by Sara Rosett
“That is awful. And to think I was chatting with him only a little while ago. Was it in something he ate?”
“It appears that way,” I said.
“Then I’m so glad I didn’t have the fish.”
“You had a different meal?” I asked.
“Soup and salad. It was exactly what I needed. Something light after not feeling well.”
“You didn’t share anything? Not even a bite?”
“No, definitely not. Oh, there’s Neal. He parked up the street, and he doesn’t see me. I’ll call you after I get back to Parkview.” The dial tone sounded in my ear.
“No need to worry about her,” I said, but couldn’t completely squash the concern I felt.
Alex looked at me with concern. “You doing okay?”
“Not really. That could be Mom in the hospital, and she doesn’t even realize it.” My stomach flip-flopped. “What if it was meant for Mom? The police already think she’s involved in Nick’s murder. She would make a convenient scapegoat if…”
I didn’t realize I’d reached for Alex’s hand until he squeezed mine. “But that’s not what happened,” he said. “She had a different meal, right?”
“Malcolm had the fish. Mom had soup and salad.”
“Then it’s not like they were served the same meal and the waitress mixed up the plates.”
“I know, but I can’t help but think about it.” My mind spiraled through different scenarios. “This, on top of the feather—” I stopped speaking, not sure if I should go on with Ella listening. Did anyone else know about the blue feather other than the investigators and my family?
“It changes everything,” Alex agreed, and his eyes told me he understood my train of thought. “Let me see if we can delay our departure. I can call Dad’s assistant and check on the flexibility of our travel dates.”
“I don’t know—it’s our honeymoon…”
“Venice will still be there in a few weeks, and if we go now, neither one of us would enjoy it.”
“If they even let us go.” I nodded reluctantly. “Postponing is probably the best call.”
“I have to get the number for Dad’s assistant from the cottage. It’s in the paperwork in my suitcase.”
“I better stay here and see how things go with Shannon and Quimby.”
“Then I’ll run out to the cottage and come back.” He stood. As he kissed my cheek, he whispered, “We’ll get it all sorted, then we’ll go to Venice.”
After he left, Ella said, “He is such a great guy.”
I watched him go, his tall figure almost filling the doorway as he left. “No question about that. He is.” I smiled briefly then noticed that Ella had placed the folder she’d been clutching to her chest on the table. I recognized the sticker on the outside. “You were working on that file when you looked so worried before the wedding.” She wouldn’t come through the rain without a jacket and clutching the file to talk to Quimby unless… “Do you think it has something to do with Malcolm?”
“I don’t know.” Her tone was miserable.
CHAPTER 19
“I ’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks.” She took another sip of her tea and drew a long breath. “Let me tell you about it. It will help me organize my thoughts so that when I talk to Inspector Quimby, I won’t sound like an incoherent busybody. I don’t want to waste his time. I’m not sure if it’s anything at all.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
“It wasn’t me. It was Shannon. She worked in the office at Parkview this summer—a temporary hire.”
“She told me about it.”
“Shannon did a great job. She answered phones for us and did odd jobs, all those things that get pushed down the list—filing and sorting and clearing out. She was working on some files for Malcolm one day. She finished the stack that he’d given her. She went back to his desk and picked up the next pile of papers. Malcolm had been called away for a few minutes. When he returned and saw what she was working on, he lost it. He’s always fussy and particular, but this time…” Her fingers worried up and down the crease of the folder. “I’ve never seen him like that. His face—he was so angry. He shouted at her. He has a lot of faults, but he’s never raised his voice. At least, I’d never seen him behave that way until then.”
Ella tapped one of the pages that had slid out back into the folder. “You know what Shannon’s like. She’s a timid little thing. Malcolm frightened her so badly that she dropped the papers. They scattered all over the floor, and I hopped up to help her pick them up. Malcolm couldn’t get the papers out of my hands fast enough, which was weird because they were only purchase forms and invoices for events. Nothing top secret. But I noticed he put them away immediately. After that incident, he always put them in his lower desk drawer and kept it locked.”
She took a gulp of her tea, then rushed through her next words, a guilty expression on her face. “One night I stayed late and copied them.”
“How did you get to them?” I had a hard time picturing Ella picking a lock.
“Malcolm’s desk is the same model as Carl’s. He never locks his desk, but he keeps his keys in the middle desk drawer. I waited until they were both gone, then tried Carl’s desk keys on Malcolm’s desk. They worked on every drawer. I took the papers, copied them, then put everything back exactly as it was.” She put a hand over her forehead, shading her eyes, then peeked out from behind her hand. “I know it was wrong to take them, but I didn’t feel like I could go to Beatrice without concrete proof that something was wrong. His reaction—” She pressed her palm against her forehead for a second then leaned forward and braced her elbows on the table. “I can’t explain it, but I thought something was…off. I knew we’d had a complaint or two about some charges…”
She sighed. “He’s my direct superior. I report to him, so I didn’t want it to look like I was…um…trying to get rid of him.”
“Beatrice wouldn’t think that about you.”
She tilted her head one way then the other. “Maybe. You know what happened when I was hired, right?”
“Um…no. All I know is that you were hired. Is there more?”
Ella leaned back in her chair then traced her finger along the rim of her teacup. “I interviewed with Beatrice for the job at Parkview. She wanted to hire me, and I thought I’d gotten the publicity job. But then Beatrice decided that the job was too much for one person and created two positions. She brought on Malcolm and gave him the director of publicity position.”
“With you as the assistant,” I said.
“I was disappointed at the time, but even I could see that Malcolm was more experienced than me. I understand why Beatrice gave him the top job. But with that background…Beatrice knew I was disappointed with the way it worked out. I didn’t want her—or Malcolm—to think I was trying to undermine him. And if there was something…off… about the forms, if Malcolm was fiddling with the numbers, then you know Beatrice.”
“She’s not one to wait around,” I said. “She’d go immediately to Malcolm.”
“Exactly. My fear was that if he was doing something shady, then he might have different records he could produce that would look perfectly innocent. I could lose my job.” Ella leaned back in her chair. “It’s such a relief to talk about this. I’ve been sorting through these papers trying to figure out what to do for weeks.”
“So is he fiddling with the numbers?”
“I think so. I’ve found a couple of duplicate invoices, places where it’s obvious even to me that he’s skimmed some money. He showed an expense for flowers at one wedding that was several hundred more than the amount on the actual invoice from the florist.”
“That’s not good.” Parkview often handled all the vendors for events. A bride and groom could pay one fee to Parkview and concentrate on their wedding. They didn’t have to worry about juggling multiple vendors for the big day. If you used the vendors from their approved list, Parkview—that is, Malcolm—handled it all and sent you th
e final bill. If you wanted to pick your own vendors, you could do that, too. But I bet most people went with the more hassle-free approach of using the recommended vendors.
“And Beatrice would be so upset if Malcolm was doing that.” Ella lowered her voice. “If word got out, it could ruin our reputation as a luxury wedding venue.” She returned to her normal tones, but still spoke quietly enough that she wouldn’t be overheard. “What I don’t know is if what I found was intentional, or was it a few innocent mistakes? I only have a few weeks’ worth of papers. I’ve been trying to search the older files, but it’s hard to find a time when Malcolm isn’t in.”
“Did you talk to Lucas about it?” I wondered what her constable boyfriend thought of the situation.
“No, I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to be sure before I said anything, but now…well, I have to tell the inspector.”
“Yes, I think you do,” I said, my mind was already spinning through what Ella’s revelations and the poisoning could mean.
“But does Malcolm’s possible creative accounting have anything to do with Nick’s death?” I said to Alex as I finished recounting what Shannon and Ella had told me at the pub.
Alex turned the MG’s windshield wipers off. “That is the big question.”
As soon as Shannon emerged from Louise’s office, Ella had darted back there to catch Inspector Quimby. Shannon had tied on her apron and circulated through the tables. Business had been picking up at the pub as it got later in the day and despite Louise saying that Shannon should go home, she’d insisted on finishing her shift. Ella was still closeted in the office when Alex returned to the pub to pick me up.
“You think Nick threatened to expose Malcolm’s skimming, and Malcolm killed Nick?” Alex asked.
“It wouldn’t be the first time Nick blackmailed someone.”
“No,” Alex said as we cruised through the gates at Parkview. I wanted to see Mom face-to-face and try to impress on her the possible danger that she might be in. The man in the kiosk had seen us so often that he waved us on without even stopping us.
“You know we’ve been here too much, when they don’t even attempt to charge you an entrance fee,” I said, momentarily distracted, but my thoughts went right back to Malcolm. “But how could Nick know about the skimming? Ella isn’t even sure it’s actually going on.”
“Sometimes the appearance of impropriety is all it takes,” Alex said. “Did Ella tell anyone?”
“No one at all.”
“What about Shannon? She might have noticed the invoices when she dropped them. Nick wanted to stay in touch with Shannon. Suppose he contacted her later, and she told him about it?”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think Shannon suspected anything was off with the invoices. I think if she had, she would have mentioned it when she told me about meeting Nick. And she said he hadn’t gotten in touch later.”
“Then it sounds like it doesn’t have any connection to Nick.”
The fine mist of rain continued to coat everything with additional layers of dampness, and the gray sky still loomed overhead. In the thick shade of the trees that lined the drive it almost felt like late evening.
“I looked up more about digitalis while I was waiting on Dad’s admin,” Alex said. “It’s used for—”
I shifted toward him and grabbed his arm. “I completely forgot you went to check on changing the travel dates. I’m a terrible wife. I’m so wrapped up in this stuff around Nick and now Malcolm that everything else sort of goes out of focus for me. And that’s awful—especially since I’m on my honeymoon. I’m so sorry, Alex—sorry about all of it. That this has happened, and that we’re caught up in it, and that it’s taken over our honeymoon.”
Alex stopped the car under the arch of tree branches and then turned to me. “It’s not your fault that Nick got killed. From what we’ve learned about him, I think he brought that on himself.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that this has got to be the worst honeymoon ever,” I said. “Chasing around after people we barely know to ask them what they can tell us about a man we never met.”
“It’s not exactly how I pictured our honeymoon, I’ll give you that, but the good news is that we do have some flexibility on our travel dates. I said to cancel our flight and reservations for Tuesday and that I’d call back when we were ready to rebook everything. Dad got travel insurance, or his assistant did.”
“Thank goodness for that,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s the worst honeymoon ever.” Alex tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and caressed my cheek with his thumb. “If we were shouting and screaming and couldn’t get along that would be far worse. We’re together. That’s the important thing. We’ll get through this. And I like your concentrated focus.” He smiled at me slowly. “Once this is wrapped up—and it will be, we’ll see to that—then I want you to focus all your energy on us.”
I leaned into his hand and closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of his palm against my cheek. “I like that plan.” I realized I sounded a bit breathless. I opened my eyes and found him studying me with that intense gaze of his that made the rest of the world fade away.
“Glad we agree on that,” Alex said as he leaned in to kiss me.
A while later we both became aware of an annoying beeping sound and broke apart. Headlights lit up the interior of our car. Alex glanced in the rearview mirror at the grill of an oversized SUV that was so close it looked as if it had parked on top of the MG’s bumper. “I guess we’d better move.”
Another long blast on the car horn sounded. “That’s a shame.” I threw him a flirty smile. “We were just getting to the good part.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get back there later.” Alex waved an apology to the car behind us, then put the MG in gear. “So…let’s see. Where were we? There was something I was going to tell you before we were distracted in such a pleasant way.”
“After that kiss, I’m having trouble remembering why we came to Parkview in the first place.”
Alex sent me a wicked grin. “To check on your mom.”
“That’s right…Oh, you were about to tell me something about what poisoned Malcolm.”
He nodded and turned serious. “I found out it’s used for people with heart problems. Sounds like it’s fairly common. It strengthens the heartbeat, which can actually help people with heart issues. Too much of it, and then you get the symptoms that Malcolm had.”
“Digitalis, you said.” I checked my lipstick in the side mirror then reached for my purse.
“That’s right,” Alex said, sounding surprised that I remembered.
“It’s a poison that shows up in a lot of mysteries,” I explained. “I think Agatha Christie used it several times in her novels.”
“And my sister reads them. Now there is a truly frightening thought.”
I capped my lipstick and punched his arm playfully. “Grace likes the intellectual challenge of solving the puzzle in mysteries.”
“Grace always wants to be the smartest person in the room.”
“Everyone likes to feel like that.” I put my lipstick away and sighed. “I certainly don’t feel smart right now. Befuddled is more like it. Everyone we’ve been concentrating on as possible suspects seems a bit young to have a heart problem.”
“That’s true. Fern and Sylvia are certainly probably around what? Twenty-five?” I nodded my agreement, and Alex went on, “And, while I don’t think Shannon or Ella is involved, they’re young, too.”
“I suppose someone—any of them could have a weak heart. It doesn’t have to be an older person. I mean, Carl just had a scare about his heart, and I don’t think of him as old—” Alex and I looked at each other. “Do you think…?”
“That Carl’s involved?” Alex asked. “I suppose it depends on what sort of medicine he’s on for his heart problem.”
Could it be possible? Could Carl have knifed Nick and poisoned Malcolm? “I suppose he could have done it,” I said, working it out as
I spoke. “Carl was at the wedding, and he works with Malcolm…but why? Why would he kill Nick? Did Carl ever meet Nick?”
“Who knows? I guess there is a chance that Carl did it,” Alex said, but his tone was doubtful. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“I agree.” I leaned forward and squinted as we emerged from the trees and Parkview’s facade came into view. “Is that—? Yes, it’s got to be my mom. No one else has a black umbrella that large.”
“And it doesn’t look good,” Alex said. Constable Albertson was escorting my mom down the stairs to a waiting police car.
CHAPTER 20
A lex didn’t bother to drive to the parking area where we normally left the car. He pulled to a stop behind the police car.
I jumped out as Constable Albertson and my mom had reached the bottom of the steps. He released her arm.
“What is going on?” I crunched across the gravel, blinking the mist out of my eyes.
“Don’t look so worried, dear,” Mom said from under the black canopy of her umbrella. “They have a few more questions for me, that’s all.”
Albertson opened the back door of the police car. “I’m taking her to the incident room at the church hall.”
“We’ll meet you there,” I said to her.
She tucked the damp umbrella next to her feet. “I’m sure there’s no need to do that.”
“Yes, there is.” I was already walking back to the car where Alex stood beside the open driver’s door.
We got caught at a light, and by the time we arrived at the church hall, I didn’t see Constable Albertson or my mom anywhere. The high-ceilinged room echoed with the voices of the investigators as they worked at desks made from long tables that were usually covered with white cloths and displayed platters of cookies for village events. The church hall had been used as an incident room once before, and I had the same feeling that I’d stepped onto a location shoot. Like a film set, it had the air of a temporary workspace as well as the general low-level buzz of hectic activity. I spotted Albertson returning alone from the back of the hall. He moved through the maze of desks, tables, and folding chairs, stepping across power cords that crisscrossed the floor. The church hall was a newer building than the nearby church—by several hundred years—but the hall was built in a time when typewriters hadn’t been invented.