Chapter 41

Buckingham’s opens at nine o’clock on Saturdays so I slept until seven. After my beach run, I treated myself to a smoothie at Nectar. I was about to pay when I heard a deep voice behind me.

“This is on me,” John said.

I turned to him and smiled.

“And on them,” he continued and pointed to a big table in the back dining room.

I looked and saw Rick, Dayle, Martin, Jerry, Charlie, Lady Anthea along with our entire staff and ran back to them with arms open wide. “I don’t understand. How did you all know I was coming here?”

“We had good intelligence that you were walking this way,” Mason said, pointing at John. “But if you hadn’t come in here, we would have scrambled to go wherever you went.”

Shelby stood and raised her juice glass. “Sue, we will always scramble to go wherever you are.”

I choked back tears because I needed to get something out. “I was so worried about all of you on those paddleboards last night.”

“That’s a trick I taught her,” Martin Ziegler said, when he saw I was about to cry.

I walked around the table thanking each for the role he or she had played in bringing Billy B.’s killer to justice. Then I ordered pancakes. I sat next to John and we talked about what had happened through the night as he had questioned Howard Fourie.

Fourie knew that Rick was Martin’s son. After he killed Billy B., he took the car to Raw-k & Roll, broke in, stole enough dog food ingredients to make it look legit, and left the car there. He thought of that at the last minute, to confuse us, and it had. Fourie wanted Billy B. out of the way before David arrived—and he was coming to Lewes on Monday.

“He knew David would never become the president of his country’s UNESCO commission if it came out who his grandfather was,” Lady Anthea said. “UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. They must be above reproach.”

“He seemed more upset about that than getting arrested for murder,” John said. “Lady Anthea, he mentioned something he heard you say about an Arthur Miller play.”

I lowered my voice so Martin, at the other end of the table, wouldn’t be able to hear me. “That explains the look on his face when he overheard you talking to Martin.”

She smiled and changed the subject. “These large pommes frites are excellent.” She was pointing with a French fry.

“Who tried to break in to Sue’s Thursday night?” Joey asked.

“That was Captain Westlake. He’s under arrest, too. It was part of his deal with Howard Fourie,” John explained.

John put his arm over the back of my chair. “Now you’ve got them all thinking they can solve crimes?”

I just shrugged and laughed. What had I started?

He leaned closer and almost in a whisper, asked, “Sue, what do you want me to do about Martin stealing Wags from Billy B.? You don’t want people going around stealing expensive animals, I’m sure.”

“How would you feel if your last memory of a friend was doing something like that to him? Can we let the crime be the punishment?”

“Okay,” he said.

Over John’s shoulder I saw Julie Berger and David Fourie walking along the sidewalk, his arm around her waist, their heads close. He held Ariadne’s leash with his other hand.

John looked to see what I was staring at. “Things are going to be tough for that kid.” He sounded sympathetic and I smiled.

“Do you think he’ll be terribly disappointed not becoming the South African UNESCO commission president?” Lady Anthea asked.

I shook my head. “Julie said it was never his dream.”

“What is his dream?” John asked.

“She is.” Then I went back to my pancakes. “Can they make it as a couple?” I asked. “Lady Anthea, did that opera have a happy ending?”

“Let me just say that Ariadne auf Naxos has one of the most difficult to sing arias in all of opera. It does have a nice ending, but it takes a lot of hard work.”

John looked at me and then back at Julie and David. They had stopped and he had cupped her face in his hands. They kissed. “Looks like they’re going to try.”

“His father killed her uncle and his grandfather killed so many people.” I turned back around to the table.

John was looking at me, waiting.

“So this,” I said, pointing to myself and then to him, “could be ‘T-R-O-U-B-L-E.’”