“Then let’s eat while we talk,” Harrison suggested. “Because I, for one, am famished.”
He took to the kitchen while Viv and I moved to sit at the kitchen table.
“Handy to have someone around who cooks, isn’t it?” Viv asked me.
“Yeah, Harrison is worth his weight in gold,” I agreed.
“You didn’t think that at first,” he said. “She thought I had something to do with you being missing.”
“I did n—” I cut myself off. There really was no point in denying it. “Okay, I did, but you have to admit, it seemed odd to have you picking me up when I expected Viv.”
“But I asked Harrison specifically because you knew him,” Viv protested.
Harrison uncorked a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. Then he looked at me and said, “It would have helped if she remembered me.”
“You didn’t?” Viv asked.
“No, but in my defense it’s been years and I was kind of caught up in my own personal crisis,” I said.
“Bet you haven’t had much time for that,” Viv said.
She had a knowing look about her and for a moment I almost wondered if that had been her plan all along, to stick me with the insanity of the shop so I didn’t have time to brood. Well, hadn’t that plan just backfired on us all?
“Scarlett has done amazingly well in the shop,” Harrison said. “She even sold a hat to Mrs. Looksee.”
“You didn’t!” Viv cried.
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. “Wedding hat in lilac.”
“Well done,” Viv said and she raised her glass to me.
The three of us toasted and after a sip, Viv said, “All right, I’m ready now. Tell me about Victoria.”
While Harrison whipped together a fettuccini dish with a delicate cream sauce and chicken and broccoli, I filled Viv in on all that had happened. Harrison stuck in the facts that I missed and by the time he was serving us each a hot plate, Viv was fully informed.
“Suffocated?” she kept asking. “Someone broke in and tried to suffocate you?”
She had asked this about five times and grew alarmingly pale each time she asked.
“It’s okay,” I said. I reached out and laid my hand on her arm. “I’m fine.”
“I just . . . if anything had happened to you . . .” She took a long sip of wine and blew out a breath.
“It didn’t,” I said.
We were halfway through dinner when there was a banging on the door downstairs.
“Who would be here at this hour?” Viv asked.
“It’s not our friendly burglar,” I said. “He never knocks.”
“I’ll check it out,” Harrison offered. “You two finish eating.”
As soon as he left, Viv leaned close and asked, “What do you think about our Mr. Wentworth?”
“Harry?” I asked. “I mean, Harrison. He seems very efficient.”
“Efficient?” Viv asked. “He’s adorable. Please tell me you noticed.”
Oh, geez, what was I supposed to say? Were Viv and Harry an item? He had said they weren’t, but maybe she thought they were. Did she want my approval? Yeah, he was handsome and likeable, charming even. I felt a flash of heat when I remembered his help with my zipper.
“Yeah, he’s really nice,” I said. Lame, so lame.
Viv looked like she was about to call me on it, when Harrison appeared in the doorway. He did not look happy.
“Viv, the police are here,” he said. “They want to talk to you.”
Chapter 38
“Oh, all right,” Viv said. She took one more bite of her meal before she rose from her seat.
“Viv, you know what this is about?” I asked.
“Well, I imagine since it is well-known that Victoria loathed me, they need to question me about the murder,” she said. “I can’t believe she was only wearing the hat I’d made for her. Small wonder they want to talk to me.”
She didn’t look overly concerned but paused and took a folder out of her bag and handed it to Harrison. Then she followed him down the stairs to the shop. I took a second to fortify myself with a big gulp of wine before I followed.
Detective Inspectors Franks and Simms were shaking hands with Viv when I joined them. We all took a seat and Inspector Franks took the lead in the conversation.
“I’m sorry to bother you upon your return, Ms. Tremont,” he said.
“How did you know she was back?” I asked.
“We flagged her passport, so we’d be alerted if she came through customs,” Franks said.
“It’s no bother,” Viv said. “My cousin and Mr. Wentworth explained the urgency in the matter.”
Inspector Franks looked at Viv and was immediately rendered a kinder, gentler version of himself. There was something about her long blond curls, framing her heart-shaped face and her big blue eyes, that did in every man with a pulse. Poor bastards didn’t stand a chance.
I glanced at Simms to confirm, and yep, he looked as besotted as Inspector Franks.
“Well, we won’t keep you,” Franks said. “Just a few questions and if you could stop by the station house tomorrow, we’ll need to take some fingerprints.”
“Just to rule you out,” Simms assured her.
I glanced over Viv’s head to where Harrison was sitting. He looked like he was trying not to laugh and somehow that made me smile. He met my gaze and gave me a wink and I returned it, which made him duck his head as if he was trying to keep from busting up.
“Now could you tell us your whereabouts on Friday last?” Inspector Franks asked.
“I was at a rare feather ranch in Africa,” she said.
“A what?” Simms and Franks asked together.
“Here, I have receipts,” she said. She took the folder from Harrison’s hands and said, “These should catalog my whereabouts quite thoroughly.”
Franks took the folder and flipped through it. “You really were in Africa.”
Viv nodded.
“I’ll be happy to make copies for you,” Harrison said. “But as her financial manager, I’d like to keep the originals.”
Franks studied him for a moment. Harrison did not get the dewy-eyed look that Viv got from the detective.
“All right,” he said.
“Now if you could just go over your whereabouts one more time, Ms. Tremont,” Franks said. “And in detail.”
“I’ll go get some tea,” I said. I had a feeling neither detective was eager to tear himself away from Viv.
• • •
It was an hour later when the detectives took their leave and Harrison followed shortly after. I showed Viv how to work the alarm and we set it and hurried up the stairs.
We both put on our pajamas but then met up in the sitting room.
“Fancy some telly?” Viv asked.
I would have refused, given that I mostly wanted to talk with her about the past few days, but her eyes were already drooping and I realized she was probably horribly jet-lagged. It would be rude to keep her up just because I needed to talk.
We sacked out on Mim’s sofa, Viv on one end and me on the other with our feet meeting in the middle; within fifteen minutes Viv was sound asleep. I got up and fetched the blanket off her bed. I stretched out her legs and tucked her in, knowing that if she still slept as deeply as she always had, she wouldn’t wake until morning.
Unlike Viv, I didn’t feel sleepy. In fact, I was restless. Every creak and shudder that the building made caused my shoulders to tighten. It was as if I were waiting for something but I had no idea what.
I trotted back down to the shop. Fiona and I had done a wonderful job of restoring order. In fact, we had taken the opportunity to set up some new and wonderfully eye-catching displays. At least, I thought so.
The shop was silent. I glanced over at the wardrobe. Ever alert, Ferd was staring out across the place as if keeping watch. I remembered the fateful evening that Lady Ellis had come to pick up her hat.
It reminded me that I couldn’t find
it in the computer. I needed to ask Viv about that. Were there customers she didn’t put in or who had a special file?
I crossed to the wardrobe and noticed there was a gouge in the dark wood as if someone had tried to pry the doors open. I didn’t remember it being there and I ran my fingers over it. Then I remembered that on the night the place had been ransacked the only thing that had been untouched was the wardrobe. But we never locked the wardrobe, so why would someone have to pry it open?
Stepping back, I glanced up at Ferd. “What happened that night? Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me something? Something important.”
He didn’t answer, but I got the weirdest feeling that I needed to open the wardrobe. I pulled the iron handle and the door opened easily. I pressed the latch at the back and moved the panel aside. Sitting on the pedestal in the hidden compartment, just as it had been yesterday, was the purple hat.
“Scarlett? Is that you?” Viv called from upstairs.
“Yes, it’s me,” I called back. I was afraid I’d woken her up and felt bad about it.
“What are you doing?” she called.
Really? We were shouting at each other from separate floors? It reminded me of when we would have one of our yelling conversations when we were teens, and Mim would look at us with one eye closed tight as if the closed eye was too busy warding off an incoming headache to be functional in the sight department. Again, the memory made me miss her so much. What I wouldn’t give for just one more hug from Mim.
“I’m looking in the wardrobe,” I yelled, but my voice tapered off on the last word as Viv entered the room.
Her hair was tumbled around her head and she was yawning. So I guess she wasn’t the deep sleeper that she’d once been. Maybe it was just part of being a grown-up. No more untroubled sleep.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” I asked.
“No, the lump in the couch took care of that,” she said. “But you weren’t there when I woke up and then I heard voices down here. Who were you talking to?”
“Ferd,” I said.
She looked at me in confusion. I pointed up at the raven, and she smiled.
“If he were a real bird, I expect he’d plop some droppings on you for that moniker,” she said.
“I just noticed that the cupboard door is gouged,” I said. “I don’t think that was here before the break-in. But I haven’t locked the cupboard, so I don’t understand why they thought they had to gouge it open.”
Vivian glanced into the cupboard and then she paled.
“What is that doing in there?” she asked.
“The hat? I just found it yesterday,” I said. “I’d forgotten about the hidden compartments in this cupboard. Why did you hide it in there?”
“It was supposed to be a secret,” Viv said. “But you told me Lady Ellis was wearing the hat I made for her when her body was found. So, why don’t the police have it?”
“Why would they?” I asked. She wasn’t making any sense.
“Because that’s the hat I made for Lady Ellis,” she said.
Chapter 39
“No, it can’t be,” I said. “I sold her the hat you made for her and it looked nothing like this.”
We stared at each other for a moment and Vivian looked fully awake and very ill at ease.
“What did the hat you sold her look like?” she asked. “Can you describe it?”
“It was blue,” I said. “Well, no, not blue exactly, more like an aqua or a teal. It was a cloche, really lovely.”
Viv frowned at me. “Why would she pick up a cloche? She specifically wanted a wide-brimmed hat that would frame her beautiful face, her words not mine. A cloche wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Nothing makes sense. I thought she was accompanied by her husband that day, but I just found out at the wake that it wasn’t Lord Ellis at all but rather some smarmy man. Except he didn’t look smarmy at the wake today, he looked sad.”
“Smarmy?” Viv asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He had thick lips that he licked repeatedly. I got the distinct feeling he enjoyed the misery of others, especially if he was the one making them miserable.”
“Lord Cheevers, Elise Cheevers’s husband,” Viv said. She hurried over to the counter where she’d left her cell phone. She quickly opened an Internet browser on it. In seconds she had brought up pictures of the man I’d met with Lady Ellis that fateful night she’d come to collect her hat.
“That’s him,” I said. My insides clutched as I got a bad feeling about the whole situation.
“This is so strange,” Viv said. “Why was he with Lady Ellis? And why did they buy the wrong hat?”
“You know, Viv, not to be critical,” I said. “But if you’d put Lady Ellis’s order in the database, I might have been able to find the right hat for her, especially if you noted that you were keeping it in the back of the wardrobe.”
“I did. She is in the database,” Viv said.
“No, I looked under ‘Lady,’ ‘Ellis’ and ‘Victoria,’” I said. “There was no listing.”
“That’s because she’s listed under another name,” Viv said.
“What other name?”
“It’s of no matter,” Viv said. “It’s a nickname. Now back to the hat . . .”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said. I put the hat on an empty shelf and stared Viv down. “What nickname?”
“It’s in the ‘K’s,’” she said.
I had thought it would be in the “B’s,” as in the word for a female dog, so now I was utterly confused.
“I call her ‘Knicks,’” Viv confessed. “Not to her face, of course.”
“Of course,” I said with a laugh. “Care to explain?”
“Her knickers are always in a twist; ‘Knicks’ rhymes with ‘Vicks’ so it just seemed to fit.”
“Anyone else in there under a nickname?” I asked.
“No, I think she’s it,” Viv said. She looked down at the floor and then up at me with a grin. “I’m sorry she’s dead, truly, I am, but she was an awful person. She married Rupert for his title and status and treated him abominably.”
“Then why take her on as a client?” I asked. “You are famous enough for your creations not to have to take on people you don’t like.”
Viv sighed. “Rupert asked me to do it and I just feel so badly for—”
“For what?” I prodded her. “For not loving him back? Viv, it’s not your fault you didn’t feel that way and he went and married someone awful. He should have stuck to his love of headstones.”
“You heard about that?” she asked.
“The press made quite a story out of it,” I said. “Earl obsessed with graveyards comes home to murdered wife.”
“Oh, poor Rupert.” Viv cringed. “He really is the nicest person.”
A knock at the door made us both start. The shades had been drawn on the large windows and on the window of the door, so we couldn’t see out.
“Who could be here at this hour?” I asked.
“Maybe it’s Harrison,” Viv said.
“No, he would use his key,” I reasoned. “Maybe it’s the police.”
I approached the door, fearing it was the sweaty photographer from the wake. Yuck. I pushed the shade aside and peered out front. No one stood out there waiting to come in. It was then that I noticed a shadow against the door glass. Someone was slumped against the bottom of the door.
“Viv, someone is out here. I think they’re hurt!” I cried.
I had the alarm deactivated and the dead bolt halfway unlocked when Viv hurried to my side.
“Don’t open the door!” she cried. She was looking past me, but it was too late. I had already pushed the door open a crack. It was yanked from my hands before I had a chance to pull it shut or refasten the lock.
“Well, look who’s returned!” Elise Cheevers said as she strode into the shop. “Vivian Tremont, and here I thought you’d fled the country after murdering your longtime love’s wife.”
I glanced past Lady Cheevers at the closing door. No one was out there, so it had been Elise slumped against the door. She had tricked me.
“Elise,” Viv said, her voice remarkably steady given the odd situation. “You are aware that we’re closed?”
“Oh, this won’t take but a minute,” Elise said. She looked at me with scathing contempt. “You sold my hat to Vicks.”
“I did?” I asked.
“Yes, Vicks called me the next day and told me all about the pathetic little shop girl who sold her this fabulous teal cloche,” Elise said. Her eyes blazed. “That was my hat.”
I looked at Viv for confirmation but her lips were pressed together in a look that said she was trying not to lose it. I could tell by the horrified expression in her blue eyes that she felt the same sense of danger I was feeling. There was definitely something wrong with Elise Cheevers, and even with all of my people skills I had no idea how to manage her. I glanced back at Elise and saw the fury in her eyes, and I realized this wasn’t about a hat. This was about having everything you ever wanted scooped out from under you by the person who was supposed to be your best friend. Suddenly, it all made perfect, insanely perfect, sense to me.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked. “You killed Lady Ellis.”
Elise Cheevers laughed. It was the sort of cackling laugh that made your skin ripple with dread.
“Figured that out, did you, ducks?” Elise slurred her words and I wondered if she was drunk. That would actually be a good thing because I figured we could overpower her if she was impaired. Otherwise, she might just be crazy strong and then we’d stand no chance of taking her out.
“Elise, I appreciate that you and Knicks, uh, I mean Vicks had your issues, but it has nothing to do with us,” Viv said.
She moved to stand beside me as if we were a wall that Elise would have to get past.
“Oh, it has everything to do with you,” Elise said.
“Really, Elise, I’ve had a long day and the shop is closed,” Viv said. She moved toward Elise with her arms out like she was herding geese across a busy street.
Elise pulled a sharp knife out of her bag and held it straight out at Viv. I reached forward and yanked Viv back before she was impaled upon the point.
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