by Avery Aames
“Yes, he does. But he does not report to you. He’ll bring you into his inner circle when he’s good and ready and not before. You feed him what you have. That’s your right and responsibility as a citizen. I am so proud that you do that much. It’s more than most would do. But after that, you can’t do anything except what you’re really good at—running The Cheese Shop and loving me.”
***
That night, the Providence Playhouse was packed. Every seat in the house was filled. I heard that a reviewer from Cleveland was also in the audience, a woman who could run hot and cold about the experimental choices my grandmother made as the theater director. I prayed she wouldn’t skewer the show.
The lights lowered and I sank back in my chair, worrying my hands together, hoping that Rebecca would hold up under the pressure. She did better than that; she shone as an actress. She possessed a gift of honesty that made her delivery seem simple yet enlightened. The female lead in Love Letters grows from a quirky, funny ingénue to a jaded, sad adult. I wasn’t sure Rebecca could pull off the second half of the play, but she did. Her voice lowered; her face lost its joy; her body sagged. O’Shea went through the same kind of transition. The audience called them to repeated bows for their performances.
Afterward, in the foyer, guests dined on the red-themed feast of paprika-dusted cheese pastry, watermelon kabobs, heart-shaped linzer cookies, and cranberry punch. Chatter among the attendees related to the theme of the play: how love can grow sour and not be all two people dreamed it could be when they were young and innocent.
“Psst.” Delilah beckoned me with a finger. She stood against the far wall. Urso was nowhere in sight.
“Is U-ey working?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“I was hoping he’d call and fill me in.”
Delilah slung a fist into her hip. “If it makes you feel any better, he won’t tell me much, either. I know he went to see”—she stabbed a finger in the direction of Belinda Bell and her daughter Aurora, who were standing near the far wall. Aurora still looked pale and tired. Was she ill?
Bell turned in our direction. Had she heard us? No, she couldn’t have, not with her hearing problem, and yet she made a beeline for us. Aurora hung back, looking as if she’d like to blend into the wall. “Are you talking about me, Charlotte?” Bell said.
“No.” Liar, liar.
“About my daughter, then?”
“No.”
“You’re gawking at us. Why?”
I wanted to say Delilah was, too, but why drag a friend under a moving bus? “Yes, I was staring. I was concerned about Aurora. She doesn’t look well. And—”
“She’s just dandy.” Bell over-enunciated the consonants. “What else?”
“I was wondering whether Chief Urso talked to you about your alibi for the night Tim died.”
Delilah cleared her throat with gusto. Was she trying to make me stop?
I wouldn’t be deterred. “Eddie Townsend couldn’t corroborate that you met for two hours. He had no notes in his diary. I believe you used him, given his propensity to forget, thanks to alcohol, to back up your story.”
Bell deliberated, then sighed. “You’re bound to find out from Chief Urso.”
“Uh-uh,” Delilah inserted. “Chief Urso won’t tell anyone anything. He’s as true as they come.”
“Yes, but Charlotte seems to have a way of learning these things.” Bell assessed me from head to toe. Her nose flared. Apparently I didn’t smell very good. “You’re earning quite a reputation, dear girl.”
“I don’t mean harm.”
“I didn’t imply you did. However, you seem to have a way of ferreting out the truth.” She paused. “If you must know, and I trust you can keep a secret, I was consulting a private detective that night. You see, my daughter is addicted to a variety of pills. The stress of the job, the hours, the constant attention by the media is undoing her. Her physician prescribed the pills.”
I could only imagine the cocktail Aurora needed to keep going: uppers, downers, and in-betweener pills.
“In addition,” Bell said, “Aurora figured out how to get extra doses from other sources.” Her eyes welled with pain. “If her producer finds out, she’ll be fired, thanks to a substance abuse clause, and her career will be over. Someone, an Internet gossip, threatened to expose her. The woman claims she has photos and documents. The private detective is dealing with damage control.”
I peered at Aurora, who was reviewing messages on her cell phone and texting responses, and I recalled how Tyanne said Tim wouldn’t text. Words needed to be spoken or written, as far as he was concerned.
“Do you understand damage control?” Bell asked. “I couldn’t reveal where I was that night. I couldn’t let anyone know whom I was meeting. Utter confidentiality is vital to limiting the rumor mill gossip. I repeat”—she grabbed my hand—“I trust you will honor me with your silence.”
“Did you give Urso the name of the private detective?”
She nodded.
“Then you have my word. I’m sorry for Aurora. I hope she beats the addiction.”
“She has. But it will be a day-to-day battle from here to eternity.”
CHAPTER
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I needed to bake to work through the worrisome thoughts caroming in my mind. I pulled out the recipe Dottie Pfeiffer had given me for winter squash muffins and rooted through my refrigerator and pantry for the ingredients. The only thing I was missing was the squash. I had zucchini. It would make a dandy substitute.
Using my Cuisinart, I made the pastry dough. I chopped the zucchini into fine shavings. I shredded a half pound of Gouda.
While putting together the items included in the recipe, I worked through the suspects in Tim and Dottie’s murders. My suspects. I didn’t know if Urso had others.
I’d ruled out Belinda Bell. I’d also ruled out Zach. After Paige’s daughter Pixie put him at her house for not only the time of Tim and Dottie’s murders, but also for when I was mugged, I felt he couldn’t be guilty.
Paige Alpaugh, despite her obvious abhorrence for Dottie and despite the fact that she might love to see Zach Mueller go down for that murder and, thus, remove the boy from her daughter’s life, had pat alibis for both murders.
Ray Pfeiffer had an alibi for his wife’s murder, and he had no discernible reason to want Timothy O’Shea dead.
Jawbone Jones had an alibi for Tim’s murder; however, Rebecca had put that into question when she’d wondered whether the time stamp on the Face It video could have been altered. Jawbone had a weak alibi for Dottie’s murder. He said he was sleeping. Granted, he had no motive to kill her—he barely knew her—but I couldn’t stop thinking about the angle in the movie Strangers on a Train. Two murderers; two victims; two flawless alibis.
But if that wasn’t the case, and everyone on my list was innocent, whom was I missing as a suspect? Did Urso have the killer or killers on his radar?
***
First thing Saturday morning, Jordan arrived at my door looking like a skater hoping to vie for gold at the Olympics. He was dressed in trim trousers and a snug sweater. His handsome face was flushed with excitement.
“Are you hoping to win the couples’ event at The Ice Castle?” I teased.
“Why not?” He smiled and the dimple that dented his right cheek deepened.
I swooned. “Me too.” I opened my coat and showed him what I’d put on, a slimming ultra-long red sweater over leggings. I’d even donned sparkly faux ruby earrings.
He swooped me into a kiss. Breathless, we hurried to the car. I yelled to Rags that we would be back soon. He couldn’t care less. He’d eaten a tuna breakfast and last time I checked was playing with his favorite ball of yarn in his bed.
By the time we arrived at The Ice Castle, a slew of people were entering. “Did we need tickets?” I asked
Jordan.
“Got ’em.”
“I love a man who thinks of everything.”
“I love a woman who does the same.” He nudged me at the arch of my back to move forward.
Ahead of us in line, I spotted Matthew and Meredith with the twins. Paige stood in front of them by herself. I searched for Pixie among the crowd and saw her hanging back at the fringe—with Zach. Perhaps Pixie had chatted with her mother after last night’s event and convinced her that she and Zach were taking it slowly.
“Charlotte, sugar!” Tyanne yelled. She came up behind us while holding on to the hands of her two towheaded kids. “Are the twins here yet?”
I pointed. “They’re way up there. See them near the entrance?”
“Will they save a space for us at a table?”
“I’m sure Clair will see to it.”
I eyed Tyanne’s son. He blushed.
The moment we were inside and had laced up our skates, Jordan headed to the concession stand to purchase a couple of cups of cocoa with the caveat that he expected the wait to be longer than a half hour.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll warm up with a slow skate.”
The skating surface wasn’t too crowded yet. Most of the other participants were still donning skates or shedding parkas. The freedom I felt on skates was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
After doing two languid laps around the rink, I glided to the center and did a series of turns. When I stopped, I was facing away from the concession stand. Outside the railing stood Violet, dressed in a pretty purple skating outfit, her marshmallow hair in pigtails. From this angle, she looked like a tall, lithe teenager. Her attention seemed to be on a group of people at the entrance squabbling over their tickets.
Ray, with numerous sets of skates slung over his shoulder by the shoelaces, was disputing the number of tickets handed to him by a large party of people. He shook his head and held up a finger, indicating that the group was one ticket short. A woman pleaded. A freckle-faced boy started to cry. That did it. Ray softened. He scruffed the head of the freckle-faced boy and gestured with his thumb, indicating the group could enter. They were so ecstatic that you’d have thought Ray had given them free tickets to Disneyland.
While watching them, Violet curled a tress of hair around her pinky in a coy fashion, and out of nowhere I flashed on something I’d said to Jordan about Rebecca’s performance. During her audition, she had captured the character, with the right emotional catch in her speech and the loving look in her eyes. That memory was quickly followed by what the twins had said last Saturday night when they’d stayed with me. Amy had accused Clair of luring Tyanne’s son with those sexy eyes of hers. To illustrate, she’d batted her eyelashes and twirled her hair around her pinky.
Right then I was struck by another duh moment, the second in as many days: Violet loved Ray. Did he know? Was he in love with her? She was much younger. Had he found a love in her eyes that had waned in Dottie’s? Violet had changed her lifestyle to make herself healthier. Ray said he no longer ate sweets or drank caffeine. Had Dottie’s bad dietary choices plagued Ray? Had he grown tired of the fact that she regularly plied the town—especially children—with fats and sugar? Did the reality that Dottie couldn’t ever have kids eat at him? Violet was vital enough to have a passel of children.
At the pub the night Tim was murdered, Paige had hinted that Violet was pregnant. Violet swore she wasn’t. When she drew a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, I commented that only one had been smoked. At first she claimed it wasn’t she who had smoked it, but she quickly revised her statement, saying she had. Just one. Had she lied? Had someone else smoked it? Ray, perhaps? Despite his health regimen, he hadn’t given up that vice. I had seen him smoking when he was posting flyers. Had Violet met Ray on the sly? Had they talked, chatted, kissed . . . plotted to do away with Dottie?
“Sugar,” Tyanne said as she skated up, kicking up ice shavings onto my leggings. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Better. I’ve seen the light.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think Violet and Ray killed Tim and Dottie.” I supplied the basis for my theory. “The night Tim died, both Ray and Violet went out to the parking lot. What if they went out for a clandestine meeting, but the parking lot was a little busy. So they stole around to the back of the restaurant. Near the kitchen. What if Tim went outside for some fresh air and he heard Ray and Violet scheming to kill Dottie? What if he spied them in a passionate embrace?”
I took a deep breath and continued. “On Monday night, when I was at the pub with Delilah, I saw Violet there. She walked over to Ray, who was sitting by himself at the bar, and she stroked his arm. I’d figured she was consoling him, but if that were so, then why had she needed to comfort him again when they bumped into each other outside my shop a day or so later? And she stared at him longingly at our Lovers Trail event. I’d thought she was eyeing the guitarist, but looking back, I know I was wrong. It was Ray.”
“But, sugar, this is all conjecture. Do you have anything solid? Chief Urso will require facts.”
I glanced at Jordan, who was still standing in the concession line, his back to me. “Notes!” I blurted, remembering Jordan’s love letters to me. “Ray and Violet were passing notes.”
Tyanne shook her head, not following.
“Stay with me on this.” I skated in a circle to keep the blood flowing in my legs. “You know how Ray posts flyers for The Ice Castle on the kiosk in the Village Green? They’re all done on blue paper.”
Tyanne skated backward, nodding while listening. We made slow loops.
“The other day,” I said, “when Violet was in the shop, she pulled out a note from her purse. It was for me from Jordan.”
“Why did she have it?”
“She’d seen him tape it to the door. That’s not important. What is important is that, at the same time, out came a bunch of other stuff, all tangled together. In the mess were a number of folded pieces of blue paper. Violet gave me Jordan’s note and jammed the rest into her purse.”
“So?”
“The paper looked like the same stock Ray uses for his Ice Castle flyers. What if Ray posts notes on the backs of his flyers for Violet to fetch, secret missives telling her where and when to meet? That way they would never have to exchange phone calls. They’d have no digital record of their affair. I remember seeing Violet in the Village Green on the morning Dottie was killed. She’d split from the group to peer around the kiosk, as if expecting to see Ray, or to see if there was a new note from him.” I drew to a stop using my toe pick. “Come to think of it, I also remember spying a folded piece of blue paper tucked into her purse on the night Tim was killed.”
“Go on.”
“Not long after Violet fumbled with the bundle of stuff in the shop, I was followed to the park and mugged at knifepoint. What if Violet thought that I, catching her blunder, was onto her and Ray? What if she was the one who mugged me?”
“Sugar, the mugger took your ring.”
“To confuse and misdirect me. I think Violet wanted me to believe the mugger was either Zach or Jawbone. The mugger reeked of liquor. Violet could have doused herself with it, like perfume. Granted, I can’t be sure it wasn’t Jawbone, because he won’t tell me if he has an alibi.”
“You asked him?”
“At the soiree Thursday night.”
“You are too daring.” Tyanne sighed. “And what about Zach? I assume you asked him, too.”
“I found out he was with Pixie at her house, begging her mother’s forgiveness.” I rubbed my hands in front of me to warm my fingers. “If Jawbone had mugged me, wouldn’t he have used a gun instead of a knife?”
Tyanne grinned. “Violet has a state-of-the-art kitchen at her inn filled with quality chef’s knives.”
“Exactly. And look at h
er. See how much slimmer and more muscular she is as a result of her diet? She’s a good four or five inches taller than me. In the dark, in a panic, I could have mistaken her for a man. The mugger was dressed in black and wearing a ski mask.”
Tyanne sneaked a peek in Violet’s direction. “But you said the person who attacked you had a deep voice.”
“Violet used a mannish voice when talking to a client the other day. I’ve done the same. Lowered my tone so I’d sound more authoritative.”
“Even if Violet attacked you and killed Dottie, she has a solid alibi for when Tim was killed. She was with Paige.”
“Right. But what if Ray killed Tim?” I explained the Strangers on a Train theory.
Tyanne shook her head. “Everyone saw Ray and Dottie head home together that night.”
“Yes, right after Tim sped away. What if Ray went out again? I never asked. I’m not sure Urso did, either. With Dottie dead, we can’t confirm whether or not Ray stayed home with her.”
“How would he have caught up to Tim?”
“I don’t know. But if I’m guessing correctly, Violet must have killed Dottie, because Ray was at a service at the chapel in the ravine. Right after she did the deed, she joined Paige and the others by the kiosk.”
“Hold it. Did you say Ray was at the chapel on Sunday morning?”
“Yes. The sunrise service.”
“That’s impossible.” Tyanne dug the toe of her skate into the ice. She glanced over her shoulder and back at me. “Sugar, the chapel was being used by me. Well, not me technically. My clients. The out-of-towners. Talk about spontaneity! The night before, around nine P.M., they asked me to call the minister and pay him whatever he wanted for the event. We shut the chapel down at five A.M. Some parishioners gathered outside and watched the festivities, but I don’t remember seeing Ray in the crowd.”
“Mommy!” Tyanne’s daughter yelled from across the rink. “Tommy pushed me.”
Tyanne squeezed my arm. “I’ll be right back.”
I stood stock still, thinking back to when Ray had rushed into the pastry shop. He saw Dottie and dashed to her. He touched her face, her neck, her hair. At the time, I’d believed he was trying to save her. Had he been trying to mess with the crime scene? Had he killed Dottie, returned home, and changed from regular jean shorts and a T-shirt into all black so that he could say he’d gone to chapel? Except when he saw me he realized he was still wearing his gloves; they probably had traces of flour and Dottie’s DNA on them. That was why he’d tried to help her. Immediately he accused Zach. He claimed jewelry had been stolen. Was that part of the plot? I recalled how Ray had pulled on his ear the entire time he was talking to me. Deputy O’Shea had done the same thing when auditioning, as if he hadn’t believed the words he was saying.