Deadly Appraisal

by Jane K. Cleland

  Max glanced around the sad-looking room. On Rowcliff’s orders, the caterer’s team had left the tables untouched, and the litter contributed to the melancholy atmosphere. Maisy’s collapse had interrupted dessert, and scores of unfinished apple tarts scattered about had long since hardened. Wineglasses stood partially filled, and crumpled cloth napkins remained where they’d been hastily tossed.

  “Can Josie get this place cleaned up?” Max asked.

  “Yeah, we’re finished with it. I have a video camera with me, and after I get it all recorded, sure, then she can do what she wants.”

  Max nodded. “Okay, then.”

  Detective Rowcliff gave me a long look, then asked, “Did you have a good conversation with Wes Smith?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Talking to the media overnight. No grass grows under your feet!”

  “What are you saying? All I told Wes was that I had no comment.”

  “I guess you don’t subscribe to the Seacoast Star’s instant updates.”

  “I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “ ‘Quick Flash News,’ they call it. It comes via e-mail. The department subscribes, and you’re the big story.”

  He handed over a single sheet, a printout of an e-mail, and Max and I read it standing shoulder-to-shoulder. The headline alone made me feel faint. PRESCOTT INVOLVED IN SECOND MURDER. The article that followed was worse. Wes quoted me over and over again as saying, “No comment.” I pursed my lips, impotent rage lashing me.

  While what Wes wrote was literally true, the article left the vague impression that I knew things I wasn’t telling, and it gratuitously referred to me as a suspect in the murder that had occurred in Rocky Point last year. Mr. Grant had been a potential client and he’d been killed, but to state that I was “involved” in his murder was either grandstanding or incendiary, or both. Damn him.

  Wes ended by stating that maybe it was I, not Maisy, who had been the intended victim, implying that there were good, if unspecified, reasons for his conjecture. The article was intrusive and embarrassing, and I felt utterly betrayed. Stupid me. I’d thought Wes and I had an understanding. I clenched my fists to control myself and turned to Max.

  “If I murdered Wes Smith, not a jury in the land would convict me,” I whispered.

  “That’s probably true,” he whispered back. “Stay cool.”

  To Rowcliff, he raised his eyebrows and asked, “What’s your point, Detective? All she said was ‘No comment.’”

  “She shouldn’t be talking to him at all.”

  “This is a free country,” Max said coldly. “If she wants to talk to a reporter, she can.”

  There was a long pause while the two men stared at each other. My anger faded as I watched them bandy for position. With a smile that edged toward a smirk, Max handed back the printout and asked, “So, what can we do for you, Detective?”

  Rowcliff accepted the paper, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket. “Ms. Prescott can answer a few questions.”

  Max gestured to some chairs near where we stood. “We’ll be glad to answer your questions. Shall we sit?”

  “Sure. Let me get Officer Johnston to take notes again.”

  “Again?”

  “He recorded our conversation last night.”

  “We’ll want copies of all of the notes—yesterday’s and today’s,” Max said.

  “No problem.”

  Johnston took his time getting situated. He was at my left and Max was sitting quietly on my right. I watched as Rowcliff tipped his chair back, eyeing Johnston, mentally hurrying him along.

  “So,” Detective Rowcliff said once Johnston was ready, “have you thought of anyone who wants you dead?”

  Before I could answer, Max asked, “Why do you think Josie might have been the target?”

  “Logic,” he said sarcastically, glaring at me.

  “Could you be a little more specific?” Max asked, his tone neutral.

  Rowcliff stared at him, and from the look on his face, he was considering whether he could eliminate Max from our conversation. After a long minute, Rowcliff sighed, pursed his lips, then pulled them together so tightly, they formed a single thin line.

  “Last night, I knew two things that made me wonder who the target was. Now I have additional information, and I’m still wondering. Nothing I’ve learned indicates whether Josie was or wasn’t the intended target. Which means I need to evaluate all factors and consider both options.”

  “And these factors are?” Max pushed.

  Rowcliff looked at Max, then back at me, unsmiling. He tapped his pencil on the table to a slower rhythm, calculating, perhaps, the likelihood of Max’s allowing me to answer his questions without first giving his foundation for asking them.

  He turned to me and sneered. “I guess I can tell you about it, since we plan on releasing the medical examiner’s preliminary report to the media in about an hour.”

  What a jerk, I thought. Implying that anything he told me would inevitably go straight to the press. I wanted to tell Rowcliff what I thought of him. Then I wanted to hit him, to wipe the derisive smirk off his face. Max cleared his throat and sent me a warning look to keep quiet. It took willpower, but I managed to avoid reacting. I sat on my hands and stayed silent.

  Holding up a finger, Rowcliff said to Max, “One, from all accounts, Maisy Gaylor sipped wine, gagged, collapsed, and died. Most people figured she’d had a heart attack or something. We were able to dismiss that idea pretty quickly.”

  “Why?” Max asked.

  Rowcliff gave a short series of taps with his pencil. “I’ll get there in a minute. But, if it was murder, you don’t have to be Einstein to figure that something toxic was in the wine, so I asked everybody about it. Seems Maisy put her glass on the table near Josie as they were getting ready to announce the auction winners. Well, there was a lot of activity going on, and since both Josie and Maisy were drinking red wine, it got me thinking about whether the glasses could have been switched.”

  As he spoke, I pictured Maisy approaching the table last night. Her tight black dress looked odd, as if she were playing dress-up. Every other time I’d seen her, she’d worn clothes selected more for comfort than style—oversized sweaters, off-the-rack tweed blazers that weren’t cut for her narrow frame, slacks that gapped at the knee.

  I remembered how Walter, her husband, sat stiffly in his chair, watching her with a sour expression. Never having met him before, I didn’t know if he was sulking over something in particular or whether pouting was normal for him. Regardless, I was glad he wasn’t my husband.

  “Is it time already?” Maisy asked as she reached me. “I can’t believe it! The night has just flown by.”

  Oh God, I thought at the time, is she for real? Between missing Ty and making small talk, which I hate to do under the best of circumstances, to me the night seemed endless.

  Rowcliff brought me back to the here and now with a tap-tap of his pencil. He raised a second finger and said, “Two, based on preliminary interviews, which I acknowledge in advance aren’t definitive, absolutely no one wanted Maisy dead.” He flipped a hand. “Everyone seemed bewildered more than anything else that someone would have killed her.”

  “No one even has a suggestion about a motive?” Max queried.

  “Nope. Not a one. Maisy doesn’t seem like a person who generated a lot of heat, if you know what I mean.”

  “I never met her. What was she like?” Max asked.

  “From all reports, she was just what she appeared to be, a middle-aged, middle-class, happily married woman.” He turned to me and asked, “Is that your impression of her, too?”

  “I didn’t know her well, but her husband seemed kind of, I don’t know, dour. Happily married?” I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. It’s early days. Still, with confusion about the wineglasses, and without any hint of a motive, I figured it was worth asking if Josie knew any reason why someone might be after her.”


  Max nodded, following Rowcliff’s reasoning. I felt disconnected from the conversation, as if I were inadvertently eavesdropping on someone else’s situation or watching a movie plot unfold.

  Rowcliff stretched his legs out to the side. “The only out-of-whack comment I heard at all was that Maisy seemed happier than usual. So happy, maybe she was stoned. Right, Josie?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know. The thought occurred to me that something was different, that’s all.”

  Rowcliff raised a third finger. “Which leads to point three. I now know that poison was, in fact, introduced into the wine. And it wasn’t some kind of medication or recreational drug that killed her. No overdose or anything like that. It was homicide all right.”

  “What was it?” Max asked.

  Rowcliff gave a long rat-a-tat, assessing me in some way I didn’t understand. “Potassium cyanide,” he said.

  “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “How awful!”

  “Which you didn’t smell?” Rowcliff challenged.

  “What?” I responded, confused.

  “Other people did—they smelled bitter almonds.”

  “No. I didn’t smell anything.”

  “How come?” Rowcliff asked, his attitude demanding a defense.

  Under his accusatory glare, I felt like a deer in the headlights, frozen in heart-stopping fear, and doomed because of it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I

  shook my head helplessly and turned to Max for guidance. How could I answer a question posed as a negative?

  “I’m not an expert,” Max said, “but I know this much: Not everyone in a circumstance like this smells bitter almonds.”

  Rowcliff shrugged again, unconvinced. “So now I’m focusing on tracking who had access to the wine Maisy drank,” he explained, ignoring Max’s comment. “I’ll have some questions for Josie about that later.”

  “Certainly,” Max agreed politely.

  “The fourth fact,” Rowcliff said, raising another finger, “is a beaut. When Maisy dropped the glass, it shattered, except that a chunk of stem survived, enough for the technicians to identify fingerprints from two people. No surprise, Maisy’s prints were on it, since she was holding the glass.” He turned to face me directly. “The other prints were yours.”

  His point didn’t register. I simply couldn’t assimilate what he was saying. I knew my fingerprints were on file, but I couldn’t understand why he seemed to be speaking with eager anticipation. When I applied for the job at Frisco’s in New York, they’d performed a comprehensive background check, standard operating procedure for new employees before they got access to priceless treasures. And last spring, Ty took them again as part of the Grant murder investigation Wes had alluded to. I thought about what Rowcliff said, but the implications just didn’t make sense.

  “So tell me, Josie,” the detective asked, “how did your prints get there?”

  I stared at Rowcliff and tried to focus. How did my prints get on Maisy’s glass?

  “You mean, how could they have gotten there, right?” Max spoke up.

  “Right,” Rowcliff answered, irritated.

  “Josie owns this place. And I’ve seen her attitude toward details. Presumably, she shifted some of the glasses around as part of the preparation process.”

  “Sure, that may explain it. But maybe she can remember touching that particular glass.”

  “Josie?” Max asked. “Do you?”

  I closed my eyes, recalling the scene again. My assistant, Gretchen, had just delivered the bidding sheets, her long copper-colored hair shining in the golden light. I smiled a little, remembering how much she’d enjoyed being in the thick of it. She always loved celebrity gossip, even on a local scale, so she was completely in her element, happily seeing who did what with whom, when, and how, and noting fashions.

  After Gretchen delivered the sheets, I signaled Britt that we were ready to announce the winners and he notified his two colleagues—Maisy, the Guild representative, and Dora, the Gala event chair—that we were ready for the highlight of the evening. Both Maisy and Dora acknowledged the signals, stood up from their respective tables, and headed our way.

  Maisy arrived first. She placed her half-full glass of red wine on the table near me so she could accept Britt’s proffered hand, and as her watch came into view, I was shocked that it was nine thirty. Nine thirty! I thought again of Ty.

  I opened my eyes, chasing away the depressing memory, and found both Rowcliff and Max watching me. “I’m picturing the events,” I explained.

  “Good,” Rowcliff said. “Do it aloud.”

  I glanced at Max and he nodded permission.

  “Gretchen, my assistant, came to where I was sitting and handed me the bidding sheets. She was really into the evening, having a lot of fun. It was great to see her so into it.”

  “And then what?” Rowcliff asked, hurrying me along.

  “I caught Britt’s eye, and Britt told Maisy and signaled Dora that we were ready to announce the winners. They got up and made their way to the front. Maisy arrived first.”

  “From where?” Rowcliff asked.

  I remembered how disagreeable Walter, Maisy’s husband, had appeared as he watched her flit around the table. “From where she’d been eating dinner,” I said. “She was seated next to her husband, Walter.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “Walter?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied, pronouncing the word Ye-a-a-ah, as if he thought I was as dumb as a doorknob to be asking.

  I held on to the edge of my chair and forced myself to ignore his patronizing attitude. Stick to the facts, Josie, I told myself. Ignore his manner. “Walter seemed pretty gloomy all evening.”

  “In what way?”

  I shrugged. “He looked bad-tempered. He never smiled.”

  “What happened when she arrived up at the front?”

  “Britt said something and shook her hand.” I glanced from Rowcliff to Max and back again. “That’s when she put her glass on the table near me. To shake his hand.”

  Rowcliff was leaning forward, the pencil he’d been tapping on the table unmoving. “And?”

  “And then Dora arrived. She took a little longer to reach us because she stopped a couple of times to chat en route. Britt turned to shake her hand, but she laughed, swept his hand aside with her little black clutch purse, and hugged him instead. She said, ‘I want to get my arms around you, you handsome devil!’”

  “What did he do?” Rowcliff asked, looking revolted at Dora’s playful words.

  Continuing to ignore his attitude, I said, “He chuckled happily and returned her hug.” I shrugged. “It was kind of sweet. The three of them were so pleased, you know? The Gala was on track to be a huge success. It was nice to see.”

  “And then they walked up onstage, right?” Rowcliff asked, disregarding the emotional aspects of the situation.

  “Yes. Britt invited me to join them, but I declined.”

  “How come?” Rowcliff asked, pouncing on my words as if he’d spotted a weakness.

  I shrugged again, embarrassed. “I don’t really feel comfortable in the limelight.”

  A quick rat-a-tat as Rowcliff paused to think. “Who went onto the stage first?”

  “Britt.”

  “Followed by . . .”

  “Dora. But she looked at the winning bids before they went to the stage.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She asked if she could peek before they announced the winners, and Britt said sure.”

  “Where was everyone while Dora was going through the bid sheets?”

  “Standing around. Or sitting around. We all were. We made conversation, you know? While we waited for her to finish.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Silly stuff, actually. Britt asked Maisy if she was ready to lead the applause, and she said absolutely, that she always wanted to be a cheerleader. That sort of thing. Mindless.”

  He nodded and though
t for another moment. “Was anyone else nearby?”

  “No one. I mean, there were other people at the table, but no one else was standing with us, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Did anyone pass by?”

  I thought for a moment. “No. I don’t remember anyone walking by. And I’m sure I would if someone had done so.”

  Rowcliff gave a double tap with his pencil as he thought about what he wanted to say next. “Did anyone approach you or them while Dora was looking at the bid sheets?”

  “No, no one. Except the waiter,” I added, suddenly remembering.

  “Which waiter?” Rowcliff asked, focused and intent.

  “I don’t know his name or anything. He took my wineglass.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I didn’t notice when he took it, but a little bit later, I reached for my glass, and it was gone.”

  “Why do you think the waiter took it?” Rowcliff asked, sounding exasperated.

  “Who else could it have been?”

  “Anyone. Someone at your table. Anyone.”

  “No. Let me explain. Once Dora finished reviewing the bid sheets, Britt led the way onstage and I settled back to enjoy the show. That’s when I reached for my wineglass, but it wasn’t there. I looked around and saw a waiter moving away, his tray filled with plates and glasses and miscellaneous debris.” I shrugged. “I assumed he’d taken it away while I was standing and chatting with Britt and Maisy.”

  “Maybe,” he acknowledged. “Did you try and get it back?”

  “No. All I did was share a little joke with the guy sitting next to me.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Greg. Greg somebody. I don’t know his last name.”

  “You don’t know him?”

  “No, I met him last night for the first time.”

  “Okay. What was the joke?” he asked.

  “Oh my God. It wasn’t that good. It’s not worth repeating.”

  “Probably true.” Rowcliff smirked. “Tell me anyway.”

  I shrugged. “I said that it was a good thing it wasn’t a martini that the waiter scooped up or I would have wrestled him to the ground to get it back.” I smiled at the memory. “Greg was funny. He offered to challenge the waiter to a duel, but I told him there was no need, since it was only wine.”