Chapter 12

“And then what happened?” Fee demanded. “Don’t leave me fluttering in the wind here.”

“Then Tilly ran after her as if she thought Mary was going to report her to Bronson,” I said. I glanced at my friends. “I think she did it. I think Tilly poisoned her husband or maybe she got her lover to do it for her.”

We were upstairs in the apartment Viv and I shared above the shop. Nick was in the kitchen, cooking dinner with Andre acting as his sous chef. Viv, Fee and I were watching them work, helping them in the best way we know how—by staying out of their way. Chicken Balti curry was the dish, and Nick was elbow deep in the spices he used to make it, which smelled like a slice of heaven, while Andre was chopping vegetables and making rice.

Harry had taken Aunt Betty and Freddy home so that she could get started on his grooming for tomorrow. I glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. I knew he was bringing Alistair with him on his way back, but I hadn’t had the nerve to mention this to Viv or Fee. I had no idea how this was going to roll out for my friends, especially if we were entering some weird triangle where Alistair liked Viv but Fee liked Alistair and Viv was resistant to liking anyone. I started to have flashbacks to middle school, which for the record were not my favorite years.

“Now, let me get this straight,” Nick said. He paused to sprinkle more spices into his very large skillet, before asking, “Swendson cut his hot young wife out of his will?”

“Not completely,” I said. “He did leave her the half-built castle and a mountain of debt.”

“Sounds like he left her a millstone around the neck,” Andre said. “That could be enough to make someone commit murder.”

I couldn’t argue with his assessment since Harry and I had pretty much concluded the same thing earlier.

“Hoping she would drown?” Viv asked.

“Sure sounds like it,” I said.

“But if she’d known, wouldn’t she have tried to get him to change the will before she killed him?” Nick weighed in.

“Maybe she did and maybe he refused, so she offed him in anger,” Fee said. She sipped her glass of chardonnay and pondered the possibilities.

“Poisoning isn’t really a crime of passion,” Viv said. She tapped her forefinger on her chin. “It’s more methodical, don’t you think?”

“Agreed,” Andre said. “It’s not like clobbering someone upside the squash with a candlestick in the heat of an argument.”

“True,” I agreed. “Either way, she’s very much a suspect because she was having an affair and she did inherit the castle.”

“Are you talking about Tilly Swendson?” Harry asked as he entered the main room of our apartment with Alistair right behind him.

The two of them shed their coats, scarves and gloves. They were both dressed down in jeans and sweaters. Alistair pulled the knit beanie off his head and I saw Fee straighten up beside me. I glanced at her face and saw her grinning at Alistair. Viv was frowning, glancing between Fee and Alistair, and I wondered what she was thinking.

Harry swooped in and kissed me quick, reaching behind me to grab a slice of naan, the bread Nick was prepping to go with dinner. Without looking up from his skillet, Nick slapped Harry’s hand away.

“Samosas are over there.” He pointed with a wooden spoon at the triangular stuffed pastries at the end of the counter.

“Oooh.” Harry left me for the tasty pastry. Completely understandable. I’d already had three.

“How is the curry coming?” Andre asked Nick. “I’ve got fifteen minutes left on the rice.”

“Adding the chicken now,” Nick said. His face was turning bright pink from the heat steaming up from the skillet. He dumped a huge bowl of cut-up chicken into the pot. The sizzle was loud and the pungent smell of the curry filling the air made my mouth water.

I turned away to see Alistair hovering over the samosas with Harry. Fee broke into their twosome with a smile up at Alistair and said, “Oy, save some for the rest of us.”

Alistair smiled at her and then held one out to her. Instead of taking it in her fingers, Fee parted her lips and Alistair fed the samosa to her. It seemed a surprisingly intimate moment between two people who were not, as far as I knew, a couple. I felt my eyebrows fly up to my hairline and I turned to see what Viv made of all this.

Her face looked completely devoid of expression. That was how I knew she was upset. Viv can put her emotions on lockdown like no one I know. In fact, the stiffer she became the more upset I knew she was. When she lifted her wineglass to her lips, her movements were positively robotic, indicating she was not happy.

“Viv, Scarlett, how about you two set the table?” Nick asked.

“Fine,” Viv said. She seemed relieved to leave the tight space of the kitchen.

“Making us work for our supper?” I teased. I took a last sip from my wine. The light fruity chardonnay tingled on my tongue.

Nick glanced from me to Alistair and Fee, who were giggling at each other, to Viv on the other side of the room.

“More like trying to keep my dinner from being upstaged by any drama,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “Good call.”

I swiveled on my chair and hopped off it to join Viv in the dining room. She was doling out the silverware, so I grabbed a stack of plates from the buffet table against the wall and began to set them at each place. The plates were a mismatched collection of china we’d inherited from Mim and added to from finds at the Saturday market on Portobello Road. There wasn’t really anything that unified the plates except for the fact that they were all bone china and we ate off them.

Mim had always served us regular dinners on her mismatched fine china, saying, “What is the point of having nice things if you never use them?”

Our silverware was the same, a random collection of stainless steel pieces that we had collected as needed. I liked to think that whatever our table looked like to a guest, “boring” would be the last word that leapt to mind.

“So,” I said. Viv ignored me.

“Well.” I tried again. She still ignored me.

“All right—” I began but she interrupted me.

“Stop.” She held up one hand, still holding a fork, as if she could physically deflect any words I might say. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?” I asked. Yes, because I’m relentless like that.

“Them. For the record, I don’t care, not even a little.” Her voice was a low growl and she jerked her head in the direction of Fee and Alistair. I glanced at the twosome.

They stood by the counter, smiling at each other and chatting. There was a definite chemistry there as they looked into each other’s eyes with obvious interest. Fee’s color was heightened and Alistair’s eyes sparkled. He looked happier than I’d seen him in a long time.

In my heart, I had always felt like Alistair belonged with Viv but if she wasn’t interested then good for him for moving on. Unrequited love is the absolute worst, in my opinion. And good for Fee for not letting a good man go to waste. They’d probably be very happy together.

I tried to tell myself this, except when I glanced over at Viv she looked anything but immune to what was happening. In fact, from the way she was biting her lip, I got the distinct impression she was perturbed by the couple. Huh.

Fee tipped back her head and laughed at something Alistair said. Her corkscrew curls bounced and her long neck was exposed as she leaned back, placing her hand on Alistair’s forearm to keep her balance. My gaze darted back to Viv. She was putting the silverware down with a bit more force than was necessary. Quite a bit, in fact.

I heard Alistair burst out laughing. He and Fee were leaning against each other, sharing a laugh and looking as if they’d forgotten the rest of us were even there.

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Viv said. She dropped the last of the utensils on the table with a clatter, and stomped out of the room to her bedroom. She had taken over Mim’s old room, on the far side of the living room, while I still had my old room upstairs. Her door slammed with a resounding bang.

Harry joined me at the far end of the table, where I began to fold the cloth napkins into neat rectangles. He leaned close and said, “What do you suppose that is all about?”

He motioned at Alistair and Fee with his head and I shrugged. “She did ask Viv the other day if she fancied him.”

“Did Viv say ‘no’?”

“Not so much no to Alistair as no to anyone,” I said.

“Well, maybe Fee and Alistair are a good fit, then,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced. As soon as Viv’s door shut, I watched Fee step back from Alistair and the two of them glanced at Viv’s closed door and then exchanged a sly knuckle bump. Oh, those crazy kids, what were they up to?

I glanced at Harry to see if he’d seen this exchange, but he had abandoned me and was back at the counter, harassing Nick and Andre while they cooked. Nick slapped his hand away from the naan again and Harry looked pouty. Men and their food, honestly.

“Dinner is served,” Nick announced. He dished up the chicken in a large Balti bowl and led the procession of food, with Andre bringing the rice and a vegetable dish, and Harry carrying the naan, to the table.

We all took our seats. Alistair and Fee sat together on one side while Harry and I took the other. As the chefs, Nick and Andre each took the ends of the table since they were presiding over the meal. The lone seat left was for Viv, next to me, right across from Fee and Alistair. Oh, boy, this was going to be interesting.

“Should I call Viv?” Nick asked.

“No,” I said. “She said she’d be right back. I’m sure she’ll just be a minute.”

We all began to pass the food around and Nick, who was refilling everyone’s glass of wine, looked at Alistair and said, “Okay, let’s hear the goss, Al. You’re the closest to this whole Swendson thing, so do tell. Did Tilly whack her husband?”

“Al?” Alistair’s eyebrows rose. He looked at Harry, who was laughing, and asked, “Did he just call me Al?”

“I think it’s cute,” Fee said.

“Oh, that’s a what a grown man wants to be—cute,” Alistair said.

He grinned and leaned into Fee in a teasing way. Just then Viv came back into the room. She stagger-stopped at the sight of them sitting side by side and I saw her visibly compose herself, running her palms over her hips before she continued. I could see a shadow of hurt in her eyes, so I jumped into the void, as one does, to distract from her arrival.

“I don’t think ‘Al’ is cute,” I said. “Maybe it’s my American roots but I always think of Al as a gangster’s name.”

Alistair squinted one eye and leaned on the edge of the table with one elbow. “‘So, I make you laugh, I’m here to amuse you?’” he asked in a spot-on Goodfellas accent.

I laughed, ignoring how stiffly Viv sat next to me. Without acknowledging any of us, she began to fill her plate. Harry, not one to pick up on vibes, leaned around me and asked, “All right, Viv?”

The smile she gave him was as vacant as a doll’s. It was rather creepy, in fact.

“Of course,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Harry said. He sat back with a shiver.

I leaned against him for just a moment but then the Balti curry was coming around and it smelled so good. All thought of my squad and their drama fled as I loaded my plate before handing the bowl to Viv.

Harry was clearly as starved as I was and he tucked into his food, swabbing up the curry with a slice of naan. Andre was doing the same but he hadn’t lost the thread of the conversation and turned back to Alistair.

“Have you learned anything from the police, Al . . . istair?” he asked with a grin.

Alistair waved his fork at him in mock warning and then dabbed his mouth with his napkin, before he said, “If they know anything, they are keeping it very close to the vest.

“Technically, anyone who was at the dog show from the time of the cocktail party through the next morning is a suspect,” Alistair said. He glanced at me and Harry. “That includes you two.”

“But that makes no sense,” I said. “Why would we harm Gerry Swendson?”

“To get revenge for Aunt Betty,” Alistair said.

“Revenge for what?” Harry asked. He took a sip of wine before continuing. “Because of a bad batch of dog food? It’s not like anything bad happened to Freddy.”

“Murder does seem a bit extreme,” I said. “Besides, isn’t there already a lawsuit pending of people who are actively trying to take Swendson down over the quality of the dog food? Why wouldn’t we just join that?”

“That lawsuit has been kept pretty hush-hush,” Alistair said. “And I don’t think your revenge would be over last year’s dog food so much as the fact that Swendson tried to have Aunt Betty banned from competing this year.”

“Yeah, I did feel a little murdery when I found her looking so sad and stuffed in the corner by the registration table,” I admitted.

“The fact is, they don’t know what poison killed Swendson yet,” Alistair said. “When they do, they’ll be able to start scrutinizing suspects more closely. According to Gerry’s sister, Mary, he had no known allergies and he wasn’t on any medication, so it had to be something that is fairly lethal since it appears he died quite quickly.”

“Do you suppose that’s why he was stuffed under the dais?” I asked. “Maybe his murderer didn’t account for how fast-acting the poison was and they had no choice but to stuff him under the dais to hide him until his body could be disposed of properly.”

“This is charming dinner conversation, I’m sure,” Viv said. She pushed a piece of chicken across her plate.

I glanced at her, trying to determine if she was joking or not. Judging by the frown that was curving her mouth down, I was going to guess not. But I wasn’t sure it was the conversation that had put her into such a foul mood. Hmm.

“It’s no different than what we usually talk about,” Fee said. “Is something wrong, Viv?”

Fee tipped her head to the side, specifically Alistair’s side, and he looked charmed that her curls brushed his face. Viv glowered. I swear, I felt like I was watching a crazy person poke a bear with a stick, meaning Fee was the crazy person and Viv the bear. Not flattering to either of them but that didn’t make it not true.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Viv said. “I just find the incessant talk about murder tiresome.”

“Tiresome?” Nick cried. “Surely you jest.”

One of Viv’s eyebrows went up. I knew this look. This was most definitely her no, not jesting look.

“I mean, look at the suspect list,” Nick said, clearly ignoring Viv’s desire not to talk about the murder. “You’ve got the young drunken wife, trying to get away with murder so she can take off with her lover—speaking of which, do we know who that is?”

“No,” I said. “I asked a few of the people involved with the dog show but either they don’t know or nobody is talking. I’m betting Liza Stanhope knows. She seems the type to know everything about everyone. Too bad she’s taken such a dislike of me and Freddy.”

“Why do you suppose that is?” Nick asked.

“I get the feeling she doesn’t like corgis,” I said.

“What?” Andre asked. He sounded appalled. “Who doesn’t like corgis? They’re like the comedians of all the dog breeds.”

“Liza Stanhope doesn’t,” I said. I turned to Harry. “Don’t you agree or do you think it’s Aunt Betty that she dislikes?”

“Well, that’s even worse,” Nick said. “How could anyone not like Aunt Betty? She’s adorable.”

Harry smiled. “Well, she can be a bit tenacious. She’s wanted to win this dog show for four years and she has no trouble badgering people when she doesn’t think things are being run properly.”

“Like with the dog food?” I asked.

“Swendson was furious with her,” Harry said. “I know it’s why the detectives are still looking at her.” He exchanged a glance with Alistair and it wasn’t hard to see that they were worried.

“But the fact that Swendson was found dressed in his clothes for the day and that Aunt Betty was with us all morning gives her an alibi, doesn’t it?”

“That depends upon whether it was a fast-acting poison or not,” Harry said. “If it was a slow-acting poison, it could have been administered the night before during the cocktail party. That she was having a tiff with him at the party looks bad.”

“But that makes no sense,” Fee said. “Why would she have a public spat with a person she was planning to murder, yeah? If she was guilty, she wouldn’t have brought attention to herself like that.”

“Exactly what I said,” Alistair said. His look was full of admiration. “Beautiful and smart, too. You’re the thinking man’s crumpet, Fiona Felton.”

Fee’s face got heated and she glanced down at her plate as if embarrassed. I glanced at Viv. Now she was stabbing bits of chicken with her fork as if they’d done something to offend her.

“The police seem to think Aunt Betty’s intake of gin might have had something to do with her lack of discretion,” Harry said. “So, even though it would seem unlikely that she would draw attention to herself, they’re not ruling her out, not by a long shot.”

“That’s rubbish,” Andre said. “They’re grasping at straws. Anyone can see that the real killers are Penelope and Jasper Young.”

My head whipped in his direction. This hypothesis totally worked for me since I loathed those two, but it needed to be fact-based. “How do you figure that?”

“Because they’re horrible people,” he said. “I think they’d poison the lot of us just to win that stupid crystal bowl.”

I laughed. The assessment was certainly apt. Then I remembered that Penelope had said she was going to have to tell DI Bronson what she had overheard, and it was clearly about me. I wondered if I should mention it to the others. Probably, but I didn’t want anyone to get upset.

I glanced to my left to see Viv ripping her naan into small pieces. Okay, I didn’t want anyone to get more upset than they already were. She was actively avoiding looking across the table to where Alistair and Fee were nudging each other and smiling. A closer look and I could see that the look on Viv’s face was one of misery.

I was torn. On the one hand, when I thought about the fist bump I’d seen Alistair and Fee exchange earlier, I was pretty sure they were doing this to nudge Viv, which she deserved for keeping Alistair dangling for so long.

But on the other hand, if I was wrong and in fact Fee and Alistair were really becoming a twosome, then I couldn’t deny them the happiness they were finding, and as their friend, I wanted to be happy for them. But coming full circle, Viv was my cousin and she’d been through a rough time. If she felt anything for Alistair, I wanted her to have that opportunity. The tension running across the table from Viv to Alistair felt like a live electric wire. Not knowing what to do, I opted to drink my wine, because wine makes everything better.

“Who else is considered a suspect?” Nick asked. “We’ve got the young wife, the ambitious dog owners, the people who’ve filed a lawsuit against the company, Aunt Betty, who else?”

“What about his sister?” Viv asked. She must have realized the murder talk wasn’t going to go away. “Mary Swendson was more than his sister, she was his business partner, too.” She glanced up at Fee. Her stare was hard and flat. “When you share something like that it’s a bond. It requires complete trust. Maybe Gerry did something to betray her trust and she killed him.”

Fee quirked one eyebrow up and met Viv’s stare. “He betrayed her trust? He’s the one who’s dead, yeah? Seems to me, killing your brother who is also your business partner is a bigger betrayal of trust than anything he could have done to her.”

“Well, we don’t know much about their business, do we?” Viv asked.

“Actually,” Harry said, but I put my hand on his arm, signaling for him to stop.

“A business relationship is a fragile thing,” Viv said. “Spending day in, day out with the same people, you think you know them but maybe you don’t.”

“Yeah, maybe you don’t,” Fee agreed. “Maybe there are things more important than business that have to be taken into account.”

The two women were staring at each other. I noticed everyone was glancing from them to me as if I was supposed to do something about this. I’m sorry, did I look like I was wearing referee stripes or carrying a whistle? That was a big “hell no.” I wasn’t going to get into the middle of this mess. I’d either lose a friend or a cousin or both. Nope. I was just going to keep my mouth shut.

“I guess sometimes people just surprise you,” Viv said. She took her napkin off her lap and dabbed her mouth. Then she tossed it onto the table and rose from her seat. “Thank you for dinner, Nick, it was wonderful.”

“I can see that by the way you’ve cleared your plate,” he said.

Viv had created some sort of portrait art, using the rice and chicken and bits of ripped-up naan. I wasn’t sure but it reminded me of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

“If you’ll all excuse me, I’m not feeling very well,” she said. She reached out and patted Nick’s arm and then went to pick up her plate.

“Don’t,” I said. I shooed her away from the table with my hand. “Go rest. I’ll wrap up your dinner so you can finish it later if you get hungry.”

“Thank you,” she said. She left the room, calling over her shoulder, “Good night, everyone.”

We all called after her and I glanced at Alistair and saw him watch her leave the room. His eyes looked shadowed with regret but Fee leaned into him and whispered something I couldn’t hear. He gave her a small nod and then turned to Harry.

“What do you think our chances are against the Black Hornets, mate?” he asked.

My beloved launched into a very windy monologue about the Hornets’ strengths and weaknesses versus their own team’s. As riveting as this was, I excused myself to wrap up Viv’s dinner. I picked up her plate and brought it to the kitchen, where I covered it with a sheet of cling wrap and put it in the fridge. I stalled, wiping down the counters, hoping that Fee would join me after a bit. Sure enough, she did. She brought both of our wineglasses with her.

She took the bottle of chardonnay that sat on the counter and filled our glasses. She handed me mine and tapped her glass against it and said, “You know I would never do anything to hurt Viv intentionally, yeah?”

“I know,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure she’s hurting now and it seems pretty intentional.”

“Sometimes you have to hold someone’s feet to the fire to get them to do what needs to be done,” Fee said.

“Is that what you’re doing?” I asked. I really hoped it was.

She neither confirmed nor denied. She just said, “Trust me.”

“I do,” I said. “I definitely do.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“But—” I began but she shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell me any more. She was just going to leave me wondering? It was straight-up cruel. “You’re a cold woman, Fiona Felton.”

“But effective,” she said.

She led the way back to the table and I don’t think I imagined it, but with Viv gone there was more space between Fee and Alistair. They seemed to have regained their old friendship with none of the flirty weirdness that had been happening between them before. I noticed Nick glanced at them a couple of times, and I knew he was thinking the same.

“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Andre asked. “It’s the day they look over the coat, teeth and all of that. Are you and Freddy ready?”

“I don’t know, what do you think?” I opened my mouth and showed him my teeth, scoring a laugh as he choked on his chicken curry.

“Warn a fellow when you’re going to do that,” he cried. “That’s enamel cruelty.”

Nick snorted and said, “Tooth to be told, she got you with that one.”

I glanced at Harry, who was chuckling. “I’d say she got to the root of it.”

“Dental puns, really?” Alistair asked. “Have we not drilled deep enough?”

That set them all off again. Fee was laughing into her napkin along with the others and, per usual, I just couldn’t stand to be left out.

“I think we all need to brush up on our puns,” I said. I laughed pretty hard at that one, but I was the only one laughing. “Get it? Brush up?”

“Oh, Scarlett.” Fee sighed. “May the floss be with you.”

The entire room erupted. I gaped at them all. I knew it was a joke to ignore my puns, but seriously, “brush up” had been a good one. I turned and glared at Harry.

“It was a good one,” he said. “I even felt my mouth twitch up a bit. Right here.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth and his lips curved up a teeny bit. I threw my napkin at him.

Harry laughed and then hugged me. He was big and warm and smelled too good to stay mad at for more than a moment. Dratted man.

“I suppose we should call it a night,” Alistair said as they all settled down. “The show starts early tomorrow.”

“How are you feeling about it, Scarlett?” Nick asked. His voice was full of genuine concern and I smiled at him.

I gave him a nervous look and admitted, “I’m okay. I just hope I don’t let Aunt Betty or Freddy down. He’s in the lead. I would hate to muck that up.”

“You won’t,” Harry said. He kissed my forehead and then leaned back to meet my gaze. “You’ve done amazing and Freddy’s in first place. Nothing can stop you now.”

Except for the crazed murderer on the loose, I thought. But at least I didn’t say it out loud.