by Delia James
“So what’s going on?” Kenisha laid her cap on the table and took the mug of coffee Sean pushed toward her. “I thought at the end of the mystery, it was the suspects that all gathered together.”
“You know me,” I said. “I love to defy expectations.”
“Is this all of us?” asked Val before Kenisha had a chance to tell me what she thought of that.
“There’s two more.”
“One more,” said Sean.
Julia sailed through the doorway. None of us actually stood up as she strode to the head of the table, but I’m sure we all wanted to. Sean touched the rim of his fedora like he was thinking of taking it off in front of the lady. He saw me looking at him, and he blushed.
Julia sat and folded her hands on top of her walking stick. I tried not to notice how neither she nor Kenisha had acknowledged each other.
She did acknowledge me, though.
“I am not certain I approve of this plan of yours, Anna,” my mentor announced.
“I know,” I said. “And I know we need to talk and you’re mad at me and I might have to turn in my wand when all this is over. But we’re running out of time, and unless anybody’s got another idea—”
“Well, good morning, everybody.”
Pete Simmons pulled his furry Russian hat off his balding head. He surveyed us all with his perpetually tired eyes.
“Good morning, Detective Simmons,” said Julia gravely.
“Hi, Pete,” said Kenisha. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sure, sure.” Pete settled into the chair she shoved out for him and accepted a cup of coffee from Sean. “Always glad to meet with members of the community.”
“And we appreciate that,” I told him.
“The thing is, it’s kind of a busy time right now, so maybe you could tell me what all this is about?”
He was asking Kenisha, but she, and everybody else, was looking at me.
Showtime.
I took a deep breath. “So, Detective Simmons, as you know, we . . . are all members of the Portsmouth Area Ladies Book Group and Bonfire Appreciation Society.”
“You are?” said Pete slowly. “I didn’t realize the group was so . . . extensive.” He looked at Kenisha. Kenisha looked at the bottom of her coffee cup.
“We are a venerable and wide-ranging organization,” said Julia staunchly.
Kenisha stared at her and at me. I gave a very small shrug. Valerie adjusted Melissa’s blanket. She’d been the one on the phone with Julia, explaining the plan while I was busy in Pam’s files.
“Dr. Forsythe was a member as well,” I said. “Naturally, all of us in the society were terribly shocked by her death.”
“Naturally,” Pete replied. Sean, helpfully, topped up Kenisha’s coffee cup. And Pete’s.
“And, naturally, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking about what we can do to help the Forsythe family,” I went on. “And while we were talking with our members and paying condolence calls, we heard some things that might be helpful to the investigation.”
“I see.” Pete blew on his fresh coffee and sipped judiciously.
“So, of course, we immediately contacted Officer Freeman, who advised us that the right thing to do was to tell the police immediately.”
“Because the PALBGBAS is a civic-minded organization that includes many Portsmouth small business owners,” added Val. “And we wanted to be sure to tell you everything at once so as not to waste your valuable time.”
Pete cleared his throat. “Well. I see. And I of course would like to thank the members of the . . . I’m sorry . . . ?”
“Portsmouth Area Ladies Book Group and Bonfire Appreciation Society,” said Kenisha. “Just like I told you.”
“Sure. Right.” Pete’s mouth puckered up. “Thank you all for your civic-mindedness. I’m sure my lieutenant will say the same when he finds out about this.” He looked right at me, and I tried not to squirm. “You don’t mind if I take notes?” He pulled his book out.
“Not at all, Detective,” said Julia regally. “Whatever you need. We are only here to help.”
Kenisha was drinking coffee, which was probably a good thing, because I had the distinct feeling she was in danger of cracking an inappropriate smile.
“Right. Okay.” Pete pulled his notebook and pencil out of his jacket pocket and opened it to a blank page. “Ms. Britton, can I assume we’ll be starting with you?”
He could. I looked into Pete’s mild, drooping eyes, and I started talking.
I told him about Ramona’s connection with Pam and with Best Petz. From the patient way he listened, I got the idea he already knew about it.
Then I told him about the tainted food and Ramona’s intent to blow the whistle.
Pete stopped writing. “You’re sure about this?”
Val reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper. “Kristen couldn’t be here, but she wrote this out.” She pushed the paper toward him. “She’s expecting to hear from you, to confirm everything.”
Pete read the statement, and took his time about it. When he was finished, he didn’t say anything. He made another note.
I told him about how I’d picked up Pam Abernathy’s phone the night Ramona died, and what I’d heard. I am pleased to say I managed to keep the stammering to an absolute minimum. I also apologized profusely.
Pete wrote this down without comment. I had the distinct feeling that once again he was not at all surprised.
Then it was Rachael’s turn. Keeping her eyes fixed on the tabletop, she spoke quietly about the sick kitten she had treated, about my phone call asking whether Mittens could have gotten hold of any of the Ultrapremium food.
She pushed the stack of papers toward Pete. “These are the lab reports,” she said. “And the warnings that were registered about the supplier Best Petz was using.”
“Is there something else you want to say, Rachael?” prompted Kenisha. Because Kenisha had been the one who’d picked Rachael up at the clinic this morning to bring her to our meeting. On the way, she had asked about Aunt Wendy and the wards and explained that the only way for Rachael to keep her family safe was to tell everything she knew.
“Go ahead,” said Kenisha to her now. “We’re all on your side.”
Rachael’s eyes slid sideways to Pete. But she nodded.
“My mother and my aunt Wendy were . . . they’d been fighting about money,” she said. “Aunt Wendy thought Mom should be making way more from the clinic than she was. She . . . got it into her head that Mom was hiding the money.”
I sat up straighter. I hadn’t heard this.
“The night my mother died, Aunt Wendy broke into her apartment and stole some of her . . . journals.” Rachael lifted the tote bag and set it on the table. “I found them this morning. She thought they might show that Mom was hiding some money from her.”
I glanced at Julia, who sat as still and silent as a stone.
“And what did Ms. Forsythe have to say when you confronted her?” asked Pete. “I mean, you did confront her?”
Because what else would you do when you found out your aunt had stolen from your mother? Rachael grimaced. “She said she was doing it for Mom’s own good. She said . . .”
“It’s okay, Rachael,” said Kenisha. “We can go over all this with Ms. Forsythe directly. Right, Pete?”
“Sure, sure, sure,” he said. “Is there anything else, Ms. Rachael?”
“Yes,” said Rachael. “The day before my mother’s funeral, I was in her apartment. I was angry. I was sure Cheryl Bell had killed her and I didn’t think anything was being done. I decided I’d try to . . . push things in what I thought was the right direction. I’d gotten an Aldina bracelet for my last birthday and I took two of the beads and put them under my mother’s bed, and then I asked Anna to go to the apartment. I knew Anna had a . . . reputation for
finding things . . . and hoped she would discover the beads.”
“And you called us to go in after her?” said Pete. “Just to be sure it all came out?”
“Yes,” Rachael whispered. “Am I going to jail?”
Pete turned over a page in his notebook. “I don’t think it’ll come to that. Interfering with an investigation is a serious matter, but I think we can make a case that there was emotional distress and extenuating circumstances.”
The whole room let out the breath we’d all been holding.
“But,” Pete added, “it does mean we’re going to have to check the rest of the story very carefully. And we’ll probably need to be getting some additional details. For instance”—he laid his finger on one particular note—“if your mother found out about the tainted food, why didn’t she report it right away?”
“The brand wasn’t released yet,” I said. “Ramona thought she still had some time.”
Pete nodded, managing to convey both his sympathy and the fact that this was probably not the most prudent course of action. Pete was very talented that way.
“There was also a great deal of money riding on the new line, and Attitude Cat,” I said, so Pete would be looking at me instead of Rachael. I could tell she was beginning to get frightened again, and more than a little bit angry.
“And, Ms. Britton, you know this, because . . . ?”
“I did some research,” I said. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to tell him it involved an overly convenient phone call, a fake coloring-book sample and a nail file. “Pam Abernathy was setting up a deal to sell the rights to the Attitude Cat brand entirely to Best Petz, and when that happened, Cheryl Bell would get a consulting job from them, presumably in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.”
“Presumably,” said Pete. “You could prove this?”
“You know, Pete,” cut in Kenisha. “The lab reports here”—she tapped Ramona’s stack—“might finally be enough for Judge Turner to give us a warrant for the Abernathy & Walsh files. It goes straight to working out the motive for the murder. I mean, if Cheryl Bell was due to get a payout when the deal went through and the new line hit the shelves, there ought to be a record of it in the files, right?”
Pete tapped his pencil thoughtfully against the table. “Sure, sure. That might just do it.” He checked his watch. “And the judge should be back from lunch just about now.”
“Wow,” chirped Val. “Great timing.”
I may have prodded her ankle under the table. Firmly.
“Well.” Pete got to his feet. “I want to thank you for your information.” He paused. “You can be sure we’ll be taking all this very seriously, but you ought to know that when it comes to an investigation this complicated, well, it doesn’t always go the way we think it should. What looks obvious from one angle might turn out to be something quite different when you get the whole picture.” He said this straight to Rachael. “And we might uncover a lot of other unpleasant facts in the process.”
Rachael pushed the stack of paper toward him. “I know, Detective. I just want to help. These are copies of what we’ve found about the pet food. The phone numbers are all there if you need to check the findings with the lab.”
“Thank you,” said Pete. “You’ve been very cooperative, and that’s going to count for a lot. Officer Freeman? I’ll see you back at the station? Soon?”
“Right behind you, Detective,” agreed Kenisha.
Pete shouldered his way back into his coat and gathered up the papers. Sean held out his hat for him. Their eyes met.
“Ladies Book Group and Bonfire Appreciation Society?” said Pete.
“I’m doing a flaming rum punch for the December meeting,” replied Sean coolly. “You should come.”
Pete raised both eyebrows at him and walked out without saying another word.
44
VAL HURRIED TO the dining room door and peered out. Presumably to watch Pete leave the premises, because she turned around and let out a triumphant whoop. “We did it!”
“Ah-moo!” added Melissa, who may have gotten slightly sandwiched between her parents as they kissed.
“Maybe,” muttered Kenisha.
We all turned to stare at her.
“What do you mean maybe?” I asked. “You heard Pete.”
“Yeah, I heard him.” Kenisha sighed. “I also know him. He’s not sure how much he believes. Maybe none of it.”
Rachael got to her feet, her face flushed red. “But he’ll figure it out, right? It’s all right there in front of him.”
“We can hope,” said Kenisha. “But between your planting fake evidence and Anna’s kind of vague answers about how she got the business details on Attitude Cat, there’s a lot of dicey stuff here. If it doesn’t play out exactly the way we want it to . . .” She let the sentence trail off.
“But . . . but . . . I just . . . I confessed!” Rachael threw her hands out. “I put Mom’s reputation out there, and the clinic’s!”
And Aunt Wendy’s. She didn’t say that, but it shone in her eyes.
“Easy does it, Rachael,” said Sean. “We’re all worried, but this place isn’t as private as all that. You might not want to . . .”
Rachael was not in a mood to listen. “It can’t all be for nothing!”
“It won’t be,” said Julia firmly. “You told the truth. Remember, what you send out into the world comes back to you, threefold.”
“And Pete will look into it,” said Kenisha. “And I’ll back him up with everything I’ve got. We’re just going to have to be patient.”
“You don’t understand, any of you!” shouted Rachael. “This is going to come out in just a matter of hours. If people don’t know what Cheryl was doing, it’s going to look like Mom was covering up the tainted food!”
“That’s why the next place we’re going is the Seacoast Times,” I told her. “You’re going to talk to Frank Hawthorne and get the story out first.” I’d been reading up on disaster communications strategies along with probable cause for search warrants.
“And you think that will make a difference?” she said, clearly torn between hope and disbelief.
“I think at this point, it can’t hurt.”
Rachael didn’t answer me. She just picked up the tote bag with the books of shadow and turned to Julia. “I think you’d better take these,” she said softly. “Aunt Wendy . . . she might . . . well, the truth is, I don’t know what she’s going to do next.”
Julia took the bag. “I am sorry this has come down on you, Rachael. And I’m sorry I have done so very little beyond make it worse.”
“Julia . . . ,” began Kenisha.
“No, Kenisha. It’s all right.” Julia raised her eyes to the room. “I owe you all an apology. I have been hurt and grieving and . . . taking Ramona’s loss far too personally. It has led me to . . . intemperate words and actions. I ask for forgiveness, from all of you.” These last words she spoke directly to me.
“We’ve all made mistakes,” I said.
“And we’re still all here.” Val took Roger’s hand. “And we’re still all a family.”
“So mote it be,” murmured Julia.
If it had been anybody else, this might have ended in a hug. But this was Julia. It ended in a deep breath. And marching orders.
“Anna, you will take Rachael to see Frank Hawthorne,” she said briskly. “Valerie, Roger, I think you had better return home and be there when Kristen and Pamela get the news about this search warrant that will shortly be coming their way. Probably, there will be some upset. Mr. McNally . . .” She turned to Sean.
“Yes, ma’am?” Sean touched his hat brim.
“Do you by any chance know how to mix a sidecar? I need a drink.”
• • •
“IT WILL BE all right, Rachael,” I told her as we climbed into my Jeep. “You’ll see.”
“No. This is not your fault.”
She didn’t answer. Not directly. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to Frank just yet. Maybe we should wait until after we’re sure Detective Simmons’s got everything straight. I mean, what if I go public and there’s still another shoe waiting to drop?”
I bit my lip. “I understand how you feel, Rachael,” I said. I also ignored the highly skeptical look she turned on me. “But Frank—”
And of course, that was when my phone rang. “Sorry,” I muttered as I yanked it out of my purse. “Let me just . . .”
I moved to mute the thing, but then I saw the number on the screen.
“Well. Speak of the devil.” Or at least the newspaperman.
I hit the Accept button. “We’re on our way, Frank—”
But Frank wasn’t listening. “Anna, that big meeting you were going to have with Pete Simmons, is it still going on?”
“No,” I told him. “We just finished, why?”
“Well, you might want to start it up again. I finally heard from my source at the accounting firm.”
Uh-oh. “And?”
“He’s sorry he took so long, but a police investigation really complicates everybody’s access to their records and—”
“What did they find?”
Rachael was looking at me. Of course she could hear only half the conversation, but it was not in any way the good half.
“Ramona Forsythe had an account, opened right at the time of her death, with exactly five thousand dollars in it.”
“What?” Oh, no. Poor Rachael. I squeezed my eyes shut. This would break her heart.
“But here’s the thing,” Frank went on. “It looks like Ramona didn’t open it. Somebody else opened it in her name.”
“You can do that?”
“If you have enough information, you can.”
“But who?” Wendy? Cheryl herself? Oh, please. My gaze darted to the passenger seat. Please, not Rachael . . .