by Leena Clover
“You spent a lot of time with Brandon there.”
“It was just like old times,” Megan said wistfully. “We caught up with all our friends.”
“Kelly must have felt left out,” Jenny suggested.
“Kelly didn’t mind,” Megan said confidently. “She wasn’t clingy. Not like some girls I know.”
Heather had been tapping her foot impatiently while Megan spoke. She interrupted them suddenly.
“Wait a minute, Megan. Are you actually saying you were friends with Kelly?”
Megan shrugged.
Jenny picked up the conversation.
“Looks like you knew Kelly Fox well enough. What kind of a person would you say she was?”
Megan thought for a minute.
“I’m no judge of character. She seemed like a regular gal.”
“Why would someone want to kill her?”
Megan looked stricken.
“Kill her? Are you saying someone deliberately murdered her?”
Jenny couldn’t believe Megan was that naïve.
“You do live in Pelican Cove?” Heather asked Megan. “How do you not know this?”
“I’ve been busy catching up with work since yesterday,” Megan said lightly. “I haven’t really talked to anyone.”
“What kind of job do you have in the city?” Jenny asked politely.
“I’m a publicist,” Megan said proudly. “I have a long roster of clients who always need something. They keep me on my toes.”
She looked at her watch.
“I have a video call with a client in half an hour. I really need to prep for it.”
“Just a few questions more,” Jenny smiled. “When did you leave the party?”
“Frankly, I have no idea!” Megan sighed. “I think I went a bit overboard with the champagne.”
“How long did the party go on?”
Megan pursed her mouth, shaking her head from side to side.
“I can’t tell you that either. But there were a few people milling about when I left.”
“What about Kelly?” Jenny asked. “When did you last see her?”
“Kelly was having the time of her life,” Megan said. She narrowed her eyes as if she was trying to remember what had happened at the party. “I remember telling her I was leaving. She wanted me to stay a bit longer.”
“Did you?” Heather asked.
“I might have. I started to leave a couple of times. But then I stayed on. My memory is really hazy on that point.”
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to harm Kelly?” Jenny asked Megan.
Megan shook her head.
“I didn’t know much about her personal life. She was friendly but she didn’t share much about herself. I thought it might be because she didn’t have a family. I didn’t want to pry.”
Jenny couldn’t think of any more questions to ask the girl.
“So it was just a regular party … you didn’t notice anything unusual.”
“Not really,” Megan said, getting up.
Heather and Jenny took the hint.
“Thanks for talking to us, Megan,” Jenny said with a smile. “Will you call me if you think of anything else?”
“Sure,” Megan nodded. “I know the party ended in disaster. But I really enjoyed your food. I could go for that crab dip any day.”
“You should go to the Boardwalk Café,” Heather told her. “Jenny cooks something different every day.”
“Oh yeah,” Jenny said. “Come over to the café any time. I’ll make you anything you like.”
Jenny and Heather went over their visit on the way back to the café.
“Don’t you think she’s a bit too chirpy?” Jenny asked.
“You think it’s all an act?” Heather quirked an eyebrow. “This is how Megan is. She gets along really well with people.”
“Maybe she just told us what we wanted to hear.”
“Do you think she was lying, Jenny?”
“I know Megan belongs to a different generation,” Jenny said, swerving to avoid a puddle. “But surely the world hasn’t changed that much? Friends with Kelly? I don’t buy that.”
“She could have been leading us on,” Heather mused. “But why would she do that?”
“To hide the truth, of course,” Jenny said. “I say she hated Kelly. I am ready to wager anything on that.”
“How are you going to prove that?” Heather asked.
Jenny didn’t have an answer for that. Heather continued thinking out loud.
“Do you think she had a motive?”
“I think so,” Jenny said. “Now that Kelly’s out of the way, she has a straight shot at Brandon.”
“Don’t forget she broke up with him.”
“She might have realized her mistake after she lost him. I saw how possessive she was of Brandon at the party. She was a woman on the prowl, make no mistake.”
“You may be right,” Heather relented. “But I don’t think she needed to kill Kelly to get Brandon back. Have you looked at Megan? She can bewitch any man in a five mile radius.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Jenny threw back her head and laughed.
Heather joined in. Jenny called her out on her tendency to exaggerate.
“But seriously,” Heather said, “she has a silver tongue to match those looks. It’s a lethal combination.”
“She doesn’t really have an alibi,” Jenny pointed out. “And she’s not ready to commit to when she left the party.”
“Have the police questioned her yet?” Heather asked. “She will have to give them some concrete answer.”
“Adam might get more out of her,” Jenny agreed.
Megan would have to give an accurate account of her movements to the authorities. There would be repercussions if she lied to them. Jenny wondered if Megan had been spinning a yarn all along. Had she sweet talked Jenny into believing what she wanted her to believe?
“Who’s next on your list, Jenny?”
“Brandon Newbury.”
“I’m sure Brandon’s innocent,” Heather said. “And I’m not just saying that because we are related. Brandon couldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I want to talk to Ada’s staff too. They will open up more if you are with me.”
“We don’t have too many bookings at the inn this week. I’m not busy.”
“Great. Am I missing anyone else?” Jenny asked.
“You already talked to Ada,” Heather said, counting off her fingers. “Megan and Brandon are the major players. Aren’t you forgetting Kelly?”
“She can’t talk to me, Heather,” Jenny smirked.
Heather punched her in the shoulder.
“What do you know about Kelly, huh?”
Jenny realized what she had been missing. She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
“How could I forget that? We definitely need to find out more about Kelly. I’m going to do some basic online research tonight.”
Jenny dropped Heather off at the Bayview Inn and headed to the Boardwalk Café. Her aunt had assembled a tray of sandwiches and was already serving them to the lunch crowd. Soup was simmering on the stove. Jenny pulled on an apron and joined her aunt, shrugging off her fatigue.
Jason Stone came in just as the café emptied. Tiny droplets of water streamed down his face. He wiped his face with a white linen handkerchief and smiled broadly at Jenny, opening his arms wide for a hug.
“How’s my favorite café owner today?”
Jenny hugged him back.
“You need to dry your hair,” she said.
She grabbed a bunch of paper towels from a table and led Jason out to the deck. Jason obliged her and dried his hair sheepishly.
“What a day! We have two more days of this infernal rain. I can’t wait for the sun to shine again.”
“My garden needs this rain,” Jenny said. “I’m looking forward to a great flowering season.”
Jason asked Jenny to join him for lunch.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” Sta
r said. “You gotta eat.”
“What about you?” Jenny asked her aunt.
Star was an artist who painted seascapes of the surrounding region. They were popular with the tourists. She had put her work on hold to help Jenny at the café. Jenny knew her aunt was burning the midnight oil to keep up with the demand for her work. She was worried about her health.
“I’m going to grab a sandwich and eat it on my way home,” Star told her.
“No way,” Jenny protested. “Eat with us. You can go paint up a storm after that.”
Star relented.
“How’s that old grouch treating you?” Jason asked, taking a jab at Adam.
“Very well, thank you very much,” Jenny said, making a face. “What about you? Are you seeing someone?”
Jason’s face clouded over. He laughed nervously, trying to look stoic.
“I’m too busy to date,” he told them. “I have so many pending cases, I am working 12 hour days to get through them.”
Star gave him a knowing look. She knew Jason still had a thing for Jenny. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they had a future together.
Chapter 6
Jenny and Heather were back at the Newbury estate. Heather exclaimed in delight the moment they stepped into the parlor.
A tall, stout man with a shock of white hair held his arms out to Heather. Heather ran into them and hugged the man tightly.
“How are you, munchkin?” the man asked.
Robert Newbury was Heather’s grandfather. He and Betty Sue had been separated for decades.
“When did you get back home?” Heather asked him.
“Last night,” Robert answered. “What’s the matter with you kids? I leave town for a couple of days and you manage to land in hot water.”
“You know,” Heather murmured. “How is Brandon?”
“Still crying his eyes out. I don’t blame him, of course. There are some times in life when a man should not be ashamed of showing his emotions.”
“We were hoping to talk to him,” Jenny spoke up.
“You remember my friend Jenny?” Heather asked her grandpa. “She’s helping us find out what happened to Kelly.”
Robert’s face fell.
“That Kelly. She was a sweet girl. She was good for Brandon.”
Jenny noticed how his opinion was diametrically opposite to that of Ada’s.
“We are here to talk to the staff,” Heather told her grandfather. “Can I catch up with you later?”
“Stay for lunch,” Robert urged. “Cook’s making fried chicken with all the fixings.”
Heather promised him she would think about it. Jenny curbed an urge to giggle. She couldn’t imagine Ada Newbury inviting her to eat lunch with the family.
Heather led Jenny down a long passage. She pushed open a door and entered a cavernous kitchen. A large woman wearing a chef’s hat and a soiled apron around her wide girth stood with one arm on her hip, frying chicken. Her face broke into a broad smile when she looked up and spotted Heather.
“Hey baby girl! Come taste some bread pudding. I made that special brandy sauce you like.”
Heather greeted the old woman with a hug. She breathed in the aromas of the different pots and pans on the cooking range. She promised they would stay for lunch. The cook spooned some warm pudding into a bowl and made them taste it. It was buttery and gooey, loaded with plenty of plump black raisins. Jenny wondered if the old cook would share her recipe.
Cook’s expression changed once Heather had eaten a few spoonfuls of pudding.
“Are you here for Brandon? That poor boy! Maybe you can coax him to eat a bite.”
“I do want to talk to Brandon,” Heather nodded, sharing a glance with Jenny. “But we were hoping to talk to you first.”
The cook narrowed her eyes and trained them on Jenny.
“Girl, you playing Nancy Drew again?”
“Mrs. Newbury needs my help. I am going to try and find out what happened to Kelly.”
“She didn’t deserve to die,” Cook said, wiping her eyes on her apron. “She was so sweet. She made Brandon happy.”
“Can we talk to you about that night?” Heather asked.
“I was off duty that night,” the old woman said. “Your friend here took care of all the food.”
“But you were helping serve the food, weren’t you? I think I remember seeing you out in the courtyard.”
“That’s right.”
“When did you last see Kelly?”
The cook’s face clouded over. “I don’t exactly remember. I brought her some of my leftover pot roast from the kitchen. She said she loved the spread you had put out but she was hankering for some of that roast from lunch.”
Jenny figured Kelly was just buttering up the old cook. She had no idea why the young girl would do that. Either she was really good at heart or she had an ulterior motive. Or maybe she really liked pot roast. Although Kelly had been fawning over Jenny’s food, she hadn’t really seemed like a gourmand.
“What time was that?” she asked.
“Around nine,” the cook answered. “That was before she had that fight with the missus.”
“Do you know what that was about?” Heather asked curiously.
The cook was an old employee and apparently didn’t think twice before speaking her mind.
“That woman doesn’t need a reason to talk someone down. You know that!”
“Did Kelly stick around after her altercation with Ada?” Jenny asked.
“She seemed fine after that,” Cook said, her admiration for the girl clear in her tone. “I don’t know how much longer she stuck around though. I went to my quarters after ten. The party was still going strong at that time.”
Jenny needed to establish what Kelly had been up to between the hours of ten and midnight.
“What about Megan? You know who Megan is, don’t you?”
The cook frowned.
“That girl is trouble. She means no good, I can tell you that.”
“How so?” Jenny asked.
“She’s got her eye on Brandon. She was fixing to break those two up.”
“Did Megan and Kelly talk to each other?”
The old woman bobbed her head up and down.
“Yes Sir! They said they were like sisters. You know that Megan’s a smooth talker. She had Kelly believing whatever spurted out of her mouth.”
“Was Megan here when you left?” Jenny asked the cook.
The woman didn’t remember that.
“We were hoping to talk to some of the other people who were working that night.”
A couple of girls came into the kitchen just then. They were both wearing staff uniforms.
“You can talk to them,” Cook warned Heather. “But don’t take too long. I have to start serving lunch soon.”
She looked at the girls who were standing at a counter, stacking dishes.
“This lady wants to talk to you about the night of the party,” Cook said, nodding toward Jenny. “There is no need to be afraid. Just tell her what you saw or heard.”
Jenny introduced herself. They already knew who Heather was.
The girls had seen Ada argue with Kelly. They had also noticed how friendly Megan and Kelly had seemed to be.
“How long were you working that night?” Jenny asked them.
“We were here until the food ran out,” one girl answered. “Most of the guests had left by that time.”
“When was that?” Heather asked immediately.
“Sometime after 11,” the other girl said. “I wasn’t wearing my watch but I heard the big clock inside the house chime.”
“Can you tell me who was still hanging around?”
One of the girls shook her head. The other hesitated.
“It’s hard to say,” she finally said. “Brandon was in and out of the house. Megan had left earlier but then she came back.”
“What was Kelly doing?”
“Kelly was drunk,” the first girl said and giggled.
“She wasn’t that drunk,” the other girl objected.
“So Brandon, Megan and Kelly were still at the party after 11,” Jenny asked again.
She thought this timeline was important so she wanted to be sure of the facts.
A gong sounded somewhere in the distance.
“Time to start serving lunch,” Cook said, suddenly snapping to attention.
She clapped her hands, bursting into a flurry of activity as she began plating the food. She pointed at the girls and started barking orders.
“You take the potatoes and green beans, and you, take the apple sauce and the rolls. I will bring out the chicken.”
She looked at Heather and Jenny apologetically.
“Don’t you go anywhere without tasting my food.”
Jenny thanked the cook and reluctantly stepped out of the kitchen.
“What next?” she asked Heather.
“Let’s go find Brandon.”
Heather peeped into the dining room to make sure Brandon wasn’t at the table. She took Jenny’s hand and led her to a different part of the house.
Heather banged on the door insistently when her gentle knocks didn’t produce an answer. The door finally burst open and Brandon stared out at them, bleary eyed. Jenny could barely recognize him.
“We need to talk,” Heather said, rushing into the room. “What’s that smell?”
Jenny realized Brandon was still dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing at the party. Heather marched him into an ensuite bathroom. He reappeared a few minutes later, his face freshly scrubbed and his wet hair finger combed. Heather had dug out a fresh shirt for him.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jenny said softly.
“I should never have come here,” Brandon said bitterly. “We should have eloped, had a wedding in Vegas or something.”
“You can’t change what happened, B,” Heather consoled him. “We have to move on. Jenny here is going to help find out who hurt Kelly.”
“That won’t bring her back.”
“You’re right,” Heather agreed. “But it might keep your grandma from being arrested for a murder she didn’t commit.”
“Grandma never liked her,” Brandon told them. “Apparently, Kelly wasn’t good enough to be a Newbury.”