The Semi-Sweet Hereafter

by Colette London

  Her elegant wave indicated the dining table. I was being dismissed, I realized, and my report along with it.

  I held onto it. “There are some things we should discuss,” I spitballed. “Some procedural improvements, product ideas—”

  Phoebe stood still, a perplexed frown on her face. “What part of ‘I’m in a bit of a rush’ don’t you understand?”

  “Oh!” I laughed. “Sorry. Are you taking a trip too?”

  Her curt nod confirmed it. I swallowed hard, unable to stop picturing her with that metlapil in hand, sneaking up on Jeremy.

  “Yes, and I’m running late, thanks to that television show.” Phoebe smacked down a printed boarding pass. CARACAS leaped out at me from the destination line. “Excuse me,” she said.

  She brushed past me, leaving me clutching my report folder and my bag. Two steps away, Phoebe stopped. She turned to me.

  She’d caught me. I laughed again, then gestured at her paperwork. “Venezuela is nice this time of year,” I improvised.

  “Oh?” Her eyebrows arched. “Have you been?”

  “Of course, to visit cacao plantations.” I launched into a dialogue about cacao fruit. “The people are very friendly.”

  “Ah.” Phoebe accepted my story. “Well, won’t that be nice?”

  As she hurried into the next room to get something else, I finally had my chance. Keeping my ears open for sounds of her return, I sneaked closer to her bag. I pulled out that N2O cartridge, ajar of artisanal hot-fudge sauce, and the caffeine.

  The first would make sure that Phoebe wasn’t allowed past security and onto the plane. The second (a liquid, believe it or not, according to the authorities) would make sure that her luggage was flagged for inspection. The third would make sure that if the first two failed, all hope wasn’t lost. It would require expert (and time-consuming) verification at the airport security gate to prove that Phoebe wasn’t smuggling cocaine.

  I tucked everything close together into Phoebe’s luggage. I was betting by the size of it that this was a carry-on item. With the click-click of Phoebe’s high-heeled sandals coming ever closer, I hastily covered the cartridge, the hot-fudge sauce, and the baggie of powdered caffeine with some filmy silk clothes of Phoebe’s. They would turn into a wrinkled mess if she ever made it to Caracas. It was obvious she’d never been there.

  It was equally obvious, unfortunately, why she was going now. As I gave a final covering yank, my cell phone rang.

  It sounded like a rocket firing. I jumped and yelped.

  I almost knocked the whole bag off the tabletop. My heart leaped into my chest, pounding even faster. I hurled my hand upward, hoping I wasn’t having a stress-induced heart attack.

  Nonchalantly, Phoebe click-clicked in. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” She smiled. “I can never ignore a ringing phone.”

  Her insouciance completely spooked me. How could she be so carefree, knowing she’d coldly bludgeoned her husband to death?

  Because she knew she was about to get away with it, I answered myself, then glanced anxiously at my phone screen.

  It was DC Mishra. My hand shook even harder. I felt Phoebe’s curious scrutiny and knew I had to be smart. More than anything, I wanted to answer the detective constable’s call and scream, “Come to Phoebe’s! Come quick! She’s getting away!”

  I forced down my panic and returned Phoebe’s smile. “It’s just my financial adviser, calling about my next chocolate-whisperer job.” As if I would ever refuse a call from Travis. I clicked the button to send it to voice mail. “We’ll talk later.”

  The screen went dark. My heart sank along with it.

  “All right. Well, thank you, Hayden.” Phoebe strode to me with her hand extended. Her jewels gleamed. So did her eyes. I thought I saw madness there. “I appreciate your help very much.”

  She was saying good-bye. Maybe I could still delay her. With any luck, the London Metropolitan Police were on their way.

  For real, this time. I devoutly hoped so. Come on, Satya.

  “Maybe we can share a cab?” I suggested. “I should probably be heading to the station by now, anyway. I’ll just get my things.” I wheeled around as though intending to do so. I’d already packed, so I could bluff convincingly. “I won’t be long.”

  Phoebe sniffed. “I don’t travel to Heathrow by cab,” she told me in a dismissive tone. “I have a private car for that.”

  Bingo. Heathrow. “That sounds great! You won’t mind giving me a ride to St. Pancras, will you? It’s awfully kind of you.”

  She glanced at the clock. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” No longer interested in having a cordial farewell, Phoebe zipped her luggage. She added it to a larger suitcase—one she must have wheeled in while I’d been trying to booby-trap her carry-on—then picked up her phone. She dialed. “I’m ready.”

  She was getting away. “Don’t go yet!” I yelped.

  Okay, so it wasn’t smooth. I’m new at this, remember?

  Archly, Phoebe confronted me. “If you’re hoping to wangle a reference from me, I’m afraid you’re spoiling your chances.” She shook her head. “Mr. Barclay is correct about you brash Americans. You simply don’t know when to call it a day, do you?”

  Was that a threat? Nervously, I stepped backward.

  After all, Phoebe had handled her luggage with ease. It was possible that she was stronger than she looked. There we were, too, in a kitchen full of knives and meat mallets. Yikes.

  I sneaked a glance at my phone, desperate to press that voice-mail icon and find out what DC Mishra had had to say.

  I didn’t. “It’s just that I’m so sad our consultation is finished,” I dithered. “I’ve grown very fond of Primrose.”

  Phoebe flattened her mouth. “Yes, well, haven’t we all?” She took my arm and walked me to the terrace doors. “Good-bye.”

  It was the most amiable bum’s rush I’ve ever received.

  “Won’t you miss the chocolaterie-pâtisserie when you’re in Caracas?” I was all but clutching the doorjamb in my efforts not to be dismissed. “How will the bakers get on while you’re gone?”

  Phoebe gave me a chilly smile, then opened the door. I wished I’d glimpsed police cars and diligent officers outside.

  “That’s really none of your concern now, is it?” she said.

  She was right. And I was out of delay tactics.

  “You’re right.” I considered shaking Phoebe’s hand, but I couldn’t bear to touch her. Although I did wonder, once again, if she was a lefty . . . the killer’s handedness. She had to be. Forcibly, I switched gears. “Have a nice trip, Phoebe. Bye!”

  Then I hurried across the terrace and onto the garden path, hoping against hope that Phoebe wasn’t a secret knife thrower. If piercing glares counted, I was sure she’d have been an ace.

  I banged into the guesthouse and grabbed my cell phone.

  DC Mishra answered on the first ring. “It’s Heathrow,” I told her. “Phoebe is taking a flight from Heathrow to Caracas.”

  The significance of that destination wasn’t lost on the savvy detective constable. Neither was my belated call.

  “We’re on our way,” Satya said. I heard talking, traffic, background noises—enough to give me hope. “Just sit tight.” There was a pause. Then, “Don’t leave town, Ms. Mundy Moore.”

  * * *

  Danny was there when the police arrived to pick me up. He wasn’t happy about having missed my showdown (such as it was) with Phoebe. He wasn’t overjoyed about riding to the police station with me, either. These days, my security expert prefers to avoid run-ins with the authorities. But he did it. For me.

  Satya Mishra was there to greet us when we arrived. The detective constable shook Danny’s hand first, then turned to me.

  “I want you to know, you’re not being arrested,” she said.

  I’m not embarrassed to say that I sagged with relief. I guessed the specter of jail time had been haunting me more than I’d been willing to admit. But I recovered quic
kly enough.

  Quickly enough to cut straight to the point, at least.

  “I hope you’ve arrested Phoebe.”

  DC Mishra smiled. “Come into my office and we’ll talk.”

  Danny and I followed her there. As we did, I aimed an inquiring glance at the front desk. “Where’s Constable George?”

  “We’ll get to that.” Satya ushered us inside, then shut the office door behind us. At her desk, she steepled her hands. “You were a suspect. You should know that. Given your history, that was unavoidable. You should avoid these situations in future.”

  I nodded. “I’d like to do that, believe me.”

  A scanty smile enlivened her face. Then she got back down to business. “We weren’t sure we would catch up to Mrs. Wright at Heathrow. As you know, traffic can be horrendous in London. While we can alert the security officers to detain someone, that wasn’t necessary in this case.” DC Mishra pinned me with a stern look. “You wouldn’t happen to know how 300 milliliters of unallowable liquid, one N2O cartridge, and an undisclosed quantity of powdered caffeine came to be in Mrs. Wright’s hand baggage, would you?”

  Danny gave me an alarmed look. But I knew it was time to come clean. “I planted them on her, to delay her at security.”

  For a moment, DC Mishra was somber. Then, “Good work. That was quick thinking on your part. I don’t approve of your being involved, of course. That is the department’s official stance, and I support it wholeheartedly. I have to say, though . . . without your intervention, we would not have caught her in time.”

  I straightened in my dingy desk chair. “Really?”

  “Really,” Satya confirmed. “We were certain that Jeremy Wright’s murderer had to be one of three people.” She caught my expectant look and shook her head. “I’m not telling you who those people were. Suffice it to say that Ms. Wright was one of them.” She gave me a wry look. “A tip? It’s often the spouse.”

  Nodding, I filed away that helpful hint. Not that I wanted to be in the position of tracking down a killer again. I didn’t. But it’s always good to expand your knowledge base, right?

  “Between the statement and evidence you provided and the evidence we’d compiled, we were able to obtain a confession.”

  “From Phoebe?” I almost wished I’d been there for that.

  A nod. “And a corroborating confession from Hugh Menadue. He came in to see us very late last night.”

  I shot Danny a triumphant glance. Told you so. I’d been right to have faith. “I hope this won’t be too hard on him.”

  “It will be.” DC Mishra frowned. “But Mr. Menadue’s cooperation has already helped us build our case against Mrs. Wright.” She stacked some papers on her desk, then looked up. “I apologize for what you’ve experienced with Constable Smith.”

  I blinked. “Who?”

  “George,” Danny told me. He appeared no less comfortable to be an invited guest of the police than he would have been as a suspect. “Constable Smith was the crooked one.” He gave DC Mishra an unyielding look. “She used you to get to him.”

  The detective constable didn’t deny it. “Mrs. Wright has powerful friends—including members of the police department,” she explained. “I had to use Constable Smith to expose them before I could build an unassailable case in Jeremy’s murder.”

  “Otherwise, Phoebe would have gone free,” I surmised.

  Her nod confirmed it. “Thanks to you, now she won’t.”

  “That’s why Phoebe wasn’t arrested at the TV taping.” With new concern, I looked to DC Mishra. “My phone? My evidence? I gave everything to Constable George, along with my statement.”

  “We got it. We were watching him.” She consulted her paperwork. “We got the A/V equipment from the Hambleton & Hart filming, too. George and his associates had taken it elsewhere.”

  “Wow.” I shook my head. “George was always so nice to me.”

  “Niceness doesn’t mean anything, Ms. Mundy Moore.”

  Danny eyed her with new respect. “That’s what I keep telling her.” He actually smiled. “She doesn’t ever listen.”

  I had to stand up for myself. “The world needs nice people,” I pointed out. “People who don’t bludgeon someone to death. People who don’t try to push other people into trains.”

  “Ah.” Satya appeared to remember something. “About that—”

  I listened, eager to learn who’d tried to kill me.

  “It was an accident,” she informed me. “We reviewed the CCTV footage. Someone bumped you in the crowd. As far as we could tell, they didn’t know they’d done it. It was a chain reaction—one person bumping another, and another, and so on.”

  So I hadn’t been forcibly discouraged from looking into a murder. Not this time, at least. That was food for thought.

  In the future, I’d have to be careful not to overreact.

  Although even if I had overdramatized that push on the Tube platform, I’d still have been right about everything else.

  “That’s a relief. Thanks for letting me know.” I reviewed everything in my mind, knowing this might be my only chance to hear the official explanation for what had happened. “Are you sure you can’t tell me who your three final suspects were?”

  Satya Mishra looked amused. “I can tell you who it wasn’t.”

  I swear, Danny and I both leaned forward while the detective constable began ticking off suspects on her fingers.

  “It wasn’t Ellis Barclay next door,” she said. “He was seen in his box at the symphony on the night Jeremy died. It wasn’t Nicola Mitchell. She didn’t like Jeremy, but she never handled the murder weapon. We did have forensic evidence from it.”

  I hadn’t had access to that. I frowned, considering it. My prints must have been all over that metlapil, along with Phoebe’s. Maybe Hugh’s, too. I pegged us as the “final three.”

  “It wasn’t Claire Evans. She was having dinner with Andrew Davies, trying to smooth over things for Jeremy at Hambleton & Hart. They’d gone to the restaurant directly from the pub in Chelsea. The staff at both locations confirmed it.”

  “Well, the staff would have no reason to lie for them.”

  “No. Who else?” DC Mishra frowned. “It wasn’t Liam Taylor—he was at the dog track, cashing in winnings. Those funds are tracked and verifiable. Unfortunately, he lost not long after.”

  Aha. A gambling habit would explain Liam’s modest car—not to mention Goldie, the lovable retired greyhound he’d adopted.

  It was too bad I didn’t have police-style access to alibis, forensic evidence, and witness interviews. If DC Mishra hadn’t been so hostile to me from the moment we met, I might have been able to finagle some information from her. Next time, I decided, I needed to make friends with the investigating officer.

  What was I saying? I really hoped there would never be a next time when it came to me and murder investigations.

  “It wasn’t Amelja, the Wrights’ housekeeper,” the detective constable continued crisply. “We confirmed her presence at her second job, a part-time position at a hotel in Kensington.”

  Two jobs? Poor Amelja. That couldn’t be easy.

  Danny cleared his throat. “What about Gemma Rose?”

  Satya glanced at him. “Never seriously a suspect.”

  I frowned at the two of them, half suspecting they were colluding with each other, just to pester me. “Why not?”

  “She was on a flight home from America when Jeremy was killed. However motivated she was, she couldn’t have done it.”

  I was impressed by DC Mishra’s resources. I could never hope to match things like forensic evidence and flight rosters.

  Satya noticed. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Ms. Mundy Moore. Without your intuition, your presence, and your wits—”

  I shot Danny a proud glance, then perked up my ears.

  “—and your utter disregard for my instructions to you, we would not have solved Jeremy’s murder.” The detective constable leaned across her desk, scowli
ng. “Do not interfere again.”

  “But you just said it worked,” I protested.

  “Maybe the third time’s the charm,” Danny cracked.

  But DC Mishra wasn’t entertained. “This is a dangerous pastime you’ve picked up. I strongly advise against it.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it a ‘pastime’ per se,” I argued. “More of a sixth sense for murder that I’m developing, whether I want to or not. It’s coming along slowly. It’s similar to my sense for when a particular chocolate is right—you know, for a truffle or a—” I caught her quelling look and zipped it. One thing still bugged me, though. “Is Phoebe Wright left-handed?”

  Satya looked confused. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Why?”

  “Because I was told that whoever had killed Jeremy was—”

  Left-handed. I broke off, belatedly understanding. George.

  He’d purposely misinformed me, to throw me off the trail.

  More than ever, I believed Phoebe’s influence would have helped her get away with murdering her husband . . . if not for me.

  And Danny. He sat beside me wearing an uneasy look.

  I could have hugged him for having accompanied me there.

  “You’re free to go,” DC Mishra said, scattering my fond thoughts of my longtime pal. She folded her hands. “Unless you have further questions for me, we’re finished here.”

  Danny shot to his feet. “Have a nice day, DC Mishra.”

  I tried for a more lingering departure. “I’ll be just across the Channel, in France, if you need anything else.”

  A faint smile. “We won’t.”

  “I promise I won’t make a habit of this,” I went on.

  Meaning murder, of course. All I wanted was to take my dozens of chocolate chip cookies (and all that international chocolate) to Jeremy’s Jump Start Foundation and be on my way.

  “See that you don’t,” the detective constable said.

  “And Phoebe won’t be released from jail?” I pressed.

  I’d be having nightmares about metlapil-wielding daughters of British peers for weeks. I suspected there would be a lot of handily distracting chocolate whispering in the days to come.