Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected.… Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told, would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance.
—Pride and Prejudice
Luke came by a few minutes after four o’clock. Marguerite sniffed. “Just like a man, to show up in time for food.”
Luke spread his hands. “Hey, give me a break. I didn’t know you had tea at four o’clock.” He eyed the cake stand with its fragrant muffins and scones. “Have to admit, I could use a cup, though. Interviewing is thirsty work.”
Marguerite took Emily’s unspoken hint, helped herself, and retired to the parlor with a book. Emily helped Luke handsomely to tea and goodies. “So, what did you find out?”
He finished a bite of a blueberry muffin before answering. “Nobody saw anything suspicious. Pretty much what I expected. Mostly rentals around there, half unoccupied—season doesn’t get going full swing till July, when the weather’s a little more reliable. Transients don’t pay attention to their neighbors like permanent residents would.”
“Did anyone see anything at all?”
“One older woman, spends her life on the porch, apparently, says she saw people pass by that house on the way to the beach, but nobody stopped or went in the yard.”
“Do the fire people know anything yet?”
“Not yet. Fire’s out, but they have to wait for it to cool down before they can investigate.”
Emily set her cup down with a clatter. “How can you stand this job? Wait for this, wait for that. Wait for the DNA report, wait for the fire investigation, wait for the autopsy, wait for the background check. Seems like all you do is wait.” She saw the consternation on Luke’s face and amended. “I don’t mean that. I know you work hard. It’s just—it all goes so much faster in books.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “If books reported a cop’s day blow by blow, nobody’d read ’em. Yeah, it’s slow, but we do manage to keep busy in the meantime. Don’t worry, we’ll get there in the end.”
He finished his muffin and reached for a currant scone. “Spy or no spy, that Katie can cook. What’d you find out about Brock?”
“His movements are accounted for, as you law enforcement types say, from ten thirty till two.”
“Hmm. That’s a fair alibi. Fire must’ve started between noon and one.”
“But what if he set it up ahead of time—something that wouldn’t go off till midday?” She showed Luke the book she’d been reading. “According to this, there are ways of setting up a fire hours beforehand.”
“That’s true. Still, if nobody saw him, we’ll have a heck of a time proving it. No DNA’s going to survive a fire like that.”
“Did you ask about the whole morning, or just around the time it started?”
He gave her a look. “I’m not stupid, Em. Whole morning.”
“Sorry. I don’t think you’re stupid, Luke. Honestly. Just a teacher’s habit of making sure students have done their research.” She stood and paced the length of the fiction bookshelves. A book by G. K. Chesterton caught her eye, and she stopped.
“I wonder…” She turned to Luke. “Could you go back and ask people—especially that one old woman on her porch—specifically if they saw anyone in some kind of uniform? Mailman, deliveryman, meter reader?”
He cocked his head at her. “Wouldn’t they’ve mentioned that already?”
“Not necessarily.” She pulled out a volume of Father Brown stories. “There’s one story in here—The Invisible Man—where the murderer turns out to be a postman. Nobody noticed him because he was supposed to be there. He just kind of blended in.”
Luke stood and stuffed the last of his scone into his mouth. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” he mumbled around the crumbs. “Back in half an hour.”
* * *
When Katie had cleared the tea things and retired to her room to nurse Lizzie, Marguerite decided it was time to introduce Bustopher to Levin and Kitty. “It will be best if they meet on neutral ground,” she said to Emily. “The parlor, perhaps? That is not a room Bustopher favors, n’est-ce pas?”
Emily used treats to coax Levin and Kitty into the parlor while Marguerite went to the kitchen to fetch Bustopher. She returned, holding him nearly comatose in her arms; he’d finally “caught” his catnip mouse and bitten into it. As Marguerite explained, eating catnip had the opposite effect of smelling it. “He is as mellow as he will ever be right now. Let us see what happens if I put him down.”
She laid Bustopher on the floor. Levin and Kitty, ears back, immediately sprang onto the highest surfaces they could find—a windowsill for Kitty, a tall table for Levin. Bustopher blinked and yawned, then his whiskers began to quiver. He followed his nose around the room until he spotted the intruders. Kitty he dismissed almost instantly, but he homed in on Levin. He didn’t move, but crouched, muscles taut and nostrils working frantically. The tip of his tail began to twitch.
Levin adopted a similar posture on his table. But Kitty leapt down from the windowsill and crept closer to Bustopher. Intent on Levin, he didn’t notice her until she was beside him. She settled on her haunches and licked him behind the ear.
Emily gaped at Marguerite. “Will you look at that?”
“It is not uncommon. She is mothering him. She sensed his pain and wants to comfort him.”
Bustopher not only tolerated Kitty’s ministrations but broke his stare hold on Levin and rolled onto his side, wrapping his paw around her neck as if they were old friends. Levin sat up and blinked at the two of them, clearly confused by this unexpected truce between his old friend and his new enemy. Was Kitty betraying him or paving the way for him?
At last he, too, jumped down from his perch and approached by cautious degrees to sit a few inches behind Kitty’s back. Bustopher glanced at him dismissively, then returned to his blissed-out state. Eventually all three of them subsided into sleep, a cat sandwich with Kitty in the middle.
“So far so good,” said Marguerite. “But do not be fooled; it is not over. When Bustopher awakes from his catnip dream and encounters Levin in the library, we may yet see some fireworks.”
They went to sit in the library, keeping the parlor door open for the cats. Luke returned around five o’clock. “Bingo,” he said. “The porch lady saw a meter reader go toward the backyard early this morning. Couldn’t describe him, though. Like you said, man in a uniform, practically invisible.”
“Is—or was—there an entrance from the back?”
“That I don’t know. Easy enough to find out from the property manager, I guess.”
“I’ll go talk to them tomorrow.” Luke opened his mouth, but Emily held up her palm. “Don’t go all official on me again. It’s perfectly reasonable for an owner to be looking into a fire on her own property.”
“You got me there. And while you’re in Tillamook, will you go to the cell phone store?”
She huffed. “All right. If you insist. But I’m getting the no-frills model, and I’m only giving the number to you and Katie and Marguerite.”
“No problem.” Luke turned to Marguerite. “When you were in Brock’s car, did you see anything? Like a pile of clothes, or maybe a bag that could have held clothes?”
“Mais oui, there was a what-do-you-call-it? Athletic bag on the passenger seat. He moved it to the back so I could get in.”
Luke drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Wonder if it’s still there.”
“Non, he took it into his room when we went back to the hotel.” At Luke’s raised eyebrows, she added, “Non, Monsieur Luke, I do not allow myself to be seduced by suspects. I only wanted him to think I might so I could get him to talk. But he was not interested in talking. So I left.”
“Hell. Now I’ll have to get a search warrant, and I don’t know how I’m gonna show probable cause.”
“Couldn’t you just go to his room to interview him and casually look in the closet?” Emily said.
“And casually open up his bag? Or casually take it away with me? I don’t think that’s gonna fly, Em.”
“There’s always the chance he’ll be cooperative.”
“Yeah, if he’s already dumped the evidence. Still, I guess it can’t hurt to try.”
He got up and turned to go, then pivoted back again. “Oh, I forgot to tell you—got the results of the autopsy on Beatrice.” He paused. Emily appreciated the drama but could have shaken him for keeping her waiting.
“It was arsenic.”