Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “I have it right. He had business dealings with my former husband. I don’t think I ever talked to him.”

  He stopped and blinked. “Didn’t you used to have some chairs in here?”

  “My friend borrowed them. Try the sofa.” The sofa was lumpy, so maybe it would cut his visit short. I didn’t offer coffee or lemonade.

  He plunked himself down. I swear the sofa groaned. He said, “He was your ex-husband’s partner?”

  Tolstoy climbed up next to him on the sofa. I didn’t care.

  As I walked toward the kitchen to get a chair, I said, “In some business dealings. Philip’s not...”

  “Gay?”

  “Not really sexual at all. At least, I never really noticed it. Now you’ve made my head hurt.”

  “That’s all this Daniel Dupree was?” He held up his hand. “Let’s review this: you don’t need to know why I’m asking. You just need to answer. Did you see him often?”

  “Maybe twice or three times. I told you that.”

  “Are you sure, madame?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.”

  “Did you have a reason to be angry with him?”

  “No!”

  “Take your time, madame.”

  “My ex is taking quite a while to liquidate his assets as part of our divorce settlement. I was angry at him. But he’s still alive. I never thought about this Dupree. That is the truth.”

  “Hmm. Your divorce settlement. I’d heard about that. I hear you were pretty upset about it.”

  That’s the trouble with living in St. Aubaine. There’s a very good chance that everyone in town knows your business. Financial problems are a preferred source of local chatter, running a close third to fractured love lives and extramarital flings. I was pretty sure that Sarrazin had done his homework and knew that I was behind on my municipal taxes and a few bucks short of paying the Hydro bill.

  “Maybe you blamed Daniel Dupree for your financial problems.”

  “Are you listening to me? I was angry at Philip for stalling. I still am, not that I see what that has to do with anyone but me.”

  “And this Dupree was involved too?”

  I massaged my temple. For some reason it felt like I might have a migraine coming on.

  “Only in that he and Phil probably still had business dealings.”

  “But he was contributing to your financial problems?”

  “It’s really just a cash crunch,” I said.

  “Did you hold Dupree responsible for this, madame?”

  “What? How could he be responsible?”

  “Uh-uh-uh. Who asks the questions?”

  “He has nothing to do with it because...” I paused. Hang on. Maybe he did. If Philip was having trouble getting my share of the community property into my hands, was that because of Dupree?

  “Yes, madame? You have something to add?”

  “It’s possible that one of the reasons Phil has been slow to settle is because of the business dealings they have together, but I’m not aware of it. You’d have to ask Philip about that.”

  “I plan to.”

  “Oh. Well. Good.”

  “But I am talking to you right now.”

  What was the question? “No. I didn’t blame him. I prefer to blame Philip. It’s familiar, and it just feels right. Danny Dupree was in that accident. That’s the one fact I am sure of. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “You know I hate coincidence.”

  “But I can’t explain it. I was going home from the hospital at my regular time when he hassled me on the road. The next time I saw him, the Escalade was upside down in the ravine.”

  “Did you pursue him on the highway?”

  “In the Skylark? That would be funny if it wasn’t so...”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  He leaned forward. The man gives new meaning to the word menace. And he’s supposed to be a good guy. “So, let’s see if I understand. You were following him, and...”

  “Well, actually, let me correct you there. He was preceding me. He passed me just before Exit 13 and...”

  “Yeah, okay. You made that point. So he was ahead, and you were behind and then...?”

  “Quite far ahead. He must have been doing one-fifty. Maybe more.”

  “And you were doing?”

  “The speed limit. Probably less.”

  “Okay. That’s not possible, is it? It takes awhile for the first responders to get there. It took a few minutes to close the road. You would have been there minutes afterwards. Not a half hour later.”

  I stared at him, perplexed. I’m not so good with time and space calculations at the best of times. “I was a bit shaken up. I got off at exit 13 and drove back on the 105 to get some chocolate Kahlua cake at Suki’s.”

  “You never mentioned that.”

  “Why would I mention it?” I squeaked. “I went to get a slice of cake and some dog treats. It never occurred to me that it was important, if it is, which I doubt.”

  Tolstoy’s tail tapped on the floor.

  “And you can prove that?”

  “Prove it?”

  He watched me wordlessly.

  My voice went up an octave or so. “There was a person I knew very very very slightly who acted like a jerk, even though I didn’t recognize him. He got in an accident, probably because he continued to act like a jerk. I came along afterwards and was stopped by the police officer. I told the officer about the earlier incident, and that’s all there was to it. It was a horrible accident, but it has nothing to do with me. You have to stop...persecuting me.”

  He cleared his throat. “Three points, Madame Silk. One, I am just doing my job. Two, it was not an accident. And three, it appears it does have something to do with you.”

  “Not an accident?”

  “No, it was not.”

  “Suicide? But he was such a...”

  “No, madame. Doesn’t look like suicide.”

  “But that leaves murder.”

  Champagne Breakfast

  Contributed by Miz Josey Thring, EA

  4 homemade or frozen waffles—prepared

  1 peach and 1 nectarine, pitted and sliced

  ½ teaspoon lemon zest

  ½ cup fresh blueberries

  ¼ cup blueberry syrup

  1 teaspoon maple syrup

  Heat syrup, zest, syrups and berries. Place two waffles on each plate. Top with fruit and syrup. Serve with chilled champagne and orange juice.

  Eight

  Yes, madame.”

  “Well, he was alive and obnoxious the last time I saw him. Oh. Did someone shoot at him from the side of the road? A rifle? Because...”

  He shook his head. He reached out and picked a shrivelled leaf from the poor old philodendron that Aunt Kit had left behind.

  “Please leave my plant alone and tell me what happened.”

  “Preliminary tests indicate the presence of drugs.”

  “Drugs? He took drugs?”

  “GHB. A date rape drug. I suspect he didn’t know he was taking these.”

  I stared at him. “You can’t think I had anything to do with it. I barely knew him. And what about the woman who was with him? Maybe she—”

  “There was no woman.”

  “Believe me, I don’t hallucinate women. What if someone gave her drugs too, and she was injured or shocked, and she crawled into the woods.”

  He shook his head. “You saw the vehicle. No one would have made it out of that.”

  “Perhaps she was thrown from the vehicle on impact. That happens. Doesn’t it?”

  “Sure, but there’s a body when it does happen. Based on what you said, we did a very careful search of every centimetre of that ravine. Believe me, no one crawled away from that accident.”

  “I can’t believe you suspect me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Are you asking everyone in St. Aubaine if they blamed Danny Dupree for their problems? How about my neighbour Jea
n-Claude Lamontagne? I bet you’re not asking him.”

  “You are right, madame. I am not. I’m just doing—”

  “Well, I’d like to be doing my job too, but the police won’t leave me alone. This situation isn’t the same as the last time. I actually had a relationship with Benedict, but Danny Dupree meant nothing to me. Hardly even an acquaintance. There would be hundreds of people more involved with him than I was.”

  “We got a tip.”

  “A tip? What do you mean a tip?”

  “A tip. Everyone knows what a tip is. Someone called the station and suggested that you had something to gain from Danny Dupree’s death. I have no choice but to follow up.”

  “I have nothing to gain from his death. I keep telling you, we’re not connected. He held some of my husband’s investments, that’s all.” I thought about my words. Unfortunately, it was too late to call them back.

  “That’s what our caller said. You want your husband to settle your property division, and he’s stalling. Dupree was helping him with that game.”

  “Game?”

  “Sure. Men play it all the time. Maybe women do too. But mostly it’s men. This Dupree was your husband’s ally. So, poof, you even the odds.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You do need money, madame.”

  “Lots of people need money. Most of us don’t bump people off to get it though.”

  He shrugged yet again.

  “The woman saw me. She even tossed a cigarette out the window. Oh wait, she must have called in the tip.”

  He shook his head.

  I said, “Well, none of it makes sense. Who else would call in a tip like that about me?”

  “Someone who has a grudge against you and wants suspicion deflected from them?”

  “I don’t know who that could be.”

  “Your ex-husband perhaps.”

  “No. Trust me, Philip is a jerk, but he’s not a crook.”

  “We’ll be checking him out.”

  “Oh, boy.” That’s all I needed—Philip, distracted from the business of settling up with me, liquidating everything he owned to fight false charges, weeping because the laundry services in the local slammer didn’t put the right amount of starch in his shirts.

  Sarrazin unbent from the sofa. “And madame?”

  “Yes?”

  “This plant is in the wrong place. If you don’t move it so it gets more indirect light, it’s just going to get worse.”

  Tolstoy was sorry to see him go.

  Josey showed up so soon after Sarrazin’s departure that I could only surmise she had been hiding out behind a tree. Perhaps studying since, once again, it turned out to be a study day. Where were all these sunny June study days when I’d been chained to a desk at school?

  “You know what I think would be sexy, Miz Silk?”

  “What?” I gulped.

  “Breakfast in bed. With homemade waffles and maybe peaches. And fresh orange juice with champagne. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “It would. Of course, I have no idea where you’d start with something like that.”

  “Try here,” she said and handed me a fresh batch of cookbooks from the library. I took them to the lumpy sofa as she headed into the kitchen with a package to install a spice rack. I didn’t like to ask where she’d gotten it. What do I know about product placement?

  I was working my way through the latest pile of cookbooks and looking forward to The Wacky World of Waffles. A tap on the window caught my attention.

  I looked up from my spot on the sofa to see Hélène Lamontagne’s attractive nose pressed against my living room window. She doesn’t bother with the door since I rarely answer it, but Hélène is one of the few people I am always glad to see.

  I hoisted myself off the lumpy sofa and headed for the door.

  “Fiona!” she said, sweeping into the room. “Oh là là.”

  “Oh là là?”

  She wiggled her shapely eyebrows. “I heard.”

  “Um, heard what?” Did she think I was a murderer too?

  “About your book.”

  “You mean the...?”

  “Of course. Is there another book?”

  Certainly not my great Canadian novel mouldering quietly in the middle drawer of my battered desk. No one would ever oh là là over that.

  “No. Where did you hear about it?”

  “It is all over the village, Fiona. Spreading like a feu de forêt. In both official languages. You have almost but not quite replaced Rafaël and Marietta as the most interesting topic of the day. Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

  I flopped onto the sofa again and groaned. “Because I didn’t want to talk about it. It’s a new project, and I’m not wild about the idea. What do you mean it’s all over the village?”

  “Well, what did you expect? In a town like this...” She shrugged beautifully, being French and all. “Surely you remember the last time. Oh mon dieu. Where is your furniture?”

  “It’s been borrowed. Are you sure? All over the village?”

  “Certainement, by now it will be halfway to Hull. Or Ottawa.”

  “And I only told three people.”

  “And I noticed that I was not one of them. That was not very nice of you, Fiona. I like to be on top of things in St. Aubaine.”

  “Next time I’m not telling anyone anything.”

  “But why are you not happy? The timing for this new book could not be better.”

  Josey stuck her head around the corner. Hélène smiled fondly at her.

  “Hi, Miz Lamontagne,” Josey said. “Miz Silk has to write a sex cookbook. But she doesn’t have anything to cook with.”

  Hélène flashed me a glance.

  “Not my fault,” I said. “She was here when the call came in. She spoke to my agent. Anyway, it’s not really that.”

  “I believe it’s an erotic cookbook,” Hélène said. “So much more elegant, n’est-ce pas?”

  “I guess so,” Josey said. “Does it make a difference what you call it?”

  “But of course, Josée. Every woman has her little secrets to keep some spice in her life.”

  “Hélène,” I whispered, “have you forgotten that someone is only fifteen?”

  “Someone is standing right in front of you,” Josey said.

  Hélène tsked. “Fiona, Josée is almost a woman.”

  I stared at Hélène in unqualified amazement. I suppose up until that defining moment, it had never crossed my mind that the freckled girl with the bony frame and the goggling blue eyes and the cowlicky hair that looked like it had been cut with the garden shears, which it probably had been, could ever turn into a woman.

  I barely stopped myself from asking where anyone would get such a harebrained idea.

  “That’s right,” Josey said. “I’m pushing sixteen. I’m saving for my driver’s licence. I’ll be looking for lots of odd jobs. Let me know, Miz Lamontagne, if you have anything when you-know-who is not around. Miz Silk is really broke, but she’s running a tab, and that’s all right, because I know she’s good for it. She’ll pay up when she gets the first part of the advance for the sex, I mean, erotic cookbook. But it’s not getting off to such a good start.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Bien sûr, I will help her. Anything you need, Fiona. You can count on me.”

  “Thanks, Hélène,” I said, hoping the conversation would end soon.

  “Help her how?” Josey’s cornflower blue eyes were the size of ashtrays.

  Hélène smiled in that sensuous secret way that French women seem to be so good at.

  “Will you tell her your little secrets, Miz Lamontagne?”

  “I think I will, Josey. Jean-Claude and I have been married more than twenty years, and it’s important to keep the romance in the relationship.”

  I spotted the expression of horror creep over Josey’s face and hoped my own reaction didn’t seem quite so obvious. Secrets with Jean-Claude? Sex? It made the blood run cold.

 
Fortunately, Hélène seemed oblivious. “A man like that,” she said, “I make it my job to keep his interest, to make him happy and excited to come home at night.”

  Josey gasped. I felt faint.

  Hélène said, “Candles, music, flowers, the right lingerie. It all matters. And then something to stimulate the taste buds. Ah oui, I will have some suggestions for your cookbook, Fiona.”

  “Awesome,” said Josey in a shaky voice.

  Hélène smiled at me. “And is there anything else I can do to help?”

  Josey leaped in. “Miz Silk should get to meet Rafaël and Marietta. We’ve seen them on the street, and we’ve been up to Wallingford Estate, but it’s not the same as a proper introduction. They could give her recipes. She could have her picture taken with them.”

  I said, “Oh, I don’t think...”

  “Quelle bonne idée! Jean-Claude worked very hard with the new owners of the Domaine Wallingford and with the executive producers to bring this in. He got funding and sponsors and provincial government grants. He made contacts. I will see what I can do.”

  “That’s great,” I said, politely. “But I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  I made sure I didn’t glance at Josey. He’d made contacts, all right. And I didn’t want to be the one to tell Hélène about them. Josey made tracks back to the kitchen.

  “More than great, Fiona. It means that everyone he contacted will listen to him.”

  “Oh.”

  Josey popped back in again. “But Jean-Claude wants to buy Miz Silk’s property, and she doesn’t want to sell, and she doesn’t have any money, so she’d be in a bad situation there, Miz Lamontagne. You can see that.”

  “Of course, Josée, I don’t know anything about Jean-Claude’s real estate business. I would never think to interfere there. But he is much too busy with everything to be involved in this little meeting. So I will make the arrangements. Moi-même.”

  Josey said, “Oh, boy. That’s better. You’ve got the connections. Would Rafaël and Marietta each give Miz Silk a sexy recipe? Miz Silk wouldn’t really feel comfortable asking them. When we were up at the Wallingford Estate the other day...”