Cookin' the Books

by Amy Patricia Meade

  ‘The roses kinda gave it away, didn’t they?’

  ‘Maybe just a little.’

  ‘I knew I should have stuck to the squash.’ He gave a playful snap of his fingers. ‘All joking aside, I’ve liked you from the moment I saw you. I mean, there you were, this beautiful blonde looking to rent a property from me. And there I was, sweaty and stinky after an evening run.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say you were stinky.’ Tish blushed in reaction to Schuyler’s use of the word ‘beautiful.’ ‘Perhaps “not so fresh” would be a better description.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ Schuyler thanked her. ‘But after getting to know you these past few weeks and seeing how passionate you are about your business, how determined you are to make it a success, and how you’ve kept your chin up these past few days, my admiration for you has moved beyond the physical. I um … well, I’m just going to say it. You’re quite the woman, Tish, and if you’d allow, I’d like to get to know you better.’

  An obviously anxious Schuyler leaned forward in his seat.

  Tish took several moments to choose her words before responding. ‘I would like to get to know you better too, Schuyler. However, I must be honest. I haven’t given much thought to cultivating a love life in quite a long time. I don’t know if that’s because I’m not ready for it, or I’ve been so focused on the café that there’s no room for it, or if I’m still healing from my divorce, or if I’m quite simply scared. That’s not me saying “no” or making excuses should things not work out between us. Nor am I warning you off because I anticipate doom. That’s just me asking you if we can move slowly while I figure things out.’

  Schuyler’s tense facial expression thawed into a broad grin. ‘Yes. Yes, of course we can move slowly. Any woman I become romantically involved with needs to be my friend first. We need to be able to laugh with each other and support each other during any crisis. And, um, well truth be told, despite my suave, sophisticated demeanor’ – he issued a self-deprecating clearing of the throat – ‘I’m pretty rusty at this dating thing myself. The past several years have seen me focused on ramping up my father’s law practice and cleaning out my mother’s bakery. I’m looking forward to getting together with you and talking … about life and films and books, and whatever else might come our way.’

  ‘I look forward to that too.’ Tish did not pass the comment out of politeness.

  ‘Good.’ Schuyler leaned against the backrest of the booth. ‘Whew! For a minute there, I thought I was going to wind up in the bar area alone, eating soggy fries.’

  ‘Are the fries soggy here?’ she asked. At this point, she was so hungry that getting saddled with a plate of greasy food would be not just disappointing but borderline disastrous.

  ‘No, not at all. They’re actually quite good. Mine would have been soggy because I’d be crying into them.’

  Tish laughed. ‘I’m glad I rescued you from that fate.’

  ‘You and me both.’ He leaned forward again and smiled. ‘So, when I called you this afternoon, you were about to call me. Is everything OK with the café and the apartment?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Wonderful. Couldn’t be better.’ A sheepish Tish nodded and smiled. How on earth was she supposed to question him about a murder investigation now?

  ‘Great. Then what did you want to discuss?’

  Maybe she should just leave that to Sheriff Reade. ‘Oh, it was nothing. Let’s enjoy our evening.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. May I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Um, a glass of Chardonnay, please.’

  ‘Coming right up.’ Schuyler excused himself from the table.

  Tish leaned against the back cushion of the booth, kicked off her ridiculous shoes, and deliberated her next move. Yes, she would leave Schuyler to be questioned by Reade, she resolved. That way she could get on with her evening. And enjoy her time. With a potential murderer …

  A man suddenly appeared beside her. A man who wasn’t Schuyler.

  Tish looked up to see Sheriff Reade standing by the table, as if her thoughts had somehow summoned him from out of the ether. ‘Oh, Sheriff Reade. How are you?’

  He was dressed in a black T-shirt, ripped jeans and motorcycle boots. ‘Fine. And you?’

  Tish was still more than a bit rattled by the sheriff’s sudden tableside appearance. ‘Good. Um, busy. Good. What brings you here?’

  ‘The boys and I use the back room for rehearsals on Sunday. We took a break to grab a beer and I saw you sitting out here. Mr Davis meeting you for dinner?’

  ‘Mr Davis?’ Tish’s face registered confusion. ‘No, Jules is back at the café. I’m here with Schuyler Thompson.’

  It was Reade’s turn to be confused. ‘I’m sorry. I just thought from this morning and the way you both were dressed that …’

  ‘We were an item?’ Tish filled in the blanks with a boisterous laugh. ‘Yeah, um, no. He and Mary Jo are old college friends of mine.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘You’re actually far more Jules’s type than I am.’

  ‘Oh.’ Reade nodded and then shook his head. ‘I really got that wrong, didn’t I?’

  ‘It happens.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Guess so. May I sit down?’

  ‘Well, Schuyler will be on his way back any minute.’

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Reade promised. He had already taken Schuyler’s seat. ‘Augusta May Wilson visited me this afternoon. Thank you.’

  ‘Thank me for what?’

  ‘For talking to her and getting her to confide in me. That couldn’t have been easy for her.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for her to open up to me,’ Tish reflected. ‘But then to repeat the same story to you?’

  ‘I know, but she did and she was quite brave. So thank you.’ Reade smiled.

  ‘All I did was listen and give her my opinion on how to proceed. Speaking of which, was Edwin with her when she gave you her statement?’ She hoped that she hadn’t misread the Wilsons’ marriage and given Augusta faulty advice.

  ‘He was. Naturally, he has a lot of information to digest, as I gathered that he only just learned of his wife’s story shortly before I did. But by the end of our interview, he was holding Augusta’s hand and behaving in a supportive manner.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. I hope they can move past this together.’

  ‘Yes.’ Reade shifted in his seat. ‘Unfortunately, I also have some bad news for you. Doctor Livermore died this afternoon.’

  Tish felt a sudden chill. Two people dead in as many days. When was it all going to stop?

  Schuyler had returned and, after placing their drinks on the table, draped his linen jacket over Tish’s shoulders. ‘They always seem to turn the air conditioning up to “freeze” in this place.’ His sympathetic smile made it clear he understood Tish’s goose bumps weren’t from the temperature of the room.

  ‘Hey, Schuyler,’ Sheriff Reade greeted.

  ‘Hi, Clem.’ Schuyler handed Tish her glass of wine and took a sip from his glass of beer. ‘Can I get you anything from the bar?’

  ‘No, thanks. I have a running tab I should probably settle up. I’m sorry for disturbing your … um, date.’

  ‘No problem. How are things?’

  Tish slid over to allow Schuyler to sit beside her. ‘Sheriff Reade gave me some terrible news. Doctor Livermore died this afternoon.’

  Schuyler accepted the seat. Tish found the proximity to the attorney not at all unpleasant.

  ‘Yeah, I heard the sheriff on my way back from the bar. I can’t believe it. Why would anyone want to kill a small-town doctor like Livermore? I mean, Binnie Broderick had her enemies, but I never heard a negative word uttered against Livermore.’

  ‘Speaking of Mrs Broderick, Schuyler,’ Reade spoke up, ‘I’d like to see you in my office tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure thing. What time?’

  ‘Whatever works best for you. I know you typically take appointments in Richmond.’

  ‘Yeah, le
t’s see. My first appointment is at ten so I could meet you at the station at, say, eight o’clock?’

  ‘That would be fine. You know, Ms Tarragon, I’ve heard you’ve been busy spreading your baked goods around town,’ Reade changed the subject.

  Tish took a sip of wine. ‘Yes, I had leftover cakes from the fundraiser that needed to be eaten. Oh, and I brought some madeleines to Cordelia Ballantyne. I thought she could use the visit and the food.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ Schuyler praised.

  ‘Yes, very kind,’ Reade agreed. ‘Miss Cordelia was an awful mess at the shooting scene this morning. How did you find her?’

  ‘Calmer, but still not in a good place. She’s terribly lost without her mother. And not having her daughter around isn’t helping things.’ Tish saw an opportunity to gather some information. ‘What happened to Charlotte Ballantyne anyway? Cordelia mentioned private school, but it seemed that Charlotte was somewhere far less accessible.’

  ‘Binnie always told me her granddaughter was at St Margaret’s School just outside of Richmond,’ Schuyler stated. ‘It’s a boarding school with a fairly illustrious reputation.’

  Tish shook her head. ‘That can’t be right. I overheard John Ballantyne mention something about Charlotte being in Williamsburg.’

  ‘Williamsburg? That’s a forty-five-minute drive from here.’

  Sheriff Reade, meanwhile, questioned Tish’s phrasing. ‘Overheard?’

  Any trace of a chill disappeared as she felt the blood rise to her cheeks. ‘Yes, I happened to overhear John and Cordelia having an argument in front of an open window. I was on their doorstep, about to press the bell so I could deliver those rosemary cornmeal madeleines I told you about.’

  ‘Yes, those madeleines of yours seem to have made their way to more than a couple of interesting places around town,’ Reade smirked.

  ‘Well, they are one of my most popular baked items.’ Tish gave an innocent smile before taking another sip of Chardonnay.

  ‘Uh-huh. Well, as far as Charlotte Ballantyne is concerned, I heard she left St Margaret’s last Christmas. The story goes that she got into some kind of trouble.’

  Schuyler frowned. ‘I heard that rumor too, but Binnie still spoke of Charlotte being at St Margaret’s. Though it would have been just like Binnie Broderick to try to keep up appearances.’

  ‘Or Cordelia underplayed her daughter’s troubles and never told her mother that Charlotte had been pulled from St Margaret’s,’ Tish ventured.

  ‘You have a suspicious mind, Ms Tarragon,’ Reade observed. ‘Are you sure you didn’t hand out those baked goods as a way to run a little investigation of your own?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d know how to run a criminal investigation,’ Tish replied honestly. If she happened to learn about Binnie Broderick’s murder while creating goodwill, it was simply because she listened. ‘No, I’m just trying to do some damage control and build some buzz for my baked products. Having a woman poisoned during one’s first catering gig doesn’t exactly do wonders for business.’

  ‘I might have some good news on that front.’ Reade was cryptic.

  ‘Anything you’re able to share with us?’

  ‘Sure. The reporters probably have their hands on it by now anyway. Lab reports show that there were no traces of poison in the food on Binnie’s plate, in her glass, or in the bottle of hot sauce.’

  Tish sipped her glass of wine pensively.

  ‘Um, Tish. Did you hear that?’ Schuyler prompted. ‘That’s great news for your business.’

  ‘Hmph?’ Tish snapped from her reverie. ‘Oh, yes. Yes, it is great news. I was simply remembering something …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was a half-empty case of sriracha in the butler pantry at Wisteria Knolls. I noticed it this afternoon.’

  Reade gave this information a few seconds’ worth of consideration. ‘Clearly Binnie Broderick had a taste for the stuff. Hence why she asked for it the night of the fundraiser.’

  ‘If she ate that much of the stuff, someone she worked with or lived with or ate with would have known about it,’ Schuyler noted.

  ‘You’re right, they would,’ Reade acknowledged. ‘But it doesn’t matter. The hot sauce at the party wasn’t poisoned.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Schuyler frowned and took a swig of beer.

  Tish recalled another odd detail regarding the butler pantry. ‘Perhaps someone tampered with the hot sauce, or some other food product, at Wisteria Knolls. I saw Enid Kemper sneaking out of there yesterday afternoon. She came out through the pantry door and wandered off into the woods behind the house. Might she have been in the pantry to cover her tracks by removing the tainted hot sauce?’

  ‘Enid Kemper? You’re positive?’ Reade questioned.

  ‘Yes, I’m positive. Unless there’s someone else in Hobson Glen who travels with a parrot – sorry, conure – and wears cardigan sweaters in ninety-degree heat.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Enid tomorrow and find out what she was doing lurking around Wisteria Knolls. But I highly doubt it had anything to do with Binnie. There’s absolutely no motive.’

  ‘But there is,’ Tish and Schuyler insisted in unison. Each looked at the other.

  ‘You go first,’ Tish invited.

  ‘No, please. I happen to be a gentleman,’ Schuyler insisted, much to Tish’s delight.

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ a tickled Tish blurted excitedly. ‘Binnie banned Langhorne from the library.’

  ‘This again?’ Reade shook his head.

  ‘Yes, “this again,”’ Tish fired back. ‘Enid said she would make Binnie pay. What if she had and then returned to Wisteria Knolls to discard the evidence?’

  ‘Langhorne aside,’ Schuyler began, ‘and I know how important that parrot—’

  ‘Conure,’ Tish and Reade corrected in harmony.

  ‘How important that conure is to Enid, but she had an even greater motive than that for killing Binnie Broderick,’ Schuyler asserted.

  As Reade and Tish leaned forward in their seats, awaiting Schuyler’s next words, the lawyer took a long draught of beer.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Tish urged, fighting the impulse to give him a playful slug in the arm.

  ‘OK, OK,’ Schuyler laughed, having brought his audience to the unbearable brink of suspense. ‘Binnie’s family – the Darlingtons – bankrupted Enid Kemper’s family back in the day. According to Binnie, her father, Wade Darlington, a brilliant businessman – Binnie’s description, not mine – played the market and wound up purchasing Kemper Pharmaceuticals for a song. To hear it from the locals who were around at the time, Wade Darlington took advantage of Enid’s father, Jerome Kemper. Ol’ Jerome was more interested in his inventions than running a manufacturing plant, so he hired Wade Darlington to manage the business. Wade allegedly dragged the business into the ground and then bought up the majority of the shares. Jerome Kemper took a tremendous hit and wound up selling his shares entirely. He never recovered from the loss. He died a few years later, leaving his wife and Enid to sell off belongings in order to stay in their home.’

  ‘Some brilliant businessman,’ Tish mumbled. ‘Sounds more like a completely heartless scoundrel.’

  ‘That’s a sad story and I feel badly for Enid and her family,’ Reade began, ‘but, as you said, that must have been – what? – forty, fifty years ago. People don’t seek vengeance after nearly half a century. Besides, it was Wade Darlington who bankrupted the Kemper family, not Binnie Broderick.’

  ‘True,’ Schuyler admitted, ‘but Binnie Broderick wouldn’t allow the story to die. She rubbed it in Enid’s face every opportunity she got. That silly rule about Langhorne not entering the library? Merely a power play on Binnie’s part.’

  Schuyler wasn’t the first person to have described Binnie Broderick as a braggard and a bully. Tish recalled the Wilsons’ story of how Binnie even lorded the Darlington name over her own husband. Although that might have been more a result of Ashton Broderick’s lack of chara
cter than true haughtiness on Binnie’s part.

  ‘As I said, I’ll talk to Enid tomorrow and see what’s going on.’ Reade rose from his side of the booth. ‘Looks like the band’s getting back to rehearsing. I’ll see you both around. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Tish and Schuyler responded.

  Schuyler stood up and took the seat previously occupied by the sheriff. ‘I can only guess that you probably have some questions for me.’

  Tish narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if you’re “running your own investigation,” as Reade suggested, you probably want to ask me about Binnie Broderick.’ He grinned.

  ‘I already told Reade I’m not running my own investigation.’ Tish tried to look casual as she sipped her wine.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Schuyler smirked.

  ‘OK, maybe I am investigating. Just a little. And maybe that was the reason I was about to call you,’ Tish sheepishly admitted.

  ‘You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I’m sure, by now, you’ve probably heard all about Binnie and her treatment of my mother. Besides, if we are to ever move beyond friendship, you need to have absolutely no questions or doubts about me.’

  ‘And you about me.’ She took another sip of wine and smiled admiringly at Schuyler before chiding herself for acting like a lovesick little girl. There were important questions to be answered. ‘So are the stories true about your mother’s illness being brought on by Binnie’s behavior?’

  ‘Um, yes and no,’ Schuyler hemmed. ‘Sorry if that sounds evasive. It’s just I don’t think it’s fair to lay the entirety of my mother’s cancer on one woman’s doorstep. My mother was a strong, resilient woman. However, she also was extremely soft-hearted. My father’s death crushed her, but she was just thirty-nine years old and had a seven-year-old boy to raise. My uncle was my dad’s partner in the law firm, and he would send my mother money, but she wasn’t one for handouts, so she invested her cash in a business that would allow her to work from home. She started out by baking pastries and delivering them in the mornings to local businesses. People loved them so much that she eventually had to expand into a bakery. Then she met Celestine – and the rest is history.’