As Gouda as Dead (7 page)

“Tim called his nephew. He left an urgent albeit muddled message. He said he saw something. When he couldn't reach Deputy O'Shea, he went in search of Urso.”

“I don't understand. Tim wasn't the impulsive type in any way, shape, or form. Not in business. Not in life.” Tyanne finished her morsel then wiped her hands on a Valentine-themed napkin. “Following his engagement to that young woman—” She cleared her throat. “You heard about that, right?”

“For the first time last night.”

“Tim never wanted to jump into dangerous waters again without knowing all the downsides. That's why we were taking it slowly. Dating. No introductions to family, even though he adored his family. No spending the night at each other's houses. Not yet. What could have gotten him so heated up?”

I told her what I knew of his message to Deputy O'Shea.

“Do you think he saw a crime going down?” she asked.

“Hey,” Rebecca cut in. “What if he saw an escaped convict? Don't restaurants and bars receive those printed notices like police precincts do?”

“Whatever he saw,” I said, “it made him race off.”

“Why didn't he call Chief Urso on the telephone?” Tyanne asked.

“Cell reception was bad last night. What I want to know is why didn't he send a text message?”

“No, no. Tim wouldn't text. Not ever.” Tyanne shook her head. “He was a romantic. Words, he said, were meant to be uttered aloud or put into handwriting. Nothing digital. Not even an email.” She wrapped her arms around herself and hugged. The effort made her shudder. “Golly, I'm going to miss him.”

“Would you like something warm to drink?” I asked.

“I'm fine.” She sighed. “Tim said he had a surprise for me on Valentine's Day. I think he'd finally found the courage to ask me to marry him.”

A sense of gloom welled up within me. “That reminds me. Did you get my voice mail message?”

“I did. I'm sorry I didn't call you back. What did you want to talk about?”

“Jordan and I—” I swallowed hard. “We're going to postpone our wedding.”

“What?” Tyanne and Rebecca shrieked in unison.

I held my hands in a T for timeout while glancing around the shop. None of the customers appeared to be listening in. The pair who had taken photos at Snapshots were still browsing the gift displays. The others were filling their shopping baskets with goodies.

“Don't worry,” I whispered. “We're still getting married. We didn't think, what with Tim dying and the murder happening at the farm, and—” A tiny moan escaped my lips. “We'll pick another day; we haven't done so yet, but we will. And Tyanne, you'll be paid for everything to date.”

“Sugar, I'm not worried about the money, but shouldn't we keep the date and simply change the venue? I'm sure we could drum up someplace special. That chapel in the hills or the library or even here. We could decorate the wine annex with—”

“No. Thanks. The mood . . .” I shook my head. “No.”

Tyanne slung an arm around me. “Now I'm the one who's sorry.”

Rebecca joined the group hug.

“It's okay,” I said. “Truly. I want to find out who killed Tim first. Then we—all of us—can move on.”

“Aha!” Rebecca said. “So you're going to investigate.”

“Will you, Charlotte?” Tyanne blurted. “Oh, please, say
yes
.”

“No, I'm not.” Okay, I would if I could, but I had nothing. No clues, no hunches. “No,” I repeated. “Urso has it handled. He's personally invested, and we all know Deputy O'Shea won't let this rest.”

Believing the only way for me to keep myself calm was to get busy, I did exactly that. After Tyanne left and while I waited for customers to finish making their choices, I tidied the cheese cases and created a few new flags to stick into some of them. For the award-winning Hooligan cheese from Cato Corner Farm, I wrote:
So stinky it's got to be good
. For the Hubbardston Blue, a creamy goat cheese with a subtle gray rind and the flavor of truffles, I wrote:
This cheese will chase away the blues and mend a broken heart
.
After I added the new flags, I made silver snowflake silhouettes and added them to the others in the display windows.

When customers concluded their business and the store was once again empty, I retreated to the office and set to work on our website. Without my Internet guru to help, it was worse than tedious. I was almost as bad at website design as I was at drawing and painting. I struggled with placing the photographs of the Valentine's baskets in the right place. They kept bouncing from the right margin to the left. If I had enough time, I would put myself through a weeklong website design course, but I didn't, so I continued to struggle, one click and drag at a time.

Around one
P
.
M
., when I realized noon had come and gone and I was starving, I hurried to the kitchen and fetched the last slice of pomegranate, sage, and crème fraîche quiche. I'd set aside a piece two days ago; it was one of my favorites. The flavors melded together into a delicious mouthful of yum.

While I devoured the quiche at the granite counter and drank a glass of milk, Rebecca joined me. “Guess who stopped in while you were in the back?” she said.

“Meredith?” Soon, all my girlfriends would come in to commiserate if Rebecca had anything to do with it, the frivolity of last night's bachelorette party a mere mist of a memory.

“No, silly. Jordan.”

I gaped. “Why didn't you show him to the office?”

“Because he seemed in a hurry to find Tyanne.”

“Didn't you tell him I'd informed her about the postponement?”

“I did, but that didn't deter him. He said he wanted to settle accounts.”

A pang of regret gripped me. I thought of all the flowers that would have to be canceled and the food and the cake that we'd commissioned from Providence Pâtisserie. Not to mention all the guests that would have to be alerted. I'd given that task to Tyanne. I thought it might ground her. I told her I'd contact my grandparents and bring them into the loop. I hadn't yet. I knew Grandmère would tend to me like a mother hen.

“Call him,” Rebecca suggested.

“I will when I take my next break.” I slung on my apron and trudged through the shop to make note of what needed reordering. As I slipped my hand into the pocket of my apron for the pad and pen that I usually kept there, I felt something else—a folded square of paper. I opened it and realized it was a note. Not simply a note; a love letter. From Jordan. Blinking away the instant tears that sprang to my eyes, I read how much he loved and adored me. In closing, he asked if I would like to go on a date soon.

“What's wrong?” Rebecca asked, trying to take a peek.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I showed her the note.

She applauded. “Oh, yay! What a romantic. He's wooing you all over again. By the way, he has nice handwriting.”

“Yes, he does.” I chalked that up to the fact that he was a magnificent chef who liked everything to be just so. I eyed the note again and reflected on what Tyanne had said about Tim not writing text messages. If he'd wanted to reach Urso so badly and couldn't get hold of him by phone, why hadn't he at least attempted texting? Had he been worried that whomever he saw doing
whatever
it was the person was doing might see the text and hurt him? Well, too late for that. The person did hurt Tim; he killed him—text or no text.

The front door to the shop flew open. In bustled my grandmother. “
Chérie
!” Had she sensed that I'd been thinking about her? “There you are. I am so sad for Tim and his family. And for you.” She brushed a fresh dusting of snow off the shoulders of her winter coat and gathered me into her arms. We kissed
la bise
, first one cheek and then the other, and then she held me at arm's length. “You look pasty.”

“I'm fine.”

“I heard you have postponed your wedding.”

I skewered Rebecca with a glance. Had she sneaked into the office and called Grandmère? Defiantly, Rebecca shrugged a shoulder.

“You and Jordan,” Grandmère went on. “You are as sad as the pair in
Love Letters
.”

“We are nothing like them, Grandmère. Jordan and I will be together.” Spoiler alert. At the end of
Love Letters
, the lifelong friends do not wind up together. The bad decisions they make throughout their lives destroy all possibility of a future for them together.

“You must come to auditions tonight,” Grandmère said. “It will boost your spirit.”

“The auditions are tonight?” Rebecca sounded gleeful.

“
Oui
. We moved them up a week. Why?”

“Because I want to audition.”

“
Mais bien sûr
. We would love to have you.” Grandmère winked at me. “We have a budding actress in our midst.”

“More like a budding ham,” I teased.

Urso entered the shop, removing his hat as he did. “Ladies.”

Deputy O'Shea trailed him. He looked glum; there was no spark in his gait. Why would there be? I ached at the sight of him. I could tell by the way Rebecca was clutching her arms that she felt the same. I was sure she wanted to comfort him, but now was not the time, not when he was so brittle that he might crack, and certainly not in front of his boss.

“Hello, chief. Hello, deputy,” Grandmère said, eyeing them as if they were prey. “You could not have arrived at a more opportune moment. I was telling Rebecca and my granddaughter that we are holding auditions at the playhouse tonight. Both of you should audition.”

“No, thank you, Bernadette,” Urso said. “I told you before that I'm not an actor. Besides, I have an investigation to conduct. Now, my deputy on the other hand—”

“No, sir,” Deputy O'Shea said curtly.

“I have removed you from the case, young man.”

I bit back a smile. Young man. Urso barely had five years on his deputy.

“You've got to do something to keep your mind in gear,” he continued.

Deputy O'Shea looked as chastised as a wayward puppy. “But, sir—”

“I will not change my mind. That's the end of it. A family member does not work a case.”

“And a best friend does?”

Urso scowled.

“Deputy Rodham's wife is due,” O'Shea added.

“And I'll
make
do. Got me?”

Rebecca said, “Actually, Mrs. Rodham is on her way to the delivery room right now.” She gestured toward the exit. “That last customer told me.”

“Sir,” O'Shea said.

“No. Rodham will be back on duty in less than twenty-four hours.” Urso ended the discussion by spinning around and peering at the selection of sandwiches in the case. On any given day, we put together a few dozen of them. “Charlotte, I'll take the six-inch soppressata with Jarlsburg, spicy mustard, and pepperoncinis.”

“Not the foot-long?”

“I'm on a diet.” He patted his stomach. I could tell he was lying. He probably didn't have any appetite but knew he had to force something down to keep up his strength.

“Do you want anything, deputy?” I asked.

“The same,” he said, sounding defeated.

Grandmère tapped his elbow. “I look forward to having you audition.”

The deputy shrugged.

A grave silence fell upon all of us.

I removed the sandwiches from the display case and sliced each in half on a diagonal, then I wrapped them in our specialty paper as I would a present, folding the ends and sealing them with our logo stickers.

Grandmère broke the awkward moment. “Might I ask what is going on with the investigation, Chief Urso?”

“We have no clue who killed Timothy O'Shea, ma'am,” Urso said in a no-nonsense manner, the chief of police politely responding to a question put to him by the mayor. “Or why. So far, I can't find anyone that holds a grudge against him. I've questioned everyone who was at the pub. A few contend that Tim raced off in his truck.”

“You have one suspect,” I said. “Jawbone Jones. Also, Dottie Pfeiffer suggested that Councilwoman Bell might have had reason to kill Tim.”

Urso frowned. “Why?”

I explained.

Grandmère said, “No! It cannot be so. Belinda has her moments. She is contentious. But she is a good woman. She is not evil.”

“Not everyone who kills is evil,” I reminded her. “Some are simply pushed too far.”

Grandmère clucked her tongue, doing her best to dismiss me, but I could see she was concerned. Even if she didn't like someone on the city council, she would support him or her as a fellow politician should.

Urso said, “I've contacted every one of Tim's family members.”

“You mean I did,” Deputy O'Shea muttered. “Uncle Tim left the bar to all twelve of his nephews, me included.”

Urso said, “That doesn't imply that any of you had motive to kill Tim.”

“How could it? None of us wants the pub. Not that it isn't a great place.” O'Shea waved his hand. “It is. It's just . . . we've all got careers.”

I placed the sandwiches along with napkins and packages of extra mustard into bags. “This is on the house, U-ey. I insist. No argument.” On occasion, I could be as tough as he could be. I addressed Deputy O'Shea. “The other eleven nephews don't live anywhere near here, do they?”

“No, we're spread out in three states. Most of them are up north, near Cleveland. We're close, but we don't talk a lot. We communicate via a social networking site. We share pictures of kids and pets.”

“You don't have either of those,” Rebecca said.

“Yeah, but you know the drill.” He flapped his hat against his thigh. “Two of my other uncles are coming to run the pub until we decide what to do, and my dad and mom are due in town. They'll be handling the funeral arrangements.”

My grandmother whispered, “Some people leave this world too soon.”

Another poignant silence enveloped us.

Rebecca drew in a deep breath. She looked from me to the deputy and back to me. A sneaky grin spread across her face. “You know, chief, if you need a hand with the investigation, you should deputize Charlotte.”

“No.”

“Temporarily. You can do that, right? She sees things others don't.”

“No,” Urso repeated, his tone brusque.

My grandmother seconded his decision.

“I assume you've questioned Jawbone Jones,” Rebecca continued. “He's your main suspect, correct?” She snatched the bags holding the sandwiches off the counter and swung one like a carrot in front of Urso. Her pluck—okay, audacity—truly amazed me sometimes.

Urso took the bags. “Mr. Jones swears he didn't race after Tim.”

“And you bought that?” Rebecca said. “Two witnesses saw him. Does he have an alibi?”

“He was on his way to a jam session.”

“A jam session?” Rebecca eyed me. “I told you he had musician's hands. Strong fingers. I'll bet he plays a mean guitar.” She turned back to Urso. “But he wasn't at the jam session, was he? He said he was on his way, which means no one can verify as to his specific whereabouts.”