The Quiche and the Dead

by Kirsten Weiss

  He broke into a grin. “Frank used to call me that. Damned insensitive if you ask me.” He rubbed his throat. “Cancer.”

  “So it is you! But what was the case? Can you tell me?”

  He stared at the floor. “No case, not really. Frank wanted me to set things right with a relative I have around here. He’d been hassling me for years to return. But I prefer to roam. I’ve got myself a gypsy caravan, you see, and I sell art out of it.”

  “That’s yours? I saw it down by the beach the other day. It’s charming.”

  His white brows drew downward. “It was in a beautiful spot until the damned police drove me off. There’s nowhere to park in this blasted town.”

  “Have you tried the campground?”

  He smiled. “Nowhere free.”

  “Who’s your relative?”

  “I doubt your paths have crossed. And even if they did, it’s too late for the two of us. Too many things were said.” He gave me a look.

  I pulled at my collar, embarrassed. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.” This wasn’t the case Joe had gotten killed over. Charlene had been right, and I needed to step away.

  “It’s not that. You’re a kind young woman, but you don’t know my sister, Emily.”

  “Not Emily Pargiter?”

  His eyebrows shot upward. “You know her?”

  “Yes, she’s been having trouble with trespassers, and Charlene and I—”

  “Not Crazy Charlene McCree?”

  “Um, you know Charlene? Anyway, we were there last week, and Miss Pargiter mentioned you. She said she thinks about you every day—”

  “Probably thinking about throttling me.”

  “I didn’t get that impression. I think she’d love to see you.”

  “What’s this about trespassers?”

  “They’ve been tramping through her yard on a fairly regular basis at night. It’s a little disturbing.”

  “Bothering my sister? Taking advantage of an old lady?” His voice rose to a harsh rasp. His grip on the palette handle tightened.

  And this is where I could have told him the problem was all taken care of. “Yes, it’s terrible what some people will do. The police haven’t been able to do a thing about it.”

  “Cops!”

  “Mm.” I said a silent apology to Gordon.

  “Emily may be a stubborn old b . . . Um, stubborn old woman, but she’s still family. And I don’t like anyone messing with my family.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “I will go see her.”

  “She’s got a space for you to park your caravan. No one would bother you there.”

  He looked interested. “Really?”

  “She has an ocean view and a big yard. Most of it’s on a slope, but a good bit of it is flat, enough for a caravan.”

  “I remember the spot. It’s been ages since I’ve been home.” He rubbed his chin, his palm making scritching noises against the gray bristles. “Perhaps our issues weren’t all her fault. It takes two to tango.... Maybe I have been holding a grudge for too long.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” I said, thinking of Mark. It would be a while before I forgave his betrayal. Messing with my heart was one thing. Messing with my business was a whole other kettle of fish.

  “Frank may have been right to drag me back here. I’m not sure why I was resisting a reconciliation with my sister for so long. I’ll go see her.”

  I slid the pie across the counter. “Good luck!”

  Another case, solved! I was starting to understand Joe and Frank’s enthusiasm for their hobby. This felt great.

  The Whispering Wanderer sloped out of the shop. Two teenagers cruised up to the counter and ordered cherry hand pies. I set them up at the counter, and the mayor walked into Pie Town.

  I hustled to the register.

  Striding to the counter, Mayor Sharp leaned his elbow on it. “I’ve got a meeting tonight and have to bring dessert,” he said. “Have you got blueberry pie?”

  “Sure.” Telling him the price—because I wasn’t going to be stiffed again—I boxed one up. Frantically, I thought up and discarded subtle segues into the going rate of library construction.

  He paid, glanced around. “Business is picking up, I see.”

  “Yes, I may have to head over to the library and get a book to celebrate. The new library is gorgeous.” Ugh. Definitely not subtle.

  “We’re proud of it. I think it’s the best library on the north coast.”

  “The construction cost seemed kind of expensive though. Is that normal for libraries?”

  “The construction cost?” He raised a brow.

  I shrugged one shoulder. “I noticed that a recently built library at a town inland cost a lot less per square foot.”

  “And you’re an expert in construction costs? We should get you elected to the town council.”

  I shoved my hands in my apron pockets. “When you’re leasing per square foot, you start paying attention to those things.”

  “Building on the coast is always more expensive. The infrastructure isn’t as good. Besides, there are added costs to getting the materials out here, as well as bringing the library up to modern environmental standards.”

  “That makes sense.” But the cost per square foot still seemed high. I slid the boxed pie across the counter to him. “Well, it’s an amazing library. Good job.”

  He chuckled. “I had very little to do with it. Thank the library board.” He walked out, the bell above the entrance tinkling.

  Straightening my apron, I looked around the dining area. Loomis rolled a pair of dice with the gamers. Joy stared out the window, sipping a cup of coffee. The teenagers had their heads close together, bar stools swiveled toward each other. The new mothers chatted animatedly.

  This was what I wanted. It wasn’t about the pie—though I loved pie. Pie Town was about the community, people coming here to live a tiny piece of their lives, meet friends, have a good time. I’d been so buried in accounts and the kitchen and making it work no matter what the cost, that I’d forgotten what mattered.

  I swallowed. This community was my dream.

  I wasn’t going to let a killer ruin it.

  Chapter 24

  I walked down a quiet residential street off Main. Nighttime fog shrouded the lush yards, blanketed the cars parked on the street.

  I stopped in front of a house. A flower garden sprawled behind its picket fence, a Mark Jeffreys Real Estate sign beside a camellia bush.

  Mark was up to his neck in whatever was going wrong in San Nicholas. He’d been involved in shady deals with Antheia, who was dead. He was on the board of a library, the construction of which appeared to be at best grossly mismanaged, and he was smuggling contraband plumbing supplies. How to reconcile that person with the man I’d thought I’d loved? Had my judgment been so wrong? Or was Mark playing out of his depth?

  We had to talk.

  Light from the front windows flowed across the porch. Like me, Mark’s place of business was also his home. Unlike me, he slept upstairs in a converted attic. Lucky dog.

  My footsteps clunked on the porch steps. I rang the bell and waited, shuffling my feet, tightening my fists in the pockets of my Pie Town hoodie.

  The door jerked open. Mark frowned down at me, his blond hair ruffled, blue eyes snapping. The sleeves of his blue sports shirt were rolled up, the collar undone.

  “Mark, we need to talk.”

  “Thank God,” he said at the same time.

  We both stared at each other. “What?” we asked in unison.

  “You go first.” Confusion muddled my brain. Whatever I was going to say next was probably going to be awkward and embarrassing and painful.

  “You’ve got to get rid of her,” he said.

  “Get rid of whom?” My eyes narrowed. “And what do you mean by ‘get rid of’?”

  “That woman who wears a cat as a scarf.” He opened the door wider and stepped backward, into the receptionist’s area.

 
; Cautious, I edged inside. What did he mean by ‘get rid of’? “You mean Charlene?”

  “Val!” Charlene appeared in the doorway to Mark’s office, her cat draped about the shoulders of her turquoise-colored tunic. “What are you doing here?”

  I stopped midstride. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve just come from Pargiter’s,” she said. “Her brother’s there.”

  “He is?” I’d done it! They’d reconciled.

  “They’re fighting like two caged rats.”

  A despairing noise escaped my throat. “They are?”

  “I’ve never seen Pargiter so happy,” she said.

  “She is?” I rubbed my temple.

  Charlene turned on Mark. “Which is why he has to go.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said.

  “You, Val, make people happy. You sell pie! You solved the Pargiter problem!” She stabbed a finger at Mark. “And you, sir, are a realtor.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  And I still didn’t get it. “In fairness, there’s nothing wrong with realtors.”

  She shook a gnarled finger at him. “There isn’t room in this town for the two of you. The way I see it, you’ve got three options. One, confess to your crimes so you both can have a clean slate and move on. Two, leave.”

  “What’s the third?” he asked.

  “I forgot,” she said. “But it will come to me in a minute. You can practice real estate anywhere. Pie Town is for San Nicholas.”

  “Val can open Pie Town anywhere.”

  “No.” Straightening, I set my jaw. “I can’t. But Charlene’s right. You need to tell us what’s going on, what’s really going on. Four people are dead.”

  Clawing a hand through his hair, he collapsed into one of the faux leather waiting room chairs. It thunked against the wall, rattling a framed watercolor. “What are you talking about?”

  “Where was Antheia getting the money to buy real estate?” I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear what Mark had to say.

  “How should I know? It was none of my business.”

  A rivulet of sweat trickled down my back, and I unzipped my hoodie. “It should have been. Her practice was dwindling, and she never charged much. Someone told me she swindled her elderly clients by buying their homes at a below-market rate, and then selling the homes on for a big profit.”

  “Hey,” Mark said, “I wasn’t involved in her real estate purchases. She paid cash and knew how to write her own contract. I only assisted with the sales.”

  “So where did she get the cash?” I asked.

  “She sure didn’t get the money from her husband,” Charlene said. “He spent the last ten years making wire jewelry nobody wanted.”

  “Did she get the money from the library board?” I leaned one hip against the receptionist’s desk.

  “There’s NO MONEY on the library board,” Mark roared. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Maybe not on the board,” I said, “but there was in the bond. Were you aware that the cost per square foot for our new library was 1,250 dollars? It shouldn’t have been more than 350, tops. Where did all that extra money go?”

  “It’s an award-winning building design, and it’s LEED certified!”

  “Lead? What kind of a name is that?” Charlene asked.

  “LEED,” he said. “A sort of environmental accreditation. It’s an acronym, and don’t ask me what it stands for. Why am I even bothering to explain this to you? Heidi told me I should avoid your negative energy.”

  “She also told you your totem animal was a white leopard,” Charlene said.

  “How do you know that?”

  Charlene sneered. “You posted it on Twitter, you git.”

  “That was private!”

  Heaving a sigh, Charlene readjusted the sleeping cat around her neck. “If you hit reply, everyone sees it. How can someone your age be such a Luddite?”

  He glared at me. “Get. Rid. Of. Her.”

  “As a realtor,” I said, “you must realize that the price per square foot on that library is way too high. Where did the money go, Mark?”

  “Look,” he said, “I saw the books. They’re open and transparent. It might have been expensive, but everything went to the building contractors.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “The construction was before your time.”

  “Because I saw the contracts! Besides, the town council has oversight over the library board. It also had oversight over the bond measure, because the city will have to repay the bond.”

  “I want to see those books,” I said.

  “No way.” He crossed his arms.

  “I thought they were open and transparent,” I said.

  “Not to the general public,” he said. “If you want to see them, join the library board.”

  Neck cording, I jolted away from the desk. My shoulder brushed a hanging fern, setting it swinging. “Antheia and her husband are dead! Joe and Frank are dead! And you tie to all of them.”

  Charlene laid a hand on my arm. “Forget it, Val. We’ll have to go to plan B.”

  “Great,” Mark said. “What’s plan B?”

  “You think environmental certification is hot stuff?” Charlene asked. “Because plan B is where Val and I blow the whistle on your environmentally incorrect smuggling operation. We’ve seen your storage shed.”

  He squared his chin. “I can have that cleared out in an hour.”

  “But a cop has already seen it,” Charlene said, “hasn’t he, Val?”

  “Actually,” I said, “yes. One came by last night when we were getting my stuff out. He saw everything, though he didn’t realize what it was at the time.”

  “And you didn’t tell him,” Mark said.

  “Not yet.” Charlene’s voice hardened. “Now, what’s it going to be? Are you going to show us those books, uncensored, or do we blow your high-flow toilets wide open?”

  “It’s a petty regulatory crime! It’s plumbing!”

  “But it’s enough to knock you off your pedestal at the library board,” Charlene said. “And enough for you to lose your real estate license, I think.”

  “That’s my livelihood!”

  “You didn’t give much consideration to Val’s livelihood when you tried to shut down Pie Town,” Charlene said.

  I blew out my breath. “He didn’t try to shut down Pie Town. We got some bad publicity because of Joe’s death. . . .” I faltered.

  Mark studied the tips of his polished shoes.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “That newspaper article by your old school buddy—you didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”

  He leapt to his feet. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Val.”

  “Oh, my God, you did!” I could always tell when he was lying, because he wasn’t very good at it. “Did you encourage Heidi to put that Sugar Kills sign in her window too?”

  “No. She really believes sugar kills.”

  Charlene stepped closer to him, her eyes narrowed to slits. “We’ll see those books now, boy-o.”

  “Val?” He shot me a pleading look. “You must see that this is wrong.”

  “We should get to the library before it closes,” I said in a voice I didn’t recognize. “That is where the accounts for the construction work are kept, isn’t it? Or are they at city hall?”

  He ran his palms over the thighs of his khakis. “The library.”

  “I’ll drive,” Charlene said.

  * * *

  Charlene and I strode into the library, Mark trailing reluctantly in our wake.

  The librarian stopped riffling through a set of keys and looked up from the front desk, his expression pinching. In his black suit, he resembled a funeral director more than ever. “Mark? What are you doing here? We close in five minutes.”

  “Sorry about that,” Mark said. “Pie Town’s thinking of sponsoring our next fund-raiser, and I wanted to get some materials for them from
upstairs. Ladies, you’ve met our librarian, Hunter Green.”

  “Hi again.” Taking my hand out of my hoodie pocket, I waggled my fingers at him.

  The librarian looked at us askance. Charlene and I probably didn’t look like typical donor material. “Ah, certainly,” he said. “I’ve got to lock up. Go ahead and tell one of the staff members when you’re done, so they can let you out.”

  “Thanks, Hunter.” Mark clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, ladies.” He led us up the open stairs.

  “That librarian’s likely behind it,” Charlene muttered. “He’s not from around here, and no one who looks that much like a forties-era vampire can be a simple librarian. I’ll bet he’s got a collection of wax figures stashed in the basement.”

  “You’re thinking of Vincent Price,” I said, “and that movie House of Wax.”

  “Vincent Price was such a lovely man. I ran into him once in Sears. ‘Pardon me, dear lady,’ he said. To me!”

  Mark’s gaze flicked upward in exasperation. “What is wrong with you two? Hunter has a PhD in library science and has been living and working here for five years. He can’t help how he looks. And how long does someone have to live here to be from around here?”

  “Just show us the books,” I said beneath my breath, “and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “I want to believe that. Why don’t I?” He headed through the second-floor stacks.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I whispered.

  “It means you should have left after we broke up. It means I see you everywhere around town, and now you’re next door to my new girlfriend’s gym. How am I supposed to get in a workout there, knowing you could pop up any minute?”

  My nostrils flared, my breathing growing loud. “That’s your problem. You were the one who helped her take out the lease.”

  “What was I supposed to say? Don’t lease that space, my ex-fiancée owns the pie shop next door?”

  “Well, you didn’t have to tell her to go ahead and lease it because I was leaving!” I forced myself to take calming breaths. The library was still open, and if I kept going, I’d hit top volume pretty quickly.