Prize and Prejudice: A Cozy Mystery Novel (Angie Prouty Nantucket Mysteries Book 2)

by Miranda Sweet

  “In the kitchen?” Mr. Beauchamp exclaimed. “Why, don’t mind if we do.”

  And, without a backward glance, Jeanette led them out of the room. A moment later, a server appeared to take their glasses and plates.

  Alayna Karner watched them leave. Then her eyes fixed on Angie.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jo said. “That woman has a face in need of a good smack.”

  “Backpfeifengesicht,” Mickey said.

  “Gesundheit,” Angie said.

  “It’s German,” Mickey said, as Jo led them out of the restaurant, “for ‘a face for slapping.’”

  Angie remembered Mr. Beauchamp’s earlier implications that Mrs. Beauchamp had poisoned someone as a nurse. She just hoped that nobody decided Alayna’s face was in need of something worse than a slap. Tensions were rising.

  As bad as the situation was, she realized, it could still get worse.

  Chapter 11

  Turn Down the Volume

  Her phone had two messages on it, one from Walter and the other from Detective Bailey. The volume, she noticed, had been turned off. Angie held out the phone and jiggled it in front of Jo. “Did you, or did anyone you know, steal my phone when I wasn’t looking and turn off the volume?”

  Jo smirked. “I’m not saying I did. But I’m not saying I didn’t.”

  “I’m not saying you’re a bad person. But I’m not saying you’re not a bad person. I had messages from both Walter and Detective Bailey.”

  “What? Are they more important than we are?” Jo put a hand to her forehead and pretended to swoon.

  “You’re impossible,” Angie said. But she noticed that Mickey’s face had fallen. She decided that, when everything settled down again, she’d have to do something to make sure their friendship wouldn’t suffer. Mickey had joshed her into feeling better about his confession, but he was obviously still feeling bad about it himself.

  Later.

  They dropped her off in the parking lot behind the bookstore. She called Detective Bailey first while walking up to the bookstore, which was still open.

  “Ms. Prouty,” he said, “I need you to come pick up the book that was in Reed’s briefcase, read it for me, and report back to me on whether you find any clues.”

  She stopped in mid-stride, putting her foot down heavily and almost stumbling.

  “You want me to read a book for you?”

  “My eyes are swimming and I can’t make heads or tails of it. Besides, I you are the only person on the island who is a certified speed reader. I trust you can read through these love letters better than I can.”

  “You can’t make heads or tails of a bunch of love letters?”

  He sounded relieved. “That’s right. They’re impossible. Written in all this flowery language and I can’t be sure what anybody means because nobody comes right out and says anything. It’s going right over my head.”

  “And—” She’d been about to say, And nobody else at the police station can read? But that wasn’t fair at all—just snarky. Besides, she actually really did want to read the book herself.

  “I apologize, but I have to wrap things up at the bookstore,” she said, switching gears. “Is there any way you could drop the book off here? Or I could pick it up at the station, but it’ll be late.”

  “I’ll drop it off,” Detective Bailey said. “You just stay put until I get there.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, and stepped inside the back door of the bookstore. She hung up her coat, dropped her phone in her pocket, and turned toward the front of the house.

  Walter was standing next to Aunt Margery, looking over her shoulder at something on the computer screen.

  Angie smiled. “Walter!”

  He straightened up and turned toward her, mirroring her smile. As their eyes met, a sense of quiet contentment washed over Angie. It was as if the very sight of him had restored gravity to a world in which she had felt herself free-floating from one disaster to the next. It was too early to decided whether she truly loved him, but the affection and attraction she felt toward him were undeniable.

  Walter swept her up in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry about Reed,” he said. “I know the two of you were close.”

  She settled into the hug with conflicting emotions. One the one hand, she felt safe and calm for the first time since this whole treasure hunt business started, but on the other, the thought of Reed still made her heart ache. She drew in a deep breath and conquered her urge to cry. There was really no point in getting Walter’s shirt wet.

  She finally stepped back. “I…thank you. But we weren’t really close. Reed was so private.”

  She felt like she’d been saying that all day, almost like an apology.

  Walter said firmly, “The two of you were close. You mentioned him several times to me. Just because you didn’t know much about him didn’t mean that you weren’t a friend of his. You were his friend. You were close.”

  His words were strangely validating. It felt almost as if Walter had just given her permission to grieve. “Thank you. You’re right. He was important to me, even if I didn’t know all the details of his life.”

  He hugged her again. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’ve been better,” she said into his chest.

  He stroked her back in sympathy.

  After a moment, she pulled away again and did a quick sweep of the bookstore. There weren’t many customers, but those that were present seemed settled and content. It was peaceful enough that Captain Parfait had come out of hiding and had climbed up into his accustomed spot by the front window. The first few nights that Angie had stayed open late, he had pouted over the change in his schedule. But even he seemed to be adapting.

  She checked on Janet, who was jiggling from one foot to the other in boredom. She had long since cleaned and restocked the café area. Angie suggested that she relocate to the computer in the stock room to identify the software she would need to start designing ad materials for the store, and she broke out in a wide smile.

  “You’re serious about this?”

  “Of course,” Angie said.

  “What’s my budget?”

  “None, yet. I want you to pick your dream software, and then your ‘okay, I can make this work’ backup software and email me with the prices and links and the logic behind your choices.”

  “Okay!”

  Off she went.

  Aunt Margery was working on ordering stock for the week—a task that Angie normally handled. Angie reminded herself that she was making a serious effort not to micromanage, especially when she knew her staff was qualified to do the work. Aunt Margery had a good sense for what readers liked and didn’t like that stretched far beyond her love of Ruth Rendell. It would be fine.

  She turned back to Walter. “Is everything ready for the Gala?”

  “It seems to be,” he said. “Unfortunately, I have no idea whether it really is or not. Everyone smiles at me and tells me that everything is going smoothly and that this whole treasure hunter thing is the best thing that happened on the island, and so on, and I have no idea what’s really going on. I get the impression that there’s molten chaos bubbling just under the surface, about to erupt.”

  She laughed.

  “I’ve never organized anything big before,” he admitted. “It’s a lot more work than I anticipated. I thought I could handle most of this by myself, in between cases at work. Boy, was I wrong.”

  She laughed again. “I remember my first festival on the island. I was a mess. Aunt Margery was ready to kill me…I swear, the Jerritt twins spent more time helping me than they did in their own booth.”

  “But you seemed so organized when I saw you last July,” he said.

  She shook her head. “When that first festival was over, I wrote out a plan so that I would never be that unprepared again. I screw up all the time. I just try not to make the same mistakes twice.”

  “An admirable philosophy,” he said. “I don’t know if I can manage
it, personally. I seem to be making the same mistakes over and over.”

  “Oh?” she said.

  Just then, the back door opened, and Detective Bailey walked in, looking exhausted.

  “Coffee?” she called to him.

  “Yes, please.”

  She checked the coffee pots, but they’d all been cleaned. An Americano it was. She started making it.

  Behind her, she heard the two men talking.

  “Hello, Mr. Snuock.”

  “Hello, Detective Bailey. Are you working on Mr. Edgerton’s death?”

  Detective Bailey paused for a moment, then said, “That I am.”

  “Any new developments you can share?”

  “A few. But I’m just about beat…ask Ms. Prouty about ’em, if you’d like to know.”

  The conversation sounded very stiff, but without sarcasm or rancor.

  “Angie knows everything, doesn’t she?” Aunt Margery said.

  “She sure does, ma’am,” Detective Bailey said. “In fact I’ve come to—”

  If Angie put off pulling the shot too much longer, it would be obvious that she was listening in. She started the espresso machine. The noise wiped out the rest of the conversation. She finished the Americano, put it in a double cup, and looked over at the detective.

  “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Cream, and a lot of it,” Detective Bailey said. “I’ve had a lot of bad coffee in my time, and my stomach gets sensitive these days.”

  She added a generous amount of cream, put the lid on, and handed it over.

  The detective accepted the cup, then handed her the book that she’d taken out of Reed’s briefcase. It was in a plastic bag and had obviously been fingerprinted—there were dark smudges on the clothbound cover.

  “It’s been tested,” he said, “but I’d appreciate it if you read it with gloves on, just in case.”

  “I’m sure I’ve already left fingerprints on this,” she admitted, somewhat sheepishly. She had forgotten to put her gloves back on when she took that second look inside Reed’s briefcase.

  “Sure. Just don’t add any others, if you can help it. I’m already catching crap for letting you read it in the first place. The only way I got permission was to threaten to leave the book with the chief and make her read it instead. Suddenly, I had all the permission I needed.”

  Angie smiled. She just couldn’t see what was so difficult about a book full of love letters. But then again she was a reader, from a family of readers, working as a professional reader selling books for a living. The tables would probably be turned if suddenly she needed someone to pull a license plate number for her.

  “How soon do you need to know if there’s anything in the book?” she asked.

  “The sooner the better, honestly. We don’t have much to go on.”

  Angie nodded, wondering what he was holding back. “Thank you. I’ll get on this right away.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Prouty. And now I’ll be off.” He nodded to all of them, then left via the back door, sipping his coffee.

  Walter said, “He always gives me the impression that he has no idea what he’s doing, is barely listening, and couldn’t care less. But he dealt with Dad’s murder pretty well…I think it’s an act.”

  Angie said, “I’m starting to think so, too. I have to admit he didn’t make the best impression on me when I first met him, either.”

  That night, Angie read the little book of love letters. She kept a notebook and jotted down her impressions as she went.

  It wasn’t easy reading, as a matter of fact, or at least not when she tried to read it through Detective Bailey’s eyes. Aside from the dated language and the fact that each letter was written for one reader in particular, there was a confusing lack of context. Were the couple married? Where did they come from? Who were the other people they referenced? The editor had written an introduction to each letter pointing out juicy bits, particularly well-written lines, and other trivia, but it was rare that those introductions provided any details about the letter writers.

  Angie was almost at the end when a particular passage leapt out at her.

  Ma chère, my beloved, my stranger from another land, I feel as though I have always wanted you, and, having lost you, I will always want you. For the rest of my life, I shall be in longing for you. Do not think that it is a longing that drives me to despair. It seems to color my every waking moment with heartbreak, and yet it is a sensation that I will never, ever relinquish. I adore you, and in not having you, my adoration transforms this entire island into a paradise, the place where I once held you, and loved you, and now is colored forever with the memories I have made with you here. It seems as though the entire island has become a painting, a shimmering wash of color. I look at the water, the boats on the water, and I think of the painting that you have given to me. My world has become that painting. I live in it, in between the dabs of color that shimmer in the summer light.

  It sounded beautiful, although Angie had to wonder how long that particular flavor of romance had lasted. She remembered when she had first fallen in love with Doug, and how wonderful everything had seemed at first. Everything had tugged on Angie’s heartstrings back then. Clouds dappled with sunlight? Romantic. A little kid in a stroller with its parents? Romantic. Small dogs, cappuccino cups, rain, leaves in the wind, the chime of silver on china...everything.

  Maybe these lovers had fallen hard for each other and split apart just before things could go wrong.

  She shook her head. Too cynical. She had to stop comparing everyone else’s love life to hers and Doug’s. He was a terrible measuring stick.

  She read the passage again, then closed the book and riffled through the pages. As expected, the book fell open to the same page.

  It was an older book, published in—she flipped to the front—1963. It was over four hundred pages long. The end of the book gave a few sources, mostly for the most famous love letters (James Joyce had penned one of them, for instance). The editor had written a long-running column in a Los Angeles newspaper in which she had published anonymous and famous love letters. Back in the day, you could send a copy of a love letter to the newspaper, and they’d publish it with the identifying details removed. In the book, the details had been replaced by italicized text and footnotes stating things like, “This name has been changed to protect the identities of the lovers.”

  She read the letter again.

  It started out with a few paragraphs of local news. References to Nantucket and its old railroad caught her eye, but they were written in such vague terms that she wasn’t surprised she had missed them the first time. For instance, one section read: I can only hope that your business has been successfully concluded. I know how much your father depends on you, and of course your contributions to the struggle at hand shall be vital for the success of all of us. The “business concluded” clearly reference the railroad purchase, and the “struggle at hand” must allude to the First World War. The writer’s meaning wasn’t hard to discern when one knew some background information, but without that knowledge, it was nearly impenetrable.

  The subject matter of the letter shifted from news to romance after a few paragraphs. The author wrote of her love for her correspondent and of her certainty of his love for her. She missed him and regretted that she would have to continue with her life as if nothing had happened. Although she wanted to stay in touch with him, it was probably for the best if she didn’t—she could think of no valid excuse to keep up a correspondence with a male acquaintance in another country. The tone of the letter turned wistful. Perhaps at Christmas he could send her a note? But maybe it would be best if he didn’t.

  The end of the letter was increasingly forlorn. The undercurrent of longing throughout the letter now seemed more like pleading. The writer managed to keep herself from openly begging her lover to return, but only just.

  The postscript was brief, saying only that she had moved the painting to a place where it would be hidden and safe from damage, an
d where she could see it once a year on the anniversary of their parting. In a firm tone, she told her lover to ignore what she had said before and never to contact her again, saying that the lover had relinquished all rights to her when he had left.

  She was letting go of him, almost pushing him away.

  It was a sad letter—a prolonged goodbye that began in warmth yet ended coldly. The break in tone between the body of the letter and the postscript was striking, almost as if something had happened in between them—an event that the lady did not directly refer to at all.

  Had she been found out by her fiancé? By a family member? Was the painting found? Did something happen to it? How did this relate to Reed’s search for an art forger?

  She typed up an email for Detective Bailey summing up the book, identifying the letter and in fact typing the whole thing out for him to look at. It wasn’t much, she had to admit, in the way of additional clues.

  Then she read the rest of the book. Nothing else popped out.

  The next morning, Angie opened the store, served her gentlemen their coffee and newspapers and let them chatter themselves out, then closed up again so she could go to the library. She left behind a note that said, “Minor emergency—will return by ten thirty.”

  The library was nearly dead. She was greeted by the longsuffering librarian, who had ample experience with Angie’s research kicks. There had been a time when Angie would come to the library, order a dozen books on a particular subject, and spend all day doing searches through databases for information. But that had been a while ago. Angie had since subscribed to several databases on her own, and she now did more of her book research from the store during off hours.

  Today’s research subject was art forgery. Mickey’s friends were going to get her some information from the dark corners of the modern internet, but Angie was looking for historical information. First, she searched for old news articles about sales of paintings and started making a list of major transactions starting at 1900. Next, she started searches for known sales of forged paintings that had been caught, but quickly hit a dead end. There was plenty of records about legitimate painting sales, but precious little about forgeries. She had to hope Mickey’s friends could cross reference her list of actual transactions and try to figure out when potential forgeries had changed hands.