grandmother won’t be a suspect. This time.” She walked away.
“That’s good to know,” Bernie said.
My phone rang. “Inspector Williams has returned to speak to the family,” Rose said when I answered.
“It’s Detective Williams, as you are well aware, and, yeah, I know. He’s just left here. He got a lift. Too lazy to walk up the driveway.”
Unlike Detective Redmond, Detective Williams was not tall and fit. More like short and dumpy, and rather than looking as though he was on the alert for trouble at all times, he gave the impression he was excessively eager for quitting time to arrive.
“Most of the non–McHenry family guests have left clutching their breakfast vouchers, and Heather and her group are in the dining room. Edna’s serving coffee. I told Inspector Williams he can use the drawing room to interview them.”
“That’s good.”
“Shall I assume you have baking in the freezer here?”
“Some muffins and a coffee cake, in case we have an unexpected rush one breakfast or I’m late getting in. Why?”
“I’ll have Edna serve that. It’ll help keep the police in place, in case Inspector Williams gets the foolish idea of going elsewhere to talk.”
“I see what you’re getting at, Rose, but this doesn’t have anything to do with us. We don’t want to get involved.”
Three sets of eyes watched me. I turned away, not that that would prevent my friends from listening in.
“Are the police presently combing through your clotted cream, poking your pastry with their fat fingers, sniffing your sugar?” Rose asked.
“Yes, but—”
“Is your place of business closed until further notice? Are people, even as we speak, slowing down as they pass to have a look at what’s going on?”
I couldn’t see the main road from here, but I could hear cars, and, yes, some were slowing. A few heads even popped over the garden gate, to be chased away by the police officer guarding what they would, no doubt, label as “the scene of the crime.”
“Someone from the newspaper was poking around a few minutes ago,” I said. “He took a picture of the tearoom sign. I told him to go away.” He hadn’t appeared inclined to do what I asked, not until Simon stood up and Matt growled. The reporter then hightailed it out of here mighty fast. Perhaps I’d been too polite.
“Therefore,” Rose said, “it has a great deal to do with us, whether we want it to or not.”
As much as I hated to admit it, my grandmother was right. As she usually is. “On my way.” I hung up and pushed myself to my feet. “Rose needs me. I’m going to the house to see what’s happening. Can you keep an eye out here, and call me if I need to know anything or if the cops want to speak to me?”
Simon started to stand. “I’ll come with you.”
“No,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended. “I mean, no thanks. I need you here.”
“I’ll stay,” Bernie said. “I can work in my head.” She turned to Matt. “Do you do that, too? When you’re writing, I mean.”
“I’m always writing,” he said.
“Me too,” she replied.
“If you two are so busy writing, I need Simon to do the watching-the-police part.” I took off before he could argue with me.
* * *
I ran through the gate, down the gravel driveway, past the rose garden, which was just coming into glorious bloom; past the tall, swaying pampas grass that separates parts of our property from Matt’s; across the emerald lawn, around the ancient oak tree and the hosta beds beneath, and past the sign directing people to the car park. I took the four steps to the veranda, two at a time, and sprinted across the wide-planked boards past the iron urns planted with white and red geraniums, fountain grasses, and trailing vines. I threw open the door and burst into the front hall of Victoria-on-Sea.
Detective Redmond had arrived only moments before me. She spun around and said, “What brings you here in such a hurry?”
“Nothing,” I panted.
She gave me a suspicious look, but said no more.
“I asked Lily to come and give me a hand.” My grandmother had taken a seat behind the reception desk. Robbie was stretched out across it to his full length, allowing her to stroke his belly. “I’m sure you and your people would like to take some light refreshment.”
“That’s not necessary,” Redmond said.
“No, but it is polite,” Rose said. “Even before I joined the household at Thornecroft Castle, my mother taught me that one always offers refreshment to guests.” Rose had been a kitchen maid in her youth, and she was raised with a broad, down-to-earth Yorkshire accent. Over the years—too many episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey, perhaps—she’d refined her accent and could do snobby when she wanted. She wanted to now.
“We’re not your guests,” Redmond said.
Rose smiled at her. “But I insist.”
“In that case, thank you.” Redmond gave up the argument and went into the dining room, where a babble of voices greeted her.
“Quiet, everyone!” she bellowed.
The babble stopped instantly.
Rose and I exchanged glances and pricked up our ears.
“Thank you,” Detective Williams said. “Now that I have your attention, I’ll need to talk to each of you in turn.”
“I don’t see what any of this has to do with us,” Darlene whined. “Until this week, I hadn’t had anything to do with Ed French for years. I want to go to my room. I’m very upset.”
“We’re all upset,” Heather said. “But I’m happy to help the police with whatever they need. We all should be, as I’m sure even you’ll agree, Mom. You can speak to me first, Detective. This holiday was my idea.”
“And you are?” Redmond asked.
“Heather French. Of New York City. Edward French was the brother of my late husband. I was formerly Heather McHenry. Darlene and Brian are my parents, and Lewis is my brother.”
“Where’s Trisha, anyway?” Julie-Ann asked. “Shouldn’t you be talking to her first? Isn’t the widow always the prime suspect?”
“Julie-Ann!” Lewis said. “That was totally uncalled for.”
“It’s true, isn’t it? Aren’t we here to tell the truth?”
“The truth as it pertains to our relationship with Ed,” Heather said, “not what you’ve seen on CSI: Miami.”
“We spoke to Trisha French at the hospital,” Redmond said.
“She’s upstairs,” Amanda said. “GeeGee’s with her.”
“Amanda means my grandmother,” Heather said. “Sandra McHenry.”
While I kept one ear open to the chatter in the dining room, Rose and I put our heads close together.
“I’ll help Edna with refreshments, love,” my grandmother said. “You can monitor the conversation.”
“If I must,” I said.
“You must,” she replied.
* * *
Rose stood up and assumed her post at the door to the dining room. Robbie rolled over, stretched, jumped off the desk, and strolled into the dining room in search of further attention. Rose checked no one was coming and gave me a sharp nod to indicate that the coast was clear.
Inside the dining room, voices rose and fell as people continued squabbling. Williams and Redmond remained quiet, no doubt hoping someone would accidently confess. Darlene said, “Oh, there’s that darling cat,” and made clucking noises.
I glanced up and down the hallway and checked the stairs. No one was coming, and I slipped into the linen closet. This house had been used as a B & B by the previous owners, but they hadn’t lived on the premises. When Rose bought it, she’d had the necessary renovations done in order to create a private apartment for her own use, and at the same time, the workers had knocked down a few walls to make a larger guest suite out of a couple of minuscule bedrooms. The blueprints had revealed a secret room tucked under the staircase, accessibl
e from the linen closet. Rose showed me the room when I came to live here, but only she and I knew about it. We’d never told anyone on staff or even Bernie. We’d been nothing more than mildly amused about it, until recently when a man died on our property and Rose had been accused of murder.
That’s when we realized the secret room was an excellent place from which to hear everything that went on in the drawing room. Such had obviously been the intention of whoever’d built the secret room, as the wall between it and the drawing room was not only exceptionally thin, but small holes had been driven through the wall, and then covered by a painting of an eighteenth-century sailing ship battling storm-tossed seas.
I moved a stack of tablecloths and napkins off the two bottom shelves of the linen closet, dumped them on the floor, and carefully lifted the shelves out of place. I rested them against the wall and pulled the now-exposed lever. Sucking in my stomach, I shut the closet door behind me, bent low, duck-walked under the upper shelf, and emerged into the tiny space. It was completely dark, but I know my way around well enough that my fingers soon found the small desk lamp and I switched it on. We’d figured why not eavesdrop in comfort, so we’d fitted up our secret room with a comfortable chair, small table, and a lamp.
The main purpose of serving coffee and muffins to our “guests” was not to be polite, as Rose had said, but to keep Detective Williams from deciding to take everyone down to the police station to talk to them there. Once I was out of sight of anyone who might wander past, Rose would go to the kitchen and help Edna prepare the refreshments. That’s a rare occurrence, indeed. My grandmother’s perfectly capable of playing hostess to a house full of people, but after spending her youth as a kitchen maid in one of the stately homes of England, followed by fifty married years of cooking, cleaning, raising five children, and helping my grandfather, Eric, run his business, Rose had declared that part of her life to be over when her husband died. She hired Edna and, nominally, me to serve the guests, and women from town to do the cleaning. On the rare occasion she entertained friends, she reheated a frozen meal and left the dishes for the kitchen staff (again meaning Edna and me) to take care of in the morning.
* * *
I was making myself comfortable in the chair when I heard the door to the drawing room open and then Williams’s plodding tread, the heavy boots of a uniformed officer, and the steps of a woman in light shoes.
“Please,” Williams said, “have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Heather replied.
Briefly and concisely, Heather told Detective Williams that she’d originally planned a few days’ vacation in North Augusta with her grandmother, Sandra McHenry, at the B & B of Sandra’s longtime friend, Rose Campbell. When her father heard about the plan, he decided to come, too, and before Heather could stop him, he’d also invited Heather’s brother and his family. She laughed lightly. “As long as my vacation was turning into a family reunion, at my grandmother’s suggestion, I asked Ed and Trisha to join us. I haven’t seen them for ages and thought it would be nice to get caught up.”
“You haven’t seen your brother-in-law and his wife for some time. Why not?”
Heather explained that she now lived in New York City and the rest of the family lived in Grand Lake, Iowa. She hadn’t been home since moving East. “People drift apart, even close families. Once Norman died, well . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Williams gave her a moment to collect herself and then he said, “What about Rose Campbell?”
“What about her?”
“What’s her relationship with the deceased?”
If I hadn’t been in hiding, I would have stormed through the thin wall. Surely, Williams wasn’t planning on again concentrating on Rose to the exclusion of other, better suspects?
“You’ll have to ask her,” Heather said. “Grand Lake’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone else.”
“And her granddaughter, Lily Roberts? Does she know everyone?”
“I can’t say,” Heather answered. “I’d never met her before Saturday. Doesn’t mean the others hadn’t.”
I was disappointed that Amy Redmond had been excluded from the conversation, but not surprised. The two detectives had a difficult relationship. Williams was old-school, local-boy, longtime cop. Redmond was from the big city, new, eager. He was drifting toward retirement; she was out to prove herself.
He was an incompetent idiot. She was not.
It didn’t make for a comfortable partnership.
“At your little tea party yesterday afternoon, Edward French drank a specially made pot of tea,” Williams said.
“That’s right. Trisha had the tea in her bag, and she handed it to the waitress and asked her to prepare it for Ed. She, the waitress, served it in its own pot. All the tea was served in individual pots.”
“Did anyone else drink from Mr. French’s pot?”
“Not that I noticed,” Heather said.
There was a light tapping at the door. Williams called, “Come in.”
“Mrs. Campbell thought you might like some coffee, Detective,” Edna said. I heard the tinkle of china and a thump as she put the tray on the table. “And a couple of Lily’s homemade muffins. We have tea, if you’d prefer.”
“Never been a tea man,” he grunted. “Thanks.”
The door closed behind Edna. Williams’s chair creaked as he stood up. Cream splashed into the mug, sugar was stirred in. The chair protested his weight as he sat down and resumed his questioning. Around a mouthful of muffin, he asked Heather what they’d had to eat at the tea. She replied that the food wasn’t served for each person individually, but came to the table on trays from which everyone helped themselves. She didn’t notice who ate what. She hadn’t had any of the desserts, she said. Although, come to think of it, Ed consumed far more than his share of the strawberry tarts.
Williams munched and sipped happily away and didn’t ask a single question about the relationship between Ed French and the McHenry family. Heather gave the impression they were here for a fun gathering at the seaside and he swallowed it.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. French. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you and your party to remain in North Augusta for a few days.”
I heard the shrug in Heather’s voice. “Not a problem. Will it be necessary for me to contact my lawyers in New York City?”
“That would be up to you, Mrs. French,” he said, “but I see no reason.”
Heather was dismissed, the officer told to bring in the next person.
One by one, they all, except for Trisha, were questioned. No one mentioned any tension between the McHenry and French families. According to them, all was sweetness and light.
Even Julie-Ann backtracked on her earlier declaration that Trisha might have been responsible for the death of her husband. “I wasn’t thinking straight,” she said with a nervous laugh. “My husband says I watch too much TV.”
She was dismissed, and the officer went to fetch Lewis.
A scratching began at the door to the linen closet: Robbie, wondering what I was doing in here, and had I found any mice? Drat that cat! If someone opened the door to let him in, they’d see the pile of linens on the floor and the shelves out of place.
“What are you after, you naughty boy?” came Julie-Ann’s voice. “Whatever’s in there, I’m sure it’s not for you. Silly thing.” She laughed. “Why don’t you come with me? Trisha doesn’t like cats, but I’m sure she’d love a visit from you.”
Robbie meowed, and I heard Julie-Ann walk away, chuckling at her own cleverness.
“I hope this isn’t going to take too long.” Lewis’s voice came from the drawing room. “I don’t know anything about what happened to Ed, and I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about it. Have you seen the man? Heart attack looking for a place to happen. My wife and I work hard all year, and right now, we want to continue with our vacation.”
“Pardon me for inconveniencing you,” Williams said. “Have a seat.”
; Lewis muttered something about the waste of time, but I heard the squeaking of the chair as he sat.
When questioned, everyone said they all ate from the same platters of food at the tea and no one had shared Ed’s brought-from-home tea concoction.
The only line of questioning that deviated from the events of yesterday was directed at Lewis. Williams asked Lewis what Ed did for a living, and Lewis said he owned a computer company. “They sell computers, computer parts, and accessories. Install and make repairs to computers for small businesses and at people’s homes. That sort of thing. I don’t know for sure, but I think he does okay.”
“What about you? What do you do?”
“I own a Toyota dealership.”
“Tough competition in that business?” Williams asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Lewis said. “It’s brutal. Our town’s not doing too bad, not as bad as some, but people don’t have a lot of money to spend on new cars or even good used ones.”
“Anyone else from Grand Lake on the Cape this week?” Williams asked.
“What?”
“Did you see anyone you recognized since you arrived here?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Give it some thought,” Williams said. “Okay?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll do that.”
Oh, dear. Detective Williams was hoping to find that someone had followed Ed French from Iowa and killed him. He was no doubt also hoping the killer had gone home again, and thus the case could be handed over to the Grand Lake police.
He seems to have not bothered to wonder how this person could get unseen into Tea by the Sea and close enough to Ed to poison his tea.
I was jerked out of my thoughts by the sound of my name. “Lily Roberts next,” Williams said.
The door to the drawing room opened and the sound of the cop’s boots crossed the floor.
Oops.
* * *
I didn’t dare leave the secret room without Rose telling me it was safe. I’d put my phone on silent, and while I’d been hiding, I received a string of texts from Bernie telling me what was going on up at the tearoom. Simon had gone back to work, and Matt had headed for his house. They’d both told her to call if there was any change in the police activity. Watching the police coming and going was, she told me, giving her some great ideas for her book.