Fleur took a sip of her wine and heaved a sigh. “None of the designs I’ve been looking at for my organic sugar products are right. Not for the really high-end market I want to pitch them to. They’re fine for the local B&Bs and guesthouses, but not for the five-star chain hotels. The Four Seasons won’t be interested in a logo that looks as though it was designed by someone with a four-week Photoshop course behind them.”
“Maybe you should go off-island to find a designer.”
“I was hoping to keep my overheads down, but it might come to that.”
“The other thing you can do is check out which brands the premium hotels are already using in their rooms and giftshops and see what the packaging and design look like. Then you can use them as inspiration.”
Fleur wrote herself a note on her phone, nodding all the while. “I’m going to try that, thanks. How has your day been?” She put her phone down.
“Weird. I attended a memorial service at the oddest church I have ever been to. I thought they were Christians, but they totally are not. They worship someone they call the Blessed Redeeming Savior who is not Jesus but resembles Him slightly. Then they’ve got a thing called the Blessed Book which has copy-pasted bits from the Bible. Their main function seems to be to make as much money as they can for their Pastor.”
“I think I’ve seen their posters up at the Scout Hall. They call themselves BRS, don’t they?”
“That’s the one. I need to find out more about the Pastor before I decide how high to put her and her sidekick Lily on my suspect list.”
Angel emerged from the kitchen to bring their food. She put the plates down and gave them each a double-cheek-kiss in greeting.
“Fleur, chérie. It is so good to see you. You are a little tired this evening, but beautiful as ever. That hair. That coloring! And exquisite taste as always.”
Fleur beamed, basking in Angel’s approval.
Eulalie knew that she missed her family in South Africa sometimes, even though she had crossed an ocean to get away from them. Eulalie and Angel were a form of substitute family for her.
“What were you saying about the Scout Hall just before I arrived, mes enfants?”
Eulalie told her.
“Do you know anything about this Pastor Ellie, Grandmère?”
“Only that she makes a virtue out of looking as plain and unattractive as she possibly can. And worse, she influences other women to look like that too. You see them traipsing around town like a troop of sick cows. Those dreadful, shapeless togas. The home-made haircuts. Not even a scrap of makeup. I feel depressed just looking at them. It is as though they blot out the sun from the sky.”
Eulalie and Fleur ate dinner while she talked. It was grilled salmon on a bed of crushed new potatoes with fresh leeks and asparagus. The sauce was a dill-infused hollandaise. After that all-day breakfast at Mo’s, Eulalie was grateful for some real food. She ate her vegetables without a murmur.
“I need to look into the personal finances of Pastor Ellie, as well as the church’s finances. I need to see where all those donations are going. But even if their transactions are not squeaky clean – and frankly I don’t see how they can be – that doesn’t make them murderers.”
“Indeed,” said Angel. “But it is a good lead, n’est-ce pas?”
“You’d think so, but this case has too many good leads. Emma Egger was a strange person. I have never known a victim quite like her. She annoyed everyone she met.”
Angel went behind the bar and started making espressos.
“Have you had any dreams about this case, chérie?”
“Ooh, yes. Good question.” Fleur rubbed her hands together. “I was just wondering about that myself. What have your dreams been telling you, Eulalie?”
Eulalie glared at them. “Listen to you - a pair of grown women asking another grown woman what her ‘dreams’ have been telling her. I don’t rely on dreams. I rely on my investigative skill.”
“Yes, chérie, and we know you have plenty of that. But are you telling us you haven’t dreamed about this case at all?”
Eulalie found it impossible to lie when her grandmother’s eyes were fixed on hers. Angel had always been able to ferret the truth out of her, ever since she was a child.
“Okay, fine,” she mumbled. “I might have had one dream about this case.”
“And what did it tell you?” asked Fleur.
“Nothing, of course.” She caught Angel’s eye. “Well, just that Emma Egger was addicted to prescription medication. Which turned out to be true.”
“That also sounds like a good lead.”
“It hasn’t exactly been a breakthrough. I found out who her dealer was, and I’ve spoken to him. I can’t see what motive he might have had for murdering her. She didn’t always pay on time, but she always paid in the end. And it seems she didn’t owe him any money when she died. This case is a tough one, all right.”
“And yet, tough as it is, it is not the only thing that is bothering you,” said Angel, putting down espressos for all of them. “There is something else that is on your mind.”
“I knew it!” said Fleur. “Man trouble. Tell us everything. What has the delicious Chief Macgregor been up to?”
Eulalie slumped in her seat.
“As bad as that, chérie?” asked Angel.
“What would you think if a man you’d been flirting with for a few weeks suddenly started talking about marriage and children as though they were the next thing on your agenda?”
Angel and Fleur wore identical expressions of surprise.
“Mon Dieu!”
“But you haven’t even been on a proper date.”
“That’s the other thing. Every time we’ve had a meal together when we’ve been working on the same case or other, he has been counting those as dates.”
“Those aren’t dates.”
“Exactly. He has this timetable in his head about how the rest of our lives are going to go, and I’m having a hard time adjusting to it. I appreciate his honesty, but I find it hard to be honest in return. This is all so new to me. I thought we were just having fun – flirting a bit before leading up to our first date. Meanwhile, he’s picking out the names of our children.”
“That is bizarre.” Fleur’s eyes were wide.
“I know. He’s so sure about the future, and I don’t even know what I’ll be having for lunch tomorrow. I don’t want to tell you what he said to me because you’ll probably think it’s creepy instead of romantic.”
“Now you have to tell us. We won’t judge.”
“He said he knew I was the one because his skin recognized me.”
The looks on their faces told Eulalie that they found this just as romantic as she did.
Chapter 17
Eulalie was back in Emma’s bedroom.
She was there and yet she wasn’t there. It was as though she was watching it on a screen. It was nighttime. The room was empty. It seemed to exhale wistfully at the memory of the hopes and dreams that had gone into its construction.
It was an abandoned space now. The heart had gone out of it. Its mistress was dead, and its master had forsaken it. All that remained was the material evidence of their time together. There were the photographs, the carefully chosen local art, the knick-knacks, and the tasteful moldings and finishes. It was a room held in stasis, waiting for its next incarnation.
And then suddenly it wasn’t empty anymore. A dark figure moved into the room. The figure moved deliberately, purposefully. It looked around at all the surfaces, picking up objects to examine them and putting them back down again.
The figure went into first one bathroom and then the other, reappearing a few minutes later, still not carrying anything. The figure plucked paintings off the wall, turned them around and ran urgent fingers over their backing, then replaced them on their nails. In the dim light, it was an androgynous figure with something covering its head and face – possibly a balaclava.
Having finished with the paintings, the figu
re moved onto the photographs, picking each one up and examining it, turning it over, holding it up to the faint moonlight coming in through the window. Once, the figure took a photograph out of its frame and examined it, turning it over several times. Then the figure tried to fit the photograph back into its frame, but it was too awkward, so frame and photograph were abandoned face-down on the shelf.
The figure moved on to the bedside tables on either side of the bed. Particular attention was paid to Emma’s side, but neither yielded results. Eulalie could see that the figure was becoming frustrated. Its movements became jerkier and more impatient. It lifted up the oversized mattress and felt all over the bed-board and the underside of the mattress. The mattress dropped back into place with a thump. The figure froze and listened, worried that it might have roused the household.
When no one came, the figure continued – now rifling through the closets. When that also turned up nothing, the figure allowed itself a bit of a tantrum. It stamped its foot several times and hammered its fists into the air.
As Eulalie watched, the figure’s shoulders sagged, and it adopted an attitude of despondency. Then it seemed to become aware of the lightening of the sky through the east window. It turned and left the room. Not, Eulalie was interested to see, via the widow’s walk, but through the door that led back into the house.
She wanted to follow the figure, to see where it went. But the scene was already fading from her grasp.
“No!” She sat up in bed. “Just another minute.”
The scene had faded away and she was in her own bed with fingers of early morning sunlight angling through her window.
She knew the figure would be long gone, but the police needed to get to the scene as quickly as possible, before any other member of the household did.
Still fighting the disorienting effects of the dream, Eulalie picked up her phone and sent a text to Chief Macgregor.
Eulalie: An intruder searched Emma Egger’s bedroom late last night/early this morning. We need to get there before anyone else does.
It didn’t surprise her when the reply came quickly. She knew he was an early riser.
Chief Macgregor: Was Mark Egger in the room at the time?
Eulalie: No. It was empty. Not sure why.
Chief Macgregor: I’ll meet you there in 30 minutes.
And that was it, she thought. No, ‘How do you know?’ or, ‘Are you sure?’ Just, ‘Meet you there in 30 minutes.’
It pleased and irritated her in equal measure that he accepted her wild pronouncements as fact. If he had scoffed at her, it would have driven her crazy, but his unquestioning acceptance drove her crazy too. He didn’t even bother to ask whether this was a dream or a tip-off. He just accepted it at face value.
And now he wouldn’t hesitate to disturb one of the wealthiest and most powerful families on the island at six-thirty in the morning on the strength of her half-assed tip.
Eulalie took a five-minute shower and threw on her go-to outfit of stretchy jeans, a tank-top, and a blazer. She inhaled a bowl of frosted wheat puffs, brushed her teeth, yanked her hair back into the neatest ponytail she could manage, and was out the door by six-seventeen. It took her twelve minutes on the Vespa to make the drive up to Edward Heights. She blessed the early hour of the morning. If this had been eight o’clock, it would have taken her double that time in the traffic.
When she pulled up at the Egger house, the red E-type was already there. She noticed that it had acquired a new chrome molding on the hood since she had last seen it and assumed that it must be the last word in authenticity.
“Did you phone the family?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t be able to resist going up to take a look at the room themselves. I wanted us to be the first on scene.”
“They’re not going to appreciate this early morning visit. And they’re going to want to know how we knew about this.”
“I’ll say I got a tip-off, which is the truth.”
They announced themselves to the guard at the gatehouse. While they waited as he phoned through to the main house, Chief Macgregor shot a look at Eulalie.
“Am I to assume that you did not in fact hear of this through a tip-off?”
“Yes,” she said. “You can assume that.”
He nodded and stood at attention.
They were let into the house by the housekeeper, Talia. She was fully dressed and ready for the day, unlike Mark Egger who received them in the breakfast room. He was wearing boxer shorts, a vest, and a sleepy expression. He perked up when he saw Eulalie.
“Do you have a lead? Do you know who killed Emma?”
“Nothing like that, Mr. Egger,” said Chief Macgregor. “We have reason to believe that you had an intruder last night. We were hoping to take a look at the scene while it is still recent and untouched.”
“An intruder? No, we didn’t. You must be mistaken.”
“The master bedroom was the target,” said Eulalie. “That is the only room the intruder was interested in.”
“No, but you are mistaken.” Talia still hovered in the doorway. “Mr. Mark was asleep in that room all night. He would have noticed if anyone went in there.”
There was a strained silence.
“Thank you, Talia. That will be all for now.” Mark held the door for her and closed it behind her as she withdrew.
“You weren’t sleeping in that bedroom, were you Mr. Egger?” said Eulalie.
He gave a huge yawn. “Well, I was, but not before about five o’clock.”
“Would you care to tell us where you were?” asked Chief Macgregor.
Mark looked at the floor. Then he looked at the ceiling. Then he looked at them. “You have no right to judge me, okay?”
“We’re not in the business of judging people. I arrest criminals and Ms. Park conducts investigations for her clients. Of which you are one, Mr. Egger. We leave the judging to the courts.”
“Okay, well… I’m seeing a woman in town, if you must know. It’s only been a few days. When I sleep over there, I make sure I’m back in my bed by five o’clock. For the sake of my girls, you know?”
“I see.” Chief Macgregor made a brief note.
“Nobody knows about it,” said Mark. “Literally nobody. I’m not doing any harm.”
“Somebody knows about it.” Eulalie waited until he met her eye. “Somebody knew your bedroom would be empty last night. They knew they could search undisturbed.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I’ve been asleep in there since five o’clock. All of…” He looked at his watch. “An hour and a half. Don’t you think I would have noticed something amiss?”
“Why don’t we go up there now and take a look?” Chief Macgregor opened the door. “You can come with us, Mr. Egger, and see for yourself.”
He nodded reluctantly.
“These damn stairs,” Mark said, as they trooped up the five double flights. “I must have been mad to let Emma talk me into all these floors. It’s a nightmare.”
“Perhaps your next wife will let you demolish the turret bedroom,” suggested Eulalie.
He shot her a sideways look. “Yes, perhaps.”
The bedroom was a very different place to the gloomy chamber Eulalie had seen in her dream. Now, light flooded into the room from the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating every corner. It was clear to everyone that the room had been tossed.
“I don’t believe this!” Mark blundered angrily into the room. “Let go of me,” he said when Chief Macgregor’s hand clamped down on his arm. “I want to see what’s missing.”
“That’s all very well, Mr. Egger, but this is exactly why we didn’t give you advance warning of our visit. This bedroom is once again a crime scene and could contain valuable evidence pointing to who did this, and possibly even to who murdered your wife. I must ask you to let us process the scene first.”
He stepped back reluctantly.
“The intruder was wearing loose dark clothes, boots with shoe covers, glo
ves, and a balaclava,” Eulalie said in an undertone.
The chief nodded, but Egger had overheard.
“How in the hell do you know that?”
“Anonymous tip-off.”
“That’s damned detailed for a tip-off.”
The crime scene technicians arrived within half an hour. As they cleared an area of the bedroom, Chief Macgregor and Eulalie examined it to see if anything was missing.
“Was it just one person?” Chief Macgregor asked.
“Yes, one person in dark clothing. I couldn’t tell race or gender because of the balaclava and the gloves.”
“Every single picture is skew.”
“The person lifted the pictures off the walls and looked behind them. You can see where that photograph was taken out of its frame and then abandoned.”
“Looking for a hidden safe, maybe? Or documents slipped behind a picture frame?”
Eulalie closed her eyes, trying to remember. She hadn’t written it all down, because she had been in such a hurry to text Chief Macgregor and get to the house. The details were fading, but the broad strokes remained.
“The person also picked up all the ornaments. Then they moved to the bedside cabinets and spent a lot of time on Emma’s side.”
“The drugs?”
“Possibly. They had no way of knowing that we had already removed them. What would you say was the street value of what you took out of here?”
Chief Macgregor considered for a moment. “High four figures. Maybe low five figures.”
“So, it could be as much as ten-thousand dollars?”
He nodded.
“That’s a good enough reason to try a little breaking and entering.”
“I guess it is. What did they do after finding nothing in the bedside cabinets?”
“They searched the closets and the bathrooms.”
Chief Macgregor looked into Emma’s bathroom where a crime-scene technician was busy. “Maybe they hoped to find pills in one of the bathrooms.”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 37