The Complete Death Du Jour Mystery Collection

by Hillary Avis

  “I have real consequences, too. I haven’t told my dad about the museum delays because when I do, I’m pretty sure he’s going to cut me off.”

  She touched his shoulder awkwardly. “I’m sure your dad will get over it, even if he’s upset at first.”

  Ryan shook his head, his eyes fixed on the road. “He won’t. I knew that when I made the decision to change direction and include an emerging artists’ wing, I would probably lose my inheritance, but I swear, Bethany, it’s worth it. Partly because it’s the right thing to do for the artists, but also partly because it’s the right thing to do for you. For us.”

  For us? What is he talking about?

  He must have sensed her question or had it himself, because he plowed on. “I know you are freaked out by the whole Lazam thing. So maybe it’s just better to be done with it. If you want to struggle—let’s struggle.”

  “Not too much struggle,” she joked weakly. She was having a hard time wrapping her head around this one. What kind of guy would give up billions of dollars so that his girlfriend would be more comfortable dating him? “You can’t be serious, though. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, but family is important. I should know...I chose my career over my family’s approval, and not a day goes by that I don’t question that choice. I would love to be able to call my mom and tell her about the Railway Café and celebrate with her, you know? But that can’t happen now. I always wonder if I’d played their game a little longer and eased them into the idea, if they wouldn’t have accepted it eventually. But it’s too late. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I have, especially if it’s because of me. We’re barely dating!”

  He drew in his breath. “Ouch.”

  “Ugh, sorry.” She blushed furiously, angry at herself for speaking too quickly yet again. “You know what I mean. We aren’t in a committed relationship or anything. We’re both seeing other people still. We haven’t spent much time together, so it’s not exactly serious...” She trailed off as she saw pain flash across his face.

  “I’m not seeing anyone else.” He braked a little too suddenly as he made a turn into the train station parking lot. Charley’s unmarked police car was parked there next to Viv’s Kia, but Kimmy’s little blue Honda was nowhere in sight. She must still be at the fitting! Who knew it took so long to fit a dang dress.

  Ryan shook his head apologetically as he pulled into an empty space. “Sorry for the sharp turn. I was a little distracted.” She moved to get out of the car, but he grabbed her arm before she could open the door. “Listen. I just want you to know...well, maybe I’m wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  He leaned forward and gently brushed his lips against hers in the softest of kisses. Her heart quickened and goosebumps sprung up on her forearms. He saw them and slowly ran a finger from her elbow to her wrist bone to the tip of her pinky, sending a wave of pleasure coursing over her skin. He shook his head, smiling to himself. “No, I’m not wrong. I’m glad about that. I can tell you’re not ready yet, but I want you to know that when you are, I’ll be here. And I am very, very serious.”

  She sat there frozen for a moment, her heart thudding in her chest. All kinds of questions whizzed through her brain. Serious? What does that even mean? Serious like let’s keep dating? Serious like exclusive relationship, boyfriend-girlfriend? Serious like engagement and marriage?

  She searched his face for the answers, but his inscrutable blue-green gaze held steady.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be ready when you’re ready. Come on, I’ll walk you in,” he said.

  She nodded, blushing, and got out of the car. He was right. She wasn’t ready for that conversation.

  But why aren’t I? Shouldn’t I know my own feelings by now? She sighed, wishing she had the answer, and strode across the wet pavement toward the Railway Café. To her surprise, she found the answer was right in front of the restaurant—Milo Armstrong’s bike was locked to the bike rack next to her yellow cruiser, Daisy.

  Milo wrote the weekly food feature for the Newbridge Community Observer and had met Bethany when he was doing an article about her soup kiosk in the train station, back before she and Kimmy had opened the Railway Café. A fan of her soup, he’d asked her out, and since then, they’d been on a handful of dates, mostly trying out different restaurants in Newbridge. He also happened to be a close friend of Charley’s and fit perfectly into their crew of friends. Plus, he loved cats. She smiled in spite of herself, remembering how he always carried treats for Caboose in his backpack.

  Milo’s not my boyfriend, but he’s not not my boyfriend, either.

  Ryan noticed Milo’s bike at the same time she did. “I wonder what he’s doing here.”

  “He’s Charley’s bridesman. He’s probably here for wedding stuff,” Bethany explained. “Either that, or he’s getting some coffee and a muffin.”

  “You do make good muffins,” Ryan said agreeably. She wondered if he was jealous, but his face had his usual ease. He looked downright relaxed after all the craziness of the morning. Maybe getting his feelings off his chest had helped. Still, she couldn’t help feeling guilty about her own indecisiveness when it came to the two men.

  Inside the café, Milo and Charley sat at a table by the window. Viv was wiping down the counters. She looked up when they came in and waved them over. “Hey, lady! Can you close up? I have to go home and”—she darted a look toward Charley and raised her voice slightly—“study for an exam.”

  Then she leaned toward them and whispered, “Actually, I’m totally pooped from clubbing last night. I have to grab a nap before class this evening. Do you mind if I head out a few minutes early?”

  “Do I mind? After you saved our butts today? Of course I don’t mind! Go, go.” Bethany gave Viv a quick hug. “See you later.”

  Viv hung up her apron and ducked out, blowing a kiss to Charley as she left. Charley caught the “kiss” and put it in her chest pocket. Ryan chuckled as he watched the exchange.

  “What’s so funny?” Bethany asked.

  “I was just trying to picture someone in my family doing that.”

  “I know. They’re so lucky and they don’t even know it.” Bethany sighed.

  “Hey, have a drink with us!” Milo called from the table by the window where he sat with Charley. “Both of you!”

  Bethany smirked as she and Ryan made their way across the café. “Are you really inviting me to have a drink in my own restaurant?”

  Charley pulled a small cooler from under the table. “One of ours. We BYOB-ed it. I figured Kimmy might need a cold one after her fitting, and she’s due back any time. That’s OK, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, now that it’s closing time, it’s fine.” Bethany set her purse down on the table and went to grab a bottle opener from behind the counter. When she got back, Ryan had pulled up a couple of chairs for them. He offered her the one next to Charley and sat next to Milo himself.

  Milo didn’t look thrilled about the seating arrangement, and Bethany didn’t blame him. Who wants to sit next to their girlfriend’s other boyfriend? Milo was probably regretting that he invited Ryan to stay for a drink. And Ryan definitely wasn’t happy, or he wouldn’t have placed himself between her and Milo. She had to say, jealousy didn’t look good on either of them.

  Well, this is my restaurant. If they don’t like being here, they can leave.

  She popped the lids off all the bottles and took her seat. Maybe it was imprudent to drink a beer after the two glasses of wine she’d sipped at lunch, but she needed it to deal with the awkward tension between the two men at the table.

  Charley held up her bottle. “Cheers to love, guys, because without it, I would not be getting through this week in one piece.”

  “Cheers,” they echoed, and Bethany studiously avoided eye contact with both Milo and Ryan as they clinked bottles. She didn’t want either of them thinking too hard about love while they were sitting next to each other. She slugged back her first swallow and the cold beer went dow
n easy.

  “Did you hear about the wedding venue cancelling?” Charley asked.

  Bethany nodded. “That’s actually what Ryan and I were up to today—looking for a new space.”

  “You know the Peregrine Museum I’ve been working on for my family, at the LaFontaine estate up in the hills?” Ryan asked. “There’s a big Victorian conservatory attached to the main house. It’d be perfect for the wedding once we get it cleaned up a little.”

  “A little.” Bethany snorted. She was still a little tipsy...OK, very tipsy. “You mean a lot.”

  He cracked a smile. “A lot. But you have to agree it’s beautiful.”

  She nodded. “It’s beyond, Charley, believe me. It’ll fit all the tables with room to spare, it’s protected from the weather but still has a view...it’ll be gorgeous.”

  Charley’s shoulders sagged with relief. “I can’t wait to tell Kimmy. Thanks, man. I didn’t know what we were going to do. Milo here suggested renting out the Home Plate.”

  “The sports bar?!” Bethany laughed.

  Milo shrugged sheepishly. “Hey, it’s my favorite place, what can I say. I guess my tastes are lowbrow.” He shot an embarrassed look at Ryan, obviously worried about what someone in Ryan’s income bracket thought of his idea. Bethany felt a pang of sympathy.

  “They have the best burgers in town, that’s for sure. No way can they cram three hundred people in there, though,” she said. “It’s pretty cozy. Maybe for Charley’s bachelorette night?”

  Milo grinned. “Not a bad idea.”

  “Ugh.” Charley made a face at her beer. “Do we have to have one? If so, I’m going to need another one of these.”

  “Yes, you have to have one!” Milo elbowed Charley. “What’s the objection?”

  “It just seems stupid to get drunk the night before the wedding. How am I supposed to have the best day of my life with a hangover?”

  “Who says it has to be the night before?” Ryan asked.

  Charley rolled her eyes at him. “Tradition.”

  He smirked. “Right. Your lesbian wedding is super traditional. Better stick to all those rules.”

  “He’s right.” Milo nodded thoughtfully. “Tell you what, I’ll put it together. We’ll go out on Saturday night and have a pub crawl. That’ll give you a whole week to nurse your hangover before the wedding. You can’t argue with that.”

  Charley set her jaw, and Bethany couldn’t help giggling. The best way to get Charley to argue was to tell her that she couldn’t do something.

  “Isn’t a singles night disrespectful to my bride, though? Like my last gasp to hook up or something? I mean, we live together! I can make out with random chicks at a bar!”

  “Actually, Kimmy and I were planning to have her bachelorette party on Saturday, too. We can all go together—no making out required, unless you want to make out with each other. You’re both bachelorettes, right? It’ll be fun!” Bethany smiled reassuringly. “Plus, it’s Halloween that night. We can go trick-or-treating at all the bars in town.”

  Charley made a face again, but Bethany could see her resolve waning as a smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “OK. But I’m not going in costume. I don’t want the last photo of me as a single woman to be dressed as a toilet paper mummy!”

  Ryan and Bethany shared an amused look at the mention of a mummy. Charley noticed the exchange. “What? What is it?”

  “Well...” Ryan hesitated, looking at Bethany for permission to continue.

  Bethany nodded at him to go ahead. “It’s fine. Charley deals with stuff like that all day. It won’t bother her.”

  “Now I’m intrigued.” Milo scooted his chair closer to the table and leaned in. While Milo’s regular column was about local restaurants and food festivals, he always had his eye on another beat—crime.

  “It’s just a dead body, not a murder,” Bethany said. The shocked expressions on Milo and Charley’s faces made her realize that she hadn’t really explained anything, so she rushed to clarify. “I mean, not even really a dead body. At some point, it’s not a body, right? More like a skeleton?”

  Milo and Charley looked even more confused. Ryan laughed, leaning back in his chair. Wiping tears from his eyes, he choked out, “What she means is that we found an Egyptian mummy—a real mummy—in storage at the LaFontaine estate.”

  Charley’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

  Milo narrowed his eyes, his journalistic skepticism showing. “Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of fancy waxwork thing?”

  Bethany nodded. “It was the real deal. Ryan donated it to the Egyptian museum in New Haven. Wild, right? I found it under a tarp. I felt like Indiana Jones, unearthing an ancient artifact in a cave...or a conservatory, anyway. Don’t tell Kimmy that’s where we found it!” she rushed to add, giving Charley a guilty look. “At least not until after the wedding. Then we can all go visit it in New Haven and have a laugh.”

  Charley still looked stunned. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that.”

  “Do you think it’ll bother Kimmy that much?” Ryan asked, glancing at the door as though he thought she might walk through it and overhear him.

  “Well, yes, but it’s not that. It’s just...you’re not going to believe this, but the Egyptian museum brought the mummy to us. It’s in the morgue downtown.”

  Milo had pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and was scribbling furiously in it. “This is good—too good. I can’t believe it.”

  “Why would they do that?” Bethany asked Charley. “Is it some kind of protocol, like the Egyptian museum can’t accept human remains without them being cleared by the cops?”

  “Nope. They said it wasn’t ancient. They could tell just by looking at it.” Charley shrugged.

  “It looked pretty convincing to us,” Ryan said. Bethany agreed, but then again, she was more of an expert on chicken stock than mummification.

  Charley tipped back the last of her beer. “Whoever made the mummy used road salt, not whatever salt the Egyptians used. The museum wonks could tell right away.”

  Bethany frowned. “The mummy was right next to the pile of road salt in the conservatory. Maybe it just got some it while it was there.”

  “They seemed pretty sure. I don’t think they’d dump a real mummy on us down at Newbridge PD,” Charley said. “If they had any inclination it was real, they would have tested it at the Egyptian museum.”

  “That’s true,” Ryan said, nodding. “If it was real, they’d want it in their collection. If they say it’s not authentic, it’s not authentic.”

  “Right, you’re an expert on Egyptian artifacts.” Sarcasm dripped from Milo’s voice.

  “I’m not,” Ryan said stiffly. “But I’m involved in collecting pieces for another kind of museum. I know how important it is for pieces in a collection to be genuine and how much effort we make to establish provenance and authenticity. I hire experts in the field to make sure of it, and I’m positive the Egyptian museum does the same.”

  Milo sat back and Bethany quailed inside at the vibrating tension at the table. She cleared her throat. “So...is there really a dead person inside it?” Some part of her hoped that the bone she’d seen was made of plastic.

  Charley snickered. “Obviously it’s a dead person—that’s what a mummy is. It’s just not old. Like less than a hundred years old, and maybe even less than one. I guess it only takes a few months to mummify someone this way.”

  Bethany’s skin crawled. Who would mummify a person in the twenty-first century? “That’s so creepy! Is there a serial killer operating in Newbridge?!”

  “Nah, no signs of foul play. We ran it through an X-ray machine.” Charley kicked back in her chair. Milo couldn’t hide the disappointment on his face. He flipped his notebook closed and sighed. Charley reached across the small table and patted his shoulder. “Hey now. Don’t lose hope. The coroner is going to have a closer look tomorrow. She might find soft tissue injuries. For now, we’re not investigating it as a murder, though.�
��

  Milo sighed again. “It probably makes me a bad person to wish it was murder.”

  “Probably.” Ryan smirked at him and Bethany rolled her eyes.

  Boys.

  “I’m glad it’s not murder,” she said. “Kimmy definitely would not want to get married at a crime scene. Hopefully she’ll have a sense of humor about the mummy in the venue.’Til death do us part, right?”

  “Do not tell her about it,” Charley said. “Not now, anyway. If she gets any more stressed out about this wedding, she might bail on the whole thing!”

  Bethany elbowed her gently. “She’s not going to bail. She loves you. But I’ll make sure she keeps her stress levels in check, at least here at work.”

  Charley nodded gratefully. “Thanks. I know it’ll bring her levels down about fifty percent just to have a venue booked. If it’s as perfect as you say, I can’t wait for her to see it. Now that the mummy is at the morgue, anyway! Maybe I’ll take her with me tomorrow when I go up there.”

  Bethany thought of grime on the conservatory windows and the acres of dusty piles of stuff in there. Under the table, Ryan grabbed her hand and squeezed, clearly having the same thought.

  “Well, about that,” she said. “We just need a few days to get it cleaned up a little.”

  “At least,” Ryan said. He paused, his forehead creased. “Why are you coming to the estate tomorrow, anyway?”

  “Just following up on the mummy. Even if it’s not a crime, we need to figure out who it is. Someone might be missing him.”

  “Or her,” Bethany added, remembering her earlier conversation with Ryan. That earned her one of his wide, warm smiles. She noticed he still hadn’t let go of her hand under the table.

  Charley chuckled. “Right, or her. I need to figure out how the mummy ended up in that conservatory. I can bring a warrant—unless I have your permission?” The question was directed to Ryan, who snapped to attention.

  “Of course. You can talk to anyone up there you want. The conservatory is always locked and there are only a few people who have keys to the place.”