by Cathy Ace
“Serendipity’s allergic too?” I replied, trying to sound interested. Why am I talking about this—I want to know where to smoke!
“Oh yes, that’s why she became interested in food, I believe. She’s doing some very interesting things with peanut-free recipes for catering companies.”
“Right. She mentioned something to me last night about a range of sauces she’s working on, though I didn’t realize they were peanut-free because she has allergies.” Come on Cait—get to the point!
“Peanut-free, gluten-free, and preservative-free organic sauces. Oh, they’re excellent. She had Colin and myself over to do some tastings and even he liked them, which is saying something. I worry about him so, you know. He seems to live in his own little world, all those weird fantasy things he likes.” She smiled indulgently at the thought of her son.
“Don’t worry. It’s normal. And all it means is that he’s interested in history, mythology, and nice, old-fashioned tales of good versus evil, where a hero is needed. A friend of mine at the university has had a very fulfilling career as a professor of comparative mythologies, and he’s written lots of research papers about the invention of mythologies in science fiction. Colin will be just fine. He’s intelligent, he’s articulate, he’s observant and he’s pretty fit, too, with all that cycling he does. Which isn’t something you can say about all seventeen-year-olds these days.”
By now, Sheri was looking much brighter. Thank heavens, now I can make my break for freedom!
“Speaking of Colin,” I added, “I asked him to get me a drink, which I should collect from him. I wonder if there was anywhere I might be allowed to smoke?”
Sheri smiled. “The middle and bottom decks are the smoking ones. It’s where you’ll find Rob, no doubt, holding court in the sunshine. A friend of his from West Kelowna hitched a ride across the lake with the Souls on their boat. They might still be down at the pier. At least, I’m guessing that’s where he is, because I haven’t seen him for ages.”
Luckily, I spied Raj Pinder near the exit. I managed to grab a glass of sangria, then made eye contact with Bud long enough to make smoking motions to him as I pointed to the decks.
“Just the man,” I said, as I caught Raj by the arm and firmly steered him in the direction I wanted to go. He looked surprised, but didn’t object as I asked, “Could you spare a few minutes?”
“Okey dokey,” he replied, smiling. He followed me as I grasped the handrail of the deck staircase and tried to not look down the cliffside beneath me. “Let me take that,” he said, grabbing my drink.
“Such a gent,” I replied, not taking my eyes off the steps.
“Well, you’re such a lady,” he responded, which might have made me smile if I hadn’t been balancing on kitten heels, on wooden steps, on the side of a cliff. Reaching the deck was a relief, and I plopped into a patio chair, reached into my purse and lit a cigarette. It took about three seconds. I glugged my drink, then I gave my attention to my escort.
“You alright there, Cait?” he asked. I nodded, puffing. “Only, you don’t look too good. Is it the heights that get you?” I nodded, still puffing. “Aye, poor old Annette were much the same. Mind you, she started to come over all queer for no reason at all toward the end. Flat ground or no, she’d get a look about her that said she weren’t feeling well. Maybe that’s how depression can take you, I dunno.”
“You know Raj, you’re a lovely chap. I saw the way you looked at Ellen when she said last night that Bud had come to help her look into who might have killed her sister.” Raj opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped him. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Annette.” Raj was beginning to look alarmed. Frankly, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get on with it.
Putting all niceties aside, I said, “Look, it’s obvious to me that you and Serendipity are a couple, right?”
Raj nodded, “Well . . . yes, but please don’t say owt. Her parents would go berserk. Well, her mother would, any road. It’s awkward. You saw her last night. There’s nowt can quiet that woman when she wants summat.” His Yorkshire accent was oddly calming.
“And what about Annette? Did you and she have a relationship?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.
“What makes you say that?” Raj’s expression signaled even more alarm.
“Raj, you’re an attractive, single man. You and Annette traveled to a lot of the same places, for several years, had a huge amount in common, and she, too, was single, and not unattractive. It’s not beyond the realm of reason to imagine you two getting together, though I’m guessing that the fact that you were competitors in the world of wine might have made it difficult to be open about it.” I kept my voice low. I wasn’t sure how sound might carry against the cliff.
Raj finally nodded. “Okay, but please don’t say owt about that, neither.” He drew close to me and whispered. “No one knows except Serendipity. I told her, but no one else. It weren’t nothing big, just a bit of a fling that didn’t last long, just two events really, one in California, one in Niagara. And that were it. We couldn’t cope with the sneaking about back here and the fact that we couldn’t talk about owt we wanted to. I were at Sammy’s place back then, of course, and there’s stuff as goes on in a winery that you can’t talk about to the competition. We agreed, it weren’t worth it. We broke it off. About six or seven weeks before she died. And, no, I didn’t break her heart. I know that ’cos she and I talked it through.”
“Is that why she left you the winery in her will, do you think?” Plod on with it, Cait. You might not get him alone again. Read him.
“Oh, Gawd. I never expected that, it were a right surprise. I dunno what she were thinking. Floored me. I told Ellen she should argue her case with the lawyers. But no, she says she won’t. I feel terrible about it, but there’s nowt I can do. It’s a brilliant chance for me, but to get it that way? Terrible. I mean, like I said, it weren’t nothing serious. Why would she do it? Lovely girl, woman, but that?”
The closer I studied him, the more I wondered if Raj Pinder was better at controlling his physical self than most people. I pressed on.
“What about the wording of Annette’s will? She tried to entail the share of the business to your ‘firstborn,’ I understand. Why so?”
Raj sighed. Deeply. “None of it makes no sense. I talked to the lawyer about it, the one that Annette sent the will to. He said it all looked perfectly legal, but then he said, in front of me and Ellen like, that, what with Annette killing herself, Ellen could contest the will if she wanted. She might win. He weren’t being nasty to me, or owt. He just said that he thought he should mention Ellen’s options. He also told me that, if I were to keep the inheritance, then I should draw up some papers later on about that weird clause, ’cos it could mess things up if I had more than one kid in’t future.”
Raj sounded bemused more than anything else. I had just one more topic I wanted to talk to him about.
“Stacey Willow?” It was all I needed to say.
“Oh Jeez—you too? Bloody Ellen won’t shut up about that girl. I hardly knew her. Her older brother and I played the odd game of footie—you know, soccer—and she were in the crowd a couple of times when we all had a drink. That were it. Ellen’s hugging me and saying how sorry she is for me that she’s dead. I mean, I don’t have owt against the girl, poor thing, and I’m really sorry for her brother, who took it hard. But Ellen? Nuts. Aye, nuts.”
“So there was nothing between you and Stacey Willow?”
“Nowt. Never.”
I was ninety-nine percent sure he was telling the truth. “Pretty girl?” I asked.
“Oh yes. Very easy on the eye she were,” he replied, smiling wistfully. “So why are you poking about in this, anyway?” asked Raj, finally rallying.
“I promised Bud I’d ask a few questions. You’re top of the list of suspects for killing Annette, because you’re the one who profited from her death,” I said bluntly. He deserved the truth. He looked horrified.
“There’s folks going about saying I’ve killed Annette?” He seemed nonplussed. “No one’s ever said owt to me. Not to me face, any road.”
“Well, they wouldn’t be likely to, would they, Raj?”
“No, I s’pose not,” he replied quietly. “I had no idea.”
“No, I can tell you didn’t,” I said, stubbing out my cigarette. My mind was racing. A few things were beginning to make more sense. Whatever my growing suspicions might be though, I still had to work out how someone could have convinced Annette Newman to sit in the cab of a truck that was gradually filling with exhaust fumes, if she hadn’t wanted to do so.
As he stood, Raj looked at me with his dark, soulful eyes and whispered, “I liked Annette. She were good at her job, she worked hard, she were fun, and we had some good times—you know. But, it’s the real thing with Serendipity. She’s the one, I’m sure of it. We’ve known each other for years, but we never got together until after I left her Dad’s place. Mainly because her mother followed me about all the time when I were there, and it seemed, well, not right, to be going about with her daughter. But we can’t say anything yet. We’ve got to wait for the right moment. So, you know . . . ?”
“I won’t say a word, promise,” I replied, and I twisted an invisible key against my closed lips, tossing it with abandon over my shoulder. Had it been real, it would have hit Colin MacMillan in the face.
“Hey, I brought you that drink!” It sounded as though Colin was shouting, so hushed had been the conversation between Raj and myself.
“Hey, thanks, you’re very kind,” I replied to Colin, waving, unnecessarily, at Raj’s back. “I’ve nearly finished this one. It’s very good. Who made it?”
Colin sat beside me, in the seat that the escaping Raj had vacated. “Mom. She drinks it a lot. It’s organic wine, of course, from SoulVine Wines, and all the fruit’s organic, and local. She even buys local organic gin to put in it from a place in Pemberton, just along the lake. I guess she thinks that makes it a health drink.”
I had a thought. “Colin, you know you said you saw Annette driving home the day she died?” Colin nodded. “What exactly was she doing? You said she was talking to someone on the phone?”
“Yeah, hands free. She always did that. I can show you,” he replied. He turned in his seat to face away from me, so I was looking at the left side of his face. He sat upright and adopted a driving pose. Suddenly he started to flail both of his arms, shaking his head and making exaggerated howling motions with his mouth. Next, he wiped away non-existent tears with his right fist, intermittently flailing his right arm away from me, as he placed his left onto the imaginary steering wheel. It was quite a performance.
“Thanks,” I said. “You saw her from the driver’s side of the truck?” He nodded. “And about how far away were you?”
“Oh, she drove right past me. I was sort of parked, with my bike, just standing there in Anen Close, right next to the sign for the B&B. I don’t think she saw me, though. I was only about five feet away. Her window was open, that’s how I know she was shouting. Oh—and I just remembered something she shouted . . .”
I was all ears. “And what was that?”
“‘So—you’ve never loved me, then—why should I help you?’ That’s what she shouted.”
Very interesting. A lover? An ex-lover? Who needed help?
“Is that good?” Colin was almost panting with excitement and anticipation.
“It might be,” I replied slowly.
I smiled and stood up. “I need to go and get something to eat, now before my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”
We walked up the stairs together, and Bud met us at the top.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he said, smiling enigmatically. “I didn’t want you to miss all the fun.”
“What fun?” I asked, innocently enough. I peered through the glass wall at the area where the food had been laid out, to see Suzie Soul, in her full Betty Boop regalia, hurling a plate of something at Vince Chen’s head. Sammy Soul was trying to hold her back, his Elvis wig askew on top of his bald head, and Serendipity, her little circlet of innocent white flowers now trampled underfoot, was trying to grab her father. Sheri MacMillan and Marlene Wiser both darted toward the airborne plate to try to prevent it from reaching its target. They failed. In the corner, Ellen Newman was sucking her thumbnail and smirking, holding Raj’s arm as he tried to pull away from her, toward Serendipity. The whole scene was even more wonderful because I could just hear the Beach Boy’s “Good Vibrations” above the crashing of the crockery.
“What on earth is going on?” I asked, not really needing to.
“It seems that, after last night’s embarrassment, Vince told Suzie he’d had enough, and she doesn’t agree with him,” smiled Bud. I nodded. “Maybe he thought he’d get away with it easier if he told her in public. Poor guy.”
“Yes, poor guy,” I replied. “Do you think there’ll be any food left when she’s finished? I haven’t eaten anything yet, and I’m hungry.”
Suzie Soul suddenly flung her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him, while he was trying to haul her away from yet another party.
Bud and I walked into the room to see if there was anything left worth eating, just as Ellen tapped her glass with a spoon. I expected some sort of toast, but, no, Ellen had one more lunchtime surprise up her sleeve for us, it seemed.
“Listen up, folks,” she shouted. “I know that last night was quite eventful, and today’s turning out to have its own very special moments, but there’s something I must say. I had a bit too much to drink last night, and I said some things about the death of my sister that I very much regret. I know many of you have now met Bud, and Cait of course, and Bud’s put his considerable experience as a police officer to work. He’s looked into matters, and has convinced me that my poor, dear sister, Annette, really did intend to take her own life. Now I hope that puts paid to any speculation that might have been running around the city, or the industry. I know it’s difficult, but I must accept it. I’m working on that. I feel better now that I’ve talked it through with Bud, so, thank you, Bud, and, of course, thank you Cait.” Then she raised her glass toward the two of us and drank.
Bud’s mouth was open, but I’d managed to clamp mine shut. Our surprise was mirrored around the room. The body language I observed was screaming, “At least she’s come to her senses,” mixed with “Maybe she’s had too much to drink again?” All very telling.
Bud shut his mouth and headed to the bar. “Coming, Cait?” he called over his shoulder.
“Right behind you!” I called back. I followed him as fast as my little kitten heels allowed.
For about twenty minutes, no one talked to us, and we barely spoke to each other, except to mutter about the food. We had decided, after a quick drink, that it was best to graze. The atmosphere was—difficult, despite Sheri MacMillan’s best efforts.
By about three o’clock, most people had already drifted away, and I said to Bud, “Have we got a plan? What are we doing when we leave here? Which, by the way, I think should be soon. We’ve got a dinner at SoulVineFineDine at eight, after all.” I looked at the bowl of sherry trifle I was holding and decided I’d have just one more spoonful before setting it aside. Though I knew I’d have to wrestle with my conscience to put down a bowl that was anything other than completely empty.
Bud looked around, “Caitlin Morgan, I want nothing more than to have some time alone with you. Do you think we could arrange that? We need to talk, Cait. I found out some interesting stuff about the Wisers from Ray and Gloria, over there.” He nodded toward Bonnie, and the man and woman who I still hadn’t managed to meet.
I referenced Ellen’s notes for Bud. “Ah, that’s who they are: Ray Murciano, chef at Faceting for Life Restaurant—originally from Florida, a Cuban-American, now a Canadian. He built a reputation for his Cuban cuisine when he worked in South Beach, Miami—now building another one for his work with organic produce and the Hundred Mile approac
h. Gloria Thompson—a Kelowna born and bred flake, according to Ellen. Most of her notes were a pretty scathing physical description. That said, she does seem to be on the overpowering end of the dress code, but, hey, look at me! She works at the Faceting for Life store. Ray wasn’t here when Annette died, because he hadn’t arrived from the States at that time and, conveniently, Gloria was away on an extended stay at ‘The Gem’ in Sedona. They’re both out of the frame as far as Annette’s murder is concerned. I am guessing they might both be back in it for Stacey Willow.”
“Okay—stop right there, Cait.” Bud sounded stern. “Stacey Willow killed herself. That’s that. Forget her. She’s got nothing to do with Annette. I’ll tell you what has got something to with Annette . . .”
But he didn’t get the chance to tell me, because at that very moment, Ellen pounced and offered to give us a ride to Anen House. Of course we accepted, and we thanked Sheri and Colin on our way out.
As I tottered back to Ellen’s truck, which was now sitting almost alone on the roadside, I had to avoid a pool of yuk on the roadside. Finally, once I’d managed to find all the bits and buckles to secure myself, Ellen took off along Lakeshore Road. It should have taken us about five minutes to get back to the sanctuary of Anen House, and the chance of slipping into some less constraining clothes, but we didn’t make it.
Rounding a bend that swung down a steep part of the road toward the turning for Anen Close, we came up behind a small, orange car, its front end smashed against the cliff face of the hill upon which Anen House stood. Smoke rose up from under the hood. Ellen slammed on the brakes.
“It’s the Wisers. That’s their car,” she shouted. “Oh no! Someone call 911!”
At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said, because at that moment the Wisers’ car exploded, hurling rocks and debris at Ellen’s windshield. Blinded by the smashing glass, Ellen lost control, and the truck skidded into the roadside ditch, all three of us lurching forward against our seatbelts.
The world seemed to stop. I looked around. Bud seemed okay, and we nodded at each other .